The Fall 2024 Resilient Student Scholarship

Jason Miller

In his essay, Jason shared his experience of witnessing addiction and its profound impact on his life. Despite facing numerous challenges, he demonstrated resilience and remained dedicated to his studies. Jason aspires to become a teacher to support students who may be navigating similar struggles. Congratulations, Jason, and we look forward to all you will accomplish!

Read Jason's Essay Here:

I have always been back and forth between my mom’s and dad’s apartments. Every weekend I was changing residences to be able to spend time with the other parent. Neither house was particularly bad, and I love both of my parents to death. However, my dad was in a significantly worse state due to many factors in life. Unfortunately, he took to alcohol as a method of coping. I am happy to say that he never put a hand on me or my brother. He was as “responsible” of an alcohol addict as you could describe someone to be. He has also long since recovered.

However, there was a time when I was in high school when addiction was so severe that he could only leave his apartment to walk to the liquor store. This meant he could hardly get to the store to buy food for himself let alone for me or my brother. Many nights and weekends I was almost fasting because of how little food there was. This made it hard to focus on studying and schoolwork. Seeing my dad in that kind of state took a psychological toll on me because I lost a crucial male role model in a critical time in my life. I was forced to change my perspective of my own father, the man I always thought of as a superhero. I was devastated and often acted out. It played a significant role in my mental health and experiences with depression. It is not much, but despite this rough time I managed to maintain extremely high grades and cope with the difficulties I faced at home with minimal trauma. I even managed to eventually pull my behavioral act together alone when was simply ignored by other adults.

Growing up in this circumstance and talking with my friends who experienced similar circumstances, I realized that many of us share this feeling of devastation at the lack of our critical male role model, even for just a couple of years. We all wish that there was someone who recognized what we were experiencing and stepped in. I aspire to be a teacher. My experiences have shaped the kind of teacher I want to be and how I want to help my students. Of course I want to be a master of my subject content. However, I strongly desire to also recognize students dealing with the same thing I did. I want to be an available resource and guide for students who have lost the adult that previously filled that role. Adolescents need to be guided and supported, otherwise they can go down a terrible path. Potentially even leading to a life of crime as with some of my peers. I am blessed to have turned myself around. Others may not be so fortunate. I want to be someone who helps catch those falling through the cracks. These adolescents are worth helping and deserve to be helped. I know because I was one of them.