Chris Smith looked like any other young boy in his class: thick hair, a wide smile, and playing sports. By all appearances, life for Chris was the same as it was for a hundred other boys in the small town where he grew up, except for the constant evictions (驱赶), and eventually being homeless.

Chris’ father was reckless (鲁莽的) with finances and dishonest in business. His mother tried her best to run the home until Chris’ little brother drowned (溺亡), then his father went to prison, and finally the family fell apart.

“My mom shut down emotionally. Everything got worse,” Chris remembers. Then she was gone and ran away from home without telling Chris. He did the best he could, sleeping on his newly married sister’s sofa. “They didn’t have much money, and I know it was a burden to take me in at 17 years old, I was going to drop out from high school and make it on my own.”

But Chris’ history teacher had different ideas. When Chris’ study began to go down, she cornered him. “You’re the smartest kid in the class,” she told him. “If you don’t graduate, you’re going to regret it.”

“School was my safe place,” Chris says. School also offered him heat and food. It became the closest thing to home he could find, compared to his father’s old truck that became his bed and his study space. He remembers his hair freezing onto the window in the winter.

When graduation came, Chris earned a full scholarship to college and graduated in the top 10 of his class. When it’s time to apply for medical residencies, Chris set his sights high. He applied for residencies around the country and included the No. 1 program in the nation: Johns Hopkins. And then the letter came. Chris was in.

“I didn’t really think I had a chance. But I had learned to give everything my best shot. Life is never fair. But if you don’t give up, you will give yourself a better chance to make it,” Chris says.

“Mom, I got into the University of Delaware!” I still remember how thrilled I was to be the first one in my family to have the opportunity to study abroad. I was so excited that I did a countdown every single day leading up to move in day at the university. However, just a few weeks after I got there, I found it very difficult to adapt to a different country, culture, and a strict curriculum.

I knew studying in a foreign university was going to be hard, but the first exam still shocked — me I got a 58%, the lowest in my life. Worse still, since my day-to-day experiences and interests were so different from the American students’, I was struggling to make friends. I felt like a complete loser and kept thinking maybe I should just give up. But then it occurred to me that I was not studying just for myself, but to live up to my family’s expectations.

Having made up my mind to push myself forward, I came up with a plan to make improvements. The plan was not only about study, but also about my eating and leisure time. I also planned weekly goals on how to make friends, such as “you will talk to someone at the dining hall, and you will not be scared!” Looking back, I find it was definitely embarrassing to plan my days like this, but I did it and made it. I was able to interact with others without looking like an outsider and even made some friends. I even began to teach others about my country, Panama. I told them about typical cultural differences between Panama and the US. It was really exciting to see them eager to learn more about my country.

Now I am a senior, confident, strong and smart. My freshman-year self is extremely proud of how far I have come. The coming graduation surely makes me sad, but I’m sure it’s not the ending, but the beginning of the many more goals I will accomplish.