l lived in places where struggling was normal in neighborhoods like Sunnyside and Deadends. For some people these might just be names on a map, but to me they are memories of shattered sidewalks and sirens at night wondering if it was the police or ambulance paying a visit this time. Yet above all visits, the one that stuck most was the lesson you had to fight for the outcome of your own life, because nobody else would. To start, I didn’t have much family, only my parents and siblings. That was it. No cousins to play with, no grandparents to visit. I didn’t even realize how lonely that was until I grew up and saw what other kids had. As the second oldest, I felt I didn’t have a choice but to be tough most times. So growing up I got into lots of fights, not because I wanted trouble or problems, I just knew that to be the only way of protecting myself. My school record didn’t always reflect my best behavior, but my grades always told another story. Overtime academics became the one place I knew I could use to prove I was more than my environment. Eventually, High school started adding weight on shoulders already heavy with dreams. There was really no one for me to look up to, so I had to learn to become that person. Claiming the title of second oldest of my siblings wasn't always an easy task, there would be times I would rather die 10x over than not live up to everyone's expectations. As I see it, I wasn’t only pursuing my own future, I was attempting to alter the course for my entire family. I wanted to be the first college graduate, the first to achieve better than a 4.0 GPA, the first to reach higher than a 1400 on the SAT. So every late night spent studying felt like an episode of Survivor, and every high grade felt like securing the immunity. Even so, unfortunately, death was never far behind. I lost loved ones, members of my small, tight knit family . Grief became a thing that I learned to carry quietly, silently,while also still showing up for school, for practice, and everything else. Through it all, I never stopped fighting to be great. Civil engineering was a dream of mine before I even knew it was in my family. I picked it, because I wanted to create something strong, something to last maybe because I’d already felt what life was when it wasn’t. I learned later that my mom’s father, who died from a heart attack before I was born, was also a civil engineer. In Austin is a building with his last name Cheathem chiseled into it. When I heard that, I realized God was telling me that my path was never random. It was always meant for me.