My name is Abigail Joseph, and I graduated from Howard University in 2024 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. I am preparing to begin my Master's in Psychology at American University on the Clinical Sciences track. I aim to become a clinical psychologist, working primarily with underserved Black and Brown youth in majority-minority cities. I am very passionate about increasing access to mental health services in communities where such support is limited and often stigmatized. Growing up in a Caribbean household, I witnessed firsthand how mental health is heavily stigmatized. Conversations around emotional well-being were virtually nonexistent, and any mention of mental distress was often attributed to spiritual or moral failure. When I was struggling with depression and isolation during the pandemic, I confided in my mother. Her response was to say that what I was experiencing was "the devil" and that "our people" do not suffer from mental illness. My family turned to prayer and the community, insisting that as a child of God, I could not be experiencing mental health challenges. When I decided to change my major from Biology to Psychology, this decision was met with disappointment and concern from members of my community. I was told there was no money in the field and that I would be "working with demons." Despite this, I remained resolute. I knew the path I was choosing wasn't just about me—it was about helping others who, like myself, grew up without the tools or support to deal with their mental health. While the lack of support affected my relationships, it also strengthened my motivation and clarity about the work I wanted to do. A pivotal moment in my journey occurred during my first year participating in Howard University's Alternative Spring Break program. I was assigned to Baltimore, Maryland, where I worked in an elementary school. There, a six-year-old boy told me and his teacher that he had suicidal thoughts. The teacher dismissed him, saying he always said things like that and didn't know what he was talking about. This response deeply disturbed me, especially from a mandated reporter. That experience solidified my resolve to become the kind of mental health professional who listens to young people and takes them seriously. My personal and volunteer experiences have framed and refined my beliefs and career aspirations, making me the aspiring psychologist I am today. Psychology is not only a career to get through. It affects every aspect of my life for the better, from how I relate to others to how I understand myself. I aim to lead my services, career, and life with empathy and attention to the mental and emotional actualities of the people around me. With this, I will be an advocate and a healer. I envision shaping my future as a scholar and clinical leader in healthcare committed to making mental health services accessible, especially to those in underserved communities, culturally informed, and grounded in compassion. I want to be the psychologist who makes others feel heard—especially the ones society tends to overlook.

My name is Abigail Joseph, and I graduated from Howard University in 2024 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. I am preparing to begin my Master's in Psychology at American University on the Clinical Sciences track. I aim to become a clinical psychologist, working primarily with underserved Black and Brown youth in majority-minority cities. I am very passionate about increasing access to mental health services in communities where such support is limited and often stigmatized. Growing up in a Caribbean household, I witnessed firsthand how mental health is heavily stigmatized. Conversations around emotional well-being were virtually nonexistent, and any mention of mental distress was often attributed to spiritual or moral failure. When I was struggling with depression and isolation during the pandemic, I confided in my mother. Her response was to say that what I was experiencing was "the devil" and that "our people" do not suffer from mental illness. My family turned to prayer and the community, insisting that as a child of God, I could not be experiencing mental health challenges. When I decided to change my major from Biology to Psychology, this decision was met with disappointment and concern from members of my community. I was told there was no money in the field and that I would be "working with demons." Despite this, I remained resolute. I knew the path I was choosing wasn't just about me—it was about helping others who, like myself, grew up without the tools or support to deal with their mental health. While the lack of support affected my relationships, it also strengthened my motivation and clarity about the work I wanted to do. A pivotal moment in my journey occurred during my first year participating in Howard University's Alternative Spring Break program. I was assigned to Baltimore, Maryland, where I worked in an elementary school. There, a six-year-old boy told me and his teacher that he had suicidal thoughts. The teacher dismissed him, saying he always said things like that and didn't know what he was talking about. This response deeply disturbed me, especially from a mandated reporter. That experience solidified my resolve to become the kind of mental health professional who listens to young people and takes them seriously. My personal and volunteer experiences have framed and refined my beliefs and career aspirations, making me the aspiring psychologist I am today. Psychology is not only a career to get through. It affects every aspect of my life for the better, from how I relate to others to how I understand myself. I aim to lead my services, career, and life with empathy and attention to the mental and emotional actualities of the people around me. With this, I will be an advocate and a healer. I envision shaping my future as a scholar and clinical leader in healthcare committed to making mental health services accessible, especially to those in underserved communities, culturally informed, and grounded in compassion. I want to be the psychologist who makes others feel heard—especially the ones society tends to overlook.

