My Personal Goals

My Personal Goals

The personal goal s I want to achieve as a student at University of Phoenix is to receive a college degree and make my mother proud. I know once that has been achieved, my future prospects are limitless. I am a product of a parent who grew up on welfare, but not only obtained her Bachelor's degree, but went back to school two more times to obtain her Doctorate of Education. Her mother sacrificed plenty to send her to college and my mother always knew the power of education.

As my sister and I were growing up we would always listen to my mother tell stories about how she had to walk about 10 miles to and from school, but she was never discouraged. She would also tell us about having to go to the cotton fields on some days to work and then go to school. My mother worked at a very early age and saved for college any time she had extra money to spare. With the money my mother saved for college, the college fund my grandmother set up, and a partial scholarship, my mother was able to attend Prairie View A&M University. She decided to go into nursing, because she enjoyed helping people. After 4 very hard years, my mother graduated magna cum

laude from college. She told us that was the best day of her and my grandmother's life. My grandmother told her she was so proud of her.

Eight months after my mother's graduation, my grandmother passed away. My mother was devastated, but she knew she had to go on because it was what her mother would want. One year later, my mother got married and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah where she found a job as a pediatric nurse at the Children's Hospital. She worked at the hospital about a year and then decided to go back to school to receive her Master's degree. Her husband was not happy with her decision to do such a thing, and was not supportive of her at all. At that time my mother realized she had made the best choice to go back to school because it was apparent her marriage would not last.

My mother graduated sum cum laude from University of Utah and was divorced shortly thereafter. The relationship became so strained while she was in school, by the time she graduated; she and her husband had grown far apart. Now a newly divorced woman with no family in Utah, my mother packed up her belongings, and moved back to Texas and was hired to teach nursing. After realizing that something was missing in her life, she adopted me and two years later adopted my sister. She worked as a nursing professor at University of Texas and then at her alma mater Prairie View College of Nursing both in Houston. She worked for Prairie View for about 10 years when she decided to go back to school to obtain her Doctorate of Education. She continued to work full-time and