Roughly one year later, during my sophomore year, things took a big turn for the worse. My financial aid dried up because my sister had graduated from college and my expected family contribution doubled, a situation which I did not have the foresight to anticipate. My parents and I had arranged that they would pay no more than $20,000 per year for four years toward my college education. During my college years, the annual cost of attending college went from around $34,000 to $40,000 per year. While my tuition increased by 6 percent per year, their contributed amount did not. As a result, most of my bank accounts were empty and I had two options: take out additional loans or try to make more money through scholarships or a side job. In order to make it through the year, I took out some emergency loans, which allowed me to attend school that year. I also began visiting the financial aid office weekly to try to come up with additional avenues for financial aid. Preferring to earn extra income rather than owe more money, I began to devise and follow through on a plan.

In order to pay for my education, I came up with the following options: transfer to UC (i.e. UCLA) or a state school in California, win a scholarship, or get a job that paid reasonably well. I did not spend much time considering transferring—I reasoned that I had decided to attend Harvey Mudd College so that I would not need to attend grad school to get a great job. Harvey Mudd provides hands-on, practical training with smaller class sizes; in addition, because Harvey Mudd has no graduate school, professors select undergraduates to be teaching assistants, tutors, and research assistants.

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