Many college students begin their university careers fresh out of high school. However, like fellow students dealing with life circumstances holding them back from being able to start college right off the bat, I did everything in my power to come back to get the education I knew I needed to not only have a successful future, but a future that will make me be happy. I know my past is not nearly as bad as those of others, but I still have to deal with not only society judging me based on my past but also telling me what my future will become due to my past decisions.

I have always believed you learn from your mistakes. Though you may have regrets, they still make you the person you are today.

Yes, you have to deal with consequences. If you murder someone, you should serve your time. But once your “debt to society” has been served, you should be able to move forward.

I have never murdered anyone, but I have made mistakes in my life. In the past I would have not admitted this, but I was not at an age of maturity to live on my own when life beckoned me to do so.

I went to public school. I not only believe the education was not adequate for a career in college, but also that high school did not properly prepare me on how to become an adult. While still a teenager, I suddenly had to worry about bills, transportation due to the fact that public transportation was virtually non-existent, the essentials of survival such as food, clothing and all the other responsibilities that come with living on your own. I was simply not ready for this responsibility. 

I ended up falling into the stereotypical statistic category as a person living on the streets, working just to survive and using more money than I was earning to pay for vices to escape from reality. 

After four years of this lifestyle, the time it would have taken to graduate from college, a life-altering event happened. A doctor told me that I should have died and was touch and go at moments. It was that near-death experience I needed to become the man I am today. 

Since then, I have cleaned up. I work three jobs during the school semester and four during holidays to afford to attend classes. I try to be the person that I would want to be best friends with. I promised myself I would never go back to that lifestyle again, and I will work hard to ensure that does not happen. 

I have stayed true to this promise. I don’t even think of going back to a lifestyle that could be “easier” and yet unfulfilling when college gets rough. I have set my goals in life, and I will meet them head on. 

Going through everything that I have, keeping above a 3.25 GPA even working 60 plus hours on some weeks, I’m still learning from mistakes that I may still make in college. I have been adapting to a new lifestyle with the late onset of Juvenile Diabetes, making the President’s List, studying abroad, becoming an officer of PSI CHI as well as Friends of Poverty Point, making Reporter of the Year for the Lion’s Roar, being on the Student Board of Conduct and other numerous bragging rights I could list. I just want society to know my past does not dictate who I will be in the future. I will not turn back to who I was in five or 20 years. Every time I wake up, I start off fresh and have the chance to choose where I will go from the moment I open my eyes. 

I just hope the world can see that rather than telling me what my future will be like based on some regretful decisions I made through a rough past. I will always be stronger than who I once was.