College essay writing and academic preparation

¶ … old, living away from home for the first time in an apartment in San Diego when I decided to attend college and maintain myself in an apartment without taking any financial assistance from my parents. Since I was not a California resident I had the additional expense of paying out-of-state tuition. I had a football scholarship that would pay fifty-percent of my tuition but I needed a job to pay my living expenses and the remaining tuition.

Although the time required for school and football was a fulltime job in itself, my financial needs said I needed to work between thirty and thirty five hours per week to make ends meet. With that as my motivation, I took a job at Federal Express as a package handler on the graveyard shift.

The summer before starting my sophomore year of college, just two weeks before the beginning of football camp in August, I was seriously injured. I tore some tissue and had a partial ligament tear in my left shoulder. Due to the severity of the injury and because I did not have medical insurance I was unable to get either a doctor's note or professional rehabilitation services. That resulted in me losing my scholarship, my job, and finally my apartment.

Because California state colleges do not issue financial aid or student loans until the halfway point of a semester, I had to withdraw from school. Without the use of my left arm, I had to give up my job and without that income, my apartment. I moved into my car and began doing research on physical therapy and sports medicine at the library.

Using my newfound knowledge I spent three months doing intensive rehab in the swimming pool and in lifting soup cans for weights. At the end of that time, I gained enough use of my arm to be able to work in a restaurant. Meanwhile I continued my rehabilitation for an additional eight months.