Dear Professor Stemberg,

Hope all is well with you and how things are going thus far. I am from the Bronx and raised in the Bronx throughout my childhood. I attended all my schools around my neighborhood on Crotona Ave staying within a five-to-ten-minute walk from school to home which was good. I enrolled into Hostos with hopes and dreams of becoming a scientist working in a lab in a white lab coat. I first started out my college career in john jay college of criminal justice right after I graduated highs school to pursue a career of being a lawyer but after completing my first year, I dropped out to deal with real life situations and had to put on pause for a few. I am happy I went through those trembles because not shortly after completing my freshman year, I was called for jury duty and with those three days of being in attendance of the jury duty I did not see myself becoming a lawyer anymore. The process of picking jurors and having to hear the cruel and horrifying crimes some people commit was a little too gruesome for me. Also, with doing the jury duty I realized how much reading I would have to do and history I would have to go over and immediately I was like no thank you. I enrolled back into college right years later to pursue the major biochemistry, but Hostos doesn’t have that major in this college so I’m pursuing a liberal art and science major instead to stay within the science route.

After I graduate next semester, I’m a little torn between what io want to exactly after I receive my associate degree. I want to go to City college to major in biochemistry but then on the other hand I want to get in tune with engineering and go to a trade school to learn and try to participate in an internship to gain experience, so I won’t have to start so much at the bottom the barrel. I also want to pursue this career outside of New York. I would like to go into the DMV arear which consist of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. I am leaning more towards wanting to live in D.C. because that city has a city feel to it more than the other two may have. I’ve personally been to D.C. and Maryland, and I love the atmosphere which the culture and communities consisting more of African Americans then in New York. I want to still have the tristate home feel with the city of sound and what not but of course no city will shine like how New York does all night and morning long so that I will truly miss but I can wait for the anticipation of the wait to be over, and I can just live in that area. If I do stick with plan b and stay in school to achieve my bachelor’s degree, I would want to go into a lab or work for a company that stays in the now with the latest inventions with biotechnology or with understanding how disease can manipulate themselves and take on new forms like covid has been doing lately. I am still unsure about the engineering part because I didn’t really do no research on that work area but I’m highly anticipating that it can be a good career path as well. I hope to reach the starts I’ve set out and accomplish each one my goals especially my goals with school.

Sincerely,

Precious Cyrus