My parents abandoned almost every aspect of their upbringings when they came to the United States. They refrained from speaking about their lives in Poland or their choice to relocate to the United States. I learned over time that they left as high school sweethearts with no knowledge of the English language, but it was not until later that I discovered they were here illegally for twenty-five years. After applying for their green cards numerous times, my parents were hopeful that using my oldest sister as a sponsor would be their golden ticket to legal residency. While my mother’s application was accepted, my father received an order for his deportation. My mother and three older siblings testified on his behalf while I stayed at home, unable to contribute because I was considered a minor at the time as a sixteen year old. Although I am a child of immigrants, the only knowledge I had about immigration court was from a single episode of Law and Order: SVU in which Detective Tutuola makes a phone call to the Center of Immigrant Services. Months of investigation into my family’s finances, hospital records, and academic transcripts later, my father’s appeal was officially granted. While my family rejoiced, I felt completely disillusioned. I always imagined my own professional path leading towards immigrant advocacy in some way. As I watched the pain this process put my family through, my mother sobbing after yet another unsuccessful interview with her immigration lawyer, I questioned whether there was a point in trying to do so. This doubt led me to fill out the required documentation to drop out of college after my first year. This decision was not only brought about by my own insecurities, but by the responsibility I felt to care for my mother. A week before I returned home for the summer, she uncovered a photograph of my father and an unknown woman kissing on a kayak. She soon learned that his affair had been going on for six years, including when she had been advocating for him to remain in this country. I spent that summer picking up the broken pieces of my mother and working graveyard shifts at a toy store to pay rent. Despite the guilt that plagued me, I chose to return to my campus in the fall. In December of 2019, my parents officially got divorced, but my father convinced my mother to avoid hiring a lawyer. She was later informed that she could have received financial compensation if she had sought legal advice. She would have never asked me to transfer a portion of my biweekly checks to her bank account for groceries. She would have never been homeless for a year. My mother was not given options, and I am well aware that she is among the many immigrant women who never knew they had options to begin with. I had the privilege of meeting women similar to my mother through a volunteer opportunity at my university that connected me with the immigrant community in Atlanta, many of whom were trapped in broken marriages for decades after fleeing their native countries. I assisted them with filing for divorce in a system they were unfamiliar with and I spoke to refugee children who confided in me during tutoring sessions, whispering stories about their chaotic lives at home that made it impossible for them to complete homework assignments. Over time, I developed deeper connections with children who were ten years younger than me and women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I had become acquainted with during college. My decision to pursue a career in legal advocacy in part stems from a desire to help immigrant women like my mother, like the women I communicated with, who are statistically more at risk of entering domestically abusive relationships compared to second or third-generation women in the United States. While I may not be able to transform the entire system of immigration in this country, I can use my experience as a child of divorce and as a child of immigrants to became a legal advocate that not only fights for immigrant rights, but who understand the complexities of the dynamics within immigrant families. There are undeniably traumatic elements that come with being a first-generation child of immigrants. I navigated myriad avenues by myself because the concept of college seemed even more foreign to my immigrant parents than the idea of fluorescent slurpees at a gas station once did. However, it is through these struggles that I discovered the ways I can use my identity to assist families like my own. My relationship with my identity is still developing, and I hope to continue exploring that transformation during the next step of my professional journey.

