About eight years ago, I graduated from St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, Calif. not knowing what awaited me in the upcoming years of my life, specifically as I embarked on the next chapter of my educational career, college.

At 18 years old very few young adults are certain about their career choice and especially are wary about how to get there.

My hopes and dreams were ruined, thanks to my unwillingness to apply for admission to a university, instead electing to enroll at nearby Cerritos Community College in Norwalk, Calif.

Meanwhile I had held a job where I worked with my family, helping to operate the business. For safety’s sake, I will leave the type of business to be unknown — just know, it’s a lot of work for an 18 year old.

Upon arriving at Cerritos, I quickly realized that my love for Graphic Design would fade, transforming into one for Broadcast Journalism.

Sadly though, months would go by and my motivation only dwindled, dropping to a point where I would be placed on academic probation for dropping my GPA below 2.0.

This is catastrophic for a student that was once declared to be a gifted-child, earning an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 131 at the ripe age of 9 years old.

Stunned, I decided to drop out of school.

What did that leave me with?

My family’s business, which I have given my life to since I was 17 years old.

Day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month, I pondered the same thing: When would I do something about this? How could I make my life better?

At some point throughout my break from school, I really tinkered with the idea of studying Business Administration, something to tie in with the thought of perhaps having my own business some day.

That lasted until July 31, 2008, the day I was introduced to DodgersNation.com.

To satisfy my thirst for knowledge about the 2008 Major League Baseball trade deadline, I decided to tune into DodgersNation.com, which was hosting a chat room for all fans of baseball.

Sure the site had a plain look, but we were having fun. Toward the end of the conversation, the owner of the website asked if anybody wanted to help out.

Quickly I thought to myself that I hated writing, but might have some fun writing about a sports team that I care about very much.

Thus, I accepted.

At that moment I had no idea about what I was getting myself into.

Time passed by and I proved to the website’s owner that I was worthy of running the website, so much to the point where I began to build my own website.

The proposed DodgerPedia.com never came to fruition though.

I killed myself, working 12-15 hour days, building the website from scratch and compiling the content needed to accurately boast a Dodgers encyclopedia.

It was in November, 2010 that I was told to cease production on DodgerPedia.com because DodgersNation.com was about to take off and I was incorporated as a co-owner, making everything even more sweet.

However, most importantly, I looked back at all my hard work in constructing DodgerPedia.com and realized something: I love Journalism!

Still, the fight to return to school kept on. I used every excuse in the book to stay away from a classroom where I still had to fight against my probation.

Then the most unexpected thing happened at the close of 2011.

My brother, who is a year and a half my junior, graduated from community college, striking a blow to me.

How could he do it and I can’t?

Well, that was just it, I could and I should, which I did in August, 2012.

I sent an e-mail to the adviser of Talon Marks, the very newspaper each and every one of you is currently reading and inquired about writing sports for Cerritos College.

What followed next would help me to begin a new chapter of my life, one which I am still figuring out every day and will share with you over the next series of stories.

My new challenge is one that finds me running a Dodgers website that caters to 15,000 fans on Social Media, sees me running a business that houses 16 separate entities, as well as my current duties in school, where I am taking four units. For now.

For today, take with you that it never is too late to accomplish anything. I am now 26 and know that 30 is creeping up, but guess what? It’s okay.

My head is finally screwed into position and it’s time for a plan of attack towards achieving that dream of transferring to a university.

I challenge you to send me an e-mail no later than Saturday, talking about a struggle you have had in life and how you conquered it.