I always tried to find the shortcuts in life and school wasn’t cutting it. I just wanted to start my life already and be a grown up. I look back and see I should’ve listened to my parents. Rumors always went around in my street quick about the drug dealers recruiting young kids into the gang life. A lot of my friends on the block were a part of the gang and always told me how easy it is that it’s a way of life.…
The years of memorable family gatherings soon became distant memories of the past. As I had experienced two different neighborhoods while growing up I noticed a clear contrast between high and low income neighborhoods. When my family was struggling financially we had no option but to live in an area known for gang related violence. Growing up learning how to avoid dangerous people instead of playing with barbies forced me to... Being aware of more at a young age allowed me to mature at a faster pace than most.…
A.I believe the most challenging aspect of working in protective services would be not letting your career consume you physically and mentally. Knowing that there's such a great need out there and you're not always able to help when you want to,would be the most challenging aspect to me . You wouldn't think that it affects you, but it does. The emotional strain of the job and the desire to want to help everyone can be overwhelming.…
This is my first year of high school, and so far I am enjoying this year more than any of my previous years in elementary school at Aviston Elementary. In the past years, I was a stressed out loner who was easily annoyed by everything and could not get long-term projects done without having a melt down at some point. However, in this year that has changed. I have made a few friends who have stayed with me for the entire year, learned to tolerate immature, childish actions, and have not felt completely overwhelmed to this date. This year and previous years both had their moments, but I would not change anything that happened because they both helped make me who I am now.…
I grew up on a neighborhood of gangs and violence, something that is not new on our daily news. I came from fearing to come out and play , because anyone could come out dead. Running from the cops you will see and all you can say “I don't know, sorry” or a click and bang will end up being at night at the front of your door. Every saturday night you will hear shoot outs and the next day will be either cars, houses, and even people. Growing up with shoot outs and violence is not that easy staying up all night to make sure they don't come back or even break into your house.…
About four years ago I was playing club lacrosse for the Villanova Wildcats travel team. I was about thirteen years old when I experienced one of my first significant lessons of failure. At a young age many do not understand the importance of failures and short comings, and how it is essential to learn, grow, and improve. We think success comes easy and without trial which is not realistic. My life changing failure taught me many things: the strength of teamwork, the power of preparation and will, and how to be a better competitor.…
Life started getting rough for me around the time that my dad was terminated (11/10/2016). Everything seems to be coming at me all at once. Asides from studying for finals, I was also focused on working two jobs because everything in the house became my responsibility. Mortgage became my responsibility, bills became mine, car loans became mine, expenses in the house became mine as well. I became the support system for my family, both emotionally and financially.…
Fall of 2010 and spring of 2012 were the 2 semesters I was inactive after graduating from the University of San Diego. In the fall of 2010 I was acclimating to a life back in Los Angeles and actively looking for a position where I was serving others. I secured a tutoring position in an underserved community for students in grades k thru 12 in the areas of math, science, and English for a startup tutoring company called 1 On 1 Academic Tutors. My greatest competitive advantage became my hunger to succeed and to actualize the life that my parents envisioned for me when they migrated from Mexico. Within the year, I was promoted to Senior Contract Administrator and by fall of 2012 I was creating spreadsheets alongside graphs and analyzing them…
The community in which I live in was full of temptation and very bad things. I was surrounded by a lot of people that liked to sell drug and by various types of gang members that were territorial. The community was so bad that mostly every night there were shootings. In the morning we got to witness the aftermath, which included the blood and sometimes even a dead body.…
Let me get one thing straight: I’m not in the business of crying. Crying equals weakness, so like most wannabe men growing up, my ducts were as dry as my mom’s attempt at cornbread. Opening up the still slender book of my life and leafing through to a random page, ninety-five percent of the time, the mood would be positive. I’m not saying that my book lacks trials and tribulations or moments of misery, but on the whole, melancholy moments reside in the minority, not the majority. Now crack the spine of the book.…
The meaning of life is interpreted in many ways based upon an individual’s values. This may mean getting rich for some people or meeting a celebrity. For me, the true meaning of life is overcoming barriers that hinder success in order to experience as much as possible. Through my eighteen years of being alive, I have had to overcome many barriers in order to get where I am today. The most challenging of these was overcoming my anxiety disorder.…
Looking back I remember people telling me left and right that I wasn’t going to be friends with the same people I was at the time. I’d just look at them and roll my eyes and think to my self saying there’s absolutely no way I’d ever be better friends with anyone else than I am right now. Blythe Katie and I were never ever going to leave each other no matter what happened. We had all been tied at the hip for basically my whole life and I didn’t think that would ever change. We were inseparable.…
In a matter of six months my parents got divorced, my mother passed away, my father got remarried, and I moved in with my step mom along with two step brothers. For me, 2015 was the most traumatic year and while having people perceived me as a put together positive person, when in actuality I held back the pain and underlying depressed remorseful grief. However, I was persistent on not allowing myself to be consumed by my misfortunes and trials instead I was dedicated to change with the obstacles. Often, I drew my strength from my friends and family in order to overcome my afflictions. The moment everything began to change was when my father told me he and my mother were getting a divorce.…
One, two, three, four, five, and the list goes on. I had a notebook in the third grade in which I would write numbers from one and beyond. Unfortunately that list was never finished; the fact that one could begin to write numbers from the day they were born to the day they would die and would not even be close to infinity is both scary and fascinating to me. This blew my eight year old mind. It sparked this passion in me to expand my knowledge of numbers, how they work and why they worked.…
Growing up in the situation that I was in has shaped me into the person that I am today. Both my parent’s were born in South Korea and immigrated to America in their mid-twenties. Neither of my parents could speak English and while my mother had managed to earn a high school diploma, my father did not even graduate from his middle school. To be honest, they never seemed to value education as a priority and never stressed its importance to me as a child. Even with all of these odds stacked against them, they still had some early success living in a foreign country.…