To be a first-generation college graduate means that you are the first person in your family to graduate from college. But to me, that meaning is different. The meaning of being a first-generation college graduate to me is more than just having a degree. It is setting a path for my younger sibling to go to college and for future generations in my family to come. It is also about being able to prove that I can go outside my family's normalcy of being done with school after high school. I want to be able to do my best to set a good path for my future and my future family. Since my parents did not go to school due to financials I have been doing my best to save up to afford college to help out my parents. So, attending a college to allow able to set up my future for success and have the job of my dreams. I have always wanted to become a teacher and I have learned this through coaching teams of younger girls cheerleading. Teaching groups of young girls gave me the passion to become a teacher and help others in ways that not everyone can. These girls have helped shape the person I am today by making me a better leader and a better version of myself. I have worked with so many groups of people who helped me decide what is best for me and my future. In the future, I would like to become a teacher for general education students as well as students with special accommodations such as disabilities and autism. Throughout my time in high school, I have joined many extracurricular clubs and activities that caused me to become the person I am. The extracurriculars that have had the biggest impact in my life were Unified Sports. Unified Sports are sports that are integrated with kids who have disabilities and kids who are willing to help create special moments for these kids. I have been involved in Unified Soccer, Unified Basketball, and Unified Track and Field, which has been such a wonderful experience for me throughout my high school years. These programs showed me what I want to do for a career and what I want to gain from my college experience. Being a first-generation college graduate in my family is so important to my family and the future generations in my family who will be able to have the same opportunities as I do to go to college and obtain a degree.

Throughout my four years of high school, I made varsity as a freshman on my high school cheer team. We competed at nationals in the largest division and proceeded to place 17th in the nation, in my freshman year. During my sophomore year of high school, we competed at nationals again. I have always had a passion for cheering, and I have such a love for the sport. Everything about cheer I loved. I watched college cheer nationals every year, hoping that one day I would be the one competing on those teams and have all of the skills they have, which made me work even harder. While being on the cheer team for four years, I was still a student-athlete. I was still a student first. I was very involved in my school community. I was in many clubs and extracurriculars. I have worked very hard in high school to be a part of the National Honors Society, and many club sports such as Unified Basketball, Unified Soccer, and Unified Track and Field, and a part of many clubs such as Make A Wish, Operation Elementary, and Council for Exceptional Students. I always sought extra help when needed, used my guidance counselor for resources, and asked questions when needed. I have also been allowed the opportunity to be a part of a very selective internship through my high school to be a student teacher in one of the intermediate schools in my school district. I have made the most out of my high school career by being a well-versed student and involving myself in the community. Many teachers have recognized my efforts to make me the best student I could be and commended me for all my efforts and hard work. I have also been a part of many volunteer organizations and community services throughout my town. I was a volunteer cheer coach for a local Pop Warner cheer team, that I was once a part of when I was younger. I spent three days a week for two hours each day at practices coaching this group of young girls to help them compete in the best routine they can. These girls were dedicated and hard-working and having the opportunity to coach them was amazing, I could not ask for a better position or group of young, inspired athletes to work with. Alongside coaching this group of girls, I have coached the NFL Flag Cheer Program for seven years. I have watched so many girls become such great cheerleaders during their time in this program. Outside of volunteering my time working with cheer teams, I volunteered to work with a one-to-one athlete for the track and field Special Olympics in 2024. I have also volunteered for events around my school and school district to help raise money for many charities and other good causes. After high school, I hope to cheer at Monmouth University. I plan on going to college to major in elementary education and special education. I would like to become a teacher for fourth-grade students to help them grow as individuals and help them learn useful life skills. Fourth grade is a really big point in many students' lives because it is a big year of elementary school where all of the building blocks of life are learned. I would also like to be in the special education department because I enjoy helping these students develop skills and watching them progress makes such a difference in not only their lives but their families too.

My family has a very complex background which makes college hard to achieve for many reasons. My mom has always been supportive of me in everything that I have done in my life. My dad has not been in my life since I was very young, so I have only received support from one parent which was hard at many points since I had to share the spotlight with my younger half-brother. As I grew up, my mom had to start splitting the time between my brother and my activities and the attention we received. This was not easy for me. Knowing my mom was somewhere for my brother to support him instead of me. Which is not either of their faults, it just took me a while to realize that she supports me in so many ways, even if she was not physically able to be there. I have always wanted to become a teacher so the next generation of kids have someone they know will always support them like my mom did for me. Knowing my mom has always supported me and will continue to support me, motivates me to make a difference in kids' lives and hopefully make a lasting impact on them.

I was inspired to become involved in the education profession because I have had teachers in the past who seemed to care about me and my education while I have also had teachers who do not care as much. I feel that every student deserves a teacher who cares about both their academics and their outside life. My past teachers helped push me to want to be a teacher to ensure that every student has a way of learning that is comfortable for them. I plan on creating different ways for students with different capabilities to learn in my classroom, so everyone can find a style that is easier for them. I plan on studying elementary education and special education in the state of New Jersey. I would like to continue my education in New Jersey either at Seton Hall University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Monmouth University, or The College of New Jersey. Going to any of these schools to further my education would be amazing. All of these colleges have good teaching programs and good reputations, so attending any of these colleges or universities would be a dream come true. It took me some time to realize that being a teacher is what I wanted to do. I had dreamed of becoming a teacher when I was little, but growing up led me to believe otherwise. In my sophomore year of high school, I discovered how much I wanted to be a teacher because of my teachers at the time. I had gotten good at helping others understand the curriculum and it made me feel helpful and fulfilled. So at that point, I realized that becoming a teacher would be a great idea for me since I loved helping people and I had already been coaching younger kids for so many years prior. Being a cheer coach also helped me discover my passion for teaching because watching a group of young girls listen to what I had to say so they could understand made me feel so much joy and love. Then in my junior year of high school, I started working with the special education program in my high school. These kids made me feel so joyous and talking to the teachers who got to work with these students made me so hopeful within the world because they are such kind-hearted people. This program made me realize that becoming a special education teacher would help me love my job even more. I enjoy working with these students and watching them develop skills they did not know they had and watching them learn new things just makes me so happy. So I have been inspired by other educators around me to become an educator for both general education and special education students. As well as I can see myself contributing to the education of students in the future by making sure kids know how they learn and what they need to do to be able to succeed.

