First-Gen in Health & Medicine Scholarship

Being a first generation student pushes me harder each day to not only thrive academically and economically but to reinvent myself in order to assist others. Healthcare was my dream for as long as I can remember. I would play doctor and nurse with my older brother whenever he would scrape his knee and had a fascination with the body. I remember how hard it hurt my heart seeing others in pain and how helpless I would feel. I watched my family struggle with so many medical issues and struggling to pay off bills due to poor insurance. Although I have been through many hardships they have been my anchor that caused my growth and prosperity. The struggles my family has faced were anything but little. My father struggling with mental illness and HIV without a proper understanding of either illnesses, my diabetic grandmother with dementia, and my mother having pre-breast cancer. It was so frustrating to know that there are helpful solutions that my family could not afford. I have been taught that in order to achieve great things you must work hard and believe that they are achievable. A lot of pressure was placed on me as a student and as a child in general. I was raised to assist my parents pay for rent by working and maintaining my 4.0 GPA in high school so I can excel in college due to academic scholarship. My parents both grew up in poverty and my father left us early on in my life. My mother told me school was everything and that would be the way that I can reach my dreams and break the chain of poverty. It was exhausting watching my mother struggle to put food on the table, raise my brother and I, and care for my grandmother. It saddened me to watch my family struggle to pay off medical bills and be terrified to go to the hospital due to needing to pay for food or rent. I felt that my family just like many others deserved more than that. I allowed these unfortunate experiences to drive my work ethic so that my future can be whatever I please rather than what was handed to me at birth. Being in this position really grew me into a responsible, caring, and hardworking person because I had to be in order to even make it to college. I pay for my own school and am only able to do so because of the ethics engrained in me from these experiences and my status of a first generation student. After reaching college and remembering my family's poor medical care I was inspired to become a nursing student. Becoming a nursing student was a battle I knew was not easy. Working endlessly, making flashcards, buying hundreds of nursing text books, needing to find ways to prepare for tests, and receiving the RA position on campus was harder to tackle than I ever could imagine but I refuse to give up. I finally am reaching my future and my dreams. I will make a difference in people further than physical wellness but overall wellness. When I am discouraged I think of my poor hardworking mother who is stuck and does not receive proper care for her condition and I push myself to keep moving for her. If I continue to work hard, no matter how difficult it may be, one day I will be able to make a difference and give women like my mother a chance to have healthcare.