Sharon has been accepted to the Master of Public Policy program at USC. She will attend the Sol Price School of Public Policy in the Fall of 2024. Sharon graduated from CSULB in the summer of 2023 with a BA in Communication Studies. Grateful for the opportunity to attend college as a mature adult, Sharon is excited about her future as she pursues her passion to make a difference in her community and the world at large. As a recipient of the highly coveted Gilman Scholarship, Sharon studied abroad in Rome, Itay at John Cabot University in the Fall of 2022; she will fulfill her required community project to promote study abroad to high school students of color and low-income students, in the Fall of 2023. Sharon has varied work experience where she demonstrated her leadership skills, flexibility, organizational skills, and willingness to take initiative. She has worked as a Teacher for ReadWrite Education at local parks in Long Beach, CA, and as a Program Lead for a middle school after-school program in Long Beach, CA, a Sales Executive for Getty Images in Los Angeles, an Executive Assistant at the Lowe Gallery in Santa Monica, and a Project Manager for the startup company eVoice in Menlo Park, CA, to highlight a few of her previous positions. As one of seven people accepted to participate in the EPIC Fellowship Training Program in 2021, Sharon learned about community organizing, leadership development, and civic engagement, specific but not exclusive to Long Beach. Sharon has volunteered as a mentor with Long Beach Blast and volunteered with the Junior League of Long Beach before she studied abroad in London in the Spring of 2022. She is also a volunteer in her Buddhist organization, the Soka Gakkai, and practices Nichiren Buddhism. Sharon is interested in the local and global conversation of how societal structures of inequity, inequality, and racism, can be dismantled, and furthermore; how creative solutions are necessary to effectively reform society.