When I was 18, local headlines and social media posts about me all focused on the exact same number: I was accepted into more than 20 colleges and offered over $1 million in combined scholarship funding.
I’m sure that to people reading the news, that seven-figure total sounded like a lottery win. What the headlines missed was the invisible labor it took to get there.
People saw the final funding amount. They didn’t see the unpaid late-night hours I worked every single night, completely on my own, just to afford my future.
No manual, no guidance counselor, and no road map
I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, determined to become the first person in…
