My parents and I never had a formal discussion about my college fund, but from the way they brushed off questions, I knew that they didn’t have one for me. Now that I have finished my college admittance season, it appears that I was right. My father went to community college for a semester and didn’t complete his online degree until he was in his forties, and my mother went to college in the early eighties; needless to say, they weren’t expecting college to be as much of a financial burden as it is today. My parents have never had the opportunity to save—from surprise injuries to losing jobs, to paying for elderly care, college was the tip jar they could never reach. My dad and his sister were raised by a single mother, with their dad floating in and out of their lives. My nana worked three jobs to support her two kids, all jobs that damaged her health and well-being, but she wanted her children to survive. My dad started working when you didn’t need college funds to start your career; he was already working as a graphic designer and was able to support himself. My mother went to college in the eighties, and even then, her parents were very poor and had two other children to support. When it came time for her freshman year of college, she only had a year’s worth of savings and had to take a gap year to save money for her education by working at Arby’s. Both of my parents worked hard for themselves, and when they decided to have a child, they wanted to give me a life that I deserved, but sometimes it’s not possible to give your child everything, with a college fund on top of that. To me, generational wealth means that the work my parents put into establishing themselves gave me a comfortable, safe life, and the encouragement that they gave me will help me when it’s time to enter the workforce. It means that they built themselves up from the little that they had when growing up and worked hard enough to give me more than what they received. I know that I will struggle when it comes to school—I plan on going into law and I know law school will be even more expensive than obtaining my undergraduate degree, but I know that I will be able to make a difference in my life, as well as future generations. Not only will I protect the planet for my family’s future generations, but the wealth I obtain will help to set my family up for their lives, and their children’s lives, and so on. My parents truly came from nothing, and they always tell me what it takes to succeed. I have the drive and dedication to make sure that I succeed for the sake of my future family. I plan on majoring in theater and English and minoring in environmental social science. I believe that knowledge is my power, and I want to be able to delve into my schoolwork instead of focusing on paying off debt and scrounging up money to support myself and my education. Everything that I plan on learning will lead me to be the best lawyer I can be, and in turn, make good money so my family can do everything their hearts desire—from everything to traveling the world, getting a collegiate education, or becoming a painter, my family will be able to do it all with the generational wealth I will amass for them.

When I entered the infamous eleventh grade, my first-hour class was AP English Language and Composition with a teacher I would come to know and admire, Mr. Hosler. On the first day of class, I didn’t know what to expect—I was finally an upperclassman, entering the year that I was warned about since the seventh grade. I was nervous about what the year would hold, but I was excited about my AP Lang class. I have always loved English, and I was looking forward to improving my writing. Mr. Hosler gave us the typical first-day rundown, he turned on his smart board and was about to go over the syllabus until he tripped and unplugged it. The room when silent for a moment and then he said, “I’m so embarrassed. I’ll just internalize it; it’ll give me heartburn.” From that moment, I knew he was going to be my favorite teacher. Throughout my class, he helped me grow tremendously as a writer. Whenever I felt lost with an essay, he would sit down with me and help me get back on track—for a person who talked about having little patience, he was always there to talk to me, even if it was for the whole hour. When it came time to start my Common App college essay, he was the first person I went to. He worked with me for months, scribbled on my drafts and helped me mold and shape it to be an essay I was truly proud to submit. I not only became a better writer, but I grew so much as a person. I asked Mr. Hosler for advice and wisdom that he had to share about the world. I told him about my goals for the future, and how afraid I was that I wouldn’t achieve them. He would sit at his desk and listen to what I had to say as I paced in front of him and rambled on about who I wanted to be. As an old man, a whopping forty-four years old, he told me how much of his life didn’t turn out the way he expected. He told me he didn’t expect to be a high school teacher who worked in construction part-time and lived on his own farm, but he is. He said that it’s good for me to have a plan but told me that straying away from them is okay too; my life is meant to be lived in the way that would make me happiest, and I don’t have to adhere to the idea of who I think I should be. Hearing him talk about his life on the farm and how much he loved his animals made me realize that, although I dreamt of a life in a big city, I would prefer to have a nice quiet home surrounded by animals and forest, away from the hustle and bustle. Now that I’m in my senior year, I signed up for his class on classic literature, and before the start of class, I ask him for advice on taking care of farm animals because I want to someday—he tells me all of the funny stories and gives me more advice than I could ask for. One piece of advice that he stresses to me often is that I should never get ducks because they poop everywhere, and I will listen. I would not be the person or the writer I am today without Mr. Hosler. He is my favorite teacher, and I will carry his wisdom with me forever.

