Patrick Stanley Memorial Scholarship

At 33, I’m thrilled to be heading back to school. It took me years to figure out which path of higher education would synthesize my interests and skills, and I feel lucky to have found this master's program in Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. It ties together interests I’ve pursued and sets me up for my dream career in climate change adaptation. In my late teens and early twenties, I was on the traditional education path earning a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at Oberlin College. Although I got good grades, I was more interested in activism than school at the time. I led student environmental groups and volunteered for an organization fighting mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Post-college, I embarked on a 5-month backpacking trip along the Pacific Crest Trail. My dad had hiked it in the 1970s, and it had been a lifelong dream. This was followed by a series of odd jobs, including working as a bike courier through a polar vortex in Cleveland and as a builder on a straw-clay cottage. I continued doing environmental work but I grew disillusioned with the limited impact of my activism. In 2016, I turned my focus to direct humanitarian aid and began to work as a logistician with an organization called No More Deaths. The group’s mission is to reduce the deaths of people migrating across the Sonoran desert. While at that job, I took community college classes in auto mechanics to better manage the organization’s fleet of trucks, studied Spanish, and learned a lot about non-profit administration and finances on the fly. When COVID hit and my contract with No More Deaths ended, I decided to dip into my savings to build a tiny house trailer, another long-held dream. Despite the challenges of working alone during the pandemic, the project was deeply satisfying, and I have been living in the home I built since then. I went back to humanitarian aid logistics and when funding for my job ran out, I used my EMT license to work on movie sets doing first aid. Meanwhile, I was mulling over what was next in my life and eventually realized I could use an urban planning degree as a lens to study climate change adaptation. I had been interested in this since college but 12 years ago the field scarcely existed, and I hadn’t been able to figure out an entry point to the work. I see parallels between urban planning and humanitarian aid logistics, both involve the coordination of people, supplies, and resources. While planners focus on the future, their work too can have profound social impact. Both fields require the ability to navigate multiple systems at once and scale between macro and micro levels. Urban planning's role in mitigating and adapting to climate change excites me. Smart planning can anticipate climate pressures, prevent or mitigate disasters, and reduce forced migration. I am also interested in planning ahead to make urban centers more able to ethically accommodate influxes of people as the zones where it is hospitable to live shift at unprecedented rates. I intend to use my urban planning degree to synthesize the issues I have focused on in my life and career so far, in order to do meaningful, direct work in the future that addresses the intersection of climate change, disaster, and migration.

I am a non-traditional student for sure. I graduated from high school twenty years ago, in 2004. My high school grades were terrible, due to many factors which included an unstable home life, lack of support from extended family members, and a very basic dislike of learning. I enrolled in community college in the fall of 2004 but dropped my classes immediately. I reenrolled in spring of 2005 and after attending classes for most of the semester, I simply stopped attending classes. I just did not have a heart for learning at that time in my life. Fast forward 16 years. Spring 2021, my younger sister encouraged me to go back to school. For years I had a deep desire to earn a degree. However, I was afraid I wasn't smart enough. I thought I couldn't balance school while working and that I couldn't work on my education while I had young children who required a lot of me. Most of all, I was afraid that I would fail at college just like I had failed at high school. Once I got past my fears, I enrolled in my local community part-time where they told me it would take me a minimum of three and a half years to complete my general education classes. I had waited 16 years to go back to school, so for me, the time frame wasn't a deal breaker in any way. I've been attending community college for three years as of now, January 2024, and I am on track to finally make my deferred dream of a degree come true! Unlike my experience with high school, I have loved every moment of my college education. Since returning to school, I have given my all to every class and I am pleased to say that I have earned an "A" in each class, bringing out my .57 GPA from those 2005 classes to a 3.3! Until last semester, I took part-time classes in order to balance my school, work and home life. However, in May 2023 the company I was working for shut down. I decided that if I hadn't found a new job by the start of the spring semester, I would enroll in school full-time. I'm sorry to say I haven't been able to find work, one reason being that most employers want to see applicants with what I am lacking... a degree. With major sacrifices from my husband and my family, I am currently able to focus on my college education full-time. If I am able to continue taking full-time classes spring, summer, and fall semesters, I will finally achieve my associate degree at 38 years of age. My long-term goal is to continue my education until I achieve my end goal of a master's degree in English literature, even though I know that will take me years to finally earn it. My husband and my family are what motivates me to continue my education. I want to show my children that you are never too old to work towards your dreams, and I need a degree to enter into the career field once again, and financially contribute to my family.

“This is too much,” said many of the struggling students I taught essay writing to as a middle and high school teacher. Growing up and teaching in a crime-ridden neighborhood has always made me eager to want to fight for the rights of marginalized communities in some way. I just didn’t know which professional avenue to pursue. Therefore, after studying criminology in undergrad at American University in Washington, DC I spent the next 10 years off to figure that out. After a couple of years of using data to drive results, it finally came to me. From using data to improve student academic, behavioral and personal outcomes, to working in the nonprofit, government, and tech sectors, the 10-year gap continued to spark my interest in leveraging data. In particular, I wanted to use data as a means of social justice and to drive results for marginalized communities. Therefore, I decided to enroll in the University of California - Berkeley’s Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS) program. With a foundational understanding of data, the Master of Information and Data Science is helping me take my data skills to the next level to become a Data Scientist, Architect or Engineer. Becoming a data scientist, architect or engineer would be both personally and professionally enriching. On a personal level, there are few architects of color fighting for marginalized communities. Therefore, on a professional level, Berkeley’s MIDS program will allow me to improve my technical data skills in SQL, R and Python. Additionally, it will also help me learn how to use automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to build and maintain systems for storing and extracting data. In addition, I am slowly building a nonprofit and government consulting business that supports clients who use data and communications tactics to drive results for marginalized communities. I help them clean, manage, update, and analyze their data. I often choose to work with many smaller nonprofits and government entities that lack internal staff with technical data skills. Most clients also struggle to automate large amounts of data as well as create useful databases. Because I am building a business and would like to improve my business acumen, I also would like to pursue my Executive Master’s in Business Administration (EMBA) in the future. The quantitative skills obtained from Berkeley’s MIDS program combined with an EMBA will allow me to power the philanthropic data work smaller nonprofits and government entities do by building robust data systems. While at Berkeley’s MIDS program, I intend to work full-time as well. I am currently pursuing opportunities to combine my data skills and passion for criminal, juvenile and social justice. Simultaneously, I work on campus as a part-time Graduate Student Instructor (GSI). I help teach a course on the History of Information. The goal of the class is to help students become better critical thinkers and understand how information has developed throughout history. I attend lectures two nights a week, and then help facilitate student-led presentations and discussions every Friday morning. As a GSI, I use data like I did when I was a teacher to help measure my students’ outcomes in the course. Whenever I’m stressed or overwhelmed, I always hear my students’ voices saying, “this is too much.” But then I remember how support and guidance helped them remain tenacious in their hard work. Going back to school after 10 years is challenging. However, I believe Berkeley’s rigorous MIDS program will provide the skills and support I need to help my clients use data to advocate for communities that often cannot speak for themselves.