Hello, my name is DeAndre Malone, I am from St. Louis, Missouri, and I am a twenty-year-old junior in college studying Agricultural Science with a specialization in business and Economics attending Truman State University. I am a first-generation college student, I come from a low-income household, I lost my father at the age of three and I have six other siblings that I grew up with within the same nine-person household. My mother works very hard to support my family as my step-father cannot work due to health reasons. My mom is everything to me and my biggest goal in life is to make her proud of me and what I want to accomplish in my life. I have also worked very hard to get to where I'm at academically, as I have not always been the greatest student. Throughout middle school and into my second year of high school, I frequently got bad grades, detention, and suspensions due to a lack of effort and direction. Once I reached my sophomore year of high school, I realized I wanted more for myself and my life and decided to change who I was in an academic sense. I worked hard my last two years in high school and was able to get into multiple schools but ultimately chose Truman State University with a 3.0+ GPA. It was at Truman I realized I had an interest and genuine talent involving science and math, so I decided to major in Agricultural Business and Economics. I have maintained a 3.25 accumulative GPA despite financial issues, COVID-19, and being involved in multiple programs, including McNair, MOLSAMP, Vice President for the Association of Black Collegians, Women's basketball management for Truman State University's women's basketball team, and peer mentoring. The reason I chose a STEM degree is that I know that there aren't enough minorities in STEM fields, so I would like to encourage younger kids who look like me to go into these fields to make significant strides in gaining equity between us and our Caucasian counterparts through the accumulation of wealth, knowledge, education, through advocacy and support for other minorities in STEM fields. I would also like to change my life and the lives of my family by working hard to get to a position where I can support myself and them financially. After undergrad, I plan on pursuing a doctorate in Agriculture and Applied Economics in graduate school. Some research that I am conducting currently is looking at the discrepancies in income, contract negotiations, aid program acceptances, loan acceptances, commodity asking prices, pricing strategies and education, and many other economic factors between minority and Caucasian farmers. Agriculture specifically is a field of study that is dominated by older white people and families, so inserting myself into that field as a black man is how I see I can use my education and research to make a difference in the world or the workforce. Education is everything to me and I feel that is the most important asset that we minorities have to take advantage of if we want things to truly change in our society. And because of that, I will use my education to encourage and serve as a resource for other students like me, fund other students like me, and advocate for every student that needs it in higher education, because I know how badly my community needs it. I am currently a peer mentor at my university, and the vice president of a minority club, and work hard to encourage my peers to understand that they belong in higher education. I see myself performing the same task in my graduate career and my professional career and will continue to use my education to eliminate the barriers that exist to minimalize the continuation of all minorities in higher education. I can count on one hand the number of black people or minority students that I have seen in the Agriculture and Economic classes that I have attended at my predominately white institution, and have often felt uncomfortable, alone, and lost at times. I am positive that this is an experience that many other minority STEM majors have shared, and often it becomes too much for some of us to handle. Because of this, I can understand how it feels to be in those situations and will serve as a mentor for other students who feel the same way as I once did.

I feel convincing a peer to attend college that didn't want to can be a difficult thing to do. I would never want to force someone who had no interest in something to spend money and time for them not to get the most out of it and maximize their resources. However, if my peer would not attend college due to an internal fear or feeling of uncertainty, I would definitely try my best to tell them the multitude of benefits that comes with attending college and furthering an individual's education. If my friend was a minority, I would stress this importance even further. Education for minorities, in my opinion, is the greatest way for us minorities to close the gap in wealth, knowledge, leadership positions, and living conditions that has been created over the last two hundred years or so. Education for me has changed the way I have viewed myself, the world we live in, my ability to critically think, it has afforded me to see how I can change my life and the lives of people I love, it's created friendships, networks, and so many other wonderful things that for the most part can't be experienced at the same rate without it. Although education isn't the end-all be-all, it stimulates and nurtures the greatest asset and tool that every person needs to survive, the mind, and in my opinion it is our only true way of closing these enormous disparities that exist between minorities and Caucasians. To my friend, I would express these thoughts that I hold surrounding college and education, and try to reassure them the importance it has to me and the community that we both work hard to represent positively. I am also a first-generation college student myself, and would reflect my experience to this peer and serve as a mentor myself in regards to navigating the things in college that most of us don't know how to deal with.