My name is Lyric Williams, I’m 18 years old, and I live in a small suburb in Metro Detroit, but I’m originally from Boca Raton, Florida. Though these are the details I share when I introduce myself to people, these are not the things that make me, me. I am a determined, driven, passionate, and empathetic person. I spend my time reading and writing, and throughout my four years in high school, I participated in theater and was able to hone my craft as well as grow as an artist and performer. I have fallen in love with the world around me, and I only want the best for the thing I love—I want to make the world a better place for everyone. I think the best way to start making the world a better place is to learn how to; education is so important to me, and I have big goals to fulfill throughout my undergraduate career. I plan on majoring in theater, and I hope to also double minor in English and environmental policy. After my undergraduate career, I plan on going to law school—upon graduating, I want to become an environmental attorney and learn to create and enforce laws to protect and respect the environment. When earning my bachelor's, I believe that I can learn the most about myself through the characters I play, I can learn to write and read stories about the world around me, and I can learn how to protect the environment in the best way I can; these topics of study are deeply important to me, and will aid me in becoming the best lawyer I can be, and then help me to make the world the best it can be too. Education hasn’t always been something that I dreamed of having—I often feared my education because of the weight that it rested on my shoulders. I grew up with severe anxiety, and this affected my life in every aspect, but especially my academics. I was told that I was a smart child, and I felt as though I was only special if I was the best of the best; if I faltered in any way, or did less than perfect, I thought that I was worthless. When any subject in school challenged me to the brink of madness, I would fall apart completely—I would think that I was stupid, not worth the life I was given, I would fail school, not get into college, not have the life I had dreamed of, and before I knew it, I would be sobbing on my bedroom floor with my knees digging into my chest, rocking back and forth. It was a cyclical pattern, one that threw me into depression every semester. The summer before my senior year, I decided to go on medication for my anxiety and depression. Through skills that I learned in therapy, and with the help of my trusty Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor prescription, school became something that I genuinely enjoyed. If I didn’t understand something, my brain no longer told me that I was worthless, I just told myself that getting a bad grade wouldn’t be the end of the world. I learned how to be a student, and not an anxious zombie, running from failure. I know that my future won’t be easy; my classes will be stressful, and I may get overwhelmed, but I love learning about our planet and learning about myself. I am Lyric Williams, 18 years old, student of the world, and I can’t wait to keep learning.

When it came time to start getting community service hours, as the rest of my classmates rolled their eyes, I readily signed up for volunteer opportunities around my community. I received the majority of my service hours at my local therapeutic equestrian barn, Banbury Therapeutic Equestrian Center; I worked with people with special needs and aided in therapeutic horseback riding lessons by holding young children in place on their saddles or holding people's oxygen tanks while they were riding. It was so fun to help people on their riding journeys, and it was amazing to see them so happy. I wish to achieve the goal of helping others day-to-day; I am a member of the Organization of Women Leaders, where we often host informational events during lunch to encourage people to join movements that support women. I want the girls at my school to understand that there are people who support them, who support women all around the community. My most meaningful way to help people is through my favorite art: performance acting. I am able to share stories that give people in the audience something to relate to, that helps them find peace with their emotions. People can come to terms with their own feelings by seeing someone else share those same ones. I want to connect the world, one person at a time—I want to spread kindness throughout my community and beyond, in ways that I will spend my life practicing.

