Changing Our Lives By Tyrone Woodward

               What has changed my life most has been my long term educational goals. I Tyrone Woodward  graduated from Simon Gratz High School, in 1972. It was the greatest twelve years of  life and it all ended with our graduation ceremonies being held at the newly built Spectrum, in South Philadelphia. I was then hired as a general laborer, along with ten other Simon Gratz grads by Gulf Oil Company. Unfourtunately, not only I but, all ten of us from Simon Gratz, who were hired permntly by Gulf Oil Company, were fired before the end of the summer of 1972. I'd like to say that I got into the wrong group of people but, that would be far from the truth. I was one of the leaders who would come to work late and leave early. One of those who got cought smoking marijuana in the company's oil tanker. It was all our faults and we made our 1972 grauduating class of 928 look very bad. That will forever be a personal dark spot on my employment record.

                I then held jobs as a Child Care Worker, a Speech & Hearing Techncian, also a Security Gurad, a Dishwasher and a C.N.A. In 1987, with one son and my daughter on her way after just two years of marriage, I returned to school and became a Certifided Nurses Assistant. Those six months of study at the Philadelphia Career Institute, were also a highlight in my educational history..I worked non-stop in the nursing field for four years before going to jail for simple assult. After I came home I did very little or nothng living mostly off my wife. After doing temporary work at Labor Ready, Centrix, and Unique, I received a Certificate in Customer Service from a six month school called Imagineers. Those were some of the things I did from 1991 to '97.  From 1997 to 2003, I worked for Parkway Corporation, in the Customer Service Department. During that time I enterted Community College of Philadelphia, in 2001 and received an Associates Degree in 2004, majoring in Behavioral Health & Human Services.

                 Upon graduation from C.C.P., I became a Junior at Alvernia University. Ready to receive my Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Services in 2006, I was sentenced  for another three years for simple assult on a security guard and groping a female classmate. I was dismissed from school just six credits shy of graduation. It took two  years for me to be found guilty. I returned home in April of 2011, and am now back in school trying to prove what has already been proven, that education can change your life.

                  In December of 2012 I plan on having two B.A.'s, one from Lincoln University, in Human Services, and one in Business Administration/Marketing, from Strayer University. At that ime I plan on starting a Boxing Magazine for all true fighters. At that time I won't be done. I plan on going on to get my Masters Degree in Sports Management and then my Ph.D in the same field. My long term educational goals have changed my life since high school for the positive.