If you had asked me on June 9th, 2016 (the night of my high school graduation) what my future was about to be like, I would have gone quiet and told you “I didn’t get accepted into any of my schools.”

Fast forward to now. It’s April 3rd, 2024. I graduated with my first Associate’s Degree in Liberal Studies on May 21st, 2023. This was after financial stressors, a pandemic, and the death of a parent. This was the first time that I had ever achieved the Dean’s List and got accepted into my program across several schools. When I was in high school, I was constantly discouraged and told that I was never good enough for the programs I was interested in and that writing was not a career. How crushing.

If it weren’t for the TRIO program I never would have accomplished any of these things. Working closely with the program’s Co-President Katharine “Katie-Rose” Gergosian, I  have evolved as both a person and student since my first semester in 2017. TRIO provided me with support to develop better problem-solving skills, where to find resources for both your academic and personal life, and what it would take to chase a dream. I am now on my second Associate’s for Communications & New Media with a focus in Journalism as of this past August. I was just accepted into Endicott College for their Creative Writing Program, a very selective school and even more competitive program. I will be enrolling in  the Fall of 2024. As a first-generation student, one of the few requirements to becoming a TRIO student, I had no idea what was expected of me. My parents were never allowed the same opportunities due to their circumstances and the  times they were living in, so I went into this blindly. Katie-Rose and I would constantly strategize on how I could be more successful academically, long before I was even in the TRIO program. I faced a mental health crisis that rendered me suspended from the school, which I accepted due to exasperation. If it wasn’t for Katie-Rose disputing with the board, I never would’ve gotten my second chance. As for many students, 2020 was disorienting. After I came out the other side of my mental health crisis and re-enrolled  at SMCC, I was able to maintain the best grades I had ever had. I learned what it meant to have rights as a student, and where to seek help whenever I needed it. TRIO encouraged me to work one-on-one with staff in order to better fit my needs. One semester was spent working weekly with TRIO’s Chair Katharine Lualdi, who has a PhD in History. I was drowning as I wasn’t entirely sure how to seek information within tons of supplemental readings.  With Katharine’s help all semester, I pulled myself back to a final B, and gained the skill of how to work with primary sources when breaking down aspects of the past.

TRIO gave me a sense of purpose and belonging. I never really had a place to go during my class hours, and though I’d often sit in the offices of TRIO, my graduation was a statistic that helped to prove to the government that the program WAS helping students achieve academic success. I’ve faced one-in-a-million scenarios that continuously attempted to set me back in my academic pursuit, and I’m so relieved that all of my work paid off in the end. Though extremely nervous for the big changes, and being overly excited for how all of my efforts paid off, attending Endicott College is a huge leap,  showing that every student is worthy of opportunities. I never would have thought I would be good enough for such a prestigious school. I never had anyone around me to ask what to expect or how to get there on my own. College can be intimidating, and even more so when you have nowhere to start, but it’s TRIO’s open doors that gave me the opportunity I’ve spent years only dreaming of.

“Shoot for the moon–-even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars” -Les Brown