“It is good to know that someone believes in me”
I come from South Central where a lot of kids don’t go to college there or barely finish high school so going all the way to the University of Santa Cruz, sometimes I feel like I don’t belong. I’m the first in my family to go to college. This is one of the biggest things I’m dealing with right now.
I get to come back home and share everything with my family and my friends and then help them see how much school and education can actually make a difference for us in the future.
My mentor from middle school, my biology teacher, gave me in high school a Harry Potter stuffed animal from Build-A-Bear. I take it with me everywhere just because it was a gift from him to remind me that I should always be reading or should alway be doing something to help me educate myself more. Every time I look at the teddy bear, sometimes it sounds childish, but at the same time it is good to know that someone believes in me, even when I was that young. He knew that I wasn’t going to give up and that I was actually going to do more than most of the students that he had. It’s really nice.