Personal Essay: Influencing Internship In The US

As a Latina that was raised in a low-income, single-parent household, adversity has been apparent in my life from a very young age. When I was only a year old, my parents had an unfortunate divorce. Two months later, my mother decided to migrate with my brother and I to the U.S. from Mexico in hopes of a better future for us. Although there were various times when we were not sure whether we were going to eat or not, my mother never failed me. My mother set the foundation for me to flourish in a land that had many opportunities through reinforcing my capability of overcoming adversity.
Throughout my time in the charter school system, I focused on maintaining the best grades I could because I did not want my mother’s efforts to go in vain. I …show more content…
This spring semester I began the Ethics & Leadership in Law, Politics, and Government certificate program to establish an interdisciplinary learning experience for my passion in social work, law, and politics. Consequently, I have started an organization at UT Austin called the Political Alliance of Social Workers because of my belief in the significance of putting social work values at the forefront of politics. As the president of this organization, I am committed to ensuring that my fellow social work classmates are knowledgeable about politics and the methods in which we can initiate change through influencing legislation. Ultimately, I will attend a social work master’s program after receiving my bachelor’s degree so that I can dive deeper into a policy-driven social work curriculum. I will do so through the accelerated master’s program, in which I will receive my master’s degree in two years because of my current academic standing. Following this, I will attend law school for three years to focus on immigration law and continue my path of advocating for communities in …show more content…
My family’s undocumented status disables the ability to fund my education because of unstable employment and inability to take out loans. Since I am able to work through my DACA status, I have been financially helping my family and funding my education on my own. It is also not often that I have the opportunity to apply for a scholarship because of my legal status. I have maintained my ability to finance my education through the few scholarships that have been available to me and through working multiple jobs. As of recently, I have lost my internship at a litigation law firm because of circumstances that were out of my control. In spite of this, I have already been applying to various summer internships that will continue helping me finance my education as well as meet my standards of a learning experience. This scholarship will allow me to accomplish my educational goals of pursuing higher education through attending graduate and law school and ultimately allow me to accomplish my career goals of becoming a state