Darren Marquez

My name is Darren Marquez. My story is one that has taken many turns, and many of which have tried who I am at my foundation. It started when I was 4 years old, my parents had separated, and I was in the middle of the conflict. My father would soon leave my life for 15 years never to be heard from along with all the family from his side. My last memory of my father at that time was a night when he came to my mother's house with police officers demanding to take me with him. I was forced to be escorted from the house at the age of 4 by a police officer. A year after my mother met a man whom she would remain with for 14 years. These times, too, were riddled with moments of depression, conflict, and sometimes fullfilment. I was a part of the Gifted and Talented program at a school in El Paso, Texas for the entirety of my Elementary and Middle School years. In high school I decided to make a life altering choice by attending Valle Verde Early College High School which sacrificed athletics for an education that included graduating with both a high school diploma and an Associates degree by the time I reached the age of 18. Through out high school I had a tendency to do only enough to maintain an A GPA. My senior year in high school was a difficult one, my family had lost a bail bonds business that they once owned. The ramnifications of that ranged from divorce of my mother and my step father, to going broke, and even losing our vehicles. I made a choice not to go away from home for school until I could be certain that my mother was able to get back on her feet. For nearly six months My mother, my two younger sisters and I lived off of $2000 dollars. My mother searched for work and found it at a hospital near the University of Texas El Paso as an RN, meanwhile I decided it was now appropriate for me to at least continue my education, so I attended UTEP for my first semester off of a private loan that had to be paid back before I returned for the next semester. Even though I had about a 3.8 GPA and had been recognized by a professor who inducted me into his research lab as a freshman at the age of 18 (which was a first for them) I was unable to pay the loan off because I had no job at the time and my mother was struggling to keep our family afloat, so I took off a couple more semesters to help raise my two sisters. August of 2014 brought many new things for me: my fraternal father back in my life, a job, moving out of my mother's house, continuing my education, volunteering in the research lab, and riding a bike for trasportation. Eventually I paid off my loan debt and was about to go to school at UTEP once again, however another event struck yet again to change my life. While vacationing with my father who lived in Las Vegas for Christmas (my first one with my whole family on my father's side) I developed a strong urge to move and learn about the side of my life that had been missing for so long. I gathered up my needed documentation, made amends with those whom I was leaving, and saved money for a long awaited journey. I moved to Las Vegas in March of 2015 and found another job working with people who have developmental disabilities, started school at UNLV and began building a relationship with my family from Las Vegas. This however is not a feel good story. The relationship between my father, step-mother and I blew up in January of 2016, and there is no hope of salvaging it. I now live with my grandparents here in Las Vegas, and have been self-sufficient for 3 years now. I have bought my own vehicle, paid my own way through school to this point, and have been supporting all my needs. I am motivated by the slightest of things, and on such motivation is to be able to make something of myself that I can be proud of. I desire to truly help change the world for the better, even if it means doing so a person at a time. Any career path I choose will submit to my will to help people and wish to help change lives. I believe one of my greatest abilities is my adaptibility/resourcefulness because I find ways to adapt effectively to situations and obstacles, and make use of resources at hand. During my years I have been rejected as was the case of a few Universities, and it was then that I built up a notion of desire in making myself into someone I can be proud of, to know that I could pull myself from places such as poverty, depression, and the stranglehold of adversity as a whole.