When your parents are both teachers you have the pressure on you to be an excellent student. I always worked very hard and most of the time I go As with the occasional Bs. From the age of 3 through senior year of high school I had speech therapy to help with my speech, reading, and spelling. In elementary school, my parent realized the school district was not helping me by providing an hour of speech per week, so they fought for an outside placement. It was difficult for me to change schools, but my parents found a program a half hour from where we lived that specialized in language-based learning disabilities. I start in the elementary school program in 3rd grade. Many in the program suffered from social skills issues and after a while, I got tired of being the role model for the class. Most of the time classes moved slower than I would have liked since others in my class suffered from comprehension issues. I often finished work faster than my peers and teachers would let me move on to other activities. My comprehension is completely fine, but I struggled with phonics, reading, and spelling. The program helped me learn coping strategies to make my weaknesses less apparent.

I moved onto the middle school language-based program and was mainstreamed into regular history classes. Then after completing middle school, I moved to the high school program. At the high school program, my classes moved at a very slow pace and classmates lack of social skills were apparent. My high school math teacher knew I had potential after all my best subject was math. Some other teachers did not see the value and based their opinion that my learning disability was something that limited me greatly. I received speech weekly and was mainstreamed for a number of classes in various subjects. I was never mainstreamed in math since my teacher would teach a subject to the whole class and worked with me independently at my rate. My math teacher spent his free time helping me worked through SAT questions since he knew I wanted to take the SAT exam. The language-based high school program director was always out to get me. She voiced concern when I told her I was applying to 4-year colleges. Told me right to my face that I had no chance and a community college would be a better fix. To me, community college was never in my plans so I just ignored her. My senior year I applied to five 4-year colleges and got accepted into three.

I chose Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. This four-year college was only a half hour drive from my house. Not only was I accepted, but I also did extremely well on the placement exam. Johnson & Wales rewarded me their presidential academic scholarship, which I received $13,000 of tuition each year. Academic support was offered and I applied since I qualified. I ended up never using the support services offered as an undergrad. Instead of completing my degree in 4-years, I finished in 3 and 1/2 years. Really I could have finished in 3-years, but I added classes and graduated with more credits than I actually needed. Sure receiving my bachelor's degree felt like an achievement. I felt the need to take my education further after taking a few months after graduating. Started investigation master's programs and found myself applying to Johnson & Wales for the second time, but this time as a graduate student. I was accepted into the master's program I applied for. There is a stigma associated with dyslexia and all form of disabilities, but it just takes one person to break the mold. Instead of limiting people with disabilities they should be challenged. At times I was the only one challenging myself and believing in my capabilities. There is no greater accomplishment than proving people wrong.