I wrote the personal essay to my college applications about the Wu-Tang Clan’s song “C.R.E.A.M.”

It’s a song about growing up in rough neighborhoods, dealing with gang violence and drugs and thinking that money is the only way out. That song summed up the way many of the kids in my high school seemed to think.

But I wanted something different. I wanted to get an education and change the world.

Marchers are currently occupying the Wilshire and Westwood boulevards, shutting down traffic from both directions.