I never thought education was useful at least higher education. When I heard about it, it was always from people who already had money, not people like me who came from poverty. My immigrant parents struggled to stay afloat and provide for my siblings and I, so naturally, the expectations were for us to get a job once we were of age. My sister stopped going to high school when she was a sophomore and began to work, and I knew I would soon be following. As the years passed, there was this little light in me that began to wonder if I was special enough to go to college. It made me smile a little, thinking about how I might make my parents proud then the thought of how will they ever afford it would flood in my mind. My parents came to the states with nothing. Why would I put them through more stress? How would I afford it? And that little light was all it stayed as...a thought. I came from a place of poverty where college was not even an option. In my family, the goal was to finish high school and then get a job to help support the family. In my community, college was considered a place for rich people to go, but it was not for folks like us. Where I come from, that is the norm. Yet, every day I woke up for school, I dreamed about being the first in my family to break that cycle. Fast forward to me graduating from high school, I continued the tradition. My life went on, and that dream was just but a candle hiding under a basket waiting to burn through. I tried for many years to go back to college, only to be met with roadblocks, but I did not give up. Chabot college was the opportunity that I have been waiting for. It was a scary place for me; however, the staff at Chabot were very welcoming and helped me every step of the way. Slowly the thoughts that I had about college began to change. I began to see the importance of college and getting a higher education. I felt a sense of belonging. College is for me! It is for everyone, especially those who have a passionate desire to move forward in life. I am proud that this leap of faith has changed my thoughts and feelings toward college, and I am now in a position to help my own family. I would have never thought I would be a student, much less one with a high GPA of 3.4! A

I never thought education was valuable, at least higher education. When I heard about it, it was always from people who already had money, not people like me who came from poverty. My parents struggled to stay afloat and provide for five children, so naturally, the expectations were for us to get a job once we were of age. My sister stopped going to high school when she was a sophomore and began to work, and I knew I would soon be following. As the years passed, there was this little light in me that began to wonder if I was special enough to go to college. It made me smile a little, thinking about how I might make my parents proud then the thought of how will they ever afford it. How would I afford it? And that little light was all it stayed as...a thought I came from a place of poverty where college was not even an option. In my family, the goal was to finish high school and then get a job to help support the family. In my community, college was considered a place for rich people to go, but it was not for folks like us. Where I come from, that is the norm. Yet, every day I woke up for school, I dreamed about being the first in my family to break that cycle. Fast forward to me graduating from high school, I continued the tradition. My life went on, and that dream was just but a candle hiding under a basket waiting to burn through. I tried for many years to go back to college, only to be met with roadblocks, but I did not give up. Chabot college was the opportunity that I have been waiting for. It was a scary place for me; however, the staff at Chabot were very welcoming and helped me every step of the way. Slowly the thoughts that I had about college began to change. I began to see the importance of college and getting a higher education. I felt a sense of belonging. College is for me! It is for everyone, especially those who have a passionate desire to move forward in life. I am proud that this leap of faith has changed my thoughts and feelings toward college, and I am now in a position to help my own family. I would have never thought I would be a student, much less one with a high GPA of 3.4!

I come from a community where many of us are not financially literate, and I want to be that change for my community. Growing up my family did not know how to manage money and because of that we were not taught to manage our money well. I went through many rough patches in my life because of the lack of financial knowledge. I went into a lot of debt because I didn’t fully understood how credit cards and loans worked. I didn’t get my first bank account until I was about 23 years old and even then I had no idea what I was doing. Being a mother of three children and being in so much debt was a very hard challenge for me. I constantly found myself getting more and more into debt getting more loans getting more credit card just to survive. One day my daughter asked me “mommy, do we have anything in our savings? Do we have any money saved?” and that’s when it dawned on me that I knew nothing about this. I knew nothing about finance. I just kept living day today paycheck to paycheck. I knew that something needed to change I knew that I needed help. As the numbers kept adding up, I decided to make a change. I started to go on YouTube and look up financial to help me bring my debt down, and to learn more about the financial world. I learned most of the things that I knew from the Internet and when I would share this information with my friends they would be just as surprised as I was when I found out that. I also shared that information with my parents and they did not know and so that opened up my eyes to see that there are many people out there that need someone to show them that information. While in high school, I did not learn much about finance, simple things as having a bank account like a checking and savings account and even retirement was not taught in school. I feel like that’s one of the reasons why many young Americans fall into so much debt because of the lack of finance knowledge. Many Americans don’t know how these things work and this is why I want to continue my studies in business administration, so that I may teach my friends, family and others about the importance of financial knowledge.