From a young age, my mother has always encouraged me to pursue a higher education. Both of my parents have low academic attainment, yet they know education will lead me to better opportunities. My father did not believe I was going to attend college, since he questioned how much he could contribute financially towards my education. I come from a migrant upbringing, where both of my parents came from Mexico seeking a better life. I was born in Porterville,CA, and I am the oldest out of four children. I am a first generation Latina, currently pursuing a Bachelors in Sociology and a minor in Psychology at Fresno State. When I was younger, my parents struggled, as my mother stayed at home taking care of me while my father worked in the fields, leaving early and working long hours; unfortunately, due to not seeing him often, he became a stranger in my life. I did not receive much affection from my father, since he would be covered in harmful chemicals from working in the fields. Due to my parent’s hard work and determination, as I grew older, we achieved buying a new home where my three other siblings were born. My father would began taking us to work at an early age, because he wanted us to witness the hard work out in the fields. I remember being under the branches pulling out wood that was cut off from the previous pruning, and while doing such hard labor, my back would get scratched up from the branches, which left cuts on my back. This experience and marks, reminds me of the daily suffering my parents go through and how much it encourages me to continue pursing a higher education. I complained to my father about this experience and his response was, “Do you think I like this? I want you to see that life is not easy as a field worker”. He encouraged me to focus in my studies and now I realize his lesson was that education is the way out of the fields to a better life. This life experience taught me stay engaged in school. Only being in fourth grade at that moment, it was too early to think about college, yet through my mother motivation and my own aspiration to attend college, I did everything to my ability to get to this moment. I am a determined, self-motivated, and shy student, yet in high school I was involved in Partners for Inclusion of Vocational Education Training (P.I.V.E.T) during my junior and senior year. I tried my best to keep up my grades fulfilling my A-G requirements and applied to colleges. During my senior year, I decided on pursuing a higher education at Fresno State University and applied to the College Assistance Migrant Program (C.A.M.P.). As the date got closer for graduation, I just wanted to leave my hometown and embark in a new journey full of new educational opportunities. My senior year was full of mix emotions, as I experience difficult issues with my parents and losing my best friend as she fell into the wrong crowd. That made us separate from each other to the point where we were just strangers with memories. This experience made me realize that you won’t always have someone by your side, sometimes you have to stand alone to pursue your own dreams. As graduation came through, I was excited to adventure to a new educational opportunity. Despite my struggles during my senior year, I was accepted to Fresno State and to the support program C.A.M.P. Then it was that time every parent dreads, moving day. Relocating to a new town and living away from home taught me to become more independent and responsible. I learned how to cook, clean, and the ability to manage time and money, as I now pay my own bills. At times, I do miss my parents and my siblings, but I enjoy this new freedom. College for me so far is enjoyable. Every day is more exciting than the day before. I have made so many new friends and have become more social and talkative over these past months. Sometimes school can be hard, yet I know I cannot give up. It is for my own good. I look forward to continue working hard and being the first one to graduate college, I want to make my parents proud and be the door opener for my family. Having my family to support me emotional is amazing. I want to reach my goals and make my family proud, but this just is not for my family but for myself. I want to prove to myself that all the hard work and struggles in college were for my success. I want to make something big out of myself. I want to make it through the rest of my years at Fresno State and become a counselor. Only to go up after that, and have a nice life where I can help out my parents for all the support they have given me emotionally and financially.