INSPIRATION
"I was kind of a broken kid at the time, so I wasn’t talkative at all. I was really quiet and to myself and my uncle knew that, but he brought me back here. My aunt and my little cousins were excited to see me with my broken tooth and big black eye.... But I was getting better. They were bringing me back to church, and I was realizing what Jesus had done for me—saved me off the streets, sent my aunt and uncle for me, and I regained that relationship with Him.”
WORK ETHIC
“The workplace landscape is changing, and with that, so must I. To be able to continue to be successful—like my role models—I must also change. This is the driving force behind my decision to come back to college to earn my degree…. I won’t let anything stand in my way.”
JOY
“It was a beautiful time in my life because I had no money, but that never bothered me, and looking back on it, I question why that never bother me—being 19, living at my dad’s with a person who also had no money, and that never mattered. All that mattered was that beautiful baby and how much joy she brought to my life.”
TRY
“I’ve never actually sat down and said, you know, I want to do something that’s going to better the world, but, you know, I’ve got to try it out.”
RESET
“One day, I was sitting at my computer desk, and I was like, ‘I’m really sick of being depressed,’ and that was that—like cold turkey, a complete 180.”
LABELED
“I never really tried hard or cared because I figured I was learning disabled and I would always be disabled. That stuck with me for a long time.”
AGENCY
“I have cerebral palsy, and I grew up in the medical system, right, which is just a rough land to live in. The thing that I had to cope with while piecing myself together is that I can say no, now. When I was growing up, I had no ability to say no to anything that was happening to me.”
NOT THE AVERAGE
“I wish I would’ve known how much I was going to grow and learn.”
EXPERIENCE
“I thought, you know, just about everything out there has got computers, and I didn’t know how to run one. So, I figured I’d better go to school..”
OVERCOMING
“I have a brain injury, and I was in an accident when I was 19—coma for 15 days, learned to walk and talk all over again. Never thought I’d be able to do college, never. And my husband looked at me and said, ‘You’re not dumb, you’re not. You’ll go.’”
RESILIENCE
“Factors that have benefited my sobriety and my recovery—school and education. There are a lot of ideals that I believe—like, I know for myself—that I was raised with, that I learned. Coming to college has led me to realize what is actually relevant, and I can drop those old ideals and gain new ones.”
Purpose
“My purpose, honestly, is to be the best person I can be.”
THE SMART ONE
“My older sister was the smart one, I was the one with the big heart that cared, and my little sister she was the pretty one. And we were all categorized into these little places and so I always did horrible in school, because I wasn’t the smart one, so I didn’t have to.”