I feel honored and very thankful to have been selected as a recipient of the State Farm Insurance Cyber/AI Scholarship. I want to thank you for the funding in this scholarship. This scholarship is a great help for me financially as I am a young adult that has been taking care of myself since a very young age, and had low hopes for college due to not having the finical funds to attend, not having the family support and thinking I would not qualify do to my finical circumstances. I am attending Estrella Mountain Community college because I am an Avondale native and I have always loved how the Estrella campus is structured and the community of people is very pleasant to be around. I am currently enrolled in Cyber Security/Information tech. This major excited me because I have always been intrigued with technology and the way technology is evolving daily I am very excited to learn deeper within the ‘technology world’.
This scholarship will make it easier for me to attend school because with having the additional funds to help go towards my education, it allows me to focus on my studies, and still be able to take care of my bills and living expenses without having to worry about how I’m going to pay for school out of pocket and fall behind on my bills. Having to grow up at a younger age, I began paying my own bills at 16 and I have a very hard time reaching out to anyone for help. I have also always been self-dependent and was afraid to take on new challenges because I had no idea on how going to college would be plausible for someone who receives no finical help from family. I am very very blessed and thankful to have supporting people on my side while I continue to better myself each day to get closer to my destiny. I am very proud that I have now began my 3rd semester of college, freshman year. Since I have been out of high school since 2017, when I first started college, I was very nervous, and I was afraid that since I have been out of a classroom setting for some time it would have been difficult for me to adapt. However, that is totally opposite of how I’ve been feeling. I am very proud of myself and enjoy being enrolled as a college student. Being able to manage A’s and be on top of my assignments since the beginning of my journey with also having to manage a difficult full-time job as a claims adjuster has been my biggest accomplishment that I am proud of for 2023. I feel that I am finally getting back to myself and feeling very motivated and determined to get my degree. I am so happy that I did not second guess myself on what I thought I couldn’t do.