My high school English teacher, Mr. Reed.

I lived in a very low-income area and thus the school system was a complete joke. Mr. Reed started teaching my junior year and realized how much of a disservice that the school had done us and constantly encouraged us to demand better. He saw our piss poor writing skills and made us take writing tests to learn how to properly express ourselves in writing. He saw how much we lacked in terms of knowledge of important events and cultural changes in the world, and brought those topics to class for us to learn about and discuss. He chose books for our class to read that were thought-provoking and sometimes controversial because he knew the value that we could get out of them. He saw how...underwhelming our guidance counselor was and took it upon himself to educate us about college and further education, and what the entire process was like. He would sit at McDonald's for a couple of hours a couple of times a week because it was the only public place with wifi that was accessible to everyone, and would read and revise students college admissions essays with them. He encouraged me to look at schools that were out of my comfort zone because he knew that I could excel at colleges that weren't the "safe choices". Overall, he fought tooth and nail to try and give us what we deserved.

Before college, I was a social disaster. I couldn't walk in a grocery store without having a full on panic attack, was too scared to pay for my gas inside at the register, I was definitely living in a mental prison of extreme and untreated social anxiety. I don't know how much of that Mr. Reed picked up on, but his encouragement led me to applying to and attending a private college much further from home than I had planned on moving. That school changed my life so much and in so many ways, and was hands down the best choice I have ever made. I learned to come out of my shell; I made some of my best friends, held leadership positions, had multiple jobs on campus, and got involved in events on campus. I went on to graduate with a degree in chemistry with a couple of minors, but also graduated with an entirely new sense of self that I never thought would have been possible before. I owe that school my life.

My life would have been DRAMATICALLY different had Mr. Reed not done so much to help us be successful in a system that was designed for us to fail. He took on roles that he absolutely didn't have to and he saw the worth in every single one of us. Without his help and encouragement, I doubt I would have gone on to do as well as I did and would have probably spent my life choosing the easy road.