What Going to College Means to Me Going to college means survival, not just for myself, but for the communities I come from and the students I serve every day. I did not arrive at Metro State University on a straight or easy path. I arrived with lived experience, purpose, and a deep understanding of what it means to navigate systems that were not always designed with people like me in mind. College, for me, is not just a credential. It is a commitment. Every morning I walk into my role as a Special Education Assistant with an urban Public School district, I am surrounded by young people who the world has too often underestimated. I see in them a reflection of my own journey, the need to be seen, supported, and given the tools to succeed. College is how I deepen the knowledge and skills I need to serve them better. It is how I move from someone who supports the system to someone who can help change it. At Metro State, I am pursuing studies in psychology and social work, fields that speak directly to the heart of what I believe: that people deserve equitable access to education, mental health support, and community resources. The classroom has expanded my thinking in a variety of ways. I came in already considering myself someone who thinks outside the box, and college has pushed me to think beyond even that. It has introduced me to theory, research, and perspectives that challenge me to ask harder questions, sit with uncomfortable answers, and grow as both a student and a human being. Beyond academics, I have become deeply involved in student governance and campus organizations at Metro State. I have learned that advocacy does not stop at the classroom door. Being at the table asking questions, representing student voices, pushing for policy that reflects the real needs of real people, is also part of my education and harder than it sounds. Leadership is something I take seriously. I will not pretend that this journey has been without struggle. Balancing graduate-level coursework, a full-time role serving students with disabilities, and the responsibilities of campus leadership is demanding. There are days when the weight of it all is real. But I have also learned to use the resources available to me, advocate for myself the way I advocate for my students, and keep moving forward. That resilience, I believe, is itself a kind of education. What am I trying to accomplish? I want to become a practitioner, advocate, and leader who builds bridges between the people who need support and the systems that are supposed to provide it. I want to work in spaces where social equity, disability justice, and mental health intersect, and do so with competence, compassion, and accountability. College is where I am becoming that person. Every course, every conversation, every challenge has moved me closer to the work I know I am meant to do. That is what this means to me, not just a degree, but a direction. La Shawn

How I Will Use My Degree to Help Others in My Community I am the first in my family to pursue a four-year college degree. That fact alone carries weight I cannot fully put into words, the weight of every person in my family who wanted more but did not have the road cleared for them, and the responsibility I feel to make sure the path I am carving leads somewhere that benefits more than just me. For over 25 years I have worked inside Public Schools as an Educational Support Professional, showing up every day for students who are navigating disability, trauma, poverty, and systemic neglect, often all at once. I did not need a degree to see what was missing in my community. I need one to do something more powerful about it. Pursuing my bachelor's degree in psychology at Metropolitan State University is not a departure from community work, it is a deepening of it. The credential I am earning will allow me to move from being someone who supports people through their hardest moments to someone who is clinically trained to help them heal. My goal is to become a licensed clinical social worker, specializing in trauma-informed and culturally responsive mental health. Mental health care remains one of the most urgent and most neglected needs in African American communities. We are disproportionately affected by trauma, systemic racism, poverty, and stress and disproportionately underserved by a mental health system that lacks culturally competent providers who understand our lived experience without needing it explained. I intend to be part of closing that gap. Not as an outsider looking in, but as a woman who grew up in this community, raised children in it, and has spent her entire adult life serving it from the inside. Beyond direct clinical practice, I plan to use my degree to advocate at the institutional level. As a board member of the Minnesota State University Student Association, I already fight for equity in higher education pushing for access, representation, and resources for students who look like me and face the same barriers I have faced. That advocacy work will only grow more informed and more effective as my education deepens. I also intend to serve as a visible example of what is possible. First-generation African American students need to see people who look like them not just surviving higher education, but leading within it. Every time I show up to class, complete another semester, and move closer to my degree, I am demonstrating to the young people in my community, especially the ones I work with every day that this path is open to them too. My degree will not belong to me alone. It will belong to every student I have ever sat beside in a resource room, every family I have walked alongside through a crisis, and every young Black woman in my community who has not yet been told clearly enough that she is capable of extraordinary things. I intend to spend the rest of my career telling her and proving it. La Shawn

