McHenry County College (MCC) student Kathrine Miller is receiving $500 toward her Fall semester tuition at MCC. She is the winner of the Illinois Community College Trustee Association’s Paul Simon Student Essay Contest.
Miller, of McHenry, best described “How My Community College Has Changed My Life” and she was selected from 23 statewide essay finalists. Many colleges held their own local essay contests, bringing the total number of entries to several hundred.
What She Wrote About
In her essay, Miller wrote that she often preached to her sons about going to college, although she hadn’t been to college herself. Her essay mentioned about how she was inspired by her son’s words as he left home to become a student at University of Illinois. He suggested that she practice what she preached.
“I always told my sons they could do or be anything they wanted—yes, even cowboys—after they got out of college,” Miller wrote in her essay. “Imagine the hurt in their eyes and the pain in my heart when they learned that I had not been to college and only had my GED. I meant to return to school, but there were always excuses not to go—time, money, even less time, even less money.”
One day while at work at Sage Products in Cary, where she works as a quality technician, she saw a poster about McHenry County College’s Fast Track program, formerly called the Academy for High Performance, so she decided to enroll.
“I will be able to continue to lead by example, to demonstrate that education is important at any age,” she said.
Miller earned an Associate in Applied Science degree in business management from MCC last May and plans to use the scholarship toward fall tuition at MCC as she completes prerequisites toward a bachelor’s degree in industrial technology from Southern Illinois University’s outreach campus in Grayslake.
Miller was among 45 MCC students who submitted essays, which were reviewed by the English Department chairperson. A committee of English instructors judged the entries and selected Miller’s essay to represent MCC in the statewide competition
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