“The last three summers I have volunteered for a program called Horizons which provides reading and math education to children from the inner city of Philadelphia over the summer for free. All of the children I work with – kindergarten to fifth grade – have suffered through some traumatic home life circumstance from simply great poverty to the murder of parents. As someone who had a very privileged childhood with a very stable family life, this job opened my eyes to a whole other side of the community I lived in and revealed some incorrect biases I had been viewing others with. These children, despite their circumstances, are intelligent, kind, funny, and innocent. I realized it was not them who lacked the ability to succeed but that our society failed to provide them resources to overcome their unfair circumstances. Because of this, I am now devoted to pursuing a career in education reform.”