One Olivia Rodrigo lyric that has always stood out to me is, “Where’s my… teenage dream?” from “brutal.” It is such a simple question, but I think it captures something that a lot of people experience and do not always admit. Growing up is supposed to be exciting. We are constantly told that these are the years when we discover ourselves, make memories, and begin building our futures. In reality, growing up can also feel confusing, lonely, and nothing like what you imagined. I have experienced that feeling throughout my own journey. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father left, so I grew up understanding responsibility and struggle earlier than I probably realized at the time. As I got older, I started thinking more about my future and the kind of life I wanted to create for myself. College became part of that dream, but getting there did not suddenly make everything easy. As a first-generation college student, I have sometimes felt like everyone around me received instructions that I somehow missed. I have questioned whether I was moving fast enough, doing enough, or making the right decisions. Watching other people reach certain milestones can make it easy to believe you are behind, especially during a period of life when everyone seems to be moving in different directions. That is why “brutal” resonates with me. Olivia Rodrigo does not present growing up as some perfect transformation where everything suddenly makes sense. There is frustration and uncertainty in it, and I appreciate that honesty. Sometimes becoming an adult means realizing that the version of life you imagined when you were younger does not exist exactly as you pictured it. For me, however, that realization has also become a triumph. I am currently pursuing a History degree and teacher certification at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I have made mistakes and faced uncertainty, but I am still here. I have learned that success does not require having your entire life figured out by a certain age. Sometimes success is simply continuing to show up and refusing to let uncertainty convince you to quit. My journey may not look like the “teenage dream” people imagine, but I no longer think it needs to. I am building something real instead. I hope to become a history teacher and eventually help students who may also feel uncertain about where they belong or where they are going. That is what Olivia Rodrigo’s music represents to me. Growing up can be messy, frustrating, and completely different from what we expected. But there is something hopeful about realizing that your story is still being written, and you do not have to have the ending figured out yet

Being a first-generation student means learning how to build a future that no one in my family has had the opportunity to show me how to reach. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father left. She was still a kid herself, but suddenly she was responsible for raising one. Growing up, I watched her sacrifice parts of her own future to make sure I had a chance at mine. As I have gotten older, I have come to understand those sacrifices differently. Going to college is not something I take for granted because I know the opportunities I have today were not always available to the people who came before me. College has been one of the greatest opportunities of my life, but being first-generation has also meant figuring things out as I go. I did not enter college knowing how everything worked. I have made mistakes, struggled academically at times, worried about money, and questioned whether I was doing enough. There have been moments when I looked at other students and felt like they had been given a map while I was still trying to figure out where I was going. But I kept going. Today, I have completed 87 credit hours toward my History degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio while also pursuing teacher certification. I am proud of those 87 hours because they represent much more than classes on a transcript. They represent every time I could have given up but chose to come back for another semester. My dream is to become a history teacher. I want to teach students about the past, but I also want to help them imagine their own futures. Someday, there may be a student sitting in my classroom who comes from a family like mine. Maybe they will be the first person in their family considering college. Maybe they will feel behind because everyone else seems to know what they are doing. I want to be someone who can look at that student and genuinely tell them, "I understand." Receiving this scholarship would relieve some of the financial pressure of finishing my education and allow me to put more of my attention toward my classes and preparation as a future teacher. More importantly, it would be another step toward something my family has never experienced before: seeing me walk across a college graduation stage. Being first-generation can sometimes feel like walking a road while building it at the same time. I may not have inherited a blueprint for college, but I have the opportunity to create one. My goal is not only to finish that road myself, but to leave it a little easier to follow for whoever comes after me.

Being a first-generation Mexican-American college graduate is important to me because earning my degree will represent much more than my own accomplishment. It will represent my family, the sacrifices that came before me, and the opportunity to create a different path for the people who come after me. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father left. She had to become a parent while she was still a teenager herself. Growing up and seeing that gave me a different understanding of sacrifice. My mom did not have the same opportunities that I have today, and I know that being able to attend a university is something I should never take for granted. Being first-generation has also meant figuring out a lot as I go. There was no guide at home for how college worked. Things like financial aid, scholarships, degree plans, and preparing for a career were things I had to learn through my own experiences and by asking for help. There have definitely been times when I felt like other students knew things that I was just discovering. Instead of letting that discourage me, I have learned to accept that being the first sometimes means having to find your own way. My Mexican-American background is also something I am proud to carry with me through college. I think about the generations before me who worked hard so their families could have better opportunities, even if they were not always the ones who got to experience those opportunities themselves. Graduating would be my accomplishment, but I could never look at that diploma and believe I earned it completely on my own. My family's sacrifices are part of it too. I am studying History at the University of Texas at San Antonio and working toward becoming a teacher. One reason education means so much to me is because I want students from backgrounds like mine to see someone they can relate to standing at the front of the classroom. I want them to know that college is possible, even if nobody in their family has done it before. Eventually, I hope I am not the only college graduate in my family. I want younger members of my family to grow up seeing college as something normal and achievable instead of something unfamiliar. Being first-generation means I may be the first to walk this path, but one of the things I am most passionate about is making sure I am not the last.

