Throughout your junior and senior year, it seems like all you hear is "where are you applying for college," and "what do you want to do?" I've learned that most people, when asking those questions, don't usually expect a straightforward solid answer from most 15-17 year olds, but instead expect to hear a variety of "I don't really knows" and a small list of colleges and career paths. I learned this by telling people that I want to go to UCA and major in public relations and watching them recoil slightly in surprise and give a startled "oh, that's great!" Of course, you always hear "you shouldn't just apply to one school, give yourself options." And for most teens, that's great advice, but I don't feel like it applies well to me.
One reason that advice doesn't apply to me is my major. Ever since I was in eighth grade, I knew I wanted to do something with communications, and then, when I was a tenth grader, I found the major that perfectly fit my interests: public relations. It wasn't until my eleventh grade that I started looking for this degree at colleges in Arkansas, and what I found, or should I say I didn't find, was very interesting: UCA is literally the only school in the state that has a public relations degree. Sure, every other school has a communications degree, but a public relations degree is much more specialized than a general communications major.
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My other reason for choosing just UCA is that the tuition, despite popular belief, is within a thousand dollars to most of the other schools that I have been considering, including Henderson State University, Arkansas Tech, and Arkansas State. Also, UCA's honors college, which I am applying for, gives a full ride plus some. But, if I don't make it into the honors college, I have my father's GI bill, which for those of you who don't know, is a federal grant given to soldiers to get a college education, and can be passed down to the children of the soldier if they don't use it themselves. So, either way, my parents and I will not have to pay a dime for my education at UCA.
My third reason is that I fell in love with the campus and the programs on campus, including the HPER center! UCA has a beautiful campus, and it's not too big, but not too small either. The safety is fairly decent, what with their own campus police force, and the police poles spread out around the campus. I also have fallen in love with Conway, mainly because Conway is the location of one of the main dojos of my martial art, Grand Master Han's Martial Arts. Another reason for my love of Conway is the Blackbird Academy of Fine Arts, where I performed in two different shows last year.
In major availability, price, and location, UCA is the top winner. So, when people ask me where I have sent applications, my answer will remain to be UCA, and only UCA.