Why I Want to Pursue a Career in the Nonprofit Sector I did not grow up dreaming of a corner office or a six-figure salary. I grew up watching my community hold itself together with whatever resources it had, neighbors checking on neighbors, church members feeding families, volunteers filling the gaps that institutions left behind. That is where I learned what real work looks like. It looks like showing up, even when no one is watching, because the people you serve cannot afford for you not to. That understanding has driven every professional decision I have made for over 25 years. I have worked as a Special Education Educational Support Professional with a public institution rooted in service to students who are most often underserved by the systems designed to help them. I have served as a building steward, advocating for both students and staff. I have worked as a literacy coach, an attendance intervention specialist, and a student council advisor, not because these roles were glamorous, but because each one put me closer to people who needed someone in their corner. That is what nonprofit and public service work does. It puts you exactly where you are needed most. Attending Metropolitan State University to pursue my degree in psychology has sharpened my understanding of why this work matters at a systemic level. Through my coursework and my service as a board member of the Minnesota State University Student Association, I have come to see clearly how interconnected community wellbeing really is. Mental health, education, housing, civic engagement, none of these exist in isolation. Nonprofit organizations are often the only institutions willing to address all of these dimensions at once, meeting people where they are rather than waiting for them to navigate a bureaucratic maze. My goal is to build a career that sits at the intersection of mental health advocacy and community-based social work. I want to work within nonprofit organizations that serve Black and brown communities, communities that face disproportionate barriers to mental health care, educational equity, and economic stability. I have spent decades watching brilliant, capable people fall through gaps that should not exist. I want to spend the rest of my career helping close them. The nonprofit sector is where that work happens. It is where culturally responsive mental health programs get built. It is where community outreach workers knock on doors and sit at kitchen tables. It is where advocates show up to school board meetings, city council chambers, and legislative hearings because the people most affected cannot always get there themselves. That is the work I am called to do, not because it is easy or well-compensated, but because it is necessary. I have already given over two decades to public service. This scholarship would help me gain the credentials to deepen that service, move into leadership, and build something lasting for the communities that shaped me. The nonprofit sector does not just need passionate people, it needs trained, experienced, committed professionals who understand the communities they serve from the inside out. I am that person. La Shawn

Passion for Social Work, Career Goals, and Embodying Carmen Jimenez-Pride's Legacy I did not choose social work. Social work chose me slowly, over more than two decades of sitting beside children who were struggling, families who were overwhelmed, and communities that were underserved. As a Special Education Educational Support Professional, I have spent my career showing up for students who carry burdens that most people never see. What began as a job became a calling. Returning to Metropolitan State University to pursue a degree in social work is not a new direction it is finally putting a name to the path I have been walking my entire adult life. My passion for social work is rooted in what I have witnessed firsthand. Every day I work alongside students with disabilities, emotional and behavioral challenges, and trauma histories that would bring most people to their knees. I have watched brilliant young people fall through institutional gaps not because they lacked potential, but because the systems around them lacked cultural understanding. I have seen what happens when a child does not have access to someone who looks like them, speaks their truth, or understands the weight of their specific experience. That absence is not neutral it causes real harm. My passion is driven by the urgency to change that. Carmen Jimenez-Pride understood this urgency deeply. Her life's work was built on the belief that healing must be culturally humble, trauma-informed, and responsive to the whole person not just their symptoms. Her Focus on Feelings® curriculum and her dedication to children and families from diverse backgrounds reflect a philosophy I have lived professionally for years without always having the language to describe it. Her integration of play therapy into trauma-informed care particularly resonates with me. In my work with young students, I have seen how children who cannot yet articulate their pain will express it through play, movement, and creative engagement. That insight has shaped how I connect with them, and it has deepened my interest in pursuing trauma-informed and play-based therapeutic approaches as part of my clinical practice. My career goals are focused on serving Black and brown communities, particularly children and adolescents who have experienced racial trauma, systemic neglect, and the compounded effects of poverty and marginalization. I plan to pursue licensure as a clinical social worker with a specialization in trauma-informed and culturally responsive practice. I am drawn specifically to school-based mental health work and play therapy modalities, where healing can meet young people in the language they naturally speak, imagination, expression, and trust built through relationship. I also intend to carry my advocacy into policy and community organizing, informed by my current work as a board member of the Minnesota State University Student Association, where I fight daily for equitable access and student representation. Embodying Carmen's legacy means practicing cultural humility not as a technique, but as a way of being. It means walking into every client relationship knowing that my role is to learn as much as to help that the people I serve are experts in their own lived experience, and that my job is to stand beside them, not above them. It means remaining committed to expanding my clinical toolkit including trauma-informed frameworks, play therapy, and culturally responsive interventions so that I can meet each person where they are. Carmen's life demonstrated that this work never stops, and neither does mine. As an African American woman who has spent over two decades in direct service to children and families, I bring lived experience that cannot be taught in a classroom alone. But I also bring the discipline of a nontraditional student who returned to school because the mission demanded it not for a credential, but for the capacity to do more good. Carmen Jimenez-Pride showed the world what one dedicated woman could build in service of others. I intend to honor that by building something of my own. La Shawn

