I was never a good student.
I spent my time worrying about sports and smoking my next cigarette. I didn’t prepare for my SATs and did very poorly on them. I wasn’t accepted into college. After I graduated high school in 1998, I worked at McDonald’s while aspiring to bigger and better things. I moved to Texas in 2000, and while living there it became apparent that my life wasn’t going anywhere. I was delivering pizza and working on photography in my spare time. In early 2002 and after the destruction of the World Trade Centers, I decided enough was enough. There were bigger things than my own pity-party.
I figured since I wasn’t smart, the military would be a great way to excel in a career of my choice without needing a college degree. I tested in the upper 84th percentile of military applicants, and was approved to enlist for any job I chose. I decided on journalism for the U.S. Navy. For the first two years of my enlistment, I served aboard the USS Constitution in Boston, an elite assignment for any sailor. I worked in the Public Affairs Office, producing news stories and photographs, and planning public events aboard the ship. I established the first ever Women’s History program aboard the Constitution, and was voted Junior Sailor of the Quarter and Junior Sailor of the Month. I left the ship with a Navy/Marine Corps Achievement medal and a letter of commendation from my commanding officer. I proceeded to the U.S. Navy’s journalism school in Maryland, and graduated from my class with honors. I excelled in those schools in ways I never thought possible. Serving in the military proved to me that I was just as smart as anyone who scored well on the SATs, and the experience showed me that I’m just as capable of learning as the top students in my classes.
But my service didn’t come without a cost. I started having panic attacks. I was sad all the time. The day I started thinking about driving off a cliff, I stayed the course and saw my base doctor. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, both symptoms of PTSD, in late 2005. I’ve been struggling with these disabilities ever since. My confidence has always taken a hit, and the voice in my head saying that I’m never good enough didn’t help anything.
Once I left the service in 2006, I went back to those same kinds of dead-end jobs I had before, learning the hard way that I still needed a degree. I asipred to bigger and better things, but that voice in my head combined with a crippling anxiety of failure stopped me from doing anything about it. Finally, at the urging of my partner, I enrolled at a local community college in 2008, trying to ignore the things that worked to stop me. At Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts I carried overall GPA of 3.19. When I transferred to Hampshire College in 2010, I still wasn’t sure I’d graduate, but I was gaining confidence in my knowledge and academic capabilities. Now I’m in graduate school, holding a GPA of 3.79 as I earn my MS in Communications and Information Management at Bay Path University.
I’ve turned my life around. I am a part-time Communications Director at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst. I’m married. I work out, I see a therapist, and I take prescription medication every day to manage my anxiety, and I get through every day knowing that enlisting in the service was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I bring my personal perspective to the classroom. I’m not afraid to speak up in class or ask questions, and I work hard to earn my education. I spend my spare time broadening my horizon, and I believe I can greatly benefit from a scholarship from the Feldman Law Firm. I’m a dedicated American, a dedicated woman, and a dedicated student in all aspects of my life. It’s taken me a long time to be able to say this: I believe in my ability to excel, and now I have the background to prove it.
