In my life, I've seen my parents, uncles, aunts, and elder cousins who came to this country in the 90s suffer through recessions and riots, wars and struggles homelessness, and jail time. They always told me to stay in school and try to achieve what I could. They never told me how to do these things but to just do it. So as a high school kid I never really knew what to do my friends and the people around me never really cared about going to college being first and second gen immigrants as well they just cruised through high school and so did I, it wasn't until senior year of high school my classmates started talking about the applications they put in for universities and colleges around the country and when they got accepted I remember one day, the very last day of my senior year before graduation everyone was signing each others yearbooks and they would say the typical what will you do and what school will you go to. When my classmates asked me I said I was going to community college and they said oh that's good, I felt they knew my answer as I rarely did talk or participate in school. I did feel some sense of missing out and being left behind. But I did want to go to college to see how it would go. My first attempt at a community college was a short one only doing a year more or less but dropping out due to loss of interest and low GPA, so I didn't qualify for federal student aid. So I dropped out and tried getting a job. I had no other choice my dreams fell and my life now was just to make money to pay for rent like everyone else in my family. Until the pandemic happened. In 2020 I lost my job and couldn't find one for years or even find interviews I had no experience or higher education. But as I stayed in my room nothing to do, being a failure and letting people down. I decided with the help of my parents, that I would go back to school as soon as the shutdown mandates were lifted and this time I would try, like really try. And so fall of 2022 I applied for classes at my local community college and even with the fears and anxieties of making the leap I had the support of my family and the amazing counselors at my college to help me and guide my way to success. On the first day of the semester, I went to the STEM center and just studied which I never did. I met amazing tutors future friends and mentors. I practically lived at the tutoring/STEM/Math center at my college. I recorded one of the highest hours that semester, and to where I am now. I received my first academic award do excellence from the college's MESA program. I landed two amazing interviews for summer internships one from Stanford that I later got waitlisted and then declined the offer to go for the one I am in this summer 2024 in bioinformatics at San Jose State University. So although my life especially in academia has been rough I'm glad I went through what I did cause everything led to where I am now and I hope to continue my early success and try to achieve more in the future, with the help of being sponsored I definitely think I can make it happen