“Maryfer, no va a ser fácil…Nada que valga la pena en esta vida es fácil de obtener, Cuando yo estaba estudiando, fue mucho el trabajo que pasé. Venimos de una familia pobre y con más Razón debemos esforzarnos más que el resto para lograr nuestras metas y ser la diferencia. Todo esposible con diciplina y enfoque.”
“It wont be easy Maryfer, nothing worthy in this life is easy to obtain. When I was a student, I worked really hard and struggled as well. We come from a poor family meaning we have to work harder than the rest to meet our goals and be the difference. Everything is possible through discipline and focus.
It was my first semester of college, and I was starting my first job at a fairway supermarket at the Pelham Bay Westchester mall. This was the year 2020 when the pandemic of Covid-19 had broken out and everyone was told to quarantine. Attending college for the first time online and starting a job during quarantine was too much for me to handle. I remember calling the student help desk almost every day and no one answering me. I truly felt helpless. I would log into cuny first and click on random things like “student center”, “help”, “blackboard” to try and familiarize myself with the site. As a cuny student, we are expected to know how to navigate and familiarize ourselves with the cuny first website in order to succeed in each class. I wasn’t assigned a tutor for that entire semester and it was the worst time of my life.
 While all of this was occurring, I noticed that the rest of my high school classmates were doing just fine and keeping up with their classes with no major issues. I on the other hand I would wake up at random times of the day completely disoriented on what time it was or what day it even was. I was stuck in a cycle of terrible habits like binge eating and waking up and going right back to sleep. I had dug myself into a very dark place without even knowing but most importantly, my grades were so bad that I felt embarrassed to tell my parents every time they asked me “how’s college?” I felt that it was unfair to my mom especially after all the sacrifice she had done for me.Â
One night around 8pm I had come home from work exhausted from standing all day and my mother was preparing the dinner table for everyone to eat. “Ven ayĂşdame a arreglar la mesa”, “come help me fix the dinner table” my mom said. She saw the tiredness in my eyes and noticed that I hadn’t drank enough water. She asked me if I was Okay and I went on and told her about how I didn’t think I was going to handle both school and work because the load was too heavy for me. At least at the moment. She then told me the story about her struggles while trying to obtain her major as a phlebotomist and how much she also had to sacrifice things like I was trying to at the time. My mom explained to me how since we don’t come from a rich background that we have to do the extra work of working and studying at the same time, and that she’s living proof that all it takes is focus and discipline.
I picked up on the small things she mentioned she did and thought of a way I could apply it to my schooling. The week after our conversation, I bought a white dry erase calendar, a dry erase white board, and organized my classes and assignments due that week. I woke up earlier and didn’t go to sleep until I had completed all my tasks for that day. I set different alarms during the day which indicated me to do my next task. This helped me tremendously when keeping up with classes and meeting deadlines. I also joined WhatsApp group chats for all my classes, that way I could be reminded of anything going on in my classes or I could reach out to study with anybody. Even when I was at work, I had school in mind and that’s how it should’ve been from the beginning. That’s when I learned that whatever you prioritize and put in work for will give you your desired results, and all it takes is discipline and focus.
