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UNIT 5
Text A
Pre-reading Activities
First Listening
1. Before you listen to the tape, briefly describe the forms of financial support that students in China or elsewhere can get. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
Scholarships grants student loans part-time jobs work/study programs parents
Second Listening
Then, as you listen to the tape the first time, circle the form(s) of aid that Priscilla is most interested in.
2. In your experience (or imagination!), is the conversation on the tape very different from what usually happens at a university financial aid office?
Holding Onto a Dream
While preparing to graduate from high school in 1987, Priscilla Vazquez waited anxiously for her letter from the University of Washington, hoping she would be the first person in her family to attend college. When the acceptance letter arrived, she was overjoyed.
There was just one problem: The University of Washington didn't have any grant money to give Priscilla. It offered her only a small loan and expected her family to come up with the rest. "My family was making enough money to get by, but not enough to pay that much for me to go to school," she said.
Priscilla called the financial-aid office for advice. They told her that prospective students seeking more financial aid are eligible only if they have lived apart from their parents for a minimum of two years. During that time, their parents cannot have claimed them as a dependent on the family's tax forms. "Hearing this, I was totally stunned," Priscilla recalls. "I realized I was going to have to take some time off, work, become financially independent from my parents, and then reapply to school. Postponing my dream hurt, but it was the only possibility."
Within a month, Priscilla had found a job at a restaurant and moved into a cheap apartment in a poor neighborhood of Seattle. She also signed up for a job-training program in the city, to learn to be a secretary. It was a hard lifestyle to adjust to. "I got up at 6 a.m. for a long commute to school, finished class at 2 p.m., started work at three, got off my shift at 11 p.m., and then I came back home and collapsed."
Priscilla soon found that her restaurant job just didn't pay enough for her to make ends meet. "So I went to the landlord of my apartment building and asked if there was any cleaning work I could do. Since he felt sorry for me, he agreed to give me thirty hours a month."
The job-training program was designed to last six months. Priscilla finished it in four. "They taught me various office skills and word-processing programs. I also learned to answer the phone in an office setting, and write proper business letters," she said. The program helped Priscilla find employment as a secretary with a small company. "It was my first decent job," she says. "I was nineteen years old, living on my own, and making $15,000 a year."
Priscilla reapplied to the University of Washington and was accepted. She qualified for financial aid because she had been independent from her parents for more than two years. As of the fall of 1990, Priscilla was finally a college student — working full-time during the day as a secretary and going to school full-time at night.
Balancing work and school was difficult. "I was staying up late studying, and going to work early every morning. I was having a hard time concentrating in class, and a hard time on the job because I was so tired," she says. But she ended up with two A's in her first semester anyway.
Priscilla decided to pursue an archaeology major, and in the summer of 1992, she got her first opportunity to really test out her interest in the subject. The archaeological field school of Washington State University was sponsoring a summer research project at a site alongside the Snake River in Washington. Priscilla threw herself into the work, and the project supervisors were impressed. At the end of the summer, one of the professors offered her a job. "He said,‘We just got a contract for a project in North Dakota. We want to hire you if you're willing to take a semester off from school.'" The offer was a diversion from Priscilla's pursuit of her BA. "But by then I no longer doubted that I would ultimately finish school, so I felt comfortable grabbing this opportunity," she says.
When the North Dakota project ended, Priscilla moved to California, where she could live rent-free with one of her brothers. "I ended up working three jobs, trying to make as much money as I could," she recalls. "I was tired of working full-time and being a full-time student. My goal was to save enough money to let me go back to school, study full-time and work only part-time." Priscilla's brother ran a house-cleaning service, and he agreed to give her work. And she decided to enroll at a local community college where the tuition was much cheaper.
Priscilla took some art classes (she was an amateur photographer) and helped organize a gallery exhibit of students' artwork, including her own. In the spring of 1994, she graduated from Wenatchee Valley College with a two-year Associate of Arts degree. After graduating, Priscilla applied to the University of Washington once more. She was accepted and enrolled in the fall of 1994. Not having to work so many hours allowed her to make school her priority. "This was such a luxury, I was almost sorry to graduate!" Priscilla laughs. "But I was awarded my BA in January of 1996."
As Priscilla looks back on her years of struggle to make her dream come true, she is cautiously encouraging toward others working their way through school. "To balance work and school, you have to know yourself," she says. "You have to know what you can take and what you can't take. You need a lot of discipline, and you have to stay focused, even when you run into barriers and distractions and delays. But mostly you need determination. If you get put down once, just get back up there and keep fighting."
(949 words)
New Words
Overjoyed
a. extremely pleased; full of joy 万分高兴的，欣喜若狂的
loan
n. 1. sth. which is lent, esp. money 贷款；借出的东西
2. the act of lending 借；出借
vt. (esp. AmE) lend （主美） 借出；贷予
financial aid
n. 经济资助
*prospective
a. potential, possible 可能成为…的；未来的；预期的
*eligible
a. fulfilling the conditions necessary for some special privilege or status 符合被推选条件的；合格的
minimum
n. & a. (of) the smallest possible amount, degree, etc. 最小量（的）；最低程度（的）
*minimal
a. as little as possible 最小的；尽可能少的
claim
vt. 1. ask for, take, or state that one should have (sth. to which one has a right) 对…提出要求
2. say that sth. is true 声称；主张
n. 1. （书面）要求；索赔
2. 声称；主张
dependent, dependant
n. a person who depends on another for a home, food, etc. 依赖他人生活者；受扶养者
a. (on, upon) needing the help or support of sb. or sth. else 依赖的；依靠的
reapply
vi. apply again 再次申请，重新申请
