I am 17 years old and attend Von Steuben High School. The trip to Blue Cross Blue Shield IL was by far the best field trip I have ever had anywhere. I got to meet amazing volunteers and staff members. Everyone was very kind and I learned a lot. All the tips and lessons I learned were great and I even connected on a personal level with the one of the managers who grew up poor. It was inspiring to see that by working hard he was able to break out from the even greater hardships to come and was able to lead a better life and one that he himself wanted.
I am in a sort of similar position. None of my parents went to college, our economic status could be better, life is difficult, I have to work extra hard in school, and for a while, I was sure I would have the same destiny as my parents and their parents before them. It is only recently that I figured I could go to college, get an education, and hopefully go into computer science and even be a programmer/cybersecurist.
After I got it into my head that my destiny is something that I can choose depending on what I do, I started to join after school clubs, sports, take a summer course at IIT, go on a two week trip to Yale as a Yale Young Global Scholar, as well as take extra online classes so that I may take more challenging an interesting courses that my school has to offer. This field trip further solidified the notion that nothing is set in stone, things are bound to change, and that if you work hard everything else will fall into place.
I loved everything that went on that day and I hope to stay in touch with you in the future. If there are any opportunities such as internships that arise in the future I would appreciate any emails or information that you have to give. Again, thank you very much!
