Sure. Get your GED and enroll in your local community college. I am confident that you can pass the GED stuff and community college is your route towards eventually graduating from a 4 yr university like UConn.
A HS diploma looks better than a GED, but hey, you work with what you got now to move forward.
If you're actually well educated and decently intelligent, you should be able to pass the GED exam with no trouble. Then you can go to UCONN. Or, you could go to a community college for a year or two, if they'll take you (and they should), prove your worth by getting a good GPA in the college basics, and then transfer to a four year college.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.