Without a basic level of health and wellness, we cannot achieve our aspirations. It is by prioritizing a healthy lifestyle that I not only discovered the strength to pursue my passions, but saved my own life in the process. As a woman who survived a sexual assault at the young age of six, I carried around my symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder for years before finally getting a therapist. Unfortunately, my state only had a handful of therapists covered by Medicaid, and most of them were unwilling to work with someone my age. I found one woman who finally agreed, but it was not a right fit. On my first day there, after I explained my history with anxiety, she handed me a packet with the headline, “When Fears are Bogus, Just Refocus!” According to the copyright date, the packet was originally published in 1988. Thus, I gave up on therapy, which led to the harsh realization that our physical health will often deteriorate as a result of neglecting our mental health. My trauma continued to manifest in different forms as I got older, finally culminating into a crippling case of anorexia nervosa during that junior year. I was placed into involuntary treatment, which meant I stayed at an eating disorder unit for almost a month. Most of my sixteen-year old peers were learning how to drive and enjoying their youth while I was being force-fed by a tube. It was then that I realized I had to commit to getting better. As I was living in a family of six with only one working guardian, including two immigrant parents who could not even pronounce the phrase "eating disorder," I would have to do this on my own. Despite missing school for almost a month (right before AP exams, too), I graduated as the valedictorian of my high school class and I received a full ride to a prestigious university. My life did not get easier simply because I learned the value of my health. After my first year of college, my mother found out about my father's six-year long affair. In December of 2019, my parents officially got divorced, but my father convinced my mother to avoid hiring a lawyer. My mother ended up homeless for a year, as she did not receive any financial compensation for his abuse due to not taking legal action. This was an incredibly stressful period in my life, only to be followed three months later by the beginning of a pandemic. Still, I kept choosing to invest in my health. I found therapists online, I volunteered virtually because I knew it was essential for my mental health to stay connected to my community, and I prioritized my eating disorder recovery every step of the way. I could not and would not give up on myself. Through volunteering, I had the privilege of assisted immigrant and refugee women with filing for divorce in a system they were unfamiliar with and I spoke to refugee children who confided in me during tutoring sessions, whispering stories of their chaotic households that made it impossible for them to complete homework assignments. Over time, I developed deeper connections with children who were ten years younger than me and women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I had become acquainted with during college. I felt seen, understood, honored to hear their stories and share mine in return. This opportunity, one that shaped my decision to apply to law school myself to assist families like the one I volunteered with, was one I never would have explored if I had not invested in my health. A healthy lifestyle to me involves more than committing to eating disorder recovery and more than weekly talk-therapy sessions, even if those are essential for my personal conceptualization of what it means to be "healthy." Uncovering the multifaceted nature of health, what health really entails - emotional health, social health, spiritual health - allowed me to understand the importance of community in the model of health. It is the immigrant community I volunteered with that encouraged me to continue on my journey to discovering my healthiest, most authentic self. In a lot of ways, it would have been easier if I had stayed complacent, if I had let my trauma swallow me whole. Instead, I will continue to break down the barriers that come my way and invest in myself by furthering my education in law school. That is why a healthy lifestyle is important to me, because it will allow me to fight for both myself and for my community.

Pursuing higher education in law school will allow me to connect my identity to my purpose. I plan on using my experiences to approach family law through an intersectional lens, uncovering the relationships between immigration law and family law to better advocate for immigrant families and families of abuse, such as the one that I grew up in. My father was not often physically abusive, though he occasionally hurled an empty beer bottle across the living room in our condominium, in our apartment, in his coworker’s basement where we lived after he declared bankruptcy for the fourth time. Typically, his abuse consisted of screaming at my mother and leaving for weeks without explanation despite being our family’s only source of income. It was not until my mother found out about his six-year long affair, uncovering a photograph of him kissing a stranger on a kayak after my first year of college, that she finally had the courage to leave him. In December of 2019, my parents officially got divorced, but my father convinced my mother to avoid hiring a lawyer. She was later informed that she could have received financial compensation for his years of abuse if she had sought legal advice. She would have never been homeless for a year, brushing her teeth in the bathrooms of grocery stores. My mother was not given options, and I am well aware that she is among the many immigrant women who never knew they had options to begin with. I had the privilege of meeting women similar to my mother through a volunteer organization at my university that connected me with the immigrant community in Atlanta, many of whom were trapped in broken, abusive marriages for decades after fleeing their native countries. On my very first day as a volunteer, I was sent on an impromptu task to a stranger’s home. She greeted me with two babies balancing in between her arms as three toddlers raced behind her. The volunteer organization gave her a rental laptop to complete online modules about coping with divorce. As I navigated the modules with her, she slowly began to open up about her experiences as both a refugee and as a woman stuck in an abusive marriage. Over time, as I assisted more immigrant women with filing for divorce, I developed deeper connections with women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I had become acquainted with during college. My decision to explore a career in legal advocacy in part stems from a desire to help immigrant women like my mother, like the women I communicated with, who are statistically more at risk of entering domestically abusive relationships compared to second or third-generation women in the United States. However, my professional journey is not only about them. It is about children like me, who are finally understanding how to heal from their traumatic upbringings. I am well aware that, as a single individual, I cannot completely change the legal field on my own. However, I know that by approaching the law in a way that attempts to embrace and understand the intricacies of identity and marginality, I can create a pathway for fellow professionals to adopt similar strategies. Legal advocates in the field of family law need to be willing to play with the law, to uncover its layers and see how it can in fact be used to promote intersectional protections. I hope to provide a voice for those families who have yet to be heard by furthering my education in law school.

