Get Ash to Her Dream School!

My name is Ashley, and I've had a non-linear path through education.

 

After finishing high school over a decade ago, I tried to go to community college. Instead, I found myself choosing between a job paying for my living expenses or education. I decided on the job. A few years later, I wanted to go back to school and find a way to make it happen. For almost two years, I took courses on and off, often missing classes because of overtime between one or both of my jobs. I again found myself choosing between paying to live or education. And again, I decided on the job.

 

I continued to work, living paycheck to paycheck like most of us do. I decided to head out to California to live with a dear friend and start fresh. I found a job working at a solar engineering firm; they saw my eagerness to learn, and I climbed the ranks within the company. After being at the firm for some time, my partner, Rolly, and I learned we had a child on the way, and the first thing that came to mind was that it was now or never - I needed to go back to school. We spoke about the amount of time I'd need to commit to work and school, as well as to our son, and with the support of Rolly, I knew we'd be able to make this happen. So I enrolled in the local community college, my third community college attempt since high school, and got to work. My job was flexible with the time I needed for school and for my appointments, and Rolly was working two jobs to make sure that I wouldn't need to drop any classes. I was finally able to (after a decade of working my way through school) complete my program at Los Angeles Mission College and Antelope Valley College. I graduated summa cum laude and earned four Associate's Degrees. The next step in my journey was to transfer to a four-year institution, and I did just that.

 

In 2019 I transferred to California State University, Northridge (CSUN) with a declared major in electrical engineering. Since being at CSUN, I learned that my passion was not in solar; even after spending more than five years of my life with the firm and enjoying the work, it was in biomedical engineering. Having found wonderful mentors who guided me through the last half of my undergraduate journey, I was able to join two prestigious honor societies (Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu) and become president of both. I also helped found and am now president of Transfer Student Alliance at CSUN, where the founders saw a vast disparity in how transfers were doing versus their freshman counterparts at the university and wanted to create a community for each other. I've been involved in research projects, in events as a panelist and a moderator for several organizations, and I'm a peer mentor for many students in STEM. Through my journey at CSUN, I've learned a lot about myself and where my passions lay, and with some encouragement, took the leap in applying for graduate school.

 

As a first-generation student, coming to a four-year institution was big, so I knew graduate school would be huge. Applying to doctoral programs, interviews, and waiting for admissions letters would be hard - and it was.

 

My dream school is the University of Minnesota. They have a phenomenal biomedical engineering program that fits exactly what I want to do: making and improving upon implantable cardiac devices to improve patient outcomes whether they need these devices as children or adults. The application was due December 8th of 2021, and I received my offer letter on February 8th, 2022; and I couldn't have been more shocked and thrilled!

 

It was at that point we began to plan for the 2000+ mile move and realized that we needed help from our community to get me to Minnesota where I can start a doctoral program at my dream school.

The amount we need has increased to $9000, but we've received an incredibly generous in-person donation of $3000 from CNG Solar Engineering (thank you), such that we brought the overall down to $6000. 

At $2000: The first $2000 will get us to the deposit and price lock-in needed for the moving company. We met this goal and the moving company is booked!
At $3000: This is the remainder of the updated deposit amount with our inventory list for moving. 

At $8000: The next $5000 covers the remaining balance for the move in addition to two months of storage while we find a place to stay.
At $9000: The final $1000 will help cover costs for us driving from Southern California to Minneapolis (gas, motels, and food along the way).