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I am majoring in linguistics and literacy. I hope to continue work in human services, whether this be through working in education, speech pathology, or research. My tuition is paid solely through federal and state grants. I support my other college expenses by working 20 hours a week. As an independent student, it was a very difficult process to get TAP. There should be much more support on the state’s end for things such as paperwork, since that was the main issue I ran into. It takes 8-12 weeks to review requests for independent students, which means I did not get my aid amount until the very end of the semester. My biggest challenge is knowing that my tuition might not be accounted for every semester. I have trouble affording transportation costs. This is part of the reason I chose so many online classes. At my school, it is such a hassle to get advised. Before my first semester, I waited on zoom for hours to talk to an advisor. Now, trying to get advised for the fall is another hassle. We don’t have designated advisors in my department, just professors who have other things to do besides advise us. I don’t attend many in person classes. But the many broken links of CUNY have made the sites hard to navigate sometimes.