Why is education important to you?

WHY IS EDUCATION IMPORTANT TO ME?

I am 1 of 8 children.  My parents arrived to New York from Puerto Rico in the 1960s.  My father was a business owner and my mother a house-maker.  Although I was taught to be a hard worker, I consider myself to be self-taught in education.  While my siblings played outside, I remember looking through the encyclopedia or dictionary whenever I didn't understand the meaning to a word or words.

At the age of seventeen I became a teenage mom.  It was both, a confusing and disappointing time for me and my parents.  I was a senior in high school with a baby on the way.  I remember my father telling me "Wanda, the only thing that I ask of you is that you finish high school".  "You can work with me in the dry cleaners when you graduate high school" and I remember thinking "I don't want to work in a dry cleaners!!"  I graduated high school, but did not work at the dry cleaners.  I applied for college...

It is commencement day in August 1993 @ Lehman College, Bronx, New York.  As my name is called and I walk across the stage to get my degree my father begins to weep.  I am the only child of 8 that made it to college.

Although I was a teen mom, I knew that I didn't want to fall under the "statistic" of a teen mom.  I knew that I could make a difference.  I also knew that I had a responsibility to upkeep, not only for myself but for my children.  I graduated in 2009 with a bachelors degree in legal studies and I am working toward a master's degree in communication.