I’m wearing a plain black shirt, with some plain blue jeans, some black and white Nike’s, and a thick winter jacket. I’m walking through the metal detectors and I’m beeping. Everybody knows who I am including the security, they let me keep walking anyway, no one even attempted to stop me.
When I first came to high school, my first year was good; at least I thought it was. I was young and dumb and the staff and security at that school let us do whatever we wanted to do. I think they did that because they didn’t care if we made it in life or not, and they were scared of the students. So me being young and having the freedom to do whatever I wanted in school, I couldn’t handle it. I was acting a fool, not doing any of my work, skipping classes, not coming to school, and just all around slacking. To me I was having the time of my life, not knowing that everything that I was doing would catch up to me.
Throughout my whole high school career I followed on that path, and then I dropped out. I didn’t see how I was destroying my future. When I was young I didn’t realize that I need education to open up doors for myself. I didn’t realize that without a High School Diploma or a GED that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to have a well paying career or at least a good paying job.
Now I am in Youth Empowerment Services. YES is a GED Program for out of school youths. I came across this program because I moved across the street from it, I was tired of not having an equal opportunity to have a well paying job, and I was tired of running the streets. While I was acting up in High School I never really thought it would affect my future until I grew older and realized that it real out here, and if you don’t have education, then you have nothing. I just wanted to make a change for the first time in my life. When I first came to the program I wasn’t sure I was going to stick around, but after meeting the staff and the student it became more exciting to me. Now I am here in YES working towards my GED, and now I am looking at colleges. Who would have ever thought?
