Personal Narrative : A Young Girl Meets World

Growing up, school was not a major factor in my life. I come from a hard-working, middle-class military family. My mother, a Filipino immigrant, was a homemaker. My father was a 21-year United States Marine veteran. They were my first impression of what I thought my future would be. Being the youngest of four children, I was expected to fall in line behind my siblings when it came to education. I was never pushed to excel in my studies, so I did just enough to get by. As I watched friends escape the grasp of a military town and ascend to their respective colleges, I was left wondering what was next for me. I attended my local community college for a brief period of time. I treated college no different than high school. I

From a very early age, I always assumed it was a part of my future to pursue an education. The American educational system engraves the importance of school at a very young age. Elementary school children are motivated through rewards when they try their hardest to reach their goals. Students are exposed to statistics and facts outlining the consequences of not getting a college degree as soon as they reach middle school. High school counselors and staff make it their priority to ensure that students apply to college. Students are conditioned to believe that education is the building block to a successful future. My cultural upbringing did not support my choice to pursue an education, however, I refused to conform to my family’s behavioral expectations because certain norms must be challenged due to progressive time periods and conflicting values.

Everyone has a different story and background, but we all hold similar aspirations for the future. We can either let our background draw us into an inescapable black hole or use it to thrive over any obstacle. For many minority students as myself, the shot at college is the only chance we truly get to overcome our situations. It’s true that not everyone needs a college education to succeed, but the truth is not everyone has the resources to make something of themselves without the valuable education which a renowned institution like the University of Illinois has to offer. I come from a low-income family which had their share of struggles from an early age, which impacted our lives greatly. My decision on what major I possibly might be interested in pursuing might not have been directly linked with my family history, but the overall aspiration of attending college has. At the age of eight I faced the sad reality that I would be left without a father figure. My dad would be incarcerated for the next seven years for dealing drugs and at the end of his sentence he would be deported back to Mexico. This incident left a heartbroken family and a mother to fend for four kids all by herself. This overall incident was a wake-up call to better myself and not let myself be defined by the mistakes, which my father committed. I saw the struggles, which my mother had to endure.My mother is one of the most

Who knew that dreams would come true? When I was a child, attending college was a big fantasy of mine that later became a reality. At the age of eleven, my family and I immigrated to the United States in the search for better opportunities. I came to this country with no knowledge of the language. My educational journey was not easy because of the language barriers and my immigration status as undocumented. At the beginning when I started middle school, I felt frustrated and useless for not being able to communicate with others. I was placed in ESL classes where I was taught English and basic math and science. I wasn’t learning anything new. During seventh grade, I was accidently placed in regular English classes. They were challenging at first because I was still an English learner. However, those classes helped me improved my English, and my knowledge was expanding. Even though it was hard to understand what was being discussed in class, that did not stop me from getting good grades in those classes. I would stay after school and asked questions to my teachers and read the readings carefully while taking notes. Eventually, my counselor

Knowing the struggles my ancestors have prevailed upon to provide me the opportunity to pursue my dreams is humbling. They’ve taught me that education is power. I was able to understand its magnitude by becoming an English teacher to students from a local underprivileged public school. I had been capable of reminding them that they are entitled to dream, simply by giving them the knowledge and opportunity to think outside of the box. As I move on to college, I hope to continue to empower individuals through education, providing them the opportunity that my great-grandmother wished for but did not have. Despite the tumultuous path to accepting and understanding myself, I know that college will be another colorful fragment to the patchwork of my

When I was in middle high school, I wasn’t like any other kids my age I knew. It seemed like all the kids new what they wanted to do in life. Most of my classmates had a mindset that they were going to college, but I was focused more on graduating middle school so that I can make it to high school. By the time I made it to high school, there was more pressure on me to think about going to college. My parents wanted me to further my education. My mother asked me if I was thinking about college yet. At that point, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was confused so I

Hello I Started this gofundme for my girl friend Dawn. For a little over a year now we have been struggling to find answers we never knew we would be looking for.

I knew something was wrong with that black haired kid. She never spoke and it was like I was the only one who noticed her. I told myself, no matter if my life depended on it, to never look her in the eye.

Growing up I never gave too much thought to college, whenever people asked me about furthering my education my only response was “I don’t want to go”. I didn’t see the future in it, “success doesn’t come with a piece of paper” I thought to myself, and although that was true I didn’t realize all the doors that weren’t open without that piece of paper. I always felt optimistic growing up, but for whatever reason, I never felt sure about the route I would take in life. Graduating high school was a priority but after that there was nothing. I’ve always had big dreams but back then I hadn’t mustered up a plan on how to get there, like driving to California with no map or GPS I was stranded, suspended in this mindset of what I wanted to be and what was comfortable. Neither of my parents went to college and in spite of that my childhood was beautiful. In hindsight I think that was a big reason I thought the way I did. When I was a kid I remember looking at my

To me, a good story has an interesting plot, complex characters, supporting details, and, of course, proper grammar and spelling. I usually get lost in a good book and can tell that I’m really enjoying a story when I feel I’m in the world the author creates. When I look up, back to reality, I want to return straight away. I always look forward to continuing the story and never want it to end.

Being brought up the way I am, going to college was never a question for me. It was always apart of the plan and just considered another grade after the twelfth grade. I have always been self-motivated and a preparer for what’s to come. Entering high school was when a lot of things changed for me. Freshman year was the year I was faced with one of, what seemed at the time, to be one of the roughest obstacles I had ever come across.

As a young woman growing up in the South, I have participated in many pageants throughout the years. While my motivation for the competition was to gain scholarship funds and build my resume’ with awards, leadership and platform development skills, my fellow contestants had other goals. I had a time to do a lot of self-reflection. In almost every pageant, I was asked “If you could change anything in the world, what would it be?" Though I tried my hardest to find the right thing to say to pull on the judge’s heartstrings, each time I would give the simple answer: “myself and heteronormative power structures.”

Recently they moved to a town named Harahan. she overheard her parents talking and heard her parents talking about Meredith’s dads new job. So she went to sleep and was thinking about what she heard and thought that maybe we will stay here for a while. She went to school and she was wearing black shoes, green collar shirt, with a skirt. Meredith walked into class and she was shy people started to call her names and laugh at her. Meredith walked home and told her parents that she didn’t like the school. She wants to go back to her old school with her friends. Her parents said but we can’t so she went back to school and she told the teacher that the kids were picking

For this assignment, I decided to interview a girl that I’ve known for some time now. She goes by the name Elizabeth because in America, majority of the people she’s met have had a very difficult time trying pronounce her real given name properly. I asked her what the real name everybody is struggling with is, and she said Oluwafolorunsho. This name is of a Nigerian decent.

For many, after graduating high school the next big step is college. I never asked myself why or if I even wanted to. Yet, since I was not yet ready to join the work force, and didn’t want to disappoint my parents, I simply followed the path that I was supposed to take. For a while I had no direction, but through the loss of my high school English teacher and my dream of making my family proud, I discovered that college was the place I wanted and needed to be.