DON'T Take the TAG!!!

My plans have changed yet again and now I will be moving to central New Jersey instead of south New Jersey on July 25th. We have found a great two bedroom apartment about 15 minutes from the beach, hardwood floors and each apartment even has its own little yard which will be perfect for the puppies. I had to shift my job search from south New Jersey to central New Jersey. I am still very excited.

About two weeks ago I was at the high school and I received a call from Dean Hughes. At first I was a little confused as to what could he be calling me about but I was happy to hear from him. As everyone knows, TAG is being taken away from certain proprietary schools so that they can fix the budget problem that they have created. Without this grant, many students will have to drop out of college and lose their hopes of finding a good job. For some people this may mean creating higher debt, and having a hard time paying it off after graduation.

When I received the call, Dean Hughes asked me if I would be interested in going to a dinner where we can speak to senators and express our opinions and views. TAG is very important to all of us so we wanted to have the most outspoken people there to represent Berkeley. It was held at the beautiful Sheraton hotel in the Meadowlands. When I came in I automatically spotted Dean Hughes and about 10 other Berkeley students.

First we went to cocktail hour where we networked with other business people, telling them our reason for being here and finding out what it is that they do. After that we went into a small banquet hall and sat down in our assigned seats. Each table had a senator assigned to it, so we could discuss with them our reason for being there. As we were eating dinner certain senators went on stage and discussed their views on certain things and what they hope to accomplish.

Some senators were very determined to make a change and some of them sounded like they really don’t care about what the public wanted. It was very discouraging to see how ignorant some of these people could be when they represent our state. TAG is very important to students and I do not agree that it should be taken away from only certain schools. It’s not fair that some colleges still get to keep the grant and it is being taken away from others. If you’re going to create a change, do the change equally for everyone!