What Has Driven You to Pursue a Degree Related to Mental Health? For more than two decades, I have shown up every day for students who carry burdens that textbooks rarely describe. As a Special Education Educational Support Professional, I have sat beside children labeled “difficult” or “disruptive” who were, in truth, simply struggling and unheard. Those moments watching a young person fight to hold themselves together in a world that was not built with their healing in mind planted a seed in me that has only grown stronger with time. Growing up in my community, mental health was not something we talked about. Struggle was expected to be silent. Pain was something you pushed through, not something you named, treated, or took seriously. That silence was not weakness; it was survival. But I have lived long enough to see what happens when survival becomes the only option available. I have watched brilliant, capable people fall through gaps that should never have existed. I decided I no longer wanted to simply witness that. I wanted the tools to change it. Returning to Metropolitan State University as a nontraditional student has given me language and theory for experiences I once had no framework to understand. Through my coursework in psychology, I have come to see clearly what I felt instinctively on the job for years: Black and brown communities face disproportionate mental health challenges, and yet we are consistently underrepresented among the professionals trained to address them. There are not enough culturally competent providers who understand our histories, our strengths, and the unique weight of navigating systems that were never designed for us. That is the gap I intend to fill. My ambition is not simply to earn a degree, it is to become a practitioner, advocate, and bridge-builder who serves communities like the ones that raised me. Whether through direct counseling, community outreach, or policy-level advocacy, I want to spend my career ensuring that the people most often left out of the mental health conversation are centered within it. I am also a board member of the Minnesota State University Student Association, where I advocate daily for student equity and access. This work has sharpened my understanding of how institutional barriers, underfunded services, cultural stigma, and lack of representation prevent people from getting the support they need. My path to mental health work is not separate from my civic life; it is an extension of it. This scholarship, honoring the legacy of Ernest Lee McLean Jr., speaks directly to the mission I carry. Representation in mental health professions is not just meaningful, it is lifesaving. When a young Black student finally sits across from someone who understands their experience without explanation, that moment changes everything. I know because I have been that student, and I have been the professional wishing I had more to offer. I am ready to offer more. I am ready to be part of the generation that closes these gaps, not someday, but now. La Shawn

I did not take the traditional path to college. While many of my classmates walked across a stage at 22, I walked into a classroom at a Public School at 24 as a Child Care Worker and I never left. Nearly three decades later, I am still walking into that same company every morning, now as a student myself at Metropolitan State University. That intersection between the person I serve and the student I am becoming is exactly what makes me different. My uniqueness is not found in a single talent or accomplishment. It lives in the overlap. I am an educational support professional and a college student and a building steward and a student government board member with MSUSA. I occupy spaces that rarely hold the same person at once, and because of that, I see things others miss. Every morning I wake at 4:30 AM. By the time most people are drinking their first cup of coffee, I have already been thinking about the student who flinched in the hallway yesterday, the colleague who seems burned out, or the policy proposal I need to draft for our next student government meeting. That early quiet is not just habit it is where my purpose lives. In special education, I work beside students who the world has often underestimated. I know what it feels like to be underestimated. As a first-generation college student returning to school in my adult years, I carry doubt with me every semester. But I also carry proof, proof that showing up matters, that it is never too late, and that your background does not dictate your destination. When a student watches me move through the school halls with intention, completing coursework on my lunch break, advocating for their rights in an IEP meeting they are watching someone who looks like their future and refuses to shrink. I will never fully know whose life I have touched. That is the invisible nature of service. A student I supported years ago may now be in college themselves. A colleague who saw me persist through financial aid obstacles and long night classes may have quietly decided to go back to school too. A young person sitting in a meeting where I advocated for equitable policy may have walked away believing, for the first time, that someone in power cared about them. Service is not always loud. Sometimes it is showing up. Sometimes it is being the only non-traditional student on a university board and refusing to stay quiet about the needs of working adults. Sometimes it is sitting beside a child with a disability and letting your calm, consistent presence say, you are worth my full attention. I leverage my uniqueness by refusing to let my different roles exist in silos. My experience as a special education professional makes me a more empathetic student advocate in government. My journey as a returning student makes me a more credible voice for equity in education policy. My roots in community give me the language to reach people across age, background, and experience. Gladys Ruth understood that being yourself fully, unapologetically is its own form of service. I carry that same belief. I do not know every life I have influenced. But I know that if I keep showing up, keep speaking up, and keep being exactly who I am, the ripple will continue long after I have left the room. La Shawn

