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Karena Hooks remembers feeling that doors were closed.

"I had that voice in my head that attacks a lot of women," she said. That voice was saying "I can't do it" and "I'm not smart enough."

Hooks, 33, quit listening to that discouraging inner voice. Instead, after completing an associate of arts degree from Everett Community College, the woman who was first in her family to go to college went on at age 24 to the prestigious New York University.