Hello! My name is Breanna. I am a military dependent. My dad has just retired from the air force after a long time in the service! The military lifestyle is definitely hard, but it was definitely rewarding. The positive ways the military has effected my life personally was being able to travel, my favorite place was Germany! I think the military is a hard lifestyle to adjust to due to the fact of staying 4 years somewhere and then having to pick up and leave when it’s time to be stationed somewhere else, but with that being said. 85 allows you to meet very different and great people along the way. I think the lifestyle has also gave me more of a sense of independence as well. My dad was a single father when he was serving his country, and there were definitely times we’d have to stay at friends houses when he’d have deployments; that created a since of independence for myself. I think traveling did as well, especially having to learn how to communicate with some of the language barriers! I enjoyed the knowledge I got from learning how to thrive in new situations and learning how to adapt, I loved being able to get to see different parts of the world and how other people lived, I honestly wish I was older when we traveled, I was 15. I would definitely travel again given the opportunity because I think I would definitely appreciate it more, but I think it’s amazing that when my dad was in the service that I was lucky enough to experience such amazing things at such a early age. I feel as if there are a lot of positives about the military. I’m grateful that I was able to experience those awesome travels and the different types of food, and most importantly the independence that it gave me at a younger age, I feel as if that’s what definitely made me into a stronger person that’s refuses to give up. It’s all in your mindset and with the experiences I recieved, I’m definitely more then grateful for! The people I’ve met, the sports I’ve got to play over seas, and the food. All absolutely amazing, it was very awesome to get to see all of that diversity at a younger age (15). I really hope to be able to travel back to some of these places again soon! Maybe after I graduate school!

Hello! My names Breanna Pope. I'm choosing cosmetology. I'm twent-four years old with two awesome kiddos. I'm currently living in Oklahoma righ now attending Paul Mitchell's school of Norman. I decided to choose this trade to be able to display my creative side. I want to be able to restore people's confidence. I love the idea of building up people and sometimes it's as simple as a hair cut. I believe that you should treat people with kindness and in this trade I would be able to treat people with said kindness and restore the confidence they may be lacking, or help them achieve the goal they are wanting to achieve and have them leaving my chair feeling beautiful. You never know what kind of day somebodies having and maybe that's why they are wanting to come in to brighten that day up. I believe you should look the way you feel, and if your not having a great day dress the way you want your day to end up being. I really want to work on my creative side and give people a wonderful experience and share my knowledge with my clients and listen to what they want to speak on and learn their lives as well. I feel like as a student it's critical to learn how to be compassionate towards others to show you do care for them. It's all about the ten percent saddle changes that can make a huge impact on people and that's what I want to provide for my future guest. I want to be able to bring the light back into my future guest lives and rebuild something that could've been broken and restore the confidence, I want to build people up and continue to do so that way I'm still setting a prime example for my kids to show them that kindness is everything even when someone isn't able to display that kindness, you can choose to restore the kindness to them.

Hello! My name is Breanna Pope and I'm currently going back to school for cosmology. I am twenty-four years old and I am a single mother of two amazing children. I graduated high school in 2018 at Dulles High School with a GPA of 3.8 I believe. Dulles High School is located in Sugarland, Texas and is a very great school. I've played soccer a lot of my life. When I went to high school in Europe, I actually played for my high school team. I went to Afnorth international in the Netherlands. With that being said I was very lucky to be able to travel Europe. It was a beautiful experience at sixteen years old. I've played soccer since I was age five and have loved the sport ever since, when I was in Germany I actually got hurt and ripped the back of my knee up so I wasn't able to really pay the rest of the season which really devastated me. When I was healed enough to start playing soccer again it was time for my family to move back to the states. When we returned to the states I started high school again and I was going to school at Moore high school in Oklahoma.my senior year I had to drop out of high school and I moved at seventeen to Sugarland, Texas by myself and moved in to my grandparents house due to childhood trauma with my mother and it was no longer safe for me to be in her presence anymore. I didn't choose to give up. I reenrolled myself in high school and graduated the same year I dropped out, I was very very proud due to the fact my mother would always tell me I would never amount to anything and never graduate like herself. Instead of letting her discouraging words bring me down instead I decided to prove her wrong, and I'm very proud I did. I'm the first of my parent to graduate high school and go to college. I was givin a lot of opportunities to give up, but I refused. I've failed at a lot of things, but chose to continue to not give up and to do my best and now I have two awesome children, which leads me no choice to give up because they depend on my success. I believe that im showing my children that life may be difficult and sometimes we don't always get the best hand dealt in life but that you can still be the best you can be and that's why im continually working on my education so I can afford for my son to fall in love with a sport the way I did and both my kids will have the willpower and discipline to continue being strong and never giving up, success isn't easy, if it was everyone would be successful. Thank you for reading my essay. -Breanna Pope 12-02-2023