I did not choose social work because it seemed like a practical career move. I chose it because after 27 years of working inside one of Minneapolis’s most underserved high schools, I could no longer ignore the gap between what my students needed and what the system was equipped to give them. That gap between a young person in crisis and a trained clinician who understood their world became impossible for me to look away from. Social work was not a decision I made. It is a calling I finally answered. As a Special Education Assistant, I have spent nearly three decades supporting students who carry the weight of generational trauma, neighborhood violence, poverty, and instability into every classroom. I have become skilled at de-escalation, crisis support, resource navigation, and building trust with young people who have every reason not to trust adults. But I keep hitting a ceiling. I can stabilize a student in the hallway; however, I can not provide the therapeutic intervention they need afterward. Earning a degree is the only way to break through that ceiling. When I first committed to this path, I imagined myself working primarily with youth in school settings, an extension of what I already do, just with clinical credentials. Since starting my degree, that vision has expanded significantly. I now understand that healing is not confined to one setting or one population. The same systemic forces that harm my students, like inadequate housing, criminalization of mental illness, and lack of culturally responsive care, also harm their parents, their grandparents, and their neighbors, too. I plan to work with entire families, not just the young people I first set out to serve. I am a Black woman and the first in my mother’s family to pursue a college degree. That fact shapes everything about how I approach this work. Black and Brown communities in Minneapolis are not lacking resilience; they are lacking access to mental health professionals who reflect their lived experience, speak their language, and understand their culture without needing it explained. I intend to be that professional. I plan to practice in community-based settings like schools, recreation centers, nonprofit organizations, free online, walk-in clinics, and county human services, where marginalized families actually are, not just in private offices that require insurance, transportation, and flexibility that most working families do not have. Beyond direct clinical practice, I plan to give back through mentorship, training, and advocacy. I currently serve as a union steward and board member of the Minnesota State University Students Association. I intend to carry that commitment to systemic change into my social, work, and career life, and into training the next generation of practitioners in cultural humility, advocating for equitable mental health policy, and ensuring that the communities I come from have a seat at every table where decisions about their well-being are made. La Shawn

At 4:30 every morning, before the rest of the world wakes up, I am already preparing for another day of showing up for young people who need someone in their corner. For 27 years, I have worked in public education in mostly underserved schools in Minnesota supporting students who carry the weight of poverty, trauma, housing instability, and community violence into every classroom they enter. That daily reality did not just shape my career. It fundamentally changed how I understand mental health, healing, and what it truly means to serve. I have watched brilliant, resilient young people be mislabeled, misdiagnosed, and pushed out of systems that were supposed to protect them. I have sat with students in crisis and connected them to resources while their emotional pain was being treated as a behavioral problem. I have seen what happens when mental health support is absent, culturally disconnected, or arrives too late. These experiences did not discourage me they lit a fire. They made me believe that the most important thing I could do with the second half of my career is become the clinician I wished those students had access to. I am currently pursuing my bachelor's degree in Psychology as a non-traditional student, managing school alongside full-time work, union leadership as an ESP steward, and community advocacy through certified Member Rights Advocate. I am the first person on my mother's side of the family to attend college. That fact alone tells you something about the barriers that exist for Black women in higher education and it deepens my commitment to dismantling those same barriers for others. My long-term goal is to become a Mental Health Practitioner and or Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in trauma-informed, culturally responsive mental health care for Black and Brown youth and families. I plan to practice in community-based settings like schools, recreation centers, walk in clinics and neighborhood organizations where marginalized people actually are, not just in private offices they cannot afford or access. Representation in mental health care is not optional. When a Black youth in Minneapolis sees a therapist who looks like them, who understands them in their neighborhood, their family structure, and their cultural identity, something shifts. Trust becomes possible. Healing becomes possible. My activism has always been inseparable from my beliefs about mental health. I have spent years advocating for equitable policies in education and labor because I understand that structural injustice produces psychological harm. You cannot separate a child's mental health from the conditions of their school, their housing, or their community. Real advocacy means fighting on every level, in the therapy room, in the union hall, and at the policy table. I am not entering this field from a place of theory. I am entering it from 27 years of lived, front-line experience with the communities I intend to serve. This scholarship would bring me one step closer to the credentials that transforms that experience into the most powerful version of the work I was always meant to do. La Shawn