Simon Strong Scholarship

Adversity is something no one is immune to. It happens to everyone sometime in life, no matter their race. According to zippia.com, a job listing site, only nine point six percent of people specializing in forensics are African Americans. I hope I can be part of adding more diverse ethnicities into my future profession. I grew up in a poor and severely abusive home where drugs and alcohol were a constant variable in my biological mother's life. My sister and I were forcibly removed from her care and transferred to a Mexican and then African American foster home for three years before being adopted. My older sisters and I were adopted, and my life varied dramatically for the better. My adopted mother and I spent hours bonding during my childhood while watching Dr. G and Forensic Files. I might have been uncertain about my plans after high school, but I was always confident that I wanted to make the world safer and inspire others to do the same. My mom has always had my back and encouraged me to pick a job I would be happy doing, something that would light the fires of my curiosity, and something I would not look back on later in life and be disappointed in my choice. For as long as I can remember, after being adopted, kids at school have made fun of me and called me "whitewashed" because I was polite and had manners. It doesn't bother me anymore, and I am proud of how I was raised. I know when I am in public, I can speak eloquently and present myself as the respectable young woman I am. I am ecstatic to apply for college, chase my dreams, make my parents proud, and fully commit to building and starting this new, exciting, mind-blowing, albeit slightly scary and nerve-wracking chapter of my life as an adult. No matter how hard life gets, I am ready to fight to achieve the life I deserve to live. Believing that I can help change the future, be a trailblazer, and influence others despite my rough start has kept me going even when I have doubts. Everyone should be able to rise above their pain to take control of their lives and not let it weigh them down, forging a new path for themselves despite it being challenging. Being born into a less-than-fortunate situation has made me determined to rise above and prove just because I am genetically more prone to becoming a drug addict due to my biological mother's heavy usage of drugs during her pregnancy doesn't mean I will go down the same dark path. I am in control of my life and will live it in a way that will make me truly, unconditionally happy; nothing and no one can stop you from becoming who you are fated to be.