Taking The Plunge: My Path To College by Alison

Taking The Plunge: My Path To College by Alison - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

My name is “Luna” Alison Alvarez, a 22-year-old Latina from Southern California and a freshman at Bellevue College. A few months after turning 18, I moved to the Pacific Northwest for a chance at a fresh start. Little did I know, fresh starts aren’t really a thing. You can move, sure, across the globe even… but you can’t make yourself a new person overnight.
College was never even an option in my head. Too expensive. Too much time. Too much commitment. All of these things are true, but that shouldn’t mean college gets taken off the table. No one held me accountable, not since I was really young. I’ve always been smart; well-read, inquisitive, hungry for knowledge. Albeit I’d been a better person at some points more than others, I always tried to put my best foot forward amidst my issues at home that kept me from my best at school. I jumped between high schools, some traditional, others not, until I eventually took the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). This exam, which costs about $125, tells the state you’re a little smarter than a GED grad and gets you that golden piece of paper called a high school diploma. I passed and continued working, as I had been since I was 16.
Once I got to the PNW, I jumped through customer service jobs until I eventually attended a coding boot camp upon receiving a scholarship worth $10,000. That landed me an awesome job in the tech industry, making more than I had ever hoped to make. Once I left that job, I thought I’d be rolling into my next office by the end of the month. A month later, I was not strolling into my next gig. I was unemployed and perplexed at my inability to rock a job interview. To add to my struggle, my Father died in late June, which had snowballed itself into my sources of stress.
I got a lot of advice from a lot of people. “Practice coding challenges! …Contribute to open source! …Spend all your time on Pluralsight or CodeSchool!” and many, many more. I did these things. I kept taking interviews. I kept failing. I was getting sick of the rejection emails. Just an echo of a past manager’s words, I’m not good enough, I need to be better, learn faster, know more, and do it now. 
I don’t know what changed in my head. Maybe earning my place at that table and being so close to having a voice, got me a taste of the reality of respect and stability in a field you love. Maybe it was my passion for breaking out of the mold the Computer Science field fits women into. Who knows? But, when I make up my mind, I make it up for good. Blame the leo in me, if you’re into that sort of thing. But, the next day (after spending half the day prior researching), I walked into my college’s student central building and started the steps to becoming a college student.
No more saying “I might not know much about this, but…” or “Sorry if this is a stupid question… .” I’m not just going to speak at the table, I’m going to be a leader at the table. Where I'm from, people on my side of town don’t really go to college aside from vocational education. Even amidst issues with not receiving financial aid because my parent hasn’t filed 2015 taxes, not having a savings account, and being completely on my own in the deep-end endeavor of navigating college, I’m doing it. I intend to be the first person in my family to receive a Bachelor’s Degree. And I’m going to shatter the glass ceiling of the STEM sector. Not just for the money, or the status. But for the women getting shushed and interrupted in meetings. For the girl getting scolded for playing in the dirt identifying organisms. And, ultimately, to be a positive influence in an industry that it’s not easy to be a woman in. 
I look forward to my first quarter this January, 2017. I’m terrified, don’t get me wrong. But, hands down, my achievement that brings me most pride was pressing the “enroll” button on my registration form. Everything that comes will come, but I will take it with stride and grace, because I am a strong individual that has made it far in my life on my own. Beyond being apt, I know I will excel in this endeavor, coming out on the other side an amazing engineer with great potential.