I graduated high school back in 2011, and have been attending community college ever since. At the time I was not interested in continuing with school but my older sister forced me to enroll because education was and is the only tool that many of us have. The only tool to work our way out of being poor for the rest of our lives. I attended classes but I had no direction, no passion, but I still tried anyway, I changed my major several times and for a while it seemed like maybe I could make a career out of being an American Sign Language interpreter because it didn't seem too bad, but after four semesters of that I knew I couldn't continue studying something I didn't have a passion for. I made a D in ASL 4, and thought maybe school wasn't for me, so I decided not to return. That only lasted a semester because I fell into a deep depression and my family made it their business to make me go back to school. So when I began to look at what classes I could take, I noticed that I had taken many of the core classes along with some developmental classes that I didn't need to take, and had avoided the upper sciences and math. At a quick glance, what seemed to be the “easiest” class to me was Stellar Astronomy, and that was the only class I took in Spring 2016. That one class changed everything for me. All my insecurities and complaints that I had about every little thing became superficial after taking that class. Out there - time and space become one, there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, dark matter etc. it all fascinated me, caught my attention. Earth, the only known planetary body to harbor life and we are a part of that, a part of the Universe. Suddenly I didn't hate school anymore and even though I originally wanted to become an astronomer because of that course, I knew the only career options for me were to either work for NASA or work at a planetarium which both seemed extremely unlikely because of limited opportunities and the competition. Through my searching I chose environmental sciences as an alternative, which seemed general enough because I began to appreciate every subject. My next step was to take more science and math, which I did and it was not easy. Spring 2017 I took Trigonometry and once again I made another D. That was personally crushing for me as well as for my gpa. I thought life was supposed to become easier when you found your passion but instead I left that class defeated. As a result, six weeks of my Summer I spent retaking Trig and made a B. In the Fall I took a Biology and a Geology course. I believe that it was somewhere around this time that I stopped receiving financial aid because for one I had become an independent student and two I had exceeded the time-frame given to students to complete their degree. I now had to pay tuition myself with the help of my family. My gpa wasn't the best, I had no achievements, no honors, no extracurriculars, so even though I had help with money I felt like I squandered so much of my time in school and I had no achievements. I had an idea of what I wanted to study but I began to wonder if it was too late for me. Everyday I felt an enormous amount of pressure from my family to finish school because I kept not graduating, and everyone thought I'd change my major again, and I needed to stop wasting my time so I could begin working to make big money. I was told to go back and finish my ASL interpreter training because I was halfway done with that degree. My family's worries were and are completely understandable but I did not want to settle because that's what so many people around me did and many of them are miserable. That one semester I took off was enough to keep me going - I never wanted to feel that way again. Spring 2018 I decided to go back to math and take Precal, and once again my life changed. The professor told the class about an opportunity called NCAS which was an acronym for “NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars” and I couldn't believe what I heard. Almost immediately I applied early and spent several agonizing weeks waiting to hear back. When I did hear back via email, I was accepted into the program! There was no way I was going to squander this opportunity. The online program lasted 5 weeks and was actually a competition with about 400 students from across the US who participated. Students who did well were going to be given a four day onsite visit for FREE as long as we earned a B to be considered. I made a 100% and after some paperwork I visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. NCAS Summer Class of 2018. One year later and I am currently participating in NASA's Lucy Student Pipeline Accelerator & Competency Enabler or L'SPACE for short. I don't worry about my future as much anymore. I tried, failed many times, kept going and had to learn to become relentless with my goals and aspirations. I can't wait to see what my future holds. Just a little bit longer. But how much longer?