I'm taking a look at my financial aid for next year. It looks like I will not receive anything for my following year. But I am an independent student. I have no parental support for my college funding or day to day needs. I receive zero financial, emotional or physical support from my parents and have not for years. This means that I will have to come up with all of the money for myself. It has been quite difficult to do so with all of the struggles I am currently facing in my transition to college. I went a few months without a job because I wanted to focus on my schoolwork to ensure that my grades would stay stable. But due to going a few months without work, I am beginning to fall into some minor financial troubles. I think I will now be able to fix them. But it is concerning. Every single bill is completely on me. If I am not able to pay my bills first, unfortunately, school will have to come second. I don't want to give up on my school, however. That's why I am preparing ahead of time before the next school year to receive as many scholarships as I can to cover the remaining cost of whatever I need for my schooling. Every single dollar will either go to housing, books, or tuition. I just want to make sure that I am paying for it so that I don't have to give up on my dream. Right now, school is the most important thing to me. I want to make sure that I am able to pay for it so that I am able to achieve successful grades without worrying about my finances. I want to become a teacher after graduating from college so that I can give back to the youth. Teachers were a great support for me when I was younger. They were the people who helped me get through tough times. I hope that I can give that same level of love and care back to somebody else in the future. But in order to do that I have to first get my degree. But due to the funding challenges I will likely experience next year, I have to find a large number of scholarships in order to cover the cost that is required. I really want to be able to achieve this goal. It would mean so much for me.

I grew up in a place where life was not easy. I have ADHD and developed PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder due to the experiences in my younger days. When I was in high school, I did not have an easy time with emotional regulation. I even at one point started to head down a path of making bad decisions. I could've ended doing something that would have really hurt me in the long run. My junior year of high school I moved schools. In my new school I had a teacher named Ms. Ijames. She taught the career and technical education class for teachers. When I moved schools, I was having one of the hardest times of my lives. But I had the most wonderful time in Ms. Ijames class. I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. But I did not yet have my reason why. Ms. Ijames became my reason why. She would always let me talk to her when I was having a rough time. When I was a senior, I became her teacher's aide. I was having some issues during that year. I could tell that she did not always understand my emotional perspective. But regardless of whether she actually understood, she would always try to understand. She never interrupted me. She never tried to tell me that my feelings were invalid, or that I need to "get over it." She let me say whatever I felt like I needed to say. I knew that because I had Ms. Ijames, I always had somebody to listen to me. She always encouraged me to do the hard thing. When I graduated from high school, Ms. Ijames told me that she would never do her job the same because of me. She said that I had taught her to be much more aware of her students and to be understanding of and in tune with their emotions. I believe that it is now my turn to become another kid's Ms. Ijames. I want to be able to put back into the community what was given to me. I know that I cannot help every single student in my path. Not every single student will like me. But if I can just help one kid, I'll know that I had made a difference. Teachers are the reason that I was able to succeed and be in college. I now want to encourage another teenager to do the hard thing. I want them to know that they will have a safe space with me no matter what.

1. Education makes a huge difference in everybody's lives. I really do believe that it is about a lot more than just the facts. There are so many opportunities that education can provide in a young person's life. I believe that it is my experience in school that was able to help me get past some very difficult and trying times in my life. I had some tough experiences growing up. I suffer from PTSD. But it was with the help of my teachers that I was able to persevere through such experiences and still be successful enough to attend college. Of course, education does require the acquisition of knowledge of facts. But it also has the purpose of helping young people grow and learn who they will become in life. 2. Many of my favorite teachers used interactive methods of teaching. They taught me the belief that teaching is about a lot more than just standing in front of a class and lecturing. They used methods that involved students getting up and actually participating in the lesson. They would often turn their educational talks into some type of game. They wanted to provoke student interest and entertainment. If the students enjoy the lesson, then they were more likely to remember the important parts of it. 3. I hope to help my students understand that no difficult situation in their life defines who they are. Growing up, I was surrounded by adults who made decisions that put themselves and others in danger. When I was much younger, I believed that I was destined to follow the same path because that was what everyone else was doing. But it was my teachers who taught me that I was capable of redefining my future in any way that I wanted. I hope to be able to challenge my students in a way that makes them understand that their capabilities are far greater than they could have ever possibly imagined. I wanted to give back to my students what my teachers had given to me. 4. I believe as an educator that change is very necessary in order to be the best teacher that I am capable of being. No human being in the world is perfect. We will all make mistakes. But I want to be able to learn from whatever mistakes I make in the field of education. I believe that student feedback is a very important part of an educator's job. But it is also very important for educators to tune into notice whether their students are actually learning the material that they are teaching. If the majority of my students are not understanding my material, I am the one that is doing something wrong and need to be the one to change. If only a few students are struggling, then I will sit down with them individually until they are able to understand. I want to be able to take all of these things into account in the future when I am an educator in order to be able to improve my lesssons.

I plan to become a teacher. I grew up in a very tough childhood. I had developed PTSD because of the experiences that I had to go through at such a young age. But the people who helped me the most during this incredibly difficult time were my teachers. I would not have been nearly as successful in life if it weren't for my teachers. They helped me through so many difficult times. When I get my degree, I would also like to be able to become a teacher. I hope in my future that I will be able to give the same type of love to my students that my teachers had given to me. I hope one day in the future that I will be able to support my students so that they can find their way through challenging times. I hope that eventually I can motivate students with difficult experiences to fight past them so that they are still able to succeed in life. I want them to know that their difficult experiences do not define who they are as human beings. I just want for all of them to know that I can give them a safe space. This is how I will give back to my community.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was experiencing a very tough journey. I was constantly in and out of the hospital due to self-endangering behaviors and I felt like there was no way out. It was constant battle and i was experiencing abuse in my home as weel. But through it all, there were two people that were consistently there to support me. They were my wrestling coach and his wife. Through all of my hospital visits, he let me call his personal phone. He always gave me words of encouragement and made sure that I knew that he could be my safe space. I always went to him when I had problems that I needed to talk about. at the very beginning of my junior year, I had to move schools to get away from the abusive home I had previously been living in. I had lived in the previous town and went to the previous school for ten years. That place was my home and everything that I had been used to for nearly my entire life. During that time my whole world got flipped upside down. Everything I knew felt like it was gone. I no longer had my sports, my friends, my teachers, and my home. But even after I left my coach and his wife let me call them. My coach was also a special education teacher at my first high school, and his wife was an English teacher. They were always the people who talked to me and supported me. I knew that even if nobody else would, they would always be there for me. they wanted to make sure that I was okay no matter what. Having these inspiring people in my life has made a huge difference. I would not be the successful person that I am today without these teachers in my life. I want to be a teacher so that one day I can have the same impact on a student that these teachers had on me. I would like to be either a high school English, ELD or foreign language teacher. I am planning to pursue a linguistics degree at San Jose State University in California. I also intend to spend some time teaching abroad because I enjoy getting to experience other cultures. I also believe that teaching in multiple countries and communities will give me the opportunity to help a number of students from all walks of life. I want to be able to students' struggle.