The hardest part of college for me
isn’t answering the questions that the professors ask but answering the
personal questions that my life asks. I never quite knew how I fit into life
until I’ve had to think about my life in perspective and finally decide on the
big questions.
After I
finished high school I had little direction and even less motivation to pursue
a college education. I had an inkling that I liked to work on cars so that’s
what I did – I worked at a body shop and then at a couple dealerships and
eventually finished an Automotive Repair certification at Gateway. A recurring
theme from the old guys was, “Piece of advice – get out of the business.” Naïve
me just thought they were old and crotchety. But I eventually realized – I too
would one day be old and crotchety if I stayed in the business for much longer.
While I was
at Gateway I met a truly inspirational person that changed my life. Until this
point I hadn’t considered a change of direction and if it wasn’t for this man I
would have never considered college. So, I enrolled at NKU and signed up for a
program that would use most of my Automotive credits – Career and Technical
Education. After a year I lost my job with Saturn and I lost all my interest in
an Automotive future – I couldn’t bring myself to become a teacher of a
profession that I myself had begun to hate.
By
this time I desperately needed a change of pace and I chose the most drastic
option I could find. I signed with a program called “Teach and Learn with
Georgia” which was a program run by the government of the Republic of Georgia
which sought to bring 1000 English teachers to Georgia over a five year span.
As you might imagine, a post-Soviet country runs shady ESL programs. At first I
really thought, what with all the emails and broken English, that this was
somehow a major scam that I was getting into. It wasn’t until I stepped off the
airplane, after a thirty hour flight, in the Tbilisi airport that I knew this
was for real. I was now completely out of my comfort zone and well on my way to
a life changing experience.
Fast
forward a year and I’m back at NKU and loving college more than ever before. I became an International Studies major and am enjoying the variety of classes. It
combines many different disciplines so it’s always something new. Most of all I
actually enjoy my classes now (classes such as International Law; Comparative
Electoral Systems; and Russian). When I began college I really felt like I was
only doing it because people expected it from me, like, there was no real point
to it besides it was just something people had to do. I experienced a paradigm
shift – knowledge truly is a beautiful thing. Now, I can really appreciate the
access to knowledge I have and I know for sure – no matter what – this
opportunity is only the beginning of the adventure.
by Jonathan Hess
This photo is of Jonathan and his students in Georgia.
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