The Fundraising Page of Emilie Flores

I am a second-year undergraduate student attending UCLA. How did I end up at one of the greatest universities in the country? NOT ON MY OWN! I only had potential. I loved learning and went to school, but what if I didn’t have the resources to meet my educational feats? My parents paid $350 for me to attend a summer course. How lucky am I that they had that much money readily available to further my learning goals? My school also received enough funding to provide all of the basic resources the students needed for success. Our library had more than all of the necessary textbooks for us to borrow free of cost; we even were lucky enough to be able to borrow relatively new graphing calculators ($100) for our AP Calculus classes and exams. What if I wasn't dealt the best hand? What if my parents could not afford to pay $1,080 for my AP tests? What if my high school did not provide me the basic resources and attention I needed to reach my goals? Honestly, I wouldn't be here. Hard work and undying effort can certainly help someone reach new heights, but we can only get so far on our own. There are so many students like me. I'd actually like to think that we are all the same. We want to prove ourselves, but sometimes where we were born or the financial status of our families seem to be an insurmountable barrier between us and our goals. It’s not difficult to understand why social justice education is important to me. Instead of trying to capitalize on others' disadvantages, we should use every opportunity to pull each other up. Imagine the kind of world we would live in if that was always the case.