I have grown up in the trees, the sap stuck to my fingers and seeped into my bloodstream. I have befriended the birds and the bees and the squirrels and the seeds. The wild is my love, and unfortunately, many people don’t feel the same way. People see dollar bills instead of trees, they see power instead of fish swimming in the sea—they believe the world was made for them when we were made from it. I love the planet we live on, and because of the greed and selfishness of large corporations, we come closer and closer each day to ruining our climate beyond repair. I am just one person, a young girl who grew up with a love for the environment, but I live my life as sustainably as possible to do my part in protecting the health of our planet. I believe that the most powerful way to help the climate is by shopping and eating sustainably, and I try to every day. I purchase all of my clothes from second-hand stores because clothes purchased from fast fashion retailers are made unethically. The fast fashion industry is one of the largest contributors to pollution, and people continue to consume more and more each day. Trends are cycled through every week, and this results in clothes being produced quickly and expelled even quicker. Buying clothes second-hand gives clothes a second life, and it ensures that I am buying clothes of quality, that are not actively harming the environment—the clothes in my closet are clothes that I cherish, and I help the planet by keeping them out of landfills. I learned about the effects that the meat and agriculture industry has on our climate when I was fourteen years old, and since then, I have cut all meat out of my diet and have adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. Not only does cutting down trees for new agricultural land increase global warming and climate change, but once livestock is bred in copious amounts, they emit methane, and even more emissions occur in the transportation and processing of the animals. Throughout every step of the process, there is so much pollution created. By adopting a vegetarian diet, I have managed to truly feel as though I’m making a difference. The meat industry is horrific in terms of its treatment of animals as well as the effects that it has on the planet, and I’m proud to say I take no part in the industry. I try to urge the people around me to try cutting down on their meat consumption because as a society, we need to start combating climate change and eating sustainably. It’s easy to feel discouraged when it comes to eating and shopping sustainably because, at the end of the day, it’s huge corporations and industries ruining our planet. I try my best to boycott those companies, and I plan on going into the field of environmental law and policy so I can take down the corporations that kill our planet and the plants and animals on it. I want this world to be protected, and I do my best to make sure it is. We have no Planet B, and I fight each day to keep our planet in Grade A shape.

I have never been able to paint. I marveled at the artistic works of my parents, as the paintbrush fit so well in the curves of their hands. I was not so lucky, as the tool fit sloppily in my hand, flicking paint on to an unsuspecting canvas, that most likely should have been saved for a true work of art. My mother insisted that anything was art if I wanted it to be, so throughout my childhood my works consisted of abstract pieces of random shapes painted on a canvas with sparkly colors. Though I may have never been able to paint, I was far more interested in the art of emotions. I was amazed that even the most different of people could be connected by emotions. Each story shared amongst a group of people could be shared by someone across the room because they felt the same emotions. When I watched movies I shared the emotions that the people on the screen felt— the stories shared on the television reached out to me, to let me know that even in my darkest moments, feeling my darkest feelings, I was not alone. When I learned what acting was, I fell in love with it. Getting to share stories of people and knowing that people watching could find peace with their emotions because they realized they weren’t alone? It was a dream come true. As I grew up and grew into my emotions, I grew into my place on stage; laughing, crying, shouting, whispering, each action a result of each feeling, each feeling amplified by the echo in the auditorium. Acting can fulfill my purpose in my life. I have the gift of feeling, I want to feel the good, the bad, and everything in-between. I can feel the feelings of the characters I portray, and as they grow my experience will grow with them. I can connect with people all over the world: I can perform for them in the most beautiful of theaters, I can share people’s stories, and paint the stage with each colorful emotion. Theatre feels right for me. As someone who struggled with anxiety and depression, I had difficulty finding my place in the world. I thought that everyone else seemed normal and I was the only one who felt the emotions I did. When I discovered theatre, I could relate to the characters I played, and I knew that people in the audience could relate to them too. No one is alone as they feel, and that’s what theatre showed me. The art situated itself in my heart, pumping purpose and joy into my soul. Theatre is my place, and I want to pursue it throughout my entire life.