leah_ornamentCSO was really helpful in teaching me about college. It was amazing to go a website where people were being honest about college in every possible way. CSO really helped opened my eyes and made me think about what I was looking for in a college.

The scholars who write blogs are young people who value being part of a community, working to get into college and graduate from it, and more importantly to have a larger goal: to be something. But that’s not all, CSO scholars are amazing because they also want to encourage other people to gain on this train of success. They write about their experiences and offer amazing advice on things people-such as teachers, college counselor, and tour guides-never want to get into. I was very grateful that CSO was letting these college students tell the truth about the social life, academic life, and financial struggles. CSO cleared up this assumption that college was a utopia where everyone was smiling and having a good time. Don’t get me wrong college is fun and all, but CSO reminded me it was going to be hard and I needed to prepare myself in every possible way to do well.

CSO means a lot to me. It’s a reminder that I have people supporting me. If you become as scholar, which I highly recommend, the CSO staff contact you and become very interested in your life. The questions they ask for blogs are helpful in so many ways because they are asking you to take the time out of your day and reflect on your life. You really begin to see how much you’ve grown and what you need to do in order to become stronger, better, wiser, happier etc. CSO also is a reminder that anyone from the bottom can make it to the top. So I’m grateful to say I’m apart of the community and I think everyone else should be excited and thrilled that CSO exists and are still encouraging and helping students to go to and stay in college. But it does more it advocates this larger message that the only way people will get into college is if they have role models and advisors to help them along the way. In a way it argues that success is more attainable when you have a community supporting you.

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Please donate to Center for Student Opportunity this holiday season and help underserved, first-generation college-bound students in their pursuit of college.