My decision to pursue K-12 education is connected to both where I come from and the kind of impact I want to have on others. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father left, so I grew up watching her take on responsibilities at an age when most teenagers are still figuring out their own lives. Seeing her sacrifices taught me perseverance, but it also showed me how much a person's circumstances can shape the opportunities they believe are available to them. As a first-generation college student, I understand what it feels like to enter a new environment without a blueprint. When I began college, there were many things I had to learn on my own, from navigating financial aid and degree requirements to simply understanding what opportunities were available. That experience made me think about how many students may have the ability to succeed but lack someone who can show them what is possible. That is one of the biggest reasons I want to become a teacher. K-12 educators interact with students during some of the most important years of their lives. A teacher cannot control what happens in a student's home or what challenges they face outside of school, but they can control what happens when that student walks into their classroom. I want my classroom to be a place where students are challenged, respected, and encouraged to see possibilities for themselves. I am currently studying History at the University of Texas at San Antonio while pursuing teacher certification. I want to teach history because it gives students skills that extend far beyond knowing what happened in the past. History teaches students to question information, examine evidence, understand perspectives different from their own, and recognize how decisions can affect generations of people. Those are skills I believe young people need both inside and outside the classroom. My experiences working in retail and construction have also strengthened my desire to teach. Working alongside people from different backgrounds taught me patience, communication, responsibility, and the importance of working as part of a team. These are qualities I hope to carry into my classroom. Ultimately, I want to become the teacher who notices the student who may not yet see their own potential. I know how meaningful it is to discover opportunities that once seemed distant or unfamiliar. My background has not made me want to escape where I came from. Instead, it has made me want to use what I learn to reach students who may be facing their own uncertainty and help them understand that their circumstances do not have to determine where their story ends.

I grew up understanding that nothing about my future was guaranteed. My mother was only 16 years old when she had me, and my father left, so she had to learn how to raise a child while she was still growing up herself. Watching her make sacrifices to provide for me taught me about responsibility and perseverance long before I understood what those words meant. Her life also made me realize how much an education and the opportunity to build a career can change someone's future. Today, I am a first-generation college student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where I am pursuing a degree in History along with my teacher certification. I currently have a 3.04 GPA and have completed 87 credit hours toward my degree. Reaching this point has not always been easy. As the first person in my family to attend college, I have had to learn how to navigate higher education as I experience it. There have been mistakes and moments of uncertainty, but every semester has taught me more about what I am capable of and brought me closer to becoming the first in my family to earn a college degree. I chose to attend college because I wanted opportunities that previous generations of my family did not always have. I also wanted an education that would allow me to eventually create opportunities for others. My goal is to become a history teacher. I want students to understand that history is more than memorizing names and dates. It teaches us how to think critically, understand different perspectives, and recognize how the past continues to shape the world around us. Eventually, I also hope to use my background in history and education to pursue public service and give back to my community in another way. Outside of school, working has also shaped who I am. I have worked in retail at Lowe's and spent summers working construction with my uncle. Construction especially taught me that progress does not happen all at once. You show up, do the work in front of you, and slowly watch something take shape. In many ways, that is how I have approached college. Receiving this scholarship would help ease the financial pressure that comes with completing my education. As a student who receives financial aid, every additional source of support matters. Scholarship assistance would help me focus more of my time and energy on my coursework and teacher preparation rather than worrying as much about how I will cover educational expenses. For me, graduating from college will mean more than receiving a diploma. My mother was 16 when my story began. When I eventually walk across that graduation stage, I will be carrying everything she sacrificed to give me the chance to get there. This scholarship would become one small but meaningful part of helping me finish that journey.

