About

     Attending nine different schools during my K-12 education was no easy experience. I quickly realized that our education system is far from equal as no two schools had the same resources or expectations. I left one school at the top of my class and moved to another where I needed remediation after school just to stay afloat. Some schools that I attended didn't have lockers, yet alone textbooks, and others offered foreign language and music courses along with after school clubs and programs. Because of these experiences, I learned at a young age that some people are "smarter" or "better off" not because of a genetic predisposition, but because they simply had more access, better resources, things that I didn't have. Most would say that this moment in my life would have been a good time to "accept my place" and just be content with the world being unfair. Well I decided that that simply was not good enough. The "smart girl" identity was already established, so instead of accepting the disproportionate privileges of America, I chose to combat them in the best way I knew how; staying true to my claimed identity.

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     It's because of my sacrifices of sleep, my Nile of tears, my refusal to give up, and a lot of prayer, that I graduated high school with a 4.94 GPA and enrolled into college as a first year sophomore. While I was ever grateful and ever proud of my accomplishments, I'm now in grad school and no one EVER mentions high school accomplishments! Shoot! They barely bring up undergrad. I then had the realization that perhaps my GPA was important at the time, but that it loses its importance over time. I assume I'll have a similar experience when I finish school forever. Ultimately, I had to teach myself that I am more than my GPA. My worth and my value are defined by my own standard, rather the systemic expectations of education which weren't designed with people like me in mind to begin with. Therefore, when I become a professor, I will encourage my students to work hard because these days it's hard to get much of anything without a degree or two. However, I will also show them the importance of having an identity outside of their academics; one that they created themselves, not the one that minimizes and dismisses the beautiful characteristics that make them who they are.