“I grew up in poverty my entire life, and with that came financial struggles and not being able to budget money properly. When I was in elementary school and middle school, I took a special interest in math and got really good at it. When I got into high school I became in charge of the family’s budget and financial planning for my parents. I’ve been doing my family budgeting for the past four and a half years and in high school I took an accounting class which made me realize I really do like financial planning and accounting. That is what inspired me to become an accountant and come to Lakeland because of their crazy awesome, accredited accounting program. I still do my family’s budgeting, I still do my own budgeting, and I will likely do that for the rest of my life because my family still sucks at money.”