I’m Denise Maupin, an ex-convict, and a recent graduate of CSU Fullerton. I just graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Sociology.
It wasn’t easy and my life hasn’t always been like this. I started drinking and using [drugs] at age twelve with my mother. She introduced me to cocaine on a Christmas evening. I left home when I was fourteen, so I was a runaway all my juvenile, teenage years. I was homeless in Hollywood, living in cars, sleeping on benches, and sleeping in parks. By the time I was nineteen, I already had one child and I was still homeless. I went to jail my first time when I was nineteen for burglary. They gave me a year in jail my very first time, and that didn’t change my life at all. I thought it would be a wake-up call, but it wasn’t. It just taught me how to commit more crime.
From ages nineteen to twenty-seven, I went in and out of prison, and in and out of the county jail. I had twenty-three cases and I had two strikes, meaning that I would be doing life if I got into trouble again. I also had three children. The last one was born in the penitentiary and he was born out of rape.
I got into this recovery program on parole, and had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t even know how to order food, had been homeless since I was twelve, so I was really confused. But the first problem I had to address was staying sober. So, I stayed in recovery, I’m still in a twelve-step program today, and I got my life together as far as drugs and alcohol.
Then I was faced with a question – what do I do with myself now? Now that I’m sober and drugs are not the problem anymore, what do I do with myself? I didn’t have any education, I’d never had a job in my life, and I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to go to Long Beach City College. Actually, I didn’t decide to go, a friend of mine convinced me to go, and I was scared to death. I had never heard of a research paper, I had never heard of the college terms that they were talking about, I didn’t know what admissions and records was, I never heard of Financial Aid, I had never heard of anything to do with college or school. I just showed up, went to each office and asked for paperwork, then went home and called my friend to ask what to do.
I showed up to school, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself, where I wanted to go, or what to major in. So, I just showed up to school and kept going, but I was six months pregnant. I don’t know how I did it, I don’t know how in my first semester I got B’s and C’s, I just kept going until I started paying attention in the classes on what interested me.
I had a Sociology class and it was on from there because I just really love Sociology and they spoke about people like me. I became a Sociology major and I transferred to Cal State Fullerton, with Distinction, in 2005. I’ve been on the Dean’s List every semester at Cal State Fullerton, and I’ve been on the National Dean’s List of the United States. I’m the first ever to go to school on either side of my family, in any generation, to ever go to college. Someone asked me a long time ago what my purpose was and told me that to be successful in life, my purpose had to be bigger than me. That purpose now is helping other people like me. That’s why I’m still in love with Sociology and dealing with criminals and gang members, trying to let them know that there’s a way out. Coming where I come from, we’re convinced and taught that this is where you’re going to stay, and I don’t want anyone to ever believe that lie again because if I can do it, anyone can do it.