Personal Statement

Growing up, I had access to certain privileges that my peers did not have. I grew up in Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon, located in West Africa. There, not everyone had access to certain amenities such as tap water. Most of my peers did not even have enough money to buy food during lunch at school. Compared to them, I had more than enough. This was all thanks to my father, who moved to the United States when I was only 8 years old. Even though my father was not physically present in Cameroon with us, he tried his best to be present in our lives, he made sure that we had all the basic necessities that we needed and he made sure that we were happy.

At school, most of my friends thought that my parents were very rich, which was the reason

I was an outstanding student in Cameroon but I struggled in high school. Not necessarily because the content of the classes I took were challenging but because I learn a new culture and adapt to this new culture. Been laughed at for having an accent, having no idea about the SATs, no clue regarding College board and FAFSA in short, I was a confused 11th grader. Because I was the first child, I was the first amongst my siblings to be brought to the US by my dad. Therefore I learned everything on my own. I made many mistakes, which taught me great lessons. When my dad brought two of my siblings to the US a year after I came, I acted as their guide and their role model. That summer, I was enrolled in summer school because I was behind compared to most 11th graders in my new high school. Most of them had already taken the five Regents exams required to graduate High school. Meanwhile, I had taken none. During that summer, I was enrolled in American History, Living Environment and Algebra. The goal was for me to take all three regent exams in August so that I wouldn't be so behind in my regents. I remember the first day of classes. I literally sat in my American History class and I looked at the teacher the whole class period because I barely understood what he was saying. The only American History I knew was America’s involvement in World War II and the Cold War which I had learned in my World History class in Cameroon. When the teacher started talking about court cases like Brown vs Board of Education, I was completely lost. When I went home that day, I told my mother that I wanted to go back to Cameroon, I hated being in the US so much. After one week of sitting in that American History class and not understanding anything, I told the assistant principal who was from Nigeria that I couldn’t do it and that I wanted to drop the class and take