Embarking on my college journey as a first-generation student represents a profound achievement in my life. As a Black woman pursuing a law degree and a career in technology, I view education not just as a means to acquire knowledge but as a transformative force with the potential to shape my future and make a meaningful impact on society. Education serves as a gateway to new opportunities and perspectives. As I immerse myself in my studies in law and technology, I am poised to acquire skills and insights that will empower me to navigate and influence both fields. My dual focus allows me to bridge gaps between legal frameworks and technological innovation, offering the potential to address complex issues such as data privacy, cybersecurity, and equitable access to technology. In the legal realm, I will gain a deep understanding of the principles that govern our society and the tools to advocate for justice. In the field of technology, I will learn to harness the latest advancements to drive innovation and solve real-world problems. This combination of skills will enable me to approach challenges from a multifaceted perspective, fostering solutions that are both legally sound and technologically advanced. Moreover, education will open doors to networks and resources that can amplify my voice and ideas. Being part of academic and professional communities will provide me with platforms to advocate for policies that promote inclusivity and fairness, especially in technology. Diverse perspectives are crucial for ethical development and application in tech, and I am committed to ensuring that these perspectives are represented in the conversations that shape the industry. As I build my career, I am driven by a strong desire to use my education and experiences to contribute to society in meaningful ways. My journey as a first-generation college student and minority gives me a unique perspective that I am eager to share with others. By serving as a mentor and role model, I aim to inspire other students from similar backgrounds to pursue their dreams. I plan to offer guidance and support to help them navigate their educational and professional paths, fostering a new generation of leaders and innovators. With my background in law and technology, I am well-positioned to advocate for policies that promote ethical practices in technology. I envision working on legislation that ensures technology serves everyone equitably, protects individual rights, and addresses disparities. My goal is to contribute to creating a legal framework that supports innovation while safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders. Additionally, I am interested in creating or supporting programs that prepare students from underrepresented backgrounds for careers in tech and law. This could involve developing curriculum, hosting workshops, or partnering with schools to foster early interest and skills in these fields. I've already created these programs by founding a chapter of Girls Who Code at my university, an organization aimed at bridging the gender gap in technology. By investing in educational programs, I aim to empower students with the tools they need to excel and make a difference in their chosen fields. In conclusion, my education is not just a personal triumph but a foundation for broader societal impact. As I navigate my path in law and technology, I have the opportunity to drive positive change, advocate for justice, and inspire others. By leveraging my knowledge and experiences, I am committed to contributing to a more equitable and innovative future, making a difference both through my professional work and by supporting those who follow in my footsteps.

As a dedicated lacrosse goalkeep, I believe that commitment, teamwork, and discipline are not only essential on the field but also permeate every aspect of life. Through my involvement in lacrosse, leadership positions in various organizations, and volunteering efforts, I have learned to embody these values, fostering personal growth and positively impacting those around me. Commitment is the foundation of success both on and off the field. As a lacrosse player, I demonstrate commitment by consistently showing up for practices, giving my best effort in every game, and constantly striving to improve my skills. Beyond the lacrosse field, I maintain a strong sense of commitment in my leadership roles. Whether it's organizing team events or managing projects, I dedicate myself wholeheartedly, ensuring that I fulfill my responsibilities to the best of my abilities. Furthermore, my commitment extends to my volunteer work, where I devote my time and energy to causes that resonate with me. Through my unwavering commitment, I aim to lead by example and inspire others to stay dedicated to their goals and aspirations. Teamwork is at the core of lacrosse, and I embrace its importance in all aspects of my life. On the field, I understand that no individual can achieve success alone. I actively communicate with my teammates, offer support, and collaborate to develop effective strategies. I value the unique strengths and perspectives each player brings to the team, fostering a sense of unity and trust. Off the field, my commitment to teamwork shines through my leadership positions in various organizations. I strive to create an inclusive and collaborative environment, encouraging teamwork among members to accomplish shared objectives. In my volunteer work, I collaborate with fellow volunteers, sharing ideas and resources to make a collective impact. Through my commitment to teamwork, I foster a sense of camaraderie and empower others to achieve greatness together. Discipline is the driving force behind personal growth and success. As a lacrosse player, I understand the importance of discipline in training, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and staying focused on my goals. I adhere to a rigorous practice schedule, consistently push my limits, and prioritize physical and mental well-being. Off the field, discipline guides my leadership roles, ensuring that I fulfill my commitments and responsibilities with utmost dedication. I organize my time efficiently, set clear goals, and consistently follow through on tasks. In my volunteer work, discipline enables me to make a meaningful impact by maintaining a consistent presence and delivering results. By embodying discipline, I inspire others to stay focused, persevere through challenges, and achieve their full potential. As a lacrosse player with leadership positions in various organizations and a dedicated volunteer, I embody commitment, teamwork, and discipline both on and off the field. These values have shaped my personal growth and allowed me to positively impact those around me, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and resilience.

