Up until this past semester, I would consider myself one of those people who “doesn’t get too involved with politics.” This past fall I got my first taste of what it’s like to be a journalist. All of my assignments revolved around the 2024 Presidential election. I kept my nose in the media to ensure I understood the national coverage, I became civically engaged to understand the local level and I had more tough conversations than I could have predicted. For the first time in my academic career and young adult life as well, I felt challenged, shocked, and inspired. This year my entire world view changed. As a third year communication and journalism major, this semester was a true test of passion. I have been able to see the good, bad and the ugly sides of being a journalist. This is an industry where passion can make or break your career. I learned methods of research, the importance of detail and just how big of an impact journalism has on how we as people see the world. Through the use of language, imagery, and colorful storytelling, journalists have the power to tell stories that can bring focus to what’s going on in the world. Historically there is a clear pattern of skewed narratives and one sided stories. I find it to be detrimental to marginalized groups to have someone telling stories on their behalf. This election taught me that voice matters, when ensuring your community is heard. I would consider myself a high confidence communicator and with help of formal education and my time spent at a minority serving institution, I have been able to experience the privileges that come with being confident in your own story. I have had my eyes opened to the importance of having someone with the community's best interest, controlling the narrative. In the future I plan to use my degrees to highlight positive initiatives that intend to progress the quality of living and education in black and brown communities in the United States. I believe it is part of my purpose to shake tables, ask questions and inspire my generation to use our voice and talents as we enter adulthood. As a black woman I strongly believe that the United States has done a great job at changing the story for convenience. It’s time that marginalized groups have some input. Graduating college and using skills I learn along will impact the care and consideration of black and brown stories. Using storytelling to inspire and move the communities I am a part of plays a huge role in my “why” and being able to have less financial burden would allow me room to focus without being in survival mode. As a low income independent student the greatest barrier between me and my academic success is the financial responsibilities I am solely responsible for. I need to have room to create freely and financial freedom would get me one step closer to my degree, making me one step closer to making a true impact on the black community. I proudly carry the weight of being the one to break generational curses in my family. As the oldest of eight children and proud first gen college student I know I have the natural leadership skills and drive to acquire my degrees. As the resilient daughter to a black American mother and Congolese immigrant father I have been instilled with strong community values, a nurturing spirit and deep love for my community. I am committed to further my education to further advance the future of black communities.

There are plenty of things in the world that make me happy but I've already written about them before. Education, family, and serving my community are all these that bring me joy but I am taking this opportunity to talk about something non-traditional. The thing that's makes me the happiest is knowing that my future kids will think I fought tooth and nail to get to where I am. I will be the ultimate superhero in their eyes for a couple of reasons: I lived through a pandemic, experienced Tuesday 2/22/22, went through many tough times in life, and still managed to make it out. I'm most excited to tell them I lived through a pandemic. I don't necessarily care if they see me as strong I more so want to exaggerate while they're young and make them think I was slaying dragons and vampires during the apocalypse. They will believe that I went through the worst and came out victorious. Living through Tuesday 2/22/22 I will describe it to them as a day full of luck and magic. I will use that day to show them where the abundance of hope and optimism I have for finishing school after my surgeries came from. I will tell about the homelessness, chronic illness, death, and the wide range of other challenges I faced throughout my life and use it to show them their Mom was strong and resilient. What makes me happy is being able to use my life experiences to teach my future kids that anything is possible. The possibility of being looked at like a real-life superman while also motivating my kids to push through adversity makes me happy and keeps me motivated.

Part of my stomach is in a bag. I spent the last two years struggling with a chronic illness. In my first year of college, I was in the process of being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I lost weight, lost my energy and drive, and eventually had to come home from school because things had gotten so bad. Day after day of watching myself wither away I thought my dream life was no longer possible. My immune system ended up attacking my intestines so badly that my stomach perforated and I had to have emergency surgery. After a day and a half of being out of it, I woke up to find that I had a colostomy. It's very rare for a nineteen-year-old to have a bag attached to her stomach covering her intestines that are now outside of her body. I found it humiliating I cried every day, I thought I would never recover and be able to be a normal member of society. I had given up all hope for a normal life. I spent 14 days in the hospital and never once did I think that things would start looking up for me. It has been three months since my surgery and with the love and support of my friends, family, and myself I have learned to love myself and appreciate the good. I have been able to work and have a social life like any other person in the world. I thought my stoma ended my life but it gave me the relief I needed. One of my favorite quotes says, "Don't downgrade your dreams to fit your reality upgrade your conviction to match your destiny" I am ready to go back to school and get back to working towards the life I want to live.

