"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE IT"

Everyone has a story, you just haven't heard it. I'm 20 years old but hardly think of myself as a baby, and I consider that I am far ahead in my accomplishments for my age. Some people say success will come, but I say if it doesn't come, you have to look for it and when opportunity doesn't knock, start building another door.

This is my story: I was born in the countryside side of Panama. I am the daughter of immigrants and an immigrant myself. I was born to parents escaping a communist dictatorship in Cuba and drug and corruption in Panama. I came to the U.S. with my sister who was 3 and my mother who was pregnant with my little brother. We had no place to live of our own. We moved to a one room apartment infested with cockroaches, where I shared with my two siblings the living room which was our bedroom and the sofa-bed that was our bed. I started school and they put me in special classes to help me learn English. My dad was an engineer but he only found work mowing lawns, my mother had been a college professor, she knew Russian and Spanish but no English, so instead she dedicated her time to raising us.

Sometimes someone will tell you that you're not supposed to make it, and some of us in fact didn't.

Some of us never finished high school, some of us got pregnant and left it at that, some of us got caught up in drugs, some of us stayed victims and some of us victimized others. Some of us had parents that didn't care about us, some of us grew up with fists. Some of them were my friends. And though some of us weren't supposed to make it, my parents told us we would. After all my parents weren't supposed to make it but they did, their stories are far more remarkable than mine. When I had the opportunity to complete high school and get my AA at the same time, I did it with honors.

I started at 18 as a junior at the university and this year (my third at the institution) I will graduate with two Bachelor's, one in Studio Art and one in Public Relations. I have interned with a Florida school district and the Valencia City Hall in Spain.

In the 20 years that I have lived, I have lived in 3 countries, I will hold two degrees, I speak two languages, I have read countless books, I am the author of a blog that encourages students and young professionals to invest in themselves; I am a young professional and the future of America. I wasn't supposed to make it, but I am and I will continue to because I am nowhere near the end of my list of goals.

I have never felt that my background should be regarded as a hindrance, but rather as an incentive to succeed. Whether you weren't supposed to make it, or someone told you you wouldn't, whether something got in your way making it more difficult, or maybe in your case, you were expected to make it, whatever your story... there is always a time when you can give up. So maybe you weren't supposed to make it... but the truth is, you certainly can.

Check out the remarkable stories of some famous successful entrepreneurs who were told they wouldn't make it, including the originators of I Love Lucy and FedEx. And They Said It Couldn't Be Done

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Leyda Hernandez

leyda.h.v@gmail.com

www.makingmovesincollege.blogspot.com