Since I entered high school, I absolutely loved education. I prided myself in learning new things and taking them with me into the world as ammunition. I wanted to learn all the information that I could because my grandparents would tell me stories about how they had to drop out of high school in order to help support their family and my parents would explain the details of them never completing their undergraduate degree. I felt privileged to be exposed to so much knowledge and to be encouraged to pursue it. It was the teachers who pushed me out of my typical way of thinking that were the most influential on the person and academic I am today. My high school AP Government class sparked my interest in politics and led me to center my future career around it. My teacher was firm, but fair, organized, articulate, and engaging. My entire life I had loved to learn in school, but this class showed me that my education could be used to impact the world I lived in. I knew people impacted directly by the criminal, political, and carceral system, and in turn, this impacted me. I knew that I wanted to impact others in the way that she impacted me, I just wasn’t sure how to pursue it yet. In my freshman year of college, I took the class Political Ideologies and it really shook the foundation on which my beliefs were built. It shifted my perspective, completely opened my eyes to new ways of thinking, and gave me an academic community to build, learn, and exchange ideas. In this class, I fell in love with academia. I felt that there was nothing more valuable than an environment in which we could enrich and sharpen our thinking. I also knew that in communities in which I came from, political education was an afterthought, if at all. I knew that I needed to bring this knowledge of our rights, roles, and realities to other people who looked like me. As an activist and community organizer, I searched for a career path within political science that was sustainable and would not compromise my values. I pondered many things from democratic politics to organizing, but they all seemed to limit the interests I had in the ongoing learning and exchanging of ideas. I wanted a career where I could explore thought while also contributing to direct action, something fulfilling while constantly being of service to others, and to continuously learn and share the knowledge I gained. In my current Political Science class, my professor represented the balance of learning and sharing that I longed for. She is engaged in the community, active in research, versed and experienced in organizing, and brings every bit of it to the classroom to create something unimaginable. There was no singular moment that sparked my interest in becoming an educator, instead, the people and experiences of my life planted seeds that grew into my current aspirations. Political Science is my passion and I want to share the groundbreaking work of academics with other people like me who never had access, opportunity, or the space in their life to explore. As a Black person, especially a woman, political action is not a conscious choice of participation, it is an act of survival. I want to not only equip other people passionate about Political Science with a well-rounded understanding of its role in race, identity, and social change, but I want to educate children in communities like mine about the importance of understanding their rights and their impact.