Selena is on track to earn her Associate Degree in Criminal Justice from Wake Tech Community College in May 2017. She has been accepted into North Carolina Central University for the fall term.Selena’s goals include working with at-risk youth, attending law school, and starting a nonprofit to provide affordable and exceptional legal services to the less fortunate.
Selena’s parents were drug addicts. In spite of her grandmother’s best efforts to raise them, Selena and her 4 siblings were in and out of foster care. Selena gave birth to her daughter when she was only 14 years old. Determined to make a better life for herself, Selena graduated high school with honors and went on to attend North Carolina Central University. She later moved to Raleigh and attended Wake Tech Community College.
Selena has suffered a great deal of personal loss. Her mother died when she was 5. When she was 19, she lost her grandmother to cancer. In 2011, her daughter’s father was murdered, and in 2012 she witnessed her boyfriend’s murder during a home break-in. Partially blinded at age 7 after being pushed into a tree, Selena had her right eye removed in 2013 due to health complications. At one point, Selena became homeless, staying in the shelter at The Salvation Army.
Selena never let any of these circumstances deter her from her goals. In 2015, Selena returned to Wake Tech as a full-time student to pursue her criminal justice degree. Proudly, she shares, “This was my first time being a working mom and full-time student. Now I sit here, a student/mom – on the Dean’s List, and about to graduate.”