Share the Dream: My Life, My Focus, My Goal Share the Dream: My Life, My Focus, My Goal: Williams, Emrose

Talent Merit Scholarship Recipient

 My name is Emrose Williams and I am from Rockport Mass. I am 19 years old. I have grown up there for my entire life. I was born in Beverly MA. I would say my family makeup is my parents. My mom is from France and she grew up there and then when she was in her late teens she started to come to America every summer and help my dads parents with their bed and breakfast. After a few years of coming here in the summers my mom met my dad. My dad grew up in Rockport his entire life. He went to school there as well. He has always been so hesitant to leave Rockport because all of his family lives in Rockport. His parents and his siblings and the rest of his extended family live within a 10 mile radius of each other.

In my hometown there are about 7000 people and about 630 kids in the whole Rockport school system and it is a very public school. I made the executive decision to switch schools in 8th grade to go to Hamilton Wenham, also a public school, because Rockport school systems were not accommodating my needs well enough because I was on an IEP. Personally I thought that the school was too small and very clique. For that reason I struggled greatly in the Rockport School system. I would say a difficult challenge that I have overcome was definitely growing up with Alopecia in middle school because kids in middle school aren't nice and me having this disease I felt like I was prone to be bullied because I was different.

 I would say some of my biggest accomplishments was going on a service trip in 2023 with a few other students in my school. We traveled to Panama and were there for about a week. A couple examples of things that we did was we went to a really small elementary school and fixed up the school. We constructed bathroom stalls, installed toilets, fixed the kitchen and did some basic landscaping. Going to Panama made me get a different perspective on life as a whole. I realized how privileged me and my peers are in America and that we have things that kids in Panama would absolutely die for.

I chose to enroll at UMass Dartmouth because I admired the respect I got from all of the students and staff when I was still a senior in high school coming here for the open house. When I came to the open house last year I was still unsure of what I wanted to study and major in so I kept an open mind. As the year went on during my senior year I took an honors marketing class and I was very good at it, so I figured I would apply to UMass Dartmouth with Marketing as my major. When I got accepted into this school for college now I knew that I really had to apply myself considering that they are giving me a chance to prove myself that others may not have. Having the extra support from college now has been great, the one on one meetings with my advisor and my peer mentor were definitely the most helpful because I was able to talk to them about what I was struggling with and they helped me.

The things that motivate me to stay in school are definitely my parents. My parents have always been my biggest supporters and I would hate to let them down. Another thing that motivates me to stay in school is getting a good job after college and being able to live comfortably. College is different then I expected it to be. I thought it would be harder. I thought the work load would be unbelievable however I have been able to stay on top of all of my work and be able to get it done in a timely manner.