During my junior year of high school, I learned that nothing is more important than your mental health. Without it, we cannot achieve our aspirations or even imagine them, as our physical health will often deteriorate as a result of neglecting our mental health. As a woman who survived a sexual assault at the young age of six, I carried around my symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder for years before finally getting a therapist. Unfortunately, my state only had a handful of therapists covered by Medicaid, and most of them were unwilling to work with someone my age. I found one woman who finally agreed, but it was not a right fit. On my first day there, after I explained my history with anxiety, she handed me a packet with the headline, “When Fears are Bogus, Just Refocus!” According to the copyright date, the packet was originally published in 1988. My trauma continued to manifest in different forms as I got older, finally culminating into a crippling case of anorexia nervosa during that junior year. I was placed into involuntary treatment, which meant I stayed at an eating disorder unit for almost a month. Most of my sixteen-year old peers were learning how to drive and enjoying their youth while I was being force-fed by a tube. It was then that I realized I had to commit to getting better. As I was living in a family of six with only one working guardian, including two immigrant parents who could not even pronounce the phrase "eating disorder," I would have to do this on my own. Despite missing school for almost a month (right before AP exams, too), I graduated as the valedictorian of my high school class and I received a full ride to a prestigious university. My life did not get easier simply because I learned the value of mental health. After my first year of college, my mother found out about my father's six-year long affair. I spent my summer mornings cleaning up empty pill bottles that were scattered around the apartment, my brother’s drug addiction getting worse by the day, so that my mother would not stumble over them on her daily walks to the liquor cabinet. I contemplated quitting school to care for her full time, but chose to return to my campus in the fall. In December of 2019, my parents officially got divorced, but my father convinced my mother to avoid hiring a lawyer. My mother ended up homeless for a year, as she did not receive any financial compensation for his abuse due to not taking legal action. This was an incredibly stressful period in my life, only to be followed three months later by the beginning of a pandemic. Still, I kept choosing to invest in my mental health. I found therapists online, I volunteered virtually because I knew it was essential for my mental health to stay connected to my community, and I prioritized my eating disorder recovery every step of the way. I could not and would not give up on myself. Through volunteering, I had the privilege of meeting women similar to my mother through a volunteer organization at my university that connected me with the immigrant community in Atlanta, many of whom were trapped in broken, abusive marriages for decades after fleeing their native countries. On my first trip of the semester, I was sent on an impromptu task to a stranger’s home. She greeted me with two babies balancing in between her arms as three toddlers raced in circles behind her. The volunteer organization gave her a rental laptop (which she did not know how to operate) to complete online modules about coping with divorce. As I navigated the modules with her and explained what each prompt was conveying, she slowly opened up about her experiences as both a refugee and as a woman in an abusive marriage. I later assisted more women with filing for divorce in a system they were unfamiliar with and I spoke to refugee children who confided in me during tutoring sessions, whispering stories of their chaotic households that made it impossible for them to complete homework assignments. Over time, I developed deeper connections with children who were ten years younger than me and women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I had become acquainted with during college. I felt seen, understood, honored to hear their stories and share mine in return. This opportunity, one that shaped my decision to apply to law school myself to assist families like the one I volunteered with, was one I never would have explored if I had not invested in my mental health. My decision to pursue a career in legal advocacy in part stems from a desire to help immigrant women like my mother, like the women I communicated with through volunteering, who are statistically more at risk of entering domestically abusive relationships compared to second or third-generation women in the United States. However, my professional journey is not only about them. It is about children like me, who are finally understanding how to heal from their traumatic upbringings. In a lot of ways, it would have been easier if I had stayed complacent, if I had let my trauma overwhelm me and swallow me whole. Instead, I will continue to break down the barriers and invest in myself by continuing my education. I believe I can use my experiences as a first-generation, low-income child of immigrants to assist other marginalized communities, and I hope to provide a voice for those families who have yet to be heard by furthering my education in law school.

