Nearing the End of the College Application

Well, the college application form is completed, with the only part left to do being payment. It wants me to pay via credit card, which reminds me why I wanted one of those, but there's a place that I can pay in-person in Guelph. Unfortunately, I can't get there by bus, and by this time I'm feeling quite limited, but I've got a ride to go down there next week.

I also got my income tax return, which surprisingly, got me $2000. I now officially have more money than I've ever had in my life. Turns out, I got some kind of worker's benefit, because I was working, and not on Welfare or Disability. And for once, Mom's Disability isn't going to touch it, which means that in the end, I actually did make money from working. I just didn't know it for about seven months after I stopped working for pay.

Also, when I went to deposit my cheque, the machine said that I could withdraw $200 in advance to the cheque being verified. Apparently, this means that I've got a good enough credit rating that I've been acknowledged.

Anyway, I can finally both reach the application place, and pay for my application, so that's good.

I'm applying for two programs, at three colleges. One form allows you to make five applications, with a maximum of three at any one location. So I'm applying for a two year Social Service Worker diploma program, and a one year Human Foundation Services College Certificate program at the three closest colleges. I'm aiming for the Conestoga course, because it's got the highest rate of employment post-program for SSW than any other college, but it also has some fancy prerequisites like an 80% average in high school English and a reference form from a social services organization that I've volunteered at. Since I took University Prep classes in high school (in Canada, those are the more advanced ones) and they give a 10% bonus for having completed those, I'm safely above the 80% English prerequisite, and since I've done extensive volunteering between Katimavik and CWY, I'm good for a reference.

The Human Services Foundation program is a preparatory program that moves into any course in the community services field. Often, people who don't fill the prerequisites to enter one of those courses will use this program as leeway, since it involves you doing extensive volunteer work in a variety of areas. The reason I'd take a course like this is because I'm past the date of equal consideration, and the SSW program is in much higher demand than HSF, so basically, I don't want to have to wait over another year to get into college. Plus, if I take HSF, then I won't be required to do as much work as is normally expected for SSW. I also hear that it's good for if you've been out of school for some time, and need a refresher on how to do research, write essays etc.

For Social Service Worker, women outnumber men by about ten to one. Whatever. My mother did an electronic engineering program where the men outnumbered women by the same ratio. Didn't really cause her any grief once she got into it.

Apparently, they're really looking to pull men into this field. It's like how when you see advertisements to join the police force, it always shows five times as many women as men, but in reality, men outnumber women. I know someone who's male who did this exact same program. Same courser and same location. He was definitely positive about the experience.