The amount of people who think the FBI is watching them because they see an Instagram ad for pop tarts after they googled it is crazy. Most people don’t know that the terms and services they agree to allow websites to track and basically eavesdrop via text messages, web searches, liked photos and pretty much anything digital. With that being said, I knew about all of that and still almost let Instagram ads and tik tok kill my love for clothes. Creating and crafting new clothes have always been a hobby of mine. From being 12 cutting winter jeans into summer shorts to 17 making senior overalls to 18 wanting to start my own line of graphic tees. The summer of 2020 I spent all my free time drawing designs and coming up with names and concepts for a brand that would represent me. I was excited. I got to college and took a break to focus on school but when I got back to it, I came ready. I researched and found out everything I needed to know to get into the graphic tee and small business world. After all my hard work that’s when the ads started rolling in. A boat load of tik toks of people promoting their own clothing companies, asking for ambassadors, showing their super dope designs. Instagram “sponsored ads” showing streetwear brands, my explore page filled with girls promoting clothing companies. I got real discouraged and real fast. I knew that I was only seeing it so much because the social media websites were trying to show me things I could relate to, but it didn't help. I let it eat me up inside: I led myself to believe the whole world was making clothes and mine would get lost in mix. For about two months I let my ideas and research collect dust. On my birthday, I made a shirt for birthday pictures and so many people asked where I got it from and complimented me. The shock and surprise they had when I told them I made it myself was the push I needed to get back into the groove. It was then that I realized I don’t like making clothes because of money but because it brings me joy. Knowing that I created something that no one else in the world has. Making and designing clothes has always been a stress reliever for me and it’s one of the few things I can do and lose track of time. Being a full-time student with a part time job is hard and spending my free time doing what I love has allowed me to keep it together and take a break from the world around me. For me, having a hobby is the best form of self care. Some people go to yoga some meditate, I design clothes.

1) I don’t deserve this scholarship, I’m just broke like the rest of the 99%ers in the world. Only difference is I had the bright idea to give up money I don’t have in hopes of making more. 2) I go to college in Las Vegas and half my family is praying I don’t drop out to become a show girl. At the moment my goals are to continue to pay money for school even tho exotic dancers make more money without a degree. 3) At my 8th grade field day I was the only person who could climb the knotless rope at the end of the obstacle course out of boys and girls and since then, I fear no man.

I was in middle school when I first began to tell people my dad got deported. Being black and not having my dad around meant the "where's your dad" jokes were a given. And when I told them my dad was deported back to African the you hunt lions and African booty scratches jokes rolled in. Despite being made fun of by the Latinos because I was African and not being accepted by the Africans because I look American was an interesting experience. I didn't struggle while my dad was here but I struggled when he left. My Dad came to America when he was 8. His country was going through a civil war and so him my grandpa and my uncles all came to America. When I was two years old he was deported back to Kinshasa, Congo. During those two years he was here with me I was the most spoiled child. I had all the toys my mom never had to work and best of all I got to be with my dad in person. I was only two at the time and I haven't seen him in person since. Having my dad be so out of reach has been one of the hardest things I've gone through. Phone calls to and from the US and Congo are very expensive so calls with my dad they were always short. Education has always been important to him, so I used it as my way of connecting with him. I was always a good student and child. I was always on honor roll, in dual enrollment while in high school, extra curriculars student body president, etc.. The more I was able to achieve through school the more connected I felt. It was and is my way of making my dad proud. He was so happy when I graduated high school and got accepted into all my top choice schools. But things took a turn when I got sick. I spent my first year of college struggling with a pandemic and then I was in the process of being diagnosed with Ulcerative colitis. I wanted so badly to follow the normal path of college straight out of high school, but I was not doing so good. I had no energy ever, everything made me sick, and I spent the year losing weight and getting sicker and sicker. During this time my dad and I's relationship took a significant hit. He was constantly worried about my health and things going on in his country restricted the amount of time we could talk. I got worse and worse health wise and ended up having to take this year off college and have an emergency surgery. I now have a stoma and colostomy bag attached to me 24/7 but I am ready to get back into the swing of life. I was my dad's only child for 17 years but now have a little brother. I want to go to school to learn French so I can build a relationship with my brother and be able to get a career that will allow for me to pay the right people to help my dad come back to America and for me to help my brother have a better life. I am determined as ever to be in control of my life and plan to do everything in my power to make it happen. I don't technically qualify because I barely got to experience my dad in America, but it was still hard and you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

