👋🏾 Hey, my name is Najee (nah-G). I was born in the San Fernando Valley area in California in 1995. I was raised by father and my mother but mostly my mother. She had my brother at 16 and me at 20. I remember all 3 of us slept in the same queen bed till I was 8 or 9 and my mom working nights as a security guard. My brother remembers being taken to work at iHop where my mom was a server. I was in SPED classes till the 3rd grade after I was almost held back from the 1st grade because my reading comprehension skills were non existent. My mom worked day and night to teach me how to read using the most annoying flashcards but because of her, I didn't get held back. My mom is definitely my role model because she showed me that anything is possible, you just have to work for it.
I've attended 3 universities total which are UT Arlington, UT Austin and UT Dallas. UT Arlington was a great school, no doubt, but I used it as a stepping stone to reach my main goal, UT Austin. In 2014, I transferred to UT Austin and ending up transferring out after two semesters because they wanted me to pay about 6k out of pocket or take out a loan. Now, keep in mind, UT Austin is perhaps like everyone's dream school in Texas so the decision was tough but in the end, I decided to transfer to UTD because I did not want to go into debt. Looking back, the decision to not take out a loan was one of the best choices that I ever made.
At UTD, I fell victim to a bad drug addiction that had began at UTA and I was forced by the dean to take a year off. What was really trash was that I couldn't even go on campus to take my finals so I had to take them off campus with a proctor. Rehab after rehab helped me to stay sober for the majority of my suspension and I believe that my sobriety ultimately gave me a last chance to finish my degree. I was a year behind when I was allowed to come back, taking the most challenging classes for my program but in the end, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
I was 1 of 11 self-identified African American students to graduate with a bachelors in computer science from UTD in the class of 2019-2020. I only know this from the data the school provided me with. In my upper level classes, I didn't see women or black students. I think in order for this to change, we have to flip the script. I am responsible for showing young African American children that's its okay to want to be a programmer. I truly believe that universities won't let you just outright fail your classes if you try and attend lectures. Even in the grips of drug addiction, I made sure to show up for every class because I felt that my proffesors did not want me to fail. In term, when I needed help, they helped me because they knew my face. If people are scared of the math, it has to be communicated that if you take advantage of all the free tutoring that schools offer, you can be successful in an engineering degree program.
In February of 2020, I amassed 10k in credit card debt from buying things I couldn't afford. My bank statement said it would take 25 years to pay off had I continued to make minimum payments so I started selling the merchandise that I had bought for huge losses and covering the rest with what little money I had. After 5-6 months of being aggressive in paying off my debts, I became debt free. I budgeted by living below my means, canceling monthly subscriptions and most importantly, watching every dollar I took in along with every dollar I spent. By May of 2021, I had turned 10k of debt into a healthy portfolio that is exclusively invested in an S&P 500 mutual fund, SWPPX.
I share my story because I achieved financial freedom by:
Cheers! 😁
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