I  beat the odds society set for me. I decided my future, not society. I chose who I would be, who I am and where I’m going. I have goals and even if they do not match the goals society set for me I know I will achieve them. Society said that I would not be successful based on my past and economical status, but I am here to prove society wrong.

Based on my past and the present I am not the ideal candidate to go to college and be successful based on the stigma society puts on a low income single parent home. My future involves college and striving for a PHd even though society says that it is unlikely for me to be a doctor of anything. There is a stereotype associated with people who had a rough childhood, or for people who come from a low socioeconomic status, but like every stereotype, they deserve to be proven wrong.  

My goal is to prove this stereotype wrong and to help others do the same. Nothing is more satisfying than defying the odds and becoming someone no one expected you to become (in a good way). One’s socioeconomic status does not determine where he or she will be in life, unless they let it. Just because you only have one parent in your house does not mean you will be a failure. Just because you were placed in the foster care system does not mean that you will not become a college graduate.

These things do not define you. These things do not define your future. It is time to prove society and the stereotypes wrong. It is time to prove to everyone you can do it no matter who you are or where you come from. The past does not predict the future and that is something that I will always carry with me. As I enter the halls of my college, I will look back and thank the past for all the struggles and hardships it presented with me. Those hardships have made me who I am and who I will become. It is time to stop letting my past predict my future, and it is time to let myself predict my future. I am in control of who I am not society, my past or the stereotypes that surround me. I am me not my past.