My best friend the award winning tattoo artist. As a single mother of two awesome kiddos she convinced me to go back to school. I was having such a hard time and she reassured me I could do this and that I have no choice but to do it due to the simple fact that my kiddos depend on me. She’s taught me how to really go for my dreams and to not give up after the first rejection, and after the second and third, she taught me to keep going for my dreams no matter how many times I’ve been rejected just to prove a point that I can do it, she’s in a make dominated field and she is CRUSHING IT! It’s not easy but she’s doing it and I truly look up to her. She’s definitely a Star. I’ve seen her bring other women’s spirits up on a daily, and I admire her dedication to work. She won’t give up and pushes me on a daily to keep going and to not give up. Life is hard, but it’s doable and the only way you can make it though is to keep pushing yourself, and having a good support group and bringing the positivity to other people and women. She’s a true inspiration and I hope to see more girls push through and get their education no matter of their situation. I grew up really hard and if I can go back to school with two kiddos and being a single mother then anybody can. How bad do you want it? Bad enough that I have a point to prove to the world and to build a bright future for my children! My children’s are my absolute world and I have a daughter too. I would hope another woman would build her up the way my best friend has helped and built me up. And she is a single mother as well. I hope my daughter has the strength to give other women strength and to build our empire together, the sky is the limit. Even if you miss the moon you land upon the stars, which is my favorite quote (I don’t know the author) and I will continue to tell my daughter and other girls and women that same thing because those words are so powerful. Thank you for this opportunity, I appreciate you taking the time to read what I wrote tonight and I hope you consider me as a winner.

I was a child of a single mother, along with being a single mother of two beautiful babies under 2! Being raised by a single mom with an addiction problem really motivated me to do everything I could to better myself and really try to be successful because I saw how hard she struggled, well then I became I single mother. When I became a mother my whole life changed. All of a sudden I need to do better, I need to set the bar higher for my kids. I strive to show them nothing is impossible with that being said I’m going back to school to get my degree in criminal justice to give my two children and i a better life. I want to set my children up for success unlike my mother did, although she did try! I strive to give my kids a better future because I don’t want them to ever have to struggle or go through what I had to go through alone. I also work full time to provide for my children and I work very very hard to make sure my kids won’t ever have to see there mother struggling even though I am. I never want my storm to rain on my kids. That’s why I’m pursuing a degree to give them better odds at achieving in life and giving them something to look forward too, my biggest goal is for my children to be better then me!

The battle of PTSD is, unfortunately, lifelong and there, of course, are several underlying causes. PTSD has been something my family has struggled with due to my father being in the military. While he was away on leave a lot of traumatic events happened in my life causing me to suffer from PTSD but I'm overcoming it one day at a time because he raised a fighter. I work full-time with at-risk youth helping them overcome their PTSD daily teaching them coping skills as my father has taught me. I know my father does deal with PTSD as well but he does not talk about it. Regardless of my outcome and struggles, I strive daily to help others learn coping skills to help decrease the panic attacks and constant flashbacks of the traumatic events that happened in their lives as I do with my own. I strive to help them overcome post-traumatic stress disorder because it is critical to their life and a lot of people don't realize that and that is why I'm trying to make that change.

Growing up in a military family was very bittersweet. My dad would leave several times throughout the year leaving us kids behind with my mother, then, of course, there were times were my sister and I would be able to go! Growing up with a single father in the military showed me how crazy the world truly is and I was lucky enough to get to also experience different cultures which were always exciting. My father was my mentor, role model, and my best friend. He always supported me with everything I wanted to do just as I supported him being in the air force. I constantly look up to that man for advice and structure which also the military provided. It wasn't always easy growing up as a "military brat" but i defiantly don't regret it.

