Spring 2023 Hoggatt Injury Law Children of Injured Workers Scholarship Winner

Sabrina Arguello

Sabrina is an International Business major at St. Mary's University. After earning her undergraduate degree, she hopes to go to law school and study corporate law. Sabrina's essay shares with readers her ambition and the positive impact her family has had on her educational and career goals.

Read Sabina's Essay:

What are my academic career goals? In the long run I want to go to study at law school and hopefully one day be a lawyer for corporations as well as work in an environmental section of law. I know it is a long shot but it would make me the first in the family to be a lawyer. As for now I cannot wait to complete my bachelors in International Business and further pursue my interests and studies of the environment with my geology minor. This scholarship would greatly help me achieve my goal by relieving financial stress of school and allowing me to focus 100 percent of my energy to school. Currently I am paying out of pocket and working extra jobs in order to support not just my studies but the household in general. With the loss of my fathers job due to injury it has been harder on us financially with only me and my mother working. I never want to experience this or have my own future children experience this, which is why I am pursuing a higher education to ensure that an incident like the one my father suffered from will not happen to me and I can have my family be of peace of mind when it comes to finances.

In my house hold, well my family in general, the only person to attend college was my mom and her brother. My father never had the opportunity to attend college, and instead started working hard labor jobs. For as long as I could remember my father would come home and be in so much pain and would always tell me to get an education so I would not have to work a painful job like he does. He does not want to see any of his children in pain like he felt before he sustained too many work injuries. My mother on the other hand put herself through college with no financial help from her parents, who could not afford college for her and her siblings. She put herself in college and earned herself a high paying job in a laboratory screening for cancer cells. She is a huge inspiration to me as she is the “breadwinner” of the house hold, and with the degree I am pursuing I can follow in her footsteps. My mother everyday encourages me to do well in school so I can lead a life where I can pay my own bills and continue my education for as long as I want to. Both parents have been influential for different reasons they want to inspire me to achieve nothing but the best for myself. My family has always inspired and motivated us to be better and make more than the previous generations ahead of us. I strive to inspire my younger siblings by being the first of us to complete college and purse education beyond that. Beyond inspiring my family I want to inspire other young women looking to study and one day do law. I hope to eventually make enough to give back to the community and give back to those who helped me along the way.

Christmas morning of 2020 my father woke up unable to walk and after weeks of being unable to walk and many doctors visits they had come to the conclusion my father suffered an injury to the cyanic nerve in his lower back. The injury was due to years of hard and laborious work at the cement plant he worked for. The doctor said he could no longer work and because of this my father was no longer able to work and provide stable income for the household.