In I was about to turn 24 and I finally decided to do something about my situation and try to better myself. I did not see myself working at Stop and Shop for the rest of my life. Every morning after work, I would drive past Stone Academy, a local school featuring health care career education, on my way home. After about 7 months of doing this, I finally got up the nerve to stop and see what I would have to do to enroll for a CNA course that was advertised as being free after getting a grant. I figured that only having to go to school for a few months while working full time would be worth the hard work and tireless nights and days. So I stopped in and took the tour and met with a counsuler that talked me into taking the year long course to be a Medical Assistant instead of the CNA course i originally planned to take. Not only was it a longer course, but more expensive too. But in the long run, it seemed like the better choice, or so i thought. So I started to go to school from 8 am to about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, then doing homework, taking a nap and then going to work from 11 to 7 in the morning. My class originally held about 40 students to start and ended up with about 7 of us in the end. But I worked hard, studied and went without much sleep and it payed off as I kept a 4.0 GPA throughtout the school year. I helped out and tutored other students as i truly believed in suceeding and helping others in the process whether that help was physical help or help with school. It was tough but, i believed that this was going to be my way to climb up the ladder and actually get a good paying career for myself. But after all the school work was done after about 9 or 10 long, gruelling months, then we began the last leg of our schooling, the internship (or the hands on part of our course in the field) This was to be a total of 160 hours, broken up over about 2 months. We only needed to complete about 20 hours a week up to 40 hours a week if we so choosed to. The school is supposed to help us out with this part of it as they already have clinics and doctors offices that are signed up with the school to take on interns to work off our hours and any other office / clinics that we chose or that would accomadate us would have to actually sign up to take on interns. Not only did we have to find places to do our internships, but other schools in the area also had to place their interns also. Positions fill up fast, so the hunt was on. Most students had to find our own, including myself and i quickly found a smaller clinic in which to do my internship and decided on 40 hour weeks to do. The first week went by quickly and the second week was mostly the same. There was another girl there from a rival school so there wasnt enough work to go around all the time. At the end of that week, they told me to take a few weeks off so the other girl could finish out her hours and then they would call me back to finish out my last 2 weeks. So I agreed and waited, but a call never came so i called the school to set up another internship and at that time, the school demanded more money for my tuition payment to set up another internship for me. Worried that i wouldnt finshed out my hours in time, i reluctantly agreeed and sent in a $600 payment that i had to borrow from my mother. After that, the school actually told me that too much time had passed and that i would not be able to finish out my internship and that i would actually have to take the whole course over to get my certificate. So that was the end of that. But then, a few more weeks later, I recieved yet another call from Stone Academy saying that if i payed more of my tuition then they would find me another internship. So, I was confused on that one and asked why they said that too much time had passed before and they said that was a mistake. This time i told them to find me another internship first and i would pay more on the tutition, but until then i was not paying on it that quick. Of course, i never recieved another call from the school and never finished out the rest of my hours and am now stuck with a $17,000 loan to pay off for nothing but broken dreams.
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