A New Chapter in My Life: Moving to the United States
After graduating from high school, I moved to the United States at the age of 18 without my parents. I came with my brother from another mother, which helped me adapt to a new culture a lot, but I still didn’t have my parents here. The reason I moved to the US was that the education in Turkey wasn’t good, and it was getting worse. (It has gotten worse and worse since then). Well, I’m not an expert in education or anything, but when you look at college graduates from Turkey, especially when you are in a different country, you don’t have to be smart to see the difference. They, most of the college graduates from Turkey, barely speak English or another foreign language. Also when they try to transfer to a college in the states, it’s a pain in the neck for them. Most of their credits don’t count and they end up having to take the same classes they took back in their previous school. I’m not blaming the students here, I have a lot of smart friends who are college students in Turkey. But this is what I’ve observed throughout the years about the education system there.
Thanks to my dad and his vision, he planted the idea of studying abroad in my and my siblings’ minds since we were kids, and I didn’t realize that till my last year of high school. I believe it was in April 2015, my dad asked me to visit him at his school for a serious talk, and when I asked him: ‘About what dad?, he said: ‘For a good cause’, which has a lot of meanings in Turkish. I genuinely thought he was going to introduce me to a girl lol. The talk was about me going to the states for college education, I was only too glad to do so and I made my decision. My mom on the other hand was emotional about it, but she is also a very smart and reasonable person/teacher, so she suppressed her feelings.
In September 2015, I came to New York City for a better education. Took me a couple of months to get accepted to a college. It was tough in the beginning, then I got used to the college life here. The first day of college feels like yesterday, and now I’m about to graduate with a Computer Information Systems degree. I couldn’t have done it without my parents, siblings and my brother who I came to the states with. I appreciate every single one of them.