My interest in becoming a teacher comes from wanting to be the kind of person who can make students believe there is more waiting for them beyond their current circumstances. Education can completely change the direction of someone's life, but sometimes a student needs another person to help them realize what they are capable of. Growing up, college did not always feel like an obvious path for me. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father was not present in my life. My mom had to grow up while raising me, and I watched her work through circumstances that were never easy. As a first-generation college student, I entered college without having someone at home who could explain everything about applications, financial aid, choosing classes, or navigating a university. Much of it I had to learn as I went. Because of that experience, I understand how important teachers can be for students who may not have someone in their lives who has already traveled the path they are trying to take. A teacher may see a student for less than an hour each day, but what they say during that hour can stay with that student for years. I cannot point to one teacher and honestly say that person single-handedly changed my life. Instead, I remember different teachers who made me feel that my ideas were worth listening to. The teachers who affected me most were not necessarily the ones who made class easy. They were the ones who challenged me, encouraged me to think for myself, and treated me as someone capable of more. Looking back, those interactions helped shape the kind of teacher I hope to become. I am currently studying History at the University of Texas at San Antonio while pursuing my teacher certification. I want to teach history because I believe the subject becomes powerful when students realize it is not simply about memorizing names and dates. History teaches students to question information, understand different perspectives, recognize patterns, and see how decisions made in the past continue to affect their lives today. Most importantly, I want my classroom to be a place where students feel that their future is bigger than the circumstances they were born into. I know what it is like to figure things out without a blueprint. If I can eventually recognize a student going through that same uncertainty and give them the guidance or encouragement they need, teaching will mean much more to me than simply covering a lesson plan. I want to teach because education gave me possibilities that were not guaranteed to me. Becoming a teacher would give me the opportunity to help make those possibilities feel real for someone else.

I did not choose history because I was good at memorizing dates or because I wanted to spend my life reading about people who lived hundreds of years ago. I chose history because, over time, I realized that almost everything happening around us has a story behind it. The way our government works, the opportunities people have, the inequalities that still exist, and even the way we understand one another are all connected to decisions and events that happened before us. My interest in history grew when I stopped looking at it as a collection of facts and started asking why things happened. I became especially interested in the stories that are sometimes left out of the larger historical narrative. Learning about different cultures, political movements, colonization, migration, and the experiences of ordinary people showed me that history can look completely different depending on whose perspective we choose to examine. That realization made history feel alive to me rather than something that only existed in a textbook. As I continued taking history courses at the University of Texas at San Antonio, I became more confident that I had chosen the right degree. Some of my most meaningful experiences have come from working with primary sources and seeing the actual words of people who experienced historical events. Those sources remind me that the people we study were real human beings making difficult decisions without knowing how their stories would end. History became less about knowing what happened and more about understanding people. I also knew history was right for me when I began thinking seriously about what I wanted to do after college. I am pursuing teacher certification because I want to become a history teacher. I remember how easy it was as a student to think of history as boring when it was presented as nothing more than names, dates, and tests. I want my future students to see something different. I want them to question why events happened, consider perspectives they may not have encountered before, and understand how the past continues to influence their own lives. Eventually, I hope to take what I learn from history and education into public service. I believe anyone who wants to help shape the future should understand the successes and failures of the people who shaped the past. History has taught me that our world did not simply become what it is by accident. People made choices that created consequences, sometimes lasting for generations. I chose history because I want to understand those choices, teach others about them, and eventually use what I have learned to help make better ones.

If I could give another first-generation college student one piece of advice, it would be this: do not be afraid to admit when you do not know what you are doing. When I started college, I thought being successful meant having everything figured out. I believed I was supposed to know which classes to take, how financial aid worked, where to find scholarships, who to ask for help, and what opportunities I should be looking for. The truth is, I did not know many of those things. As a first-generation student, there was no blueprint waiting for me at home. I have had to learn a lot of college simply by experiencing it. My mother was only 16 when she had me, and my father left. Growing up, I watched her face responsibilities at an age when most people are still trying to figure out who they are. She could not hand me a guide explaining how to make it through college, but she taught me something just as important: how to keep going when life does not give you clear directions. That lesson has followed me throughout my education. There have been moments when I have questioned whether I was doing enough or whether I was falling behind compared to students who seemed to understand college better than I did. Over time, I realized there is no shame in asking questions. There is no shame in going to an advisor because you are confused, asking a professor for help, searching for scholarships, or admitting that you are the first person in your family trying to navigate something unfamiliar. You cannot expect yourself to automatically know things you were never taught. I am now studying History at the University of Texas at San Antonio and pursuing my teacher certification. My experiences as a first-generation student have influenced the kind of teacher I want to become. One day, I may have a student sitting in my classroom who is also the first in their family to consider college. I want that student to know that not knowing the path does not mean they do not belong on it. Being first-generation means many of us are learning the rules while playing the game. We will make mistakes. We might miss opportunities simply because we did not know they existed. But we can ask questions, find people willing to guide us, and then pass that knowledge on. So my advice is simple: ask for help before you convince yourself that you are supposed to already know the answer. Being the first does not mean doing everything alone. Sometimes being the first means learning the way forward so the person coming after you has a clearer path.