Why I Decided to Go to College

My parents are my biggest inspiration in my decision to go to college. Although the process wasn't easy, my parents helped guide me in the right direction. They were never able to go to college, but it only opened my eyes more on why it's important that I do so. Throughout my childhood, I grew up watching them struggle to make a living for my three siblings and I. They managed to keep the household together, but only because they worked extremely hard every day. It was hard for my parents to each maintain a job that had a well enough pay to keep our heads above water. Even though they made it work, they taught me why it is important that I further my education in going to college so I don't have to struggle the same ways they did.

Both of my parents were brought up in old-fashioned, traditional Italian families; my mom being born in Italy and my dad being a first generation American. My grandparents, being new to America, had to get accustomed to the way of living. They came to America because of the poor living conditions in their hometown. Since America had so many job opportunities, they knew that they could make a better living here. Because of that, all they knew how to do was manual labor. They didn't believe in furthering your education because it would only waste time when you could be making money. My parents didn't now any better because of the way they were raised. That is why they never went to college and instead had to work as hard as they could all of their lives.

For as long as I can remember, my father has always been a hard-working man. Not one day goes by that he isn't coming home at night time after a full day of work. I have always admired him for that because of how hard it is taking care of a family of six. At one point in life, there was a time where money was coming along well. I was a young girl when my dad owned his own pizzeria. He was very successful in what he was doing and being a little girl, I looked up to that. He enjoyed what he was doing, all while being extremely successful in it. For a while, things were going great and money wasn't an issue for us. But it was not very long until business was not doing well and going downhill throughout all of society. My father , eventually, had to sell his business because his pizzeria was no longer successful. From there, things just went downhill. Looking for jobs became a long and hard process for him. Jobs started to require a degree, which he didn't have. It became extremely difficult for him to get a good job, especially with what was going on in the economy. He searched and searched, but didn't find anything for a while. This is when times were rough for my family. I would sit and watch how stressful it became for him. Without my fathers assistance in paying the bills, the lovely house that we lived in had almost gotten