Writing Assignment 2: Personal Narrative Essay

In my life, I have had battles to fight that have been hard to overcome. The one thing I can say through it all I never give up even knowing it might not be my best. In my life, I sometimes have felt that because of my skin color, people don’t believe I can achieve certain things not academically. Where I’m from it was common for people to treat me one way, and when they saw all of my accomplishments they treated me completely differently. I have faced so much adversity that usually if some of my peers went through they would give up. 

Before College 

I think my educational growth started in middle school where I started to stand out from some of my peers. When I was in sixth grade my school told us about a program where I would be able to obtain an associate degree when I would graduate high school. That being said I got to work and I started taking eighth-grade math and I also started taking part 1 of high school French, and computer class in seventh grade. The next year during eighth grade I started taking algebra, the second part of my French class, and the second part of my computer class. While taking those high school classes in middle school it was a struggle for me during that time in my life. With those classes, I was also taking all honors classes while playing sports. This taught me time management skills at a young age to help set the foundation for when I got to high school. When I got to high school this was supposed to be a time to have fun before going into the “real world” of adulthood. In my freshman year, I took all honors classes and continued striving academically. That year I made the varsity volleyball team, and junior varsity basketball team, and played my second year of travel volleyball. Then that summer after my freshman year I started taking college classes. I started with one during the summer which was easy for me to handle. My tenth-grade year came around and I took my first AP course which was AP Human Geography. If I’m being honest my tenth-grade year was hard because covid came around. I was now taking college classes and continuing my honors classes while being completely virtual. The only time I got to leave my house was during travel volleyball, so I went out and got a job. The first job I started was at Viniterra Golf Course in New Kent, VA. I would go there multiple times a week and had to clean carts, work with customers, and anything else my managers needed me to do. Junior year came around and I continued to work, but high school sports started back up. On the days I didn’t have practice I would take shifts at work. Academically it was my first year taking all college-level courses. I kept grinding to achieve great things for myself. I was still non-stop with sports and never got a break, not even in the summer, but I continued to work, do homework, and participate in my sports. Every year after my sophomore year I had to take summer classes. It was the only way I would have been able to get my associate’s degree in time. Senior year rolled around and we were finally able to go back into school for classes, but that was just another place that I had to go during my day. My senior year was so stressful, and sometimes I didn’t know how I did it. Sports wise I was Captain of both my volleyball and basketball teams. That made me feel like I had to do so much better because I had people looking up to me. I also decided to try out track and field. During this time I was still doing travel volleyball. I stopped working during my senior year because of the stresses of school and sports. Academically that year I took 3DE classes that were year-long, while also being a TA for a culinary arts class. With the college classes I was taking at school, I also signed up for around 6 additional classes at Rappahannock that school year. It was all worth it in the end because of all the long nights I stayed up doing homework I did what many people at my school didn’t. I was the only female from my high school class to graduate with an associate degree cum laude on top of graduating with an advanced diploma and a GPA of 3.8. After graduation, I stopped working at Viniterra Golf Course and transitioned into a new position at Rosie’s Gaming Emporium where I met many people and acquired more leadership and communication skills. 

Old Dominion University 

Old Dominion University was not always my top choice. For the longest time when I was younger, I always wanted to go to Virginia Tech. I wanted to because for so long I always said I wanted to be an engineer. My mom would put me in camps and things for me to realize that’s what I was passionate about. What made me want to be an Electrical Engineer was my junior year of high school I went to a camp at Sweet Briar College. It was my first time staying somewhere so far from my family. The cool thing was I got to be around other girls who wanted to be engineers. I talked to the girls that went there and did some research on my own and decided electrical engineering was what I wanted to do. As I got to high school when I started to look at colleges I realized that Virginia Tech wasn’t what I wanted anymore. After I wanted to go to Virginia Tech the next dream school I wanted to go to was North Carolina A&T. ODU was second, but I couldn’t get over wanting to go to an HBCU. In my junior year, it was time to go on tours and the first school I went to was North Carolina A&T. I loved the campus. It was so beautiful, but the whole time I had a weird feeling, and I didn’t want to pay the out-of-state tuition. Next, it was time to tour ODU. As soon as I stepped foot on the campus it was an urgent feeling that is where I needed to be. I also had a friend that went here so he also let me come down to get a real feeling of campus life away from the tours. That was all I needed to say that I wanted to be a Monarch. I applied to ODU and the crazy thing was that’s the only place I applied because no other school in Virginia I felt at home. Fall of 2022 rolled around and I was now a student at Old Dominion studying Electrical Engineering. During my first semester, the classes that I had to take were challenging. I was planning to take Chemistry, Calculus 2, Physics 1, and an Engineering Programming class. I then just changed to Calculus 1 because I didn’t do as well  in high school and wanted to create a better foundation. After that semester I didn’t do well because I struggled with living on my own for the first time, my challenging classes, and my mental health. I lost the passion that I had for being an engineer in the process, but with the experience I had I looked and found that I was interested in cybersecurity. After my first semester, I changed my major to cybersecurity and have been thriving since. With changing my major I had so many experiences like going to luncheons and talking to many different people with different careers in the industry. I also got an internship that summer working remotely with Fields Protective Services. This company is a security guard service company based out of Brooklyn, NY. With this internship, I had to do many things working with spreadsheets, talking to potential employees, etc. I worked from Monday through Wednesday from 7 am to 4 pm. I also had a part-time job working at Rosie’s Gaming Emporium Thursday through Saturday which only gave me Sundays off. I worked hard that summer and my work ethic transferred into the Fall 2023 semester. That Fall I then completed the semester on the dean’s list and was proud of all the hard work I had done.

With everything in my life I have accomplished I am proud of what I have done. There are days when I have my ups and downs, but that is life. All the experiences I have been through have shaped me into the person that I am today. I know I am not perfect, and I know I will never be but as long as I push to be a better person for myself and my future career that’s all I could ask for. Changing my major to cybersecurity and not having much time to adjust to thinking I wouldn’t graduate for another 3 years or more to graduating within less than a year has been a struggle. I only say that because there were so many life plans that were so far away I now  have to do. I also am still trying to learn and grow in this new field that I am passionate about. I just know that I will keep growing and keep my work ethic up because anything I set my mind to I can achieve.