Boundless Scholarship

Growing up, my family struggled to get ahead when it came to financial problems. For most of my early youth, we spent rationing most of the food that we had gotten, and there were even nights when dinner was not often an option. My father spent a relentless amount of time trying to move up in his sales HVAC company, and my mother worked as a waitress, where her tips were often what put food on the table. This obvious struggle left a mark on my siblings and me, as we saw how hard our parents worked for just the simplest aspects of life such as food, water, and electricity. Most of my friends in my youth never had these struggles which often led to me hiding my private life from them and being embarrassed about our house and financial situation. However, looking back on all of it, I would never change the way that I grew up. The lessons that we learned directly from our parents taught us that there are benefits to going through hard work to achieve what you want in life. My mindset changed from simply wanting the grand things to seeing that there is beauty in the work behind them. I started working at the age of eleven babysitting my younger cousins being paid $2.5 per hour. While it did not pay much, it allowed me to see the struggle of working under poor conditions and how life as an adult might go. I later started working other jobs that paid higher, but through every condition, I learned a new lesson about working through adversity, the value of hard work, and the importance of time management skills. I also took this mindset all of the way through high school, attaining straight A's for almost my entire high school career and a GPA of 4.375. Even though I was made fun of for my obvious lack of nice clothes and accessories such as phones, laptops, and computers, I still worked hard to showcase myself in the academic arena. I was quickly realized as one of the best students in my class and gained many academic achievements such as gaining entry to the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School program and being promoted to Logistics Officer in my Air Force JROTC program. I am currently 2nd in my class and Saludatory for my graduation ceremony. I wholeheartedly believe that growing up in a state of poverty sets a person up for rigorous trial and error and the value of virtues such as humility, patience, and fighting an uphill battle.