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Last week I graduated with a bachelors degree in Biomedical
Engineering after six years of school and was very close by 0.02 to sum magna
cum laud. I am so proud of myself for graduating for the third time as a first-generation
college student in my family. Congratulation
class of 2021, we did it!!We are the most resilient class in the history, we
made it through rough years of the pandemic that has changed the world and
impacted many people negatively. In 2010 I graduated from high school and was
aiming to do a career or anything that is related to the medical field. I was
so fascinated about the field and could not see myself doing nothing besides
that. Unfortunately, I was not lucky enough to have a chance to pursue what I want,
and I thought there was no way for me to achieve that after applying to
multiple schools that had either rejected me or they had a rough selection
process that was not fair to everyone. Therefore, I decided to go to a
community college that had accepted me to pursue a different major from what I
dreamed of and wanted to pursue. I did not do that well because it was not what
I wanted. I had a hard time adapting to the school nonetheless I still
graduated with a standing GPA. After that I took a break from school because I
was so depressed but one day suddenly everything starts to change. I moved from
my city to another city to pursue higher education in something that I thought
it could be a good career since I could not get into my dream schools. But I
was ones again disappointed because the new major did not fulfill my expectation
and I figured out that I was wasting time. But honestly moving from a place to
another place opened my eyes and pushed me out of my comfort zone. I learned a
lot about myself that I did not know before. I registered myself in an English
center to improve my English. I learned just the basic words and phrases
because of lack of practice and the short duration of the program. After a
while I started thinking about looking into finishing my education out of my
country. It was about two months when I registered at the English center, one
of my friends who is also owns a travel agency applied on behalf of me by
mistake to many schools in different countries and I got accepted to another English
center in USA and the process really did not take longer to get my visa. At that
time, something had wake up in me like I know or at least my intuition that I
would have a chance to achieve my dreams. Moving from another country to
another was not easy for me as for many other immigrants due to many obstacles/barriers.
I took a year of intensive English classes and preparation for the TOEL test
that allowed me to enter to school. After passing the exam, I was accepted by
many schools of my choice and one of them was BMCC -CUNY to pursue a major in engineering
which I chose as my next stop. I am grateful and thankful to everyone at this wonderful
community college that has helped me in many ways. During my time at BMCC I had
achieved many things that shocked me myself that I have never thought it would
be possible. I was so involved in on campus activities such as science research,
tutoring, clubs, peer mentoring or outside of the campus as volunteering at the
hospitals, churches and with my community. I was selected from many candidates to
present my research project at Harvard University which I thought I would not
have a chance even to just visit it. Additionally,
I was selected to be one of many scholarships recipients that helped partially with
my tuition. I am so thankful to my parents who helped to pay the rest of the
tuitions even it was just temporary because my father got retired and his
retirement income is not enough to support six children. I had done many jobs
to continue paying for my education from a store cleaner, cashier, cooking at
restaurants, serving food, tutoring, mentoring, research assistant, supplemental
instructor, teaching assistant and so on. I had never missed school or missed
any of my assignments. I graduated from BMCC with a perfect GPA and transferred
to the City College of New York to pursue a bachelors degree in Biomedical Engineering
which is strongly related to what I wanted to study which is a combination of many
fields with focus on medicine, biology, and engineering concepts. Honestly, it
is one of the best majors that I have done this far even though it was
extremely challenging. I spent many nights working on the assignments till the
morning which were challenging yet rewarding. I am so thankful to my classmates
who were in touch during these nights trying to help one another or keep one another
motivated till we got these assignments done before the due date, to the
selfless people that were there me along the way especially my professors,
mentors for all of their support. Besides attending CCNY as a full-time student
I was still be involved at BMCC as a teaching assistant for chemistry with my
mentor, professor, friend who always kept me accountable and has always recommend
me for many opportunities. Moreover, I had tutored/taught many students
privately many subjects such as math, chemistry, physics, or anything else that
I am good at or feel confident teaching including the children of the house
owner where I live while taking classes. I had accomplished may achievement at
CCNY such as being a member of many honors societies, research, team projects
and I developed many skills that will help me in my future endeavors. I know I
might have made my story too long, but I just want to remind myself and everyone
out there who gave up on their dreams at certain stages of their lives. I have
been always fascinated about Nelson Mandela quote saying It always seems
impossible until it is done which is in fact accurate. Everything at the beginning
seems impossible but with resilience, self-motivation and hope will be achieved.
My advice to all the students out there struggling to achieve what they want, please
do not be harsh on yourself, dont give up on your dreams, everything will happen
in a timely manner at the right time when it seems to be impossible. You should
always try to be better than yesterday and do not let the fear of striking out
stop you from building yourself. I am excited to explore what the future has to
offer.

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