Personal Statement

I’m writing this statement to show why I can be qualified to get the EW in the courses

ENGL 115 & ENGL 45 (Spring 2022). In January 2022, I had to get a job because my

mom lost her job. Although we use some money from FAFSA to pay the bills and buy

basic needs, I didn’t want to use it all because that was all the money I had at the

moment. My mom told me I would only work until my Spring semester started on

January 31. For some reason, my mom couldn’t get a job, and she and my little sister

temporarily moved back to Tijuana, Mexico, because it’s “cheaper,” That way, I would be
able to pay the bills with my part-time salary. In the first weeks, I could keep up with the

assignments, although some of them I turned in late. I was a full-time student, so I had

four classes and lots of homework to do, and English assignments were the longest

ones since I had to read an article and watch a few movies to complete the week’s

assignment. When my mom moved to Tijuana with my little sister, I visited her almost

every day after work. After all, I couldn’t always stay at my aunt’s house, where we used

to live before my mom lost her job, because my grandma was staying in the room my

aunt gave us. That means that I stayed in Tijuana during the night, woke up the next

day, crossed the border, and then went to work. I used my days off to catch up with the

homework I was assigned during the week. I had two days to catch up with the four

classes’ assignments, I focused on the ones that required less time because sometimes

I didn’t have the energy to read eight pages long essays after a week of crossing the

border every day and going to work. In March, Professor Griffing sent me a message

through Canvas saying that he was going to drop me off the course because I reached

the maximum of absences, and I didn’t reach out to him. When I read the message, I

told him to give me a chance to make up all the missing work that I had, but he said it

was too late and complicated to recover. Instead, he decided to drop me with a W

instead of an F in both classes. By the time Professor Griffing wrote me that, my mom

had decided to take a “break,” meaning that I had to keep working for who knows how
long more to maintain our place in Tijuana. Although my mom got a job in May, it was

already too late because I was already out of the course, and the semester was about

to finish. Now that my mom has a job, I didn’t quit mine since the semester was over. I

decided to retake ENGL 115 during the summer to get those credits. For next semester

I’m planning to become a full-time student and quit my job to concentrate on school

fully.