Experience and Education

A few pages of text couldn’t fully describe who I am, as well as anyone else. There is so much involved in one person that even the most boring would be impossible to sum up in words alone. However, I will make my best attempt to describe myself, and why I’m here at STI for my education.

My name in Nicholas Eliason, I’m nineteen years experienced in life. Over the last two decades, I’ve been through many ups and downs, and gained a lot of wisdom while going through those ups and downs. These experiences are what make me unique from most others around me. They are also what I’m most proud of about me.

People usually judge a book by its cover, and by book, I mean people; and by cover, I mean how they look. So when people initially see me, they typically see only the negative things about my character – How my hair looks, how I dress, or my slacking posture. Honestly, this isn’t how I am at all. Talking to a lot of my friends, or people I’ve recently started conversing with, they always say they had the wrong opinion of me. I seem to come off as a “druggie,” to most people. I must be following some stereotype with that group fairly well, except for the drugs part.

As mentioned earlier, I am most proud of my prior experiences in life. My biggest experience being: the birth of my daughter in 2009. I have no problem admitting that I slipped up hugely by having made the wrong decisions in order to create a child. I was a child myself at the time. I made poor decisions. In spite of those decisions, though, I (almost literally) launched myself into adulthood, faster than most of my peers. Having a child at such a young age was one of my biggest mistakes, but also the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That child forced maturity into me like nothing else ever could. Alexa, my daughter, was born when I was just under seventeen years old. At that age, I wasn’t ready to take care of a child; I was still acting like a teenager myself. However, I did take responsibility, and took care of her for the next year and a half.

While attending high school, and having a daughter to take care of, I was given the chance to attend a “second chance,” high school. This was done through a selective process done by the school administration, based on students’ academic abilities, and life situation. Obviously, I had a situation, and my grades were lacking quite a bit. This second chance school was the only reason I graduated at all. The school is small, only taking in about 30-60 students at a time. They had five staff members, so the student to teacher ratio was higher than in normal high schools. This allows for a more personal connection between teachers and their students. That means that the courses were also personalized, and the classes were overall easier. If I hadn’t been given the chance to attend that school, I would have dropped out and gone straight into the workforce in order to provide for Alexa.

Just short of graduating, I was approached by my ex with the idea of adoption. This is another one of my experiences that I’m most proud of. When this option approached me, I didn’t say no. I looked into it, and researched through a lot of material in order to better make up my mind. In the end, both my ex and I agreed: We would put Alexa up for adoption.

After making that decision, it wasn’t long before the adoption agency had a list of families. We met up, and got to view a portfolio of each family. We were given three books that had been made, and put together for many people to look at. With those, we were also given two sheets of paper and some pictures from a family that was looking into international adoption in Haiti, to help aide from the earthquake. The agency had contacted this family and told them a little bit about my ex and I. In response, the family had actually wrote a letter to us, and sent us those pictures. Reading the letter, and seeing the pictures, both my ex and I knew this was the family we liked most. Additionally, we each showed our parents the letter and photos. Everyone agreed.

Adoption – especially after a year and a half of taking care of your own child – is like death. We lost our child. But we gave her something greater than we could provide: stability. In every aspect of her life, we gave her stability. The adoption is also an open one, so we can still visit Alexa if we make arrangements. And when Alexa reaches that age where she may want to meet her biological parents, she is absolutely free too.

Going back to how people view me. They don’t see this in me. They don’t know what I’ve been through, and they don’t know how I am now. The reason I don’t let people know I have a daughter, and that I’ve done some pretty stupid things, is because I want people to know how I am now. If they knew I had a daughter, I would be assumed upon, and come off as some “sex addicted drug user,” which is pretty much polar-opposite to how I am… This is the basis for how I view others. I don’t know what tragedies they’ve witnessed or endured, and I don’t know them how they are today. I do my best to not make assumptions and keep an open mind for everyone.

Also while attending Second Chance High; they were pretty intent on having their students attend a college or tech school. They forced every student to visit Mitchell Technical Institute as an “eye opener,” for post-high education. I knew I didn’t want to attend there because I hated that town. I’d been hearing a lot about STI, and it sounded like that had a pretty decent reputation for computer courses. I set up an appointment to visit STI, and instantly felt at home. The staff was nice, and the students seemed to be mature. So I applied, and shortly thereafter, was accepted.

I’ve always had some strange obsession with computers. They have always been in my life for as long as I remember. They were in schools, and in my home. My grandpa even built computers as a hobby. One day, after my dad decided to buy a new computer, he gave his old one to my brother and I. My brother and I loaded countless games onto that computer, and it quickly became our life. It stuck to me, more than my brother though.

Always having a computer in the house was cool, but computers never really became huge with me until 7th grade. Our school was one of the first to try the laptop program in South Dakota. When we were handed a laptop that we could take home, and use as if it was our own… I probably took too much advantage to that. I would play around with the computer and figure out how to bypass the school’s systems, and log in as in administrator. After that I could install any software I wanted, and basically do anything I felt like.

Being given that laptop every year for school is what allowed me to discover my passion for computers. After learning so much through that program, I decided to start doing more with my computers at home. I started learning how to network our house, and set a computer up exactly how I wanted it. After getting a job, and having some income, I figured it’d be fun to build a computer, so I bought all the components and had one of my friends help me. It solidified my relationship with computers. I knew that’s what I wanted to go to school for.

 

This is only skimming the edges on who I am, and why I’m here, but as I had said: it’s impossible to write out. I can’t summarize everything about me into a block of text, it’s just not possible.