The law is a magnificent tool, but I have seen both in my personal and professional life that it often fails to protect our most vulnerable families and communities. This problem is not unique to the United States, but is apparent in legal systems around the globe. The law is meant to uplift the disadvantaged, yet it typically is manipulated to protect the privileged and maintain the status quo. Thus, the change I want to see is seemingly broad: I wish for the field of legal advocacy transform through the adoption of an intersectional, queer approach to law. With this change, I believe we can encourage greater support for those who are underserved. This wish aligns with my own goals as an incoming law student at the University of California - School of Law, but it is about more than that. It is about me as a daughter of an immigrant woman trapped in an abusive marriage for decades. My father was not often physically abusive, though he occasionally hurled an empty beer bottle across the living room in our condominium, in our apartment, in his coworker’s basement where we lived after he declared bankruptcy for the fourth time. Typically, his abuse consisted of screaming at my mother and leaving for weeks despite being our family’s only source of income. It was not until my mother found out about his six-year affair that she finally had the courage to leave him. In December of 2019, my parents officially got divorced, but my father convinced my mother to avoid hiring a lawyer. She was later informed that she could have received financial compensation for his years of abuse if she had sought legal advice. She would have never been homeless for a year, brushing her teeth in the bathrooms of grocery stores. My mother was not given options, and I am well aware that she is among the many immigrant women who never knew they had options to begin with. It is about the women I volunteered with. I had the privilege of meeting women similar to my mother through a volunteer organization at my university that connected me with the immigrant community in Atlanta, many of whom were trapped in broken, abusive marriages for decades after fleeing their native countries. On my very first day as a volunteer, I was sent on an impromptu task to a stranger’s home. She greeted me with two babies balancing in between her arms as three toddlers raced behind her. The volunteer organization gave her a rental laptop to complete online modules about coping with divorce. As I navigated the modules and attempted to explain what each prompt was conveying she slowly began to open up about her experiences as both a refugee and as a woman stuck in an abusive marriage. I heard her stories of how the legal system, both in the United States and abroad, failed her repeatedly. I am aware that, as an individual, I cannot completely change the legal field on my own. However, by approaching the law in a way that attempts to embrace and understand the intricacies of identity and marginality, we can create a pathway for fellow professionals to adopt similar strategies. Legal advocates need to be willing to play with the law, to uncover its layers and see how it can be used to promote intersectional, queer protections. I hope to initiate the change I wish to see by furthering my education in law school, and I believe others prospective lawyers, as well as those already in the field, can pursue this change as well.

Three or four years ago, if someone asked me what “taking up space” meant to me, I would grimace. For most of my life, this phrase held a negative connotation, one that took me years to unpack. My parents abandoned almost every aspect of their upbringings when they came to the United States from Poland in their twenties, but they clung onto one idea that continues to pervade their home nation: the belief that non-heteronormative people are inferior. My grandmother passed that belief down to my father, who then passed it to my mother, who then passed it onto me. When I found myself attracted to girls, I learned that the only way to ensure no one found out the truth, to survive, was to take up as little space as possible. This desire to become smaller led me to starve myself for eight years until I was eventually admitted into an eating disorder unit during high school for a case of anorexia nervosa. Once I finally went to college, body dysmorphia mixed with a splash of gender dysphoria created the cocktail from my parents’ worst nightmares. I was plagued with an overwhelming sense of shame that followed me into every space I entered. This shame led me to fill out the required documentation to drop out of college after my first year, but I ultimately decided to return with the expectation that I would not go back to school after finishing a third and final semester. I threw myself into the advocacy work that I wanted to explore during my first year, but felt too consumed by my insecurities to fully pursue. I volunteered with an organization that works with the immigrant community in the greater Atlanta area. On my first trip of the semester, I was sent on an impromptu task to a stranger’s home. She greeted me with two babies balancing in between her arms as three toddlers raced behind her. The volunteer organization gave her a rental laptop to complete online modules about coping with divorce. As I navigated the modules with her and explained what each prompt was conveying, she slowly opened up about her experiences as both a refugee and as a woman in an abusive marriage. While assisting her and others with filing for divorce in a system they were unfamiliar with, I developed deeper connections with women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I became acquainted with in college. Volunteering with these women who had lost everything and still showed up authentically, sharing their raw stories with me even when it was painful, encouraged me to begin taking up space myself. This was not an overnight change; two years of intense therapy helped me discover my genuine voice. Now, I take up space by continuing to pursue my education despite the mental and physical obstacles I faced. Thus, I will be attending law school this fall to devote my life to assisting women like the ones I worked with. I no longer feel consumed by my eating disorder, but have been in recovery for over two years. I no longer shield my sexuality, but instead march in the streets every June to showcase my pride. I was raised to feel as if that there was not enough space to express my identities, that I had to shrink myself down to a palatable size. Instead, I will consume every room I enter by blooming into a legal advocate that can represent the communities that inspired my journey of growth.