As a high school senior, I have had many different teachers with many different teaching styles. The majority of my teachers throughout my high school career have impacted my life in so many ways. A special education teacher who helped me shape my life and my future was a teacher named Ms. Wong. Granted she was not my teacher she helped me shape my future lifestyle. Ms. Wong has inspired me to fulfill my dream of becoming a special education teacher. She has inspired me because she has shown so much growth in her students throughout one year of being with these students. It helped me realize how rewarding working with the special education students can be. They are all so different and she adapts to all of them to help accommodate to teach all her students what they need to but in a way that allows them. She has even created sports that integrate special educational athletes with general educational students to work together and become one team. Unified basketball it is called. I have been a part of this program for two years now. I love it, there is no better feeling than watching these children thrive in an environment that they love and want to be in. Ms. Wong has created this program to make it so large in our school which pushed me to want to join more social clubs and sports. Now, in my senior year of high school, I have been a part of Unified Soccer, unified basketball, and unified track. Ms. Wong is more than just a teacher and a coach to me, she is also a friend I look to for support and tough questions. Any questions, I know I can rely on her to help me with a reasonable solution and she will always support me, both on and off the court. Since I met Ms. Wong, I have gained so much confidence in myself for being able to do things that I had once been scared to do. Even making hard choices I know I can now make myself because even if it was not the best choice, I know that she will always be able to support me and help me boost others' confidence in joining these sports while making friends. Ms. Wong has truly changed my outlook on life by helping me gain the confidence to not be scared to step out of my comfort zone because something looks new or scary. Ms. Wong is the kind of teacher I hope everyone will have at least once in their lifetime because she is amazing and left an ever-lasting impact on not just me, but tons of other students.

I believe that teaching students is incredibly important. Having the ability to teach others is a gift that not many people have the patience for or the willpower to do. The purpose of education is to help students grow and develop. Teaching is not only about teaching the curriculum to students and making sure they have the ability to grow as a person. My cultural background influences my teaching approach because I know what it feels like to be different and to stand out. I have been picked on by my teachers because of the way I dress or answer questions. So, as a teacher, I know that calling on students because of their background and pointing them out is not fair. In my past 12 years of being in classrooms, I have had many teachers who have used many different ways of teaching. I feel that being a teacher who allows the students to have fun as a reward has been the most rewarding. It makes the students feel that they have something to work for besides another letter grade. It is also easier to be able to feel relaxed in a classroom that does not put as much pressure on students to feel as they need to be the best. I will use this in my classroom by helping the students talk about what they want for themselves and how they are going to work to achieve that goal. There is no better feeling than watching a student achieve a goal that they set because they care about the outcome. So helping them set realistic goals for themselves will help their learning environment so they do not feel forced to do things that they are completely against and feel as if their opinions matter. I aim to have a lasting impact on my students. I want my students to be able to end the year by learning something about themselves and they will have a forever remembrance of my class. I want them to remember what it takes for them to get things accomplished and how it feels to try new things, talk to new people, and leave their comfort zones every so often. I want my students to also learn that it is okay to make mistakes and that no one is perfect. I want to be able to learn something new every year that I teach. I want my students to be able to teach me something. I want to adapt my teaching ways to different types of students who learn differently than others. I think that being able to walk into every school year with an open mind will help me adapt to the diversity of my students with the way everyone needs help and struggles with different learning ways. So, overall I think that all students should have a teacher they can go to for help with anything. I want to be the teacher who helps students branch out or gives them the push they need to become better as a person and a better student.

To me, becoming a special education teacher is about helping students reach their full potential and helping them make their way into the world. I feel that being a part of this profession is important to me because I strongly believe that every child deserves an opportunity to learn and become their own person. I want to help give all these students support in everything that they do. Professor Harold Bloom's quote, "I have learned that the purpose of teaching is to bring the student to his or her sense of his or her own presence," shows how important being self-aware is. Being self-aware gives students the power to know their strengths and weaknesses in the world. To become a special education teacher I want to help these students develop their own sense of awareness. I want them to be able to know their passions and what they like. I want them to find their own strengths and weaknesses for them to be able to stand out in the world and be able to succeed with what they put their mind to. I want to help my students find what they love by going through different options and bringing them other places to explore their interests. I want these students to feel comfortable expressing themselves and being able to make mistakes and not feel bad and be able to correct them. I just really want my students to be able to reach their full potential and realize the world around them and connect to small things that they love. I want them to fully have an understanding that there are things that are meaningful to them and things that they love are important. I feel so strongly about becoming a special education teacher because it can be so hard to find the right people to work with these students and who feel so passionately about it. I feel that I would be a perfect fit to work with these students who do not get all the help they need and who need extra attention which is hard to find. Working with the special education programs can be very difficult due to their disabilities but I feel that being able to adapt and have the patience and care strongly about working with them would make me feel so fulfilled. I love working one-on-one and helping these students find what they love and feel as if they belong, so pursuing it as a job is just a dream to me.