5 years ago I set a plan in motion: AA -->BA -->MA -->PhD -->PeaceCorps -->Tenure Prof
Back then, I was a just a socially inapt girl from a family who'd always lived under the National Poverty Level. If I'd had any plans after graduation they probably began and ended with: Make money; leave Moreno Valley. Everything changed my first day of college. Taught by an eccentric priest, History of Ancient Greece showed me two things: 1.) The discipline of Historical Study is super cool. 2.) I was so far behind from everybody else in the class. Feeling inferior, I spent hours in the library reading things everyone else seemed to already know. Sometime during that first year I realized I was not only good at research but that I felt deeply satisfied by the process of learning. Before my first semester had ended I told my parents, “I’m going to get my PhD and be a Professor.” Within those 5 years I transferred into UCLA, meet some of the best humans, fled across the world, finished a Master's degree in a year, and self-taught myself three languages. I took an unanticipated— yet much needed—GAP year after being rejected by IMT Lucca and received unconditional acceptance offers from all the PhDs I applied to. #startedatthebottomnowimhere I think when I started I believed focusing on your grades and sacrificing a social life was the only way I'd be able to reach my goals. And, for a while I looked back on my non-4.0 GPA from UCLA with shame. Now though, I can see how much I'd needed to meet those people at that time. I'd always believed determination had got me to where I was in academia, until I let myself be open to possibility of friendship I don't think I thought much of my own intelligence. In fact, I see my collisions with extraordinary humans as one of the major contributing factors in me being where I am I today. Joining and acting with the Shakespeare Company at UCLA brought me into contact with people who were truly fearless and believed me to be capable of the same feats of bravery. Meeting Megan in a Roman History course felt like finding a missing friend I hadn't realized I needed to know. Her relentless pursuit of knowledge, fierce belief in the magic of the universe, insurmountable strength to endure through the most brutal of circumstances, and her ability to love so purely in the aftermath showed me humans were worth investing in. Meeting Kim in Paris that fateful summer of 2015 was like a moment plucked straight from a telenovela. I don't think I've ever met another person who unconditionally believes in the value of humans.
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