While I was conducting my Honors thesis at Emory University about politicized homophobia in Poland, I discovered a small footnote in a journal about Zofia Kuratowska, who was elected as the Deputy Marshal of the Senate of Poland in 1993. For some reason, I felt particularly drawn to her and, after learning a bit about her story, she has become both an admirable historical figure and a role model in my eyes. As a Polish queer woman myself, I have first-hand experience of the discrimination that queer people face in Poland. Visiting the country for the first time during my senior year of high school, I found anti-LGBTQIA+ signage all over the small village where my parents grew up. Thus, I have the utmost respect towards Kuratowska, who not only showcased her lesbian identity proudly, but served as a leader of the queer community during a time in which queer people in Poland faced intense violence. She won awards for her activism, including the Tęczowe Laury (which translates to "Rainbow Laurels") award. Her work solidified my decision to devote my thesis to the Polish queer community. In addition, Zofia Kuratowska understood that homophobia and heteronormativity do not exist in a vacuum, but are part of larger institutions of power that marginalized vulnerable communities. Thus, she was heavily involved in exposing the corruption of prison systems, publishing underground magazines to highlight the mistreatment of political prisoners while navigating the political sphere herself. She used her own expertise as a practicing doctor to offer medical assistance to incarcerated people. I hope to do similar work in my own prospective field, law, by working with immigrant families and investigating the intersections between family law and immigration law. Zofia Kuratowska's fight continues, and I hope to keep her legacy alive through my own activism.

I believe a practical solution for helping more people who struggle with mental health is to encourage educated discussions about mental health inside our classrooms. While mental health issues do not discriminate based on age, there is clear evidence (for example, in studies published by the National Institute of Mental Health) that, in the United States, a higher percentage of young adults between the ages of 18 to 25 are being affected by mental health issues compared to any other age group. We have an opportunity to address these issues in our academic institutions, especially in high school classrooms before young teenagers enter this age group. As someone who has personally benefited from talk therapy, I know that understanding the biological reasons behind generalized anxiety disorder, depressive episodes, trauma responses was extremely helpful in my own journey to bettering my mental health. Thus, I believe the physiological and psychological impacts of mental health disorders and conditions should be taught in classrooms. This could be as simple as teaching the ways in which the parasympathetic versus the sympathetic nervous systems respond to trauma in biology courses. Understanding the causes and effects of mental health disorders on a biological level will allow teenagers to see that their struggles are not their fault, and thus will be more likely to openly discuss their mental health both inside of the classroom and beyond it. By increasing discussions about it, we reduce the stigma and thus improve the chances of people who are struggling to seek help. Of course, these discussions must continue in other environments, including universities and the work force. However, by creating a space for young people to learn and discuss mental health, we can provide opportunities for them to seek help sooner rather than later.

Often in classes, I have been the only person to choose a notebook over a laptop to take notes. This is not only because I fear the potential distractions that could arise from having access to iMessages or Amazon during a lecture, but because I know that I need to physically be writing down information in order to process it. My notes are always color-coordinated with highlighters: main topics are highlighted in orange, important names are highlighted in purple, dates are highlighted in green, key terms are highlighted in blue, and any words or phrases that the professor uses during lecture that I do not know are highlighted in yellow so I can easily look them up later. When it comes time to prepare for an upcoming exam, I continue with color-coding by using multicolored flashcards. The system I use for flashcards mirrors that of the highlighters: orange flashcards are for main ideas, green flashcards are for important dates, purple flashcards are for important people, and so on. I typically craft these flashcards throughout the semester so I do not have to go through all of my notes at once. I will begin reviewing about two weeks before an exam, devoting about five to six hours to separating the cards into piles: information that I am confident I know, information that I kind of know, and information that I honestly believe was never discussed during lecture nor in the textbook because it seems so foreign. During those two weeks, I make sure that all of the cards eventually make it into the pile of information that I am confident about. This strategy has worked for me thus far, as I recently graduated Summa Cum Laude from my university and will be attending law school in the fall.