As a first-generation student at an HBCU, I faced financial and mental adversities when transitioning to college. Through perseverance, community support, and self-belief, I triumphed over these challenges, emerging stronger and more resilient than ever before. As a child of immigrant parents, financial difficulties were a constant presence in my life. Attending college seemed insurmountable, but I refused to let it define my future. I tirelessly pursued state grants, filled out application forms, and reached out to every resource I had. Through determination, I secured financial aid and scholarships, easing the burden as much as possible so that I would be able to pursue my dreams without compromising my education. Transitioning to college as a first-generation student brought forth mental challenges. The unfamiliar college environment and the pressure to succeed overwhelmed me, leading to anxiety and self-doubt. However, I sought support from professors who became invaluable mentors, guiding me through the complexities of academia. I also connected with fellow students who shared similar experiences, forming a support network that helped me navigate college life. In addition, I reached out to mental health resources on campus and learned to control the anxieties I hadn't felt before starting college. Together, we provided encouragement, motivation, and understanding, bolstering each other's mental well-being. As a first-generation HBCU student, I discovered the power of community. HBCUs celebrate and uplift students of color, fostering a sense of belonging and shared cultural experience. Faculty and staff went above and beyond to ensure our success, creating an environment of support and resources. The camaraderie among students, alumni, and the larger HBCU community was palpable, offering a network of individuals who understood our unique challenges. Through this community and new support system, I found solace, encouragement, and inspiration to push through adversity and strive for excellence. Through the trials I faced, I experienced significant personal growth. Challenges became opportunities for self-reflection and improvement. I honed my time management and organizational skills, adeptly balancing coursework, jobs, and extracurricular activities. I developed resilience and perseverance, viewing setbacks as stepping stones toward success. Moreover, I developed a profound appreciation for the sacrifices my parents made, motivating me to make the most of every opportunity. As a first-generation HBCU student, I overcame financial and mental obstacles, learning valuable lessons about resilience, determination, and the power of community. I emerged stronger, ready to face future challenges. With heartfelt gratitude for the support of my family, the guidance of my mentors, and the uplifting environment of my HBCU, I continue my educational journey with confidence.

“You’ve become a leader amongst leaders”, that’s what my friend said when I told him about how out of place I felt now when I started at Howard University. I had explained that throughout high school I was always in a leadership position and felt out of place now that I was in college. I was the president of The Minority Initiative Club which amplified the input of minorities at my predominantly white high school to create an open space for equitable solutions. I was a member of my school's chapter of the National Honor Society, a shift leader at my afterschool job as a barista, and held quarterly equity dialogue meetings with faculty, students, and parents. Over time, by getting accustomed to my new life here at Howard, I’ve found positions suitable for me. I’m a Junior Residential Assistant and a Public Relations Freshman Executive at the Howard University Student Association. Being able to be a part of a community puts me in a position where I feel my goals are attainable. When I was 15 I heard the term “grassroots” law for the first time. I heard a group of educated lawyers from all different backgrounds was getting together to make some real change. Not discussions, or just fundraising for families, but changing the legislation that put those families in those positions in the first place. Grassroots Law inspired me in a way that drove my passion for helping the powerless. I plan on starting my own nonprofit business. Creating a group of not only lawyers but businessmen, politicians, and leaders to ensure we do more than discuss solutions. We must ensure the systems that aren’t helping those in need are shifted to create equitable solutions. I have to do more for people struggling to ensure their governments and businesses care for them in a way they deserve to be recognized. That they care for them as more than just a statistic or a DEI fulfillment. I want to work to ensure that governments see citizens of the world as humans first and foremost rather than numbers on a Census. I have to recognize that technology is our future. We can do so much to stop past transgressions against minorities from being repeated. However, if we truly want minority people to prosper, we have to introduce them to a variety of technologies and create equity by including them in conversations with future generations. This is why I believe in addition to my group of leaders, I want to also include those in the technology and electronics fields. Using the electronic consumer industry as a tool to teach minorities, can make the difference between our current position and the position we want to be in. My past experiences and leadership experiences are not an accumulation of who I am as a person. While it is a big part of my life, my future is something I am very passionate about and proud to be pursuing. The money I receive in scholarships would go towards my education and housing as an out-of-state student. I am proud to be able to attend Howard University, however, I feel constant pressure to ensure my education is paid for as a student. It is a barrier on my path. I want to relieve the pressure on my father and myself. After college, I want to use any remaining resources to fund my endeavors in creating this organization. I want to jumpstart my career in nonprofit organizations. I want to create a real change among minority groups.

