School

[Iure]

guess what: i had my last real schoolday today! We've got one more thing on friday, but then all I have to do is hand in the gazillion assignments and the shakespeare course!

[Erutanie]

woot woot!! Go Iure!!

schools here got out last thursday...

[Iure]

not fair... *pouts* oh well, as long as the weather is as bad as it is, I don't mind being inside....

[Erutanie]

lol...the weather here is hot....right now, it's too hot to be 10:00 AM...not too bad though, yet.

[Iure]

Aah.. no school until the 5th of Feb. I've got a really looooooong Christmas break

[Erutanie]

Lucky....I go back on tuesday.... . My school district don't belive in long breaks.

[Iure]

it's not really an official break, I quit my internship, that was supposed to have lasted until the end of January...

[Erutanie]

ohh...shame shame....lol...why'd you quit?

[Iure]

I felt awful, teaching really is no longer what I want, and it was better to quit before I had a real breakdown... now I'm much happier

[Erutanie]

That's a good thing. Total breakdowns suck. Nothing is fun and you are always tired. I've done it before. The sad thing I wasn't 16 yet. I try to keep a little room on my plate for free time and try to get rid of unnecessary stress.

Guess what? A few months ago I was made Sterling Scholar at my school in "Social Science." Sterling Scholars are supposedly the "best of the best." Looking at some of those nominated, I'm a little worried about what that says about my class....lol. The only diff between Social Science and Humanitarians is that humanitarians deals with the fine arts and SS doesn't.....I'm excited. I'm already guarenteed a 2 yr scholarship to one college and if I win at region I get a 4 yr scholarship to the college I really want to go to (it's only $21,000 a sememster...not like it's worth that much. [/sarcasm]). So yeah, that's a semi-healthy stress to have, lol.....

[Iure]

WOW!!! That is awesome!!! Do you have to do anything besides getting good grades? Like a project or something?

[Erutanie]

yeah, it was mostly based on extracurricular activities (History Fair, clubs, etc.). This year it was so close it went off ACT scores. A high Grade point average helped I guess....

For competition, we need to put a portfolio of all our accomplishments, activities, awards, service, leadership, scholarship things, basically anything we've done. The catch? you only get 32 pages. 7 of them are required and have to be a specific way. The rest are up to the person. At first I was like that much? It's strange though. The enitire portfolio is basically a big brag session of how great I am....it feels...akward. I received this award and participated in this.....It's really hard.

The part I'm worried about is the interview. They want well rounded people that just happen to excell in his/her area. I'm not with social skills.

[Iure]

Good luck with putting the portfolio together... Things like scholarships are typically American, I guess, here in NL you hardly hear about them. I only know of a few, and those are mostly to study abroad for a year...

[Erutanie]

Then how do you pay for college? Do you have to have the money? or is it free?

[Iure]

it is about €1500 a year (tuition fees), but students can get financial aid for four years. THe amount depends on whether you live with your parents or alone, the income of your parents etc. You also get a travel card for public transport, so you can travel freely either during Mon-Fri, or the weekend. (Which is great, cause if I had to pay for the trains/buses, I would be broke within a week)
If you want to study some more after those 4 years, you can get a loan. There are a few schools that have tuition fees way way way higher that €1500, but those are not common.