I found my path to clinical psychology not through lectures or textbooks but in long, silent hours alone—grappling with depression in a culture that dismissed mental health as shameful. I first started college matriculation in 2020, the most challenging year of my life. I initially pursued a degree in biology with the hopes of becoming a pediatrician, but eventually, there were many factors during remote learning that led to a significantly deteriorating mental space. I felt utterly alone, unable to retain anything from my classes, and deeply misunderstood. I am a first-generation Haitian American, and expressing my mental health struggles came with serious challenges. Haitian culture mainly has a problem with mental health because it is seen as taboo, viewed as a religious or supernatural affliction, and a source of shame rather than a health concern. What made it even more painful was the irony that my mother, a lifelong mental health nurse, couldn't accept my struggles. When I expressed my mental health struggles to her and suggested seeing a professional, She involved church leaders in ways that made me feel shamed rather than supported. She dismissed my pain, claiming I only said I was struggling because I didn't want to be around her or was upset about not being on campus—failing to see that I was spending 10 hours a day isolated in my room, overwhelmed by online classes, studying endlessly with nothing to show for it, as everything around me felt hopeless. This prompted me to study psychology independently and understand it for a year before officially switching my major to psychology. The switch caused problems in my family because my mother was upset that psychology was not a lucrative field. But the switch was never about finances for me. Even while I was away at school, she constantly reached out—directly or through others—to tell me I'd never earn enough to survive, that psychology was a worthless path, and that I needed to reconsider my future to something more practical like nursing. This devastated me even more because no one supported me in my corner. I began to disconnect, avoiding her messages and retreating inward emotionally. I had no support system back home, as my college was out of state. Every time I came home, it was another person in the community expressing to me how my mother told them to find a way to have me switch careers from psychology. I had received enough confirmation that I was where I needed to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed my field. I encountered a young boy struggling in the first grade during a community service trip. When asked to spell certain words without help, he would respond in an outburst and talk about suicide. His statements concerned me, but I was much more devastated about how easy it was for the teacher to disregard this boy's words. Since then, I have been helping to pursue my degree in clinical psychology to become a pediatric psychologist eventually. My experiences have lit a lifelong fire to serve others as a pediatric psychologist — especially children like that first grader and, like me — those whose voices are dismissed because of culture, age, or silence. This scholarship would support my academic goals and help me become a voice for those who grow up believing their mental health doesn't matter.