When I was 6 I learned the term “a1c”, the measurement of blood sugar levels. Now I didn’t learn it because I was interested in the field of medicine from my childhood. I learned it because my mother’s doctor believed a six year old could comprehend medical terms better than the adult immigrant with an accent. So in doctor’s appointments about my mothers health when the doctor would address me while my mother perfectly understood his medical terms because she had learned English back home in Sudan, I pretended to understand the vast terminology to make the doctor feel comfortable speaking to us. I wish I could have told the doctor to reassess his ignorant habits and to address the patient rather than using me as a human translator. That was the least I could do for my mother who worked so hard to place me in my current position. This was an issue that persisted even when we weren’t in a doctors office. From settings like a parent-teacher meeting to the Wendy’s drive thru, English-speakers consistently addressed me rather than my mother. Overlooking her preparation to converse and struggle to mentally translate words from her original language to English before speaking. All because they would rather speak to the child than allow an immigrant to practice articulating themselves. While my parents did learn English back home, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there was a slight dialect difference as they learned British English which is vastly different from American English. However, a dialect difference like that is almost no issue after over 20 years in this country. It is no excuse for a lack of patience and willingness to work on comprehension. Especially when a majority of Americans will vacation in South American and European countries and be upset to find that there are no English speakers around. While as a child being forced to speak on behalf of my parents made me a more outgoing and communicable person it also forced me to believe that this was a normal situation for children. No child should have to see their parents looked down on for something as trivial as a few grammar mistakes or their b’s sounding like p’s. Or their parents not finding a job because a skill like communication wasn’t written on their resumes. Their parents who wanted their child to grow to speak the perfect American English that they couldn’t achieve. As a child the pressure to find the words my parents missed morphed me to have social and friendly characteristics that ultimately led me to find the possibilities of networking as an international business major. I would not have become the person I am today without being forced out of my comfort zone as a child. However I do still wish the ignorance of doctors had never put my parents down whether they had realized it or not. Those moments took away the opportunity for my parents to learn andI wish I had spoken up on the ignorance I had witnessed.

I never knew the term American dream could be used so loosely. I always thought the American dream would be a white picket fence, with a two-story home, in a nice suburban neighborhood, with a couple of kids, two parents, maybe a cat, but only because I prefer cats to dogs. I thought that was the American Dream until I was about 11 years old. We had a kitten named Apollo, and of course at the time I had a tragic phobia of cats. What can I say? He grew on me. My mother was also alive, and when she wasn’t, that was when our American dream truly started diminishing. All of my siblings began screaming at my father nightly because before my mother passed he left the house before we woke up, and came home after we fell asleep, so much so that he didn't know how to talk to his own children; He didn't know his daughter absolutely hated any type of lamb shawarma and could only eat chicken shawarma; He didn't know his daughter in college was depressed, but she was dorming so how could she not be happy, right? He didn't know many things and those countless arguments around the house were the small fragments that ruined this American Dream. I'm not exactly sure what my parents had in mind when they moved to America but I knew it wasn't that. I'm sure you could just say well that's just how life is, but I thought we were supposed to have a perfect life behind that white picket fence. In which financial struggles were never an issue and we weren't fearful of foreclosure. I thought we would live somewhere where pain and strife were left in the Homeland. But of course that is why they call it a dream isn't it? In truth I don't have an American Dream I have an American future. Regardless of the reasons my parents moved to this country they offered me a future that is truly one in a million. If I was offered a future like that what a waste would it be to do nothing with it. While I know my happiness matters and that's all my father cares about, I have to make sure I'm not a failure for him I have to make sure that even though he regrets moving here some days, he knows it was worth it. I have to make sure I exceed his expectations so he no longer lives or dies with that regret. I know that if I continue my education I could do just that. The moment I stop, the moment I'm not exceeding any of his expectations, the offer I received for the opportunities here to fufill this “American Dream” would be null and void

Mental health is a difficult topic for many people to discuss, let alone find help for. While many people may argue that the easiest solution would be to find help from a therapist or doctor, this notion discredits those who are able to access such privileges. This may be due to financial struggles or personal anxieties surrounding the idea of speaking out. However, I've found with myself and many of my friends it is difficult to get the help needed when even in todays modern world, many cultures believe the stigma that mental struggles are not a genuine issue. If we were to ask my parents for example, they would argue the only solution for mental struggles would be reading the Quran. While I do appreciate all of the lessons religion has to offer, I prefer to solve mental health issues with less general ideas. If that solution works for you then by all means... Except, the solution I've found that works best for me is simply exploring my own identity. Much of my anxiety in recent years has been due to insecurities brought from a place of doubt and fear of failure. Quality time with myself and finding hobbies has been my own way of reassuring myself of my successes and my ability to grow, which is all anyone can hope for, the ability to grow. Any doubt that may cause anxiety or depression isn't always solved with an expensive doctor or unrevealing truths of the world. Sometimes those doubts can only be diminished when one is able to look past those fears and set sights on finding the good aspects of their identity.

