Howard personal statement, tell me what you think

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can not find them, they make them.”

I have always been someone to look beyond circumstance and I believe that is what makes me the person who I am today. Who I am is a young African American adolescent who has always been curious about what is yet to be uncovered. A girl who acts on the string she is placed with, all I can do is hope you like what I play.

Growing up in South Los Angeles there were instances when I am made to feel I do not have the power to cause change, and dream big like other people. I can not count the number of times I have been written off as another statistic just because of my surroundings. Every day as I wake up and do my typical morning routine I think about the ways I chose to battle these stereotypes. I know that I am going to college and I will use my education as way to give back to my community and educate them on the world that exists around them.


I believe that when you are surrounded by a people and a community filled with despair it makes you want to work harder and show the world that it is not impossible to beat the odds. This is the reason I have chosen to apply to Howard University, one the best historically African American schools in the country. In a school filled with so much tradition and history about the people who have come before me it is hard to imagine myself being a student any where else. When I think about iconic figures like Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. who are sole reason why I put no limits on anything I set my mind to, it reassures the decision to attend a school like Howard. Though I am only a prospective student I know that the education I will have received will be one that I can take back to the broken environment in which I come from and hopefully inspire the people in it to follow their dreams.


I read somewhere that the concept of a true warrior is someone who does not use violence to take a stand to prove something to others, the true power lies in words and the stories we are able to tell. My story is about a girl who has been told she cannot her entire life, and how I used all the negativity as stepping stones to become stronger. At the end of day I know that I am a “true warrior” and I will continue to tell my stories so that one day someone like myself will know they posses a voice that deserves to be heard.