De Los Santos Family Scholarship

1. I used to believe I was invincible, dismissing suggestions to get my ankle taped or wear a knee brace whenever I played basketball. This ignorant mentality abruptly confronted me with the lasting impacts of the medical field. Surprisingly, it was this experience that inspired me to further study rehabilitation and injury prevention. Despite the number of times I have slipped and fallen in each basketball game I played, my drive to win overpowered any injury I sustained. One day, however, amid a pre-season game, I landed wrong and tore my posterior cruciate ligament. I refused surgery, believing artificially altering my knee would change the way I performed forever. I continued to play and after another year of recklessness, it re-tore. Despite my previous objections, my orthopedic surgeon and coaches convinced me to get my knee operated on. What I had previously believed was impossible had been achieved through science. It has been a year since surgically reconstructing my PCL, and I am recovering swiftly. What interests me most about the medical field is its ability to prevent and cure illnesses through innovation. I began a medical science club at my school to educate more on how these innovations, like suturing and surgery, work and their real-life applications. Over the summer at medical science camp, I taught younger students and helped them create their innovations like prosthetic arms. My experiences in the Project Lead The Way biomedical program extended my knowledge of the diversity of healthcare. From assessing patients to designing nanomedicines combating osteoporosis, the program ignited a desire to further my education in biomedical sciences. Moreover, mentoring the youth inspired me to pursue pediatrics in the future. There are thousands of young people like me who believe they are invincible. My dream is to be there for them for every slip and fall they encounter. 2. When I was little, food was a gateway to my Filipino heritage. It was difficult for me to grasp traditions and customs, but the rituals and flavors that came with meals helped me comprehend. I shared meals as a method of communicating and connecting to my culture. I stopped worrying about being unable to hold a conversation in Tagalog because the love from family dinners was universal. I began baking during the pandemic to cope with the isolation and lack of family gatherings, but soon, baking turned into an obsession. As I followed recipes, I realized how unfamiliar they tasted compared to what I had before; they lacked the vibrant tastes I was accustomed to. I began combining components of Filipino desserts to American recipes, adding halaya to vanilla cupcakes and incorporating pandan extract to snickerdoodles. I continued changing common recipes, and soon they began to taste familiar. My love for baking was no longer just about taste, but about finding my identity as a Filipino-American, paying homage to my childhood. I continued to bake. My sophomore year, I sold a hundred ube cupcakes at the Homecoming game to raise money for my class. I began baking for family gatherings, and seeing the dishes I once worshiped at the table only fueled my passion. Over the summer, I began to sell my Filipino-American desserts as part of an initiative called the Cafe Care Project. With the money I earn as I continue to bake and sell, I plan to donate 30% of the proceeds to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital to benefit others the way food has helped me. My passion for baking has allowed me to connect with my culture, and I am blessed to help others do the same.

In my sophomore year, my family faced eviction. I remember my parents’ quiet panic as they tried to figure out what to do next. As a teenager, I was used to relying on them for stability. But in that moment, they needed me to be strong too. We packed up our lives in a few days and began moving from place to place, staying with relatives and friends until we could find something more permanent. The instability affected everything. I missed classes, fell behind on assignments, and struggled to concentrate. My grades dropped for the first time in my life. I felt overwhelmed and ashamed. Not only was I falling apart academically, but I also felt like I was letting my family down. I stopped asking for help and tried to handle everything on my own, which only made things worse. Every day felt like a balancing act between keeping it together emotionally and trying to catch up academically. Eventually, I realized that staying silent was not the same as being strong. I reached out to my teachers and counselors, explained my situation, and asked for support. They responded with kindness and flexibility, giving me extensions, checking in with me, and reminding me that I was not alone. I built a schedule, set small goals, and slowly started regaining control. I learned how to manage my time more efficiently and prioritize what mattered. By junior year, I had earned back my credits and finished with a 4.0 GPA. That challenge taught me resilience, not just in surviving hardship, but in asking for help, rebuilding from failure, and believing in my ability to grow. As a first-generation Filipino-American born and raised in the Bay Area, my identity has shaped the way I see the world and my place in it. I grew up in a multigenerational household where we shared meals, told stories, and held tightly to our values. My parents and grandparents taught me about the importance of humility, family, and hard work. At the same time, growing up in such a diverse and progressive community opened my eyes to new ideas and perspectives. It helped me understand that my culture is not a barrier but a foundation. Being Filipino-American means understanding sacrifice and valuing community. My family's journey motivates me to succeed not only for myself but for them. I hope to become a psychologist serving low-income, immigrant families, especially youth facing challenges like the ones I overcame. I want to be the support I once needed.

1. The summer after my sophomore year, I was selected to conduct a research project in the field of bioinformatics. As a part of the Young Scholars Program at UC Davis, I spent six weeks trying to find answers in an environment where answers were not always concrete or existing. I entered a world in which I knew nothing while having to keep up with students who seemed to know everything. In this program, I was tasked to predict tyrosine sulfation in voltage-gated potassium channels by writing an 18-page long research paper and presenting this research to a symposium filled with professors, graduate student researchers, and my peers. However, in the beginning, I did not know the difference between a potassium channel and a banana. I had not yet taken biology, but I was expected to find information through scientific research papers that were written for people who were experts in their field. I realized that in order to be successful in this program, I had to take action. I took responsibility for my learning by filling in the gaps in my biology knowledge with videos, research papers, and textbooks in my spare time. I knew that I had to do everything I could to reach my research mentor’s expectations. I improved after each presentation and I expanded my knowledge of voltage-gated potassium channels. After six weeks in the program and over 50 hours spent going back to the lab on weekends to continue my research, I read over 50 published papers, exhausting the academic database. The Young Scholars Program showed me that a reward (or in my case finding a mutation) is more valuable when I am able to collaborate. My peers created a space where each of us pushed one another to be more curious and more thoughtful, not only in science but in life. This experience taught me to see learning in everything—how to tackle a challenge, how to overcome imposter syndrome, and how to make lifelong friends in six weeks. More importantly, it ignited a renewed enthusiasm within me to seek opportunities for learning in and outside of the classroom. 2. As a part of a Filipino family in the primarily white city of Reno, Nevada, I always wondered why my parents were excited that a new student was Asian, or why my dad came home with $50 for me from my so-called “tita”. We didn’t have any relatives nearby. Once we moved to the Bay Area and I saw five other Filipinos in my class, I was instantly welcomed into a community I did not have to create or seek. Recognizing the joy this brought me, I created inclusion for others in the same way my classmates did for me. Being Filipino has taught me that with enough effort and courage, strangers become family. To this day, I continue to extend community to others by leading the Asian Pacific Islander Club at my high school. During potlucks, traditional dance lessons, and games, I see my culture spark excitement and pride, feelings I rarely felt as a young girl. Each meeting, I see my past happiness reciprocated in the faces of people from different backgrounds, heritages, and ages, finding community with people who do and do not look like themselves. As a person who knows how to seek out and create community, I will continue to help others find the joy of belonging. I now know that it is my responsibility as a Filipino-American, to not only challenge my perspectives but to create environments, where my peers also feel comfortable in expanding their viewpoints.