A couple of months ago, I met my best friend Becky. On november 4, after about a year of struggling to get my ulcerative colitis under control I underwent emergency surgery because my stomach perforated. I didn’t know I was going into surgery so when I finally gained consciousness and they introduced me to Becky, I lost it. I cried almost everyday during my two week stay because no matter how badly I wished she wasn’t there she always was. I hated Becky she was uncontrollable, unpredictable, she was attached to me, and worst all she made loud fart noises no matter the time or the place. Becky is my stoma. It’s not everyday a nineteen year old wakes up to find out that shes had a colostomy and now has a stoma that outputs stool in a bag. Easily the hardest and most embarrassing thing I’ve ever had to overcome in my life. Everything about my ulcerative colitis has been a battle from dropping to 88lbs to having to take a year off school and work because I was in too much pain to function 99% of the time. I hated the life I was living; especially because in the 19 years of living it, my disease and how it would effect me was never in the cards. After my surgery I thought my life was over before it ever even had a chance to start. The surgery calmed my UC and allowed me to gain weight but the medicine I was taking made my face fat, my hair started thinning and I was immunocompromised in the middle of a pandemic, and I had a “poop bag” attached to my stomach. I couldn’t go back to school this year and the month that I couldn’t go back to work did nothing but hate myself and what my life had become, I lost all drive and hope for a happy future. It wasn’t until my Mom showed me a stoma cover that said “Sh*t Happens” that I realized I can’t like this bump in the road control the rest of my life. I started to track my weight gain after each doctors appointment. I began opening up to my closest friends about my stoma. I even was able to muster up the courage to actually show my family what my stoma looked like. When I showed my grandma, she took a deep breath her eyes got and she said, “hey Becky.” It made her feel squeamish but knowing she tried to hide it to make me feel comfortable made my heart melt. I read a blog written by a women with a stoma and she said giving hers a name made her feel more in control, so boom I named mine Becky. Finally, things started looking up. I took each challenge for what it was and worked through them one by one. I have now started to get back into the mindset I was in before I got sick. Having a chronic illness can take a huge tole on you. I am finally overcoming the struggles am in a space where I look at the positives of every situation. I have taken a new look on life and am working towards a future that I am in control of. I want to go back to school and get my degree, try new things,travel,even start a business. Before my diagnosis I was alive but now I have the desire to actually Live. I used to hate Becky but without her I might have settled for mediocrity.

As a graduate of the class of 2020 I take pride in the fact that after my Zoom graduation, I went on to attend Covid University. I want to say I in no way blame my teachers for the way things were. WIth that being said, as a student there is nothing more humbling than taking online courses taught by a professor born in Gen x. After being deemed gifted in elementary school I went to middle and developed a nasty habit called procrastination. I am a visual learner so, it was very easy for me to apply what I've learned to my work. From 6 grade up until 12 I gave myself just enough time to finish my assignments and get a good grade. And contrary to popular belief cramming right before a test actually helped me. I would miss smaller assignments to do other things because I knew that I would do good on the bigger assignments and tests. After failing half of my first semester classes freshman year of college, I realised my old ways of procrastinating wouldn’t work anymore. I cannot just sit and listen to someone talk at me; and definitely not through a screen. I had endless access to my bed,food, tv and sometimes a recording I could pause. After being put on academic probation, I changed my ways. I always study in rooms where I don’t have any distractions for maximum focus. I also physically mark key points while my professor is discussing them. And finally, I take notes on my readings so I can cater to my visual learning style; I look at them while my professor is discussing. I haven’t always been the best at studying but using these tools I took control over my education and now thrive.