{"id":1162,"date":"2021-05-12T16:21:45","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T20:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2021-05-12T16:21:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T20:21:45","slug":"velemsky-duvermond-borough-of-manhattan-community-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/velemsky-duvermond-borough-of-manhattan-community-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Velemsky Duvermond, Borough of Manhattan Community College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image15.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1282\" width=\"294\" height=\"297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image15.jpg 720w, https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image15-297x300.jpg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 294px) 100vw, 294px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I attend The Borough of Manhattan Community College. I was paying for college through financial aid and the College Discovery program. I wasn\u2019t one of the smartest or most focused students, so it has been challenging because I was required to keep up a certain GPA to keep my financial aid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started my years at BMCC as an Early Childhood Education major, but I was in the process of changing my major to go into social work. I have loans, I\u2019m a little worried. I have been in BMCC for some time now and I fear that my financial aid will be finished before I complete my courses. And then even more after that.&nbsp; Financial aid has been very helpful with paying for my classes, but towards the end of every semester, it was hard to buy food because I was in the school for the whole day and also having to pay for my train and bus rides to and from class every single day was hard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the beginning of my 2019 semester, I got a job and it was helping me a little bit, but for me to get a decent paycheck, I would have to work long hours which distracted me from being able to focus on my school work which has further delayed my education. I do not personally pay for rent, my mother does, and I felt bad that she had to do it all on her own, so I was trying tirelessly for about 2 years to look for a job to help support her a little bit on top of paying for food and transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting a degree for me would mean everything. Every day I have people asking me, \u201cAre you in school?\u201d, \u201cWhen are you finishing school?\u201d etc. I\u2019m just tired of delaying the process. It would also mean a lot to my mom. I would be the first one in my family to go and to complete college. I want to give my mom a better life and myself as well and it would give me a chance to make a difference in the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attend The Borough of Manhattan Community College. I was paying for college through financial aid and the College Discovery program. I wasn\u2019t one of the smartest or most focused students, so it has been challenging because I was required to keep up a certain GPA to keep my financial aid.\u00a0\u00a0 I started my years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,46],"tags":[243,195,16,18],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assembly-district-21","category-assembly-district-42","tag-college-discovery-program","tag-delayed-graduation","tag-financial-aid","tag-job"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1283,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions\/1283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}