I am currently studying at Tennesee State University to gain my bachelor's degree in Biology and business. My first semester, I was able to make the dean's list and it showed me that I should stop doubting myself. I would like to soon transfer after the spring 24 semester to continue my studies at The University of North Carolina Greensboro. After I complete my studies, I would love to go to dental school to gain more knowledge and be able to get my certification to become an orthodontist. Biology is something that always stuck out to me in high school because you learn so much science and also see how math ties into our everyday lives. Business is something that I love because I would love to own an orthodontist's office in the future. Becoming an orthodontist is something that I became very passionate about when I had my own experience. For most of middle school and early high school, I was in braces and I was always so intrigued every time that I was in the chair. I made sure to ask questions if I was curious and my orthodontist was very helpful with care. Going to the dentist never scared me as a child and always made sure to take great care of my teeth. I would love to have my practice because I know how expensive health care is and how expensive my braces were, i just want to be able to help people with being able to have braces even if they aren't able to afford them and give them numerous options. I am a first-generation college student so it is a major accomplishment and my family is trying their best to be able to help me get through college knowing how expensive universities are. I would use this scholarship to help my mother with the expenses of my schooling and being able to give her a break from stressing about sending me through. I have come to college and worked so hard to make all of my family proud since I am the first from the immediate family to make it this far. I am also one of the few out of my family to graduate high school and I just would love to keep making my family proud. With this scholarship and my financial aid, it would make a major difference and I would truly just enjoy the opportunity.

Addiction was something that I watched take over my brother. My brother was once a loving kind person who was always around and loved to spread joy to his family. My mother always tried her best to keep my siblings and me very close since we were so similar in age. Both my brothers chose bad routes when they got to their teens but here is the story about how my brother's substance abuse soon led to him becoming a paraplegic. When I was in elementary school, my brother moved away from North Carolina to be in Virginia with his father and grandmother. My mother and I would try to go visit him as much as we could but due to her having to be at work 5 days out of the week and me being a child, it wasn't always a guarantee that we would be able to visit him. The part of Richmond, Virginia that he was staying in was very low-income and had a lot of violence going on which was very different from what he came from in North Carolina. He would always hang out with the wrong crowds who influenced him to do things that would have led him to death or jail. The crowd influenced him to start doing drugs such as pills which was no good because it would turn him into a whole different person. These drugs would make him turn into a monster and he would attack the people around him and commit crimes. He was in and out of jail which put a strain on our family because we tried so hard to get him help but he would not listen. His last sentence would be the one that everybody wishes he had a little more time to reflect on where his actions would lead him. During my junior year of high school, I would receive the news that my brother was shot and nobody truly had much more news since he was a state away. My brother got into a situation with an associate of his over drug use and he was shot and instantly paralyzed from the incident. This situation would turn my family around since we had never experienced something like this so close in our lives. This is something that was so traumatic to all of us but it was something that slowly made us come together and become more of a village. This situation makes me work harder because not only am I a first generation but I just want to make sure that my brother stays on the right track despite what happened to him. Every time that I am doing work or doubting myself, I always think about this situation and how it made me work hard in school but also reminds me to stay away from the wrong crowd. The wrong crowd can ruin your life in a matter of seconds and I want to make something of myself so I try to keep myself around the right company.

Hello, I am shawnee magee and I am from Charlotte, North Carolina. I want to attend a Hbcu to pursue my career as an orthodontist. I would like to go to school to study Biology and get into a dental program to become an orthodontist. A major obstacle that I have faced in my life was my brother getting shot and becoming permanently paralyzed in early 2022. This experience led to many other changes in not only my life but my whole immediate family's lives. I am the youngest of the three of us and growing up, our family always tried to keep us close even though my brothers were taking different routes in life. My mom tried her best to keep everyone a family, but eventually my brothers decided to leave home and pursue their own lives. My one particular brother decided to leave and go live with his family in Richmond, Virginia, which led to him getting in a lot of trouble over the years. He stayed in and out of the system and no matter how hard we worked for him to become a better person, he wouldn't listen to anybody and would decide to constantly put himself in horrible circumstances that would ultimately end up very detrimental to his life. Earlier in 2022, my brother had just lost his older brother due to gun violence, so we thought that maybe that would be a wake-up call to leave that type of life in the past. We were all wrong, though, when in March 2022, my brother was also a victim of gun violence. Like normal cases of gun violence, it was over something so senseless that could have easily been talked out and not ended in such a tragic way. My brother is now paralyzed from the waste down and as my dad always says, life is a constant cycle. My brother is healthy and doing good for his circumstances, but things are of course still hard due to him just suddenly losing normal abilities that we are so used to. This tragic incident has done nothing but taught me that you should never take things in life for granted. Life doesn't stop for anybody, and when you take things as a joke, the universe will humble you in any possible way. This has done nothing but go harder for the things I want in life because I don't want to end up going down a horrible path that in the end I will regret. When you do good things and put good things out in the universe, you will receive good things even when things may seem like they aren't going your way. This experience has actually brought my family together and found different ways for us to work together and truly connect with each other. My family wasn't always close, but little did we know, this major incident could truly bring us together.