If provided with $1,000 right now, I would immediately save it to use when it is time for me to pay for my law school tuition in late August. I will be attending the University of California - Los Angeles School of Law beginning in Fall 2022 in hopes of being a family lawyer. I plan on using my experiences as both a child of immigrants and a child of divorce to approach family law through an intersectional lens. With this intersectional lens, I hope to uncover the relationships between immigration law and family law to better advocate for immigrant families and families of abuse, such as the one that I grew up in. I am well aware that, as a single individual, I cannot completely change the legal field on my own. However, I know that by approaching the law in a way that attempts to embrace and understand the intricacies of identity and marginality, I can create a pathway for fellow professionals to adopt similar strategies. Legal advocates in the field of family law need to be willing to play with the law, to uncover its layers and see how it can in fact be used to promote intersectional protections. My undergraduate career was entirely funded through generous scholarships, such as this one, and my own income through my work-study job and my side job as a ghost writer. I hope that through these same sources, as well as through loans, I can finance my law school career.

My favorite book is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid because of its beautiful, raw display of sexuality and relationships. As a bisexual woman, I often search for media that accurately displays my experiences only to find movies and television shows that describe, typically, the journeys of gay men. In a country where sexuality and gender identity are being increasingly policed, it is more important than ever to have access to literature that young, queer people can relate to. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one, if not the only, book I have read that accurately portrays the experiences of bisexual women. Reid's interpretation of love, of the ways in which deep love can be present even in non-romantic relationships, opens the eyes and hearts of the audience. She shows that love can simultaneously be incredible and reckless. By revealing the ways in which her characters experience love, she paints her protagonists as realistic people, people who have flaws, who have done horrific things, and yet who still deserve to be deeply and completely loved. As she reflects on the experience of dancing the line between life and death, Reid illustrates how people are not simply "good" or "bad," but that they are so much more dynamic than that. A few months ago, I would have told everyone that my favorite book was Dracula by Bram Stoker. I would have went on and on about how it is underrated and too often overshadowed by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. However, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo completely changed my perspective on the impact that a queer book can have on a young mind. It is an essential read for any queer person who is exploring their relationship to love and, most importantly, their relationship to themselves.

During my undergraduate career, I volunteered through an organization at my university that connected me with the immigrant community in Atlanta. Many of these immigrants were refugees whom were trapped in broken, abusive marriages for decades after fleeing their native countries. On my first trip of the semester, I was sent on an impromptu task to a stranger’s home. She greeted me with two babies balancing in between her arms as three toddlers raced in circles behind her. The volunteer organization gave her a rental laptop (which she did not know how to operate) to complete online modules about coping with divorce. As I navigated the modules with her and explained what each prompt was conveying, she slowly opened up about her experiences as both a refugee and as a woman in an abusive marriage. I later assisted many women with filing for divorce in a system they were unfamiliar with and I spoke to refugee children who confided in me during tutoring sessions, whispering stories of their chaotic households that made it impossible for them to complete homework assignments. Over time, I developed deeper connections with children who were ten years younger than me and women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I had become acquainted with during college. I felt seen, understood, honored to hear their stories and share mine in return. Not only did I impact the lives of these individual women and children, but I continued to expand the volunteer organization's outreach to ensure that more members of our community had the resources they needed. After completing my legal degree, I hope to practice in immigrant communities similar to those I volunteered in, those I grew up in, assisting immigrant families in their hardships.

The most important personal finance lesson I have learned over the years is not one I can say I heard during any budgeting talk at my university, hosted by a fancy economist who attempts to convince the audience to start using a money-saving app or invest in real estate. As someone who grew up in a low-income household, I was always taught to pay close attention to every penny wasted, to never indulge in that six dollar cup of coffee or that pair of jeans (unless they were fifty-percent off). However, while I do believe in the value of saving and being financially literate, I found that the biggest personal finance lesson is to allow yourself the little pleasures in life when you really want them, even if they're not in your budget. During my first year of college, if I had a difficult day of classes and all I wanted was to go out to dinner with my friends, I refused to indulge this desire. Instead, I isolated myself, looking at my budget and determining that I could supposedly not afford to do so until my next work-study paycheck came. This led me to feel not only completely burned out by the end of the semester, but even more lonely than I did when I first moved seventeen hours away from home. It is essential to be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to maybe spend an extra ten dollars if it means having an experience with your closest friends. If that large chai tea latte is everything you need right in this moment, but you did not budget for that, buy it anyway. Let yourself enjoy the little pleasures that life gives every once in a while.

