Between four and nine years old, my mother and I traveled across the country on a wild journey. She was my superhero and I was her sidekick every step of the way. At first it was an adventure, but it soon became a fight for our lives. For a while, my mother skillfully shielded me from negativity and concealed her faults. But when the meals became infrequent and the light switches stopped working, I new something was wrong. She secretly battled drug use and domestic violence while I grappled with adjusting to new cities and schools each year. Consequently, I became quite independent and comfortable with change early on. I didn’t know how to help my mother, but I knew if I did well in school it would lighten her load.

I never had trouble washing my uniforms in the bathtub each night or waking up to catch the school bus each morning. After all, I loved school and would do whatever it took to show up each day. However, on this day, I wished I had a reason to stay home. I began to worry when a school counselor entered my fourth grade class to escort me to the main office. When we arrived, a social worker greeted me with a barrage of questions. Somehow they discovered that my mother had not returned home in a month. And for the second time in my life, I was stripped from my family and placed in a group home.

I spent another year in the system before my uncle took me under his care. He quickly became my newest hero. He showed me the value of educating myself and thinking my way through challenges. When I had a tough math problem, he insisted that I read my textbook to figure it out. And when we played chess, he forbade me to move any piece without justifying it with sound reasoning. In four months, he taught to me many life lessons. But it all ended abruptly when I found him dead on his bedroom floor. Once again, my family was stripped from me. From then on, I knew I would have to be my own hero.

Soon, I returned to Detroit with my mother, but it wasn’t long before she decided that she couldn’t take care of me. All it took was a SWAT team kicking in our front door and an officer pointing a shotgun to my face. So, I bounced around between family members, though I was now old enough that I didn’t have to switch schools every year. Even if it meant collecting empty cans for bus fare and a ninety-minute commute, I found my way to school every day. This continued for four years until I got my first summer job. Needless to say, eight-hundred dollars doesn’t cover a year worth of school supplies, clothes, and transportation. I needed a real job.

Throughout my junior and senior year, I worked thirty hours per week. Those hours led to tardiness, missed assignments, and failed classes. Momentarily, I feared that I might not graduate at all. But my first college acceptance letter gave me hope that I wouldn’t be trapped in this life forever. I dreamed of the lifestyle that having an engineering degree could provide. However, that dream was born from a survival mentality. That mindset was complacency with just trying to stay afloat. Every teacher that wrote a recommendation, fed me, or clothed me, did so because they knew I was capable of so much more. Today, I accept that challenge.

I truly believe that with enough drive and determination, I can reach any destination. My circumstances could have easily prevented me from making it this far. Yet, I’m here anyway and I’m on a mission to teach young people with similar backgrounds that they too can be exceptional. I want them to know that their destiny is in their control and they have the power to change the world. My uncle did this with nothing more than a little tough love and a chess board. Imagine what I could do armed with a little applied research and the entire world of STEM.

Greg HardyGreg is an engineer and social change agent with a talent for taking things apart and putting them back together. Follow on Instagram/Twitter @stemavenue