I’ve been on the Dean’s list and the President’s honor rolls every semester since I’ve been at Reynolds. I was elected Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society Vice President for my college and was in charge of the recruitment committee and where we recently got our recruitment numbers above the 15 percent goal we had set.

early, but mostly validated me to myself! It turns out that investing in myself was contagious, I ended up working a full-time job during my spring semester.ĭuring the pandemic which was my summer semester, I worked 2 full-time jobs and went to school full time. Earning a 4.0 validated the hard work, validated the decision to leave H.S. That first semester flew by and before I knew it I had become a college student. I'm not sure that I was emotionally or academically ready to move to college, and I spent the early part of the semester working like crazy out of fear, spite, anger & curiosity of what would happen if I tried. I stopped investing in the education side of things and graduated early under the mistaken belief that simply moving on to the next step would fix my concerns. Being the eldest girl in this context has provided many life skills, but often you have to drop everything to support the family when something comes up.ĭuring high school, I found my aspirations diminished by a lack of imagination and the inability to find a model path I could follow. They valued my education in theory, as part of the struggle to find my place in America, but at the end of the day, there is still that strong cultural pull towards an eventual role as a housewife. Having loving parents who had no formal education of their own is difficult. I am very determined to break those barriers and start a new tradition. In my culture and tradition, it is very common for the man to be the one who gets both an education and to be the primary voice in the household. I always put my education on hold because I was expected to become a housewife therefore, education is pointless or at least secondary. In this space, I am always asked to put myself second and was told that you will get rewarded when you are selfless, particularly as a daughter. I am the second eldest of nine kids and the oldest girl. I was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania, southeast Africa, and I came to this foreign country when I was six years old.

High school kids imagine dragons