Stepping Stone by Mofiyinfoluwa

Stepping Stone by Mofiyinfoluwa - March 2020 Scholarship Essay

In ten years, I will be standing in front of Stepping Stone, my business intended to help ex-convicts get reacclimated back into society and the workforce. Let me start from the beginning. First comes my education. I plan to go to a four-year university where I will major in business management, with a minor in French. While getting my bachelor’s degree, I plan to intern at various businesses - from finance companies to bakeries - in order to get a full understanding of how businesses operate, and the different ways different businesses work efficiently. I also plan to study abroad at French speaking countries in Africa in order to further develop my French language skills.
Then, when I graduate. I plan to get a master’s in psychology. From there, I will combine my background in business and psychology to become an industrial-organizational psychologist, where I will be using psychology to make business become more efficient and productive. Essentially, I hope to use what I know of human behavior to improve employee-employer relations which will in turn make the company work better. I plan to incorporate French into my work life as well, so possibly going to French Speaking countries and applying the skills I have learned to help companies there.
My biggest goal is breaking the negative stereotypes of ex-convicts and fostering a cooperation between businesses and prisons. I want to use my education in business to progress from a forty-page training program to a business dedicated to supporting ex-offenders. I want to teach people living in that box how to catch up with the rapidly changing world and slow down its pace to fit their needs. I want to look beyond my own privileged surroundings and seek answers to troubling issues in our community.
A college degree will equip me not only with the academic skills needed to succeed in my mission, but the social skills as well. Academic classes will teach me research skills in order to gather data on how bad recidivism truly is. I will learn how to inform and persuade people who could potentially help me solve this problem. Through interactions with my professors, classmates, faculty, etc., I will learn how to empathize with people from all works of life. A college degree will help me turn that simple diploma into an innovation that will impact countless lives.