Success is something that I believe is heavily rooted in the American dream. Being all too familiar with the concept as a first-generation American, wanting to achieve success can be difficult. I don't want my parent's hard work or my grandparents' hard work to go to waste. As the oldest child, the oldest grandchild, granddaughter, and only granddaughter on my mom's side, everyone wants to see you succeed. Being in a position that not everyone is lucky enough to be in makes you view differently. Not to mention the internal pressure of perfectionism. If one has asked me a year or maybe even a couple of months ago, what is success? My answer would have been something along the lines of achieving all my dreams and goals, going to college, landing a dream job in my goal career, having a family, and being married. But once I achieved all those things, what would help me measure success then? I do believe that, yes, all those wonderful things could be my future success they don't define my success. Success is progress. I have to be able to accept myself where I am before I can push myself towards my goals. Having the goals is great but recognizing my everyday success is important too. Sometimes, success may look like getting up and making my bed in the morning. Or simply getting ready in the morning. However other days, it might be narrowing down my college search or applying for new scholarships. Or making the time for friends and family to deepen relationships. Celebrating those daily successes is what helps me achieve that weekly, monthly, annual, and lifetime success. All these bricks, short-term successes, create the beautiful building of my life's success. Success in its meaning is a reflective process. You can't have success without acknowledging where you have been. My success in school for example can't be acknowledged until you consider how for me to get to my senior year of high school, I had to finish elemnteray school. For me to be where I am, I had to move from Indiana and then skip a grade. And after skipping a grade, I had to continue to push myself and challenge myself. I had to get over slacking, procrastination, and taking zeros for assignments. To get to a point where I pushed myself to work hard, complete outside-of-class work, and turn in assignments for late points if I wasn't able to get them in on time. If I didn't learn to evolve, I wouldn't be at the point where I am now that I get every single assignment in. I might still deal with procrastination, but I now have to the dedication to overcome that barrier and have learned how much every point counts. I hope that with this scholarship I will be able to continue this growth. To me, my growth is success because I have come so far and know I still have far to go. I am so proud that I have even been able to make it to the point that I am today and can't wait to see the heights to which college will take me.

While I am truly blessed not to be a victim of domestic violence myself, unfortunately, it's a subject still close to me. There are people in my life that have experienced domestic violence. I understand as a woman how domestic violence specifically affects and increases the risk of endangerment for me. Additionally, as an African-American, while I wish the issue would cease to exist, it's not right how the impact is greater and should be something we anticipate encountering based on demographic. The world we live in isn't perfect but that doesn't mean we should stop trying to make it a better place. I want to continue to stay committed and involved with subjects that I connect to and I believe need improvement in society. Specifically in making sure that assistance and education are available to all who want it, need it, and will benefit from it. In the future what I hope to do to subside and hopefully one day erase the threat of domestic violence for all is by increasing the education available surrounding it. I truly believe that education is key to everything and education is foremost in prevention. I want to make sure people understand what domestic violence is and includes. Oftentimes victims will downplay their situations making it difficult for them to define when they are experiencing domestic violence and therefore seeking out help. Secondly providing education on resources that can be used if someone finds themself victim. I yearn to work with organizations, especially in volunteering my time and donations of my money, to assure that people are aware of places they can go, numbers they can call, and people to reach out to in order to get help. Much of the available help today is discreet as victims often fear getting help because they are worried about the help being ineffective or worsening their situation putting them in more danger. I want to make sure that these resources are known so victims don't feel the need to stay where they are thinking it's the safer option for them and to seek out that available assistance to ascertain their true safety. Lastly, I want to establish a universal understanding of the punishments and the severity of domestic violence to discourage offenders or people who have the possibility of becoming offenders. Now this is one of many ways I desire to improve the world and I realize what an extensive undertaking that will be. While I know the journey won't be easy, I am ready and want to fight for this because everyone deserves the opportunity to be safe in their own home. In college, I plan to pursue a double major in either political science, philosophy, psychology, and/or economics. My end goal is to get my juris doctorate. As a lawyer, I aim to reform areas in society that are in desperate need of improvement. As an aspiring member of the United States Congress, I will speak on this as a bill. My hope is these classes will be government-funded and a graduation requirement in schools nationwide. Classes will begin the 8th-grade year and stack additional information as appropriate for age every other year. I am grateful for the opportunity and this consideration and believe your scholarship will help me go far and get our shared concerns heard. I appreciate the time you have taken to read this and hope to appear on your ballot one day and get this domestic violence bill heard on both US chamber floors.