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I couldn’t of reached UC Santa Cruz by myself. Coming from docxa low income family and neighborhood, I wasn’t expected to do much or go far in my education. Initially I didn’t take my high school seriously, and I had gotten used to getting just barely passing grades. Just enough to pass, not enough for colleges to seriously consider me when they saw my grades. My mom and my dad were working long hours, so they were not there to tell me I had to improve my grades or be a straight A student. In school I would take a good hard look at the students that were succeeding the most, the “top of our class” students, and I noticed something quite interesting. Those students had parents that had graduated from top universities, and had well paying jobs.
Meanwhile my parents were stagnant in their economic growth since they emigrated here from Guatemala in the mid 80s. My older sister who graduated from CSU Northridge was there, living at home. She was the one that took the responsibility of having to keep me in check. Even with her there it was difficult for me to succeed in school. After school she would pick me up and I would go to her job with her and I would get home sometimes at 1:30 or 2 in the morning.
America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, but in reality I was not having the same opportunities as those kids that were being straight A students. While those kids had personal tutors go to their houses and give them the extra help they needed I was off somewhere taking care of kids with my sister. I had somewhat grown to resent those who were economically advantaged. I was always aware of the fact that I lived in a poor family since I was a kid, but I never thought it would put me at a disadvantage. It wasn’t just me either, as I saw others who worked longer hours and harder jobs, I saw how it reflected in their academic performance being worse than my own. This helped reinforce my socialist beliefs that my sister had told me to look into years earlier. I looked at it from not just the socialist economic perspective, but from a social perspective and noticed that the majority of those high achieving students were white, or mixed with white, but assimilated mainly to white culture rather than that one that they were mixed with.
I didn’t want to get left behind just because I was a low income latino student so I joined the Upward Bound program which made me into a serious student. There in the Upward Bound program I received mandatory tutoring and my senior year they helped me with applying for FAFSA, writing my personal statement, and the whole process of applying to college. Now that I am here at UCSC I want to be able to be a different type of student. I want to take my education seriously right from the beginning and not lag behind ever. That might be difficult because of finances I might not be able to get all of the course material right away, but despite this I will take the necessary steps to succeed here.