Growing up in Mexico City, moving to the U.S. for my freshman year of high school, and being the first member of my family to attend a university in the U.S. is not easy, but I am very proud of it.

I am from Mexico City, so my education, friends, and everything else was in Spanish. I moved to the U.S. when I was 14 years old, and I didn’t know any English. One of my goals has always been to obtain a bachelor’s degree, so having that clear during my senior year, I started looking for my best college options.

One day, I had the opportunity to go on a school trip to Middle Tennessee State University, and I immediately fell in love with the campus. I remember walking into the library and the Student Union, and I saw the incredible diversity between students and faculty. I decided to apply to MTSU, choosing to have a major in Accounting.

In May 2019, I graduated from Glencliff High School in Nashville. In August 2019, I started my first Fall Semester at MTSU, taking all general courses. I remember walking into my College Algebra Class (I was the first one), and a few minutes later, I saw a girl coming in, and she sat next to me. She was also a freshman, so we both became best friends, and we started to explore MTSU together. We met many students from different places worldwide. Even though we all had different majors, MTSU taught us to encourage each other with school projects, presentations, or additional help.

Making friends help us to make connections, and they changed my life. Thanks to the support, information, and opportunities that MTSU provided me, I decided to change my major to Child Development and Family Studies—feeling happy with my major motivated me to get more involved at school.

I am the Community Service Chair in the FUTURO chapter at MTSU, and I am also an International Student Ambassador. My goal is to show other students how to take advantage of all the opportunities at MTSU, such as diversity, freedom, technology, organizations, events, and many more.

Finally, I know I have a lot more to experience and learn, but I am sure that being a Blue Raider will help me along the way.

Contributing writer Brenda Soto is a sophomore studying Child Development and Family Studies. She is part of the International Student Ambassador program that was launched in the Fall of 2020 by the Office of International Affairs. Ambassadors mentor incoming international students to help them adjust to the United States and give advice about getting involved on campus and how to be successful at MTSU.