Being the daughter of a man in the air force was defiantly difficult. There were so many times he was away from home for long periods, but it defiantly shaped me into the woman I am today. My favorite experience was when we moved to Germany and I went to high school in the Netherlands I loved getting to experience the different cultures for the year that I was there for. Growing up as a so-called "military brat" has shaped my future into wanting to go into a field that a lot of people have a hard time going into which is criminal justice. Currently, I work full-time in a DHS treatment center helping at-risk youth who don't have families to go home to so, therefore, I am their family. I relate to this because at times I felt like I had no family considering that my dad was a single father doing everything he could to support his daughters. As proud as my father made me it's defiantly my turn to make him proud by going to college and getting my degree. He had a very rewarding job and I would like to return the favor and do good for others as well.

Identical by Ellen Hopkins, identical changed my life in the best way, it shines a light on mental and physical abuse, when I read that book I related so much to it and then started working with at risk youth helping them couple through their traumas and helping them learn new life skills to help them carry through with life. The story relates to me because I’ve been through traumatic events in my life and I was able to over come, reading the book made me realize not everyone is as fortunate do so, so I’m taking the path to help others get through their pain to show them just how strong they really are and that they do have someone to talk too, daily reminding my doctors girls in the facility they aren’t alone.

Life is all about learning! You absolutely can not go through life and not learn anything! So why not take advantage of everyday knowledge and broaden that! Education is highly important I feel, not only is it healthy for your brain but it feels good to accomplish graduating school, and having the knowledge to get you through, they say “knowledge is power.” Well they aren’t wrong. Learning for me is probably alittle more personal to me then others only because I had struggled through out my highschool days working so hard for my diploma and now I’m 22 with two babies and a single mother, without being able to learn I wouldn’t be able to provide for my children. With that being said the more knowledge I’m able to give myself the more knowledge I’m able to give my children and pass it down! The more knowledge I gain, the better life we get to live. I plan to continue learning throughout my life to keep my mind strong and to be able to teach my children continuously! I would love to keep learning and working on my education to keep proving to myself that I can do this on my own and for my children as well! I feel that I need to keep proving to myself I can keep doing this and I want to be an inspiration to other single parents as well that they can keep working on their education too! With out knowledge and learning your never going to progress, and I want to be the woman that said I did and and will forever still learn so I can continue progressing in my life and give my children a mother they can be proud of! I would rather fail a million times and keep trying and keep learning over and over again until I can succeed in my education. I believe that having the power of education and knowledge is so important not only for myself, but for others around me and my children. I want my children to continue to constantly learn and what better example to show them then them watching their mother continually learning! I would like to continue to set the bar high for them and for them to always remember that knowledge really is a very powerful thing, and if you want greats knowledge that comes with great learning and I want to be their prime example for that!

Hello, my name is Breanna Pope. I’m pursuing my education in criminal justice, which definitely hasn’t been easy because I’m also a 22 year old single mother of two beautiful children as well as working full time! I want to further my education in this field for my children! I want to set the bar high for them when they are older. My goal is for them to see that a young single mother of two babies was able to figure out how to balance out work, school, and well of course the most important part being a mother! With all that being said it was never easy for me growing up, I was the first in my family to graduate highschool, I had to raise my two younger sisters along with trying to graduate and I was working a full time job in high school to pay our bills! I’m the first one to apply and be accepted into college which is a huge accomplishment for myself! I come from a low income family who constantly struggled with substance abuse so all the adulting was always put on me! Which is okay because I’m grateful for being raised the way I was! Growing up in a low income household at 16 paying my mothers bills and taking care of my sisters and managing to graduate was a huge accomplishment for me but now I’m a mother of two, and I’d like to further my education so my children won’t have to go through what I went through as a child. It’s challenging for me to go back to school because it takes time away from being a mother but that missed time is temporary! I struggle with sleep because I have a newborn and a 2 year old but no one ever said making a name for your self and getting an amazing opportunity at education was easy! I’m willing to struggle for my kiddos to have a great life! Im extremely motivated by my children. I want to set the bar high for my children, I want my children to be more successful then myself and better yet I want to be able to help them when they do struggle instead of being on their own like me, which motivates me even more to get my college degree! I also want me children to realize they aren’t alone and we will work through this together, since Im working so hard to do this by myself I would love the opportunity for them to not have to struggle the way I did to get my education! What motivates me the most is them seeing their mother not giving up, and seeing their mother do everything she absolutely can to provide for them and getting that degree to make our lives easier! I think it’s highly important that my children see that taking the easy route gets you no where but putting in the hard time and effort will get us somewhere! (Thank you for this opportunity)