Personal Essay
As an adolescent I was not enthusiastic about school. Growing up poor in New Mexico with hippie parents and enduring what was a mediocre education at best, my siblings and I were never required or pushed to get good grades. I received a lot of C’s and D’s, ditching so often that I was almost suspended. I never took part in academic clubs, I failed classes and, at some point, I thought it was a good idea to tape test answers to the bottom of my shoes. It wasn’t.
My parents never poked or prodded about what college I would go to when I got older, nor did they have the means to save any money for my higher education — in fact my father always told me that as long as I was happy and healthy, that’s all he cared about.
In turn, school was just something we did until we didn’t have to anymore and, for many years, I did not consider myself smart or capable in the realm of academics. But because of my parents’ lifestyle and the way my mother’s life had unfolded (poor with four children), my grandmother (and only grandparent) continuously pushed me to do well in school. As I got older and it became more challenging to juggle classes with work and bills and life stresses, I would lament loudly to her and she would laugh with little sympathy, “that’s life baby, it’s tough.”
After graduating from high school I would go on to attend several different community colleges, first in New Mexico and then California, always feeling great envy of kids who didn’t have to work, lived in the dorms and had that typical college experience that I wanted so badly but never got. Because I was never taught how to study or keep my grades up, I continued to make simple mistakes and was an average student who was rarely inspired by those around me. The only time I felt a spark of hope was when I was writing.
Once at a community college in Oakland as I stood in line to have an essay edited, I watched with the young girl ahead of me as a professor scribbled red ink throughout her words. I was next, I stepped forward and anxiously waited as he read over my pages, adding tiny red commas every so often. He handed my paper back with no other edits, “you don’t like commas much do you?” I laughed. “Well done,” he said and motioned for the next person to come forward. I rode that high for weeks as I was still a young writer and unsure of my abilities.
This brief interaction combined with the time my professor told me he’d been drinking more water because of an article I wrote on the importance of hydration — those hints of encouragement, as small as they may have been, pushed me forward. But while my passion for writing was always present, it wasn’t until my later years of college that my interest in journalism really began to bloom.
Experiencing firsthand the time it takes to print a newspaper and being forced to awkwardly introduce myself to people I needed information from — it ignited the flame that I desperately needed in order to believe in myself.
If when I was younger someone had told me that I’d be completing graduate school at one of the country's most prestigious universities, on the verge of my career as a journalist, I would have laughed in disbelief, yet here I am.
Through my recent years of undergrad and now graduate school I have met peers and professors who have pushed me forward with encouragement and support, allowing my passion for writing about the human experience to grow. Because it took so long to prioritize myself, my mental health and my education, I know that no matter where I end up I will persevere and overcome, doing my part to seek the truth, advocate for those in need and shed light on the things that matter.