Undergraduate / "my father came home after being laid off " - MY FATHER'S STRUGGLE-UF PROMPT [4]

prompt--In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.

essay-
There have been many meaningful events I have witnessed, many of which have taught me something about life and what I want to do with mine. There has been no event, however, more meaningful to me than when my father came home after being laid off from his job. After seeing the devastation in his eyes, and watching him pace back and forth wondering what to do, I knew I needed to make sure something like that could never happen to me.

As a kid, I always wanted to be just like my dad. I wanted to have a suit-and-tie kind of job, with a nice house and a family I loved. He worked in the construction industry for a company who makes the floors and walls of a building. One year, he was named the employee of the year in an international corporation called Rinker Materials. Once the economy turned, however, his job was one of the first to go. He tried applying and interviewing for other positions with other companies, but the reality of it was, everything in construction was falling apart. Because the construction industry wasnbt able to beat the economy, he couldnbt find a job with anyone. Ibll never forget the day he came home, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, bDylan, as long as you live, make sure that you never have to come home to your own son and tell him youbve lost everything.b That same day, I made a promise to myself that I would never let that happen to me.

I spent years thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, and what I wanted to go to college for. I thought about how I loved to build things as a kid, and how I would take things apart just to try to put them back together again. I knew, then, that I wanted to be an engineer. Because of my fascination with aircraft, I decided to be an aeronautics engineer. It is a field that has always been very prominent, and aircraft manufacturers are always looking for new employees. Because of the strength of this line of work, I can make sure that I wonbt fall victim to an economic breakdown like my father. I can make the promise to my dad that I will never lose what he lost, and Ibll have the life I dreamed about as a kid.

This event will change what I experience in college in that I will make sure my major is one pertaining to a stable field of work. Instead of studying building construction and following in my fatherbs footsteps, I will enter my own line of work, and do what I can to give myself job security. I donbt want be one of the people who gets laid off because their industry is fading with the economy.

If accepted to the University of Florida, I will be able to make a better start for myself, and have the ability to pursue a career in aerospace engineering. A degree from this school will make me capable of walking into any company office knowing that I have an edge up on anyone else for the job.