During my first year as a college student, I had the opportunity to volunteer with the greater immigrant community in Atlanta on an intimate level through an organization run by my university. Through this group, I helped young immigrant women file to divorce their abusive husbands in a system they are unfamiliar with and tutored students at academies that cater to the needs of refugees. Over time, I developed deeper connections with children who were ten years younger than me and women who were ten years older than me than with anyone I became acquainted with in college. However, there was one bond I formed during my second semester that stands out among the rest. At the beginning of my journey with this volunteer organization, I was matched with an academic institution dedicated to educating refugees from grades six to twelve. Many of these students suffered immensely to complete their journeys to the United States and the volunteers were instructed to not interrogate the students in any way about their past. On my first day of the new semester, I was approached by a young man who requested my assistance with crafting his college essay. He was initially hesitant to reveal his writing, as he was insecure about his grammatical errors and the content of his piece. Yet, he expressed that he felt strangely connected to me and was willing to trust my judgment. I learned the incredible story of a young boy fleeing from political turmoil with nothing but his two parents. They hid illegally in buses, crammed between dozens of other families. He touched upon the development of his parents' alcoholism after they arrived to the states, an experience that I knew far too well. It was difficult for us to negotiate on the six-hundred and fifty word limit because every detail felt precious. Eventually, we completed the essay together and I watched as he timidly submitted it for his applications. I continued to tutor there every week and he would often approach me to initiate conversation even when I was not assigned to work with him. He updated me on his life, discussing every college acceptance letter and even the rejection letters he received. He started the semester as a seemingly introverted boy, but he is now confident enough to assist fellow students with their writing and reading using the few skills I taught him. I often hear him repeat phrases I originally spoke, teaching the children in the grades below him the difference between “there, a place” and “their, referring to the possessive.” The instruction I provided has encouraged him to spread knowledge among others, creating a more collaborative environment in general for the student body. Of course, it is him who is helping, him who is teaching, but it is my influence and leadership that ignited a spark within him to do so. By watching the confidence he gained, I developed my own sense of confidence in myself as a leader and an academic.

Instagram: @aniakorpanty Twitter: @aniakorpanty Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ania-korpanty-a56803185/ I am proud to be a queer person because the LGBTQIA+ community has always allowed me to express myself in a fluid way. When I am questioning where I lay on the gender and sexuality spectrum, the community continues to embrace me. The overwhelming support I receive from my fellow queer people, whether it is strangers online or students at my university, is what makes me proud.

My parents abandoned every aspect of their upbringings when they came to the United States from Poland in their twenties, from the religion they practiced at their Catholic church to the kielbasa they ate during dinner. As a result, my family’s morning routine included meditating with my father, who encouraged me and my three older siblings to stop consuming all animal products by the age of seven. I believed my parents were helping us by avoiding the practices that they felt constrained them during their youth. Although they tried to rid themselves of their Polish background, they clung onto one idea that continues to pervade their home nation: the belief that non-heteronormative people are inferior. My grandmother passed the trait down to my father, who then passed it to my mother, who then passed it onto me. When I found myself attracted to girls and secretly searching through my brother’s closet for clothes, I felt as if I was tainted. I knew we could not afford traditional conversion therapy, so when I was nine years old, I used a computer in our town’s library to locate free videos that could “turn me straight.” I learned that the only way to ensure no one found out the truth, to survive, was to take up as little space as possible. This desire to become smaller led me to starve myself for eight years until I was eventually admitted into an in-patient eating disorder unit during my junior year of high school. I hated myself for being trapped inside this body, a body that was simultaneously too skinny yet too fat. Once I finally went to college, body dysmorphia mixed with a splash of gender dysmorphia created the cocktail from my parents’ worst nightmares. I was plagued with an overwhelming sense of shame that followed me everywhere I went. Cisgender men dominated my Political Science courses, young adults who were entering the political field because their fathers were Congressmen or who were entering the legal field because their brother was a corporate lawyer. I felt like an outsider in spaces designated for queer people to feel safe at my university because I was too embarrassed of my sexuality to express it proudly. My wardrobe was almost exclusively oversized sweatshirts and grey sweatpants because I felt uncomfortable dressing both femininely or masculinely. Less than three percent of lawyers identify as members of the queer community. The underrepresentation of LGBTQIA+ people as professionals in the legal field contributes to this community's inability to succeed when members attempt to bring their cases into the legal system. I was raised to feel as if that there was not enough space in my environment to express my queer identity, that I had to shrink myself down to a palatable size. Instead, I will consume every room I enter by blooming into a legal advocate that can represent my marginalized community. And I will proudly switch a pencil skirt for my suit and tie to do so.