¨هل هي مجنونة?!?!¨(Have you gone mad?!?!) You’d think this was in response to disobedience but I simply wanted a haircut… My mother panicked at the idea. In her eyes, the curly hair she styled since my childhood was one of her most prized possessions. Due to her attachment, I never experienced a “first haircut” until i was 15. I never thought “long and pretty” hair was a piece of the trouble called culture, until my first haircut. When I wanted a haircut, something my family had rarely done because of the significance of long hair in Sudanese culture, my mother went berserk. Unlike Americans, Sudanese people had the expectations of previous generations to live up to. They idolized western lifestyles yet detested them at the same time. They envied the freedom Americans had in exploring the diversity of immigrants. Antithetically, they believed Americans had a lack of morals which made them appreciate those cultures less. They found their lack of culture to cause them to be ungrateful and a lack of ancestors for role models. So I ensured my I represented my culture. The most heart-wrenching challenge my mother had ever faced was ensuring her children never became too Americanized because to her, tradition wasn't a choice. Tradition was one of the few ways she was linked to her children, especially with a language barrier. I learned Arabic around the house with her, but there would always be those moments when we couldn't find a proper translation to understand one another with my broken Arabic and her broken English. As a child, it killed her to see me struggle to describe my feelings to my own mother. So to atone, my mom fought to keep traditions alive until the day she died. Then my father inherited the responsibility of continuing her battle, but like all children are bound to do, I became a defiant teenager. I researched my hair trying to find another solution to my weighed-down hair for months until one selfish day I decided to make the appointment. The day of my appointment my hands were trembling. However, it wasn't due to nerves for my first haircut, this shaking was from the immense guilt that had built up since I made the appointment. Getting a haircut was one of the few things I knew my mothers' stance on. It wasn’t like I could interpret her feelings differently to make myself feel better about it; and believe me, I had tried to. Opposing my mothers wishes and traditions had to mean I was unworthy to experience my culture. I was willingly cutting off one of the few ties that connected me to my mother. It was too late now, I sat down in the seat and watched as my hairstylist, Donna, started trimming. After the cut, Donna fluffed my hair, “You have such beautiful hair!" I couldn’t believe someone could use the word “beautiful” to describe my hair. Donna, like me, was an immigrant, she wasn’t raised with American values. She encouraged Americanization as long as it never overshadowed her own traditions. A bicultural lifestyle means it's not bad to be Americanized but it´d be terrible to lose the balance between Americanization and my own heritage. My mother’s wishes weren't to keep my hair long, but to guarantee I added tradition to the life I would have to decode on my own in America. I can´t fight my Americanization and my traditions, but I can apply them to live in relation to one another. My hair wasn’t weighed down anymore, and my guilt was no longer weighing me down.

Education was always valuable to my dad, while he never was able to pursue a degree in America he ensured we were given that opportunity. My father had passions that he was forced to give up on when he moved to America but he was always scared doing what he needed to wasn't worth the little reward of a paycheck to paycheck life. He wanted us to have passions well above his own that we would endeavor and overcome any obstacles we had unlike his unfortunate circumstances. While I wasn't so fortunate to have gained a passion towards a profitable career, I thought about what would make me happy in life. The answer without a doubt was always justice. I sat in classes like "AP Government" and "Power, Prejudice, and Intolerance" thinking about the injustice the world suffers and how for the most part we just take it, we allow our ignorance to blind us. My passion was something many people have but aren't able to use, my empathy. While I knew I wanted a career that helped injustice within court systems and US legality, I also wanted to live doing something that wouldn't lack direction at the slightest change in circumstance. I was curious of why no one fought supreme court cases unless it was a corporate issue or other unimportant issue. I found that most of the time it's money. Many times legal teams and court hearings cost lots and lots of money, so it's just pushed off until eventually it's the easiest issue on the courts plate. Which meant innocent inmates spent more time in prison, moving up in the death penalty line, and waiting for someone to save them. There needs to be someone that overcomes obstacles regardless of unfortunate circumstances, someone who can do what my father and countless citizens could not. Someone who is willing to begin a career in social justice law and administrate a team of lawyers in a pro-bono organization. I am hoping to one day be that person. While I lacked direction with my career and education for the longest time I realized my potential and what I can do for people and used my dads role modeling as a guide to helping me find the power of my education. I hope to go to school as a business administration major, continue to law school and be powerfully knowledgeable about the business dynamics I'd face as well as doing what I love, justice.