5Negotiate Your Success
Negotiating for what you need can change the course of your life.
How do I know?
Just like a lot of teenagers, I had big dreams to go to college. I knew it wouldn't be easy for my family to afford—after all, I have three older siblings! But my parents always told me, “Selena, we'll find a way.”
Well, very suddenly when I was thirteen, my father passed away.
We were … I was devastated. And from that time onward, with my mom working as a nurse, and picking up not just one job but two, we struggled financially.
As college loomed closer, I applied to schools and got accepted to one I was really excited about. That university gave me some financial aid, and my mom was insistent we'd scrape together to cover the rest. (If any of you have a single mom, you know they are the masters of doing a lot with a little!)
Well, I went to freshman year at college and I loved it. But when I got the financial aid letter for year two, lo and behold, the aid dollars were much smaller. Ooof.
My mom sat me down at the kitchen table and with pain in her eyes, said, “Honey, I can't swing it this time. I can't send you back”
Whoa. I realized in that moment that if anyone was going to change the course of things, it had to be me. My mom had never been to a four-year college, let alone haggled with one!
So, 18-year-old me sat down and typed up a lengthy appeal of the financial aid package. I offered to be of service to the university as a student worker, a tour guide, a cafeteria ...
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