Achieving Higher Education As A Student With Financial Needs

As a child, I never realized the obstacles my family went through and why they wanted me to be the best student at the school. My parents tried their best in sheltering me from the truth but I always knew we were struggling financially. Growing up, I witnessed my parents struggle to find jobs and a stable house

My mother worked four jobs at once to make financial ends meet, while always stressing the importance of education and financial independence to my brother and myself. My grandmother only achieved a second grade education due to the financial constraints on her family at a young age, but still in the end managed to make certain that of her children and grandchildren had what was needed to flourish and become successful, educated members of the community. The tenacity and history of these two women I still carry with me today. Their struggles have inspired to me to only want more from life, but also serve as a positive role model for the younger members of my community. I observed from other family members how an education can open a multitude of doors and opportunities. I want to make the biggest and most significant on my community and on my family as possible, and the only foreseeable path is to achieve a college education to gain the necessary skills, knowledge and connections needed to flourish and implement positive

Growing up in an one bedroom single parent home with eight kids I was an angry child faced with countless obstacles growing up. The things that I have seen and the situations I have been in through growing up I know that I shouldn’t be here today.There are guys that I grew up with who are now either dead, in jail, or still in the streets. By overcoming these things it has molded me into the young man I am today; a person who is determined to be great and determined to leave an impact on people's lives in everything that I do. As I continue to grow, others are seeing the transition that I am making into a black man who while he may be from the projects he is taking actions to become better and

Studying abroad is important to me for a multitude of reasons. The most pressing of which is,

I didn’t have to physically fight in school and I wasn’t subjected to overt racial discrimination. However, I was discriminated against on an institutional level by attending public school in Compton, CA and in a rural desert town in LA County called Lake Los Angeles. Demographically, Lake L.A. was mostly poor White but we were part of a wave of minorities that began moving there because of the cheap houses on large sections of land. There was limited access to rigorous curriculum and I remember not feeling engaged in school as a child. I was naturally curious and wanted to learn so I was always self-motivated and succeeded in school. However, there were very limited opportunities or access to college prep courses or Advanced/Honors sections of courses. I never even met with a high school counselor once. I was self-motivated enough to make sure I earned good grades in my classes but I had no idea what the application process for college was all about or what A-G electives were. I was caught up in a numbers game and I wasn’t one of the few who were given the additional resources and support needed to be prepared to attend a four year university right out of high

I held firmly the point of view that politics could alter the image of an individual to vastly oppressive state. Many times I felt panic-stricken in my political science classes, address Brown v. Board of Education and the like. I realized my skin color served as a driving force of advocacy. I was privileged in terms of being able to have the perspective opposite of the majority. I felt the need as a minority student to raise awareness of minorities, and other identities in the classroom environment. I was not defensive but rather fascinated by misconceptions, and the lack of consciousness offered by the majority. I felt compelled to participate even when not required to change the atmosphere of the surrounding educational environment. I acquired a firm taste for social justice, reminiscing on my childhood

I was once that child from a low income community with a dream and ambition. I was entrapped in a box where negative feedback was given on a daily basis and it existed in a community that lacked the necessary resources to assist their children in succeeding. The only options for my peers and I were to graduate or be left behind. When I was in middle and high school, I never fully understood the severity of our educational system and the decline it was slowly moving towards. It was not until I became a college graduate and returned back to my school district to work as a College Advisor that I realized I was once a part of the achievement gap that we so often refer to.

An experience in my life that influenced my academic goals was being homeless at the age of 15 to 17. i was living on the streets stealing from stores to eat and other people too who i saw to weak to fight back. My child hood wasn't the greatest but i had the support

I am the first to go to graduate college in my family. As such, I faced many struggles in my undergraduate career in that I did not have family or peers to turn to for support and resources that would help me in college. Yet, that adversity taught me about perseverance—moving forward when all seemed lost—and my schooling at CSU East Bay taught me that my struggles form part of a larger history of struggle by the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized, many of who are today, unfortunately, African Americans. These experiences, in turn, play a significant role in my decision to pursue a graduate education and they now form a critical component in my ability to find ways to overcome barriers to higher education.

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” This quote by Jackie Robinson has been a major influence in my life as not only a baseball player but as a man who has had an opportunity to make an impact on the lives around me. As an African American man we as a society are undermined and are looked down upon by society due to misconceptions and what the media portrays as an African American man. One obstacle that I’ve had to deal with my whole life is the concept of being the only African American student in school. When I was young I made outstanding grades and ended up entering high school at the age of 12 years old. Besides being the youngest student in High school I was the only black student that the school had attending

Being a first generation college student and the struggles that come from being a first generation student have shaped me as an individual. My parents immigrated from The Dominican Republic with no education, no hope, and just a dream of a better life. When I was born, my parents tried to give me the “American dream” to the best of their ability but growing up was still rough. My older brother and I were being raised in a low-income neighborhood where opportunities didn’t come to people really often, and crime was considered common. Instead of joining my peers in their lives of crime, I wanted to be the exact opposite. I wanted to prove to everyone that just you may come from somewhere where crime is common, and because your parents don’t have an education that you can’t better yourself – but I didn’t really

Everyone has a story of where they came from, their ancestral heritage, and the class in society in which they were raised. In our journey of self-discovery we experience different events, and encounter people from diverse backgrounds that influence who we are, and aide us in finding our true selves. The many life events and individuals that are encountered from childhood to adulthood have an influence not only on our desire to pursue higher education, but also on our political views. While some are blessed to live a privileged life, face little struggle, and have every opportunity available, others are not so fortunate. Growing up I lived an underprivileged life, where I faced a struggle not only with my socioeconomic status, but also

For years, I struggled in an education system that only served to teach students of crime, where day by day, I would roam my high school hallways in search of peace, which I could only find in a few of my class rooms. I visited many schools during high school through a variety of programs that I was part of and through this I got to interact with students of more privileged high schools in New York City, where the Caucasian population was

Education is a never-ending learning process that has always been a piece of our life. As education is a building block in our lives, we are eager to put profoundly into our education. Good education will lead us to the bright future. With the fast advancement of public opinion, we have entered an era of information explosion which the necessity of studying abroad has turned into a developing pattern among youth. Most of the students feel that studying abroad is better than studying in local universities. As the saying goes, “the grass always looks greener on the other side of fence.” In this way, I believe that considering abroad have extraordinary points of benefits.

My biggest fear of being educated was that it got the best of me. Coming from a background of not being educated and having a learning disability I made it my purpose to be educated. This degree in Secondary Educational Leadership gives me the advance learning I need to specialize in higher educational leadership. I desire to be a Dean and long term looking to be a college President. While obtaining my degree, I will show student with learning disabilities that can achieve if they work hard. So far my experience with faculty, classmates, and my classes have given me what I needed to be confident in this stage of the program. Looking at what African American males face and the lack of African American males