I was honored to visit UCF during my junior year at Brandon High, and going to college was the last thing on my mind. For me to pull it out of the back of my head wasn’t all that easy. I grew up without a father and a mother, and with many other obstacles’ leading me into different paths, some being both negative and positive. With my own pace and the help of programs like Tampa Bay Academy of Hope, and Army JROTC help me so much. I can't even express the gratitude I got. There were people that were really there for me. For example, have you had a time in your life when you thought as a child or even today that no-one care about you? I felt that way before when my father walked out on my mother, and then she walks out on us. Leaving twelve children behind for no apparent reason and being raise by a signal grandparent also struggling with caner or nearing dying was so much pain to bear. All I could remember was that I want to help her live to see me make it. Being the first Simmons in my family at second oldest going to college makes me proud. My other siblings’ lingering on behind me...I have and need to be that role model which I never had. With all faith in heart when I walk upon UCF it was amazing. Beyond destruction! I love it and I felt the new me deep inside. I personal, felt myself say “I want to come here I want to come here”. I believe UCF will continue to open many more doors for me in the future. Appling and doing a little research on my own made the impossible become possible.