Describe your personal, educational, and professional experiences and how they informed your decision to pursue a graduate degree.
Growing up I had a tough experience with school, learning and focusing. I had a very hard time learning and doctors even diagnosed me with ADHD. My GPA was probably on the scale of negative. On top of my learning issues, I was a troublesome kid and I never believed that I could even graduate high school. My parents always encouraged me to go to college and as a Latina woman exceed in higher education. After a lot of grace and pressure from parents I was able to graduate from high school. I only decided to go to college because I figured that it was the next step and saw it as a blessing from God that I got accepted to LPU because my GPA was extremely low. During my time there I experienced living away from home, working part time in different jobs, and working in a Counseling office for my internship. As it began to get closer to graduation, I was encouraged to further my education and apply for grad school. Thankfully, I was accepted and two years later I was able to graduate from my Masters in strategic Leadership on 6/25/2020 and I am currently in training to start my career.
What challenges did you encounter along your educational trajectory? How did you overcome those challenges?
I faced challenges that were rooted from personal insecurity and fears of failure. Throughout high school teachers would enforce my inability to go to college or even graduate high school. I had teachers and classmates make various comments about my inability to learn, read or understand the material in front of the class or groups of people. For several years I would constantly hear that I was illiterate or just a “pretty” face. When I started college I had to battle with myself and the thoughts I had about myself. I had to start believing in myself and healing areas in my life that caused me to believe I was inadequate or unable to meet the standards.
What advice do you have for individuals who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree?
It doesn’t matter how you start, what matters is how you finish. Don’t judge yourself or determine your abilities or future based on your weaknesses and failures. Most importantly, the only person who can rob you of a prosperous future involving a graduate/professional degree is yourself. The opinions of other people and their judgment over you or your abilities are not true. Push yourself, get your masters degree or even your Phd, trust me when I say the road to a graduate degree can be challenging but not impossible. Even if you can’t picture yourself in the journey of acquiring a graduate degree, do it. We will never be able to fully see ourselves walking toward success or goals until we are actually in the midst of it all. If possible start as soon as you can!
What did you enjoy most about your graduate/professional program?
It’s hard to only choose one thing that I enjoyed the most because there are several of them. I’d start by saying the friends that I made along the way were greatly impactful. I was the youngest in my graduate program, so I was able to be mentored by several of my classmates. My graduate program also gave me the ability to open my mind and have a broader range of conversation/intellect. Overall, what I most enjoyed was reaching the finish-line as a completely different Andrea from two years ago at the start of the program. Your graduate program will transform your habits, form of thought, and character.