I am Abigail Joseph, a Howard University alumna with a BS in Psychology and an incoming graduate student at American University pursuing a Master of Arts in Psychology on the clinical sciences track. My long-term goal is to earn my PhD in Clinical Psychology and serve as a researcher, therapist, and educator. My interest in advancing equity in mental health services began with my participation in Howard University's Alternative Spring Break program. This community outreach initiative placed students in unfamiliar, marginalized communities, where I witnessed firsthand how health disparities profoundly affect individuals' lives. My HBCU experience underscored the importance of culturally competent care. As someone who is committed to working in underserved cities like Baltimore or Detroit, I acknowledge the importance of comprehending local communities and training local healthcare providers in cultural humility and other qualities to help understand the community's perspective. This approach ensures that providers do not impose their perspectives but instead respect the community's values and beliefs. I want my interventions to be community-based, meaning research is based on community values and norms to find community-specific interventions. For example, this might involve learning the local language and partnering with trusted community organizations to deliver services. My research will follow a community-based participatory approach, involving residents in every stage—from design to implementation. This includes identifying community needs, engaging residents in study design, recruiting participants, and building programs that reflect local trust and input. I will deliver culturally responsive care through practice, tailoring the client's experiences, lives, and values into my topic approach. I can learn this from community members or leaders to expand my culturally competent knowledge. To promote access, I plan to offer pro bono therapy to low-income clients whenever possible. It is known that marginalized communities also lack many mental health resources, but reduced prices will have a greater impact and remove that barrier. By working with other professionals the community sees, such as doctors or teachers, I can address care in a familiar place instead of an atypical place to find a therapist. Therapy doesn’t need to be confined to an office setting; I can also host community workshops on topics such as managing trauma, parenting, coping strategies, and stress. As I also want to go down the teaching route, I can teach people in the area through an equitable curriculum. My teaching would incorporate topics such as systemic racism, historical trauma, and psychological theory informed by my academic training. I can do a community teaching program at intervals where people in the community come in and listen and learn, as those do touch and inspire people. By combining all of these—the research, the clinical practice, and the teaching—I can develop community partner projects that serve the local needs of the people while giving people hands-on experience and helping them better themselves. I would learn to remain humble, advocate for them constantly, and always keep that in mind. Because many systems are not designed to support marginalized populations, I am committed to challenging these barriers and ensuring equitable mental health care.

I initially became a fan of Sabrina Carpenter on her Girl Meets World days as Maya. She was by far my favorite character. Then she dropped the song “Can’t Blame A Girl for Trying,” and it has been one of my lifelong mottos since middle school. Whenever I’m aspiring to do anything, the first two things I say are that you cannot blame a girl for trying and that I miss 100% of the shots that I do not take.  Her continuous ambition to strive for greater and this song have helped me get to where I am in every aspect of my life. I am currently a first-generation Haitian American student, and I am pursuing psychology. Psychology is the field that many Caribbeans detest due to deep cultural and religious ties. When I first switched my major from biology to psychology, my family at home was in an uproar, calling everybody they knew to try to convince me to switch back to biology. After finishing my degree in psychology, my mother wanted to push me to take an accelerated nursing track instead because she feared that I would not make it in psychology. She does not base this on my abilities but because of her impressions and ideas about the field. That being said, I consistently looked for scholarships, Master's Programs, PhD programs, and any resource that I could utilize instead of being discouraged and going straight toward the accelerated nursing program because you cannot blame a girl for trying. I often would tell her to give me a chance first and let me try, and if I fail, then I can use one of the options she gave me as a backup. Now, I am enrolled in a Masters Program in Psychology on the Clinical Sciences track, which prepares students to get their PhDs. Without the motto, I can’t blame a girl for trying, which I got from Sabrina Carpenter in 2015. I don’t know where I would be today.

My top three Billie Eilish songs are ilomilo, BIRDS OF A FEATHER, and lovely. All three of these songs have such rich and profound meaning to me. I grew up in a family of intense video gamers, and the meaning of the song ilomilo has not fallen upon dead ears with me. It was named after a video game with the same title, two characters named Ilo and Milo. They learned how to make it together to the end, starting on separate areas of the level and having to use each other to get there. The teamwork then resembles modern-day Fire Boy and Water Girl or Pico Park. The whole point of this song is that she has lost so many people before, and she doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Even if they are separate right now, she wants to go through this lifetime together with the person. This is similar to the meaning of. BIRDS OF A FEATHER, where Billie tells somebody that she wants to be around until she dies and that even if it’s hard or bad days, even if Billie was on her grave, she wants you around. Billie doesn’t think she could love you any more than she does right now, and she will continue doing that for the rest of her life. It’s the same sense of teamwork partnership, and a bond that is portrayed in ilomilo, but more on a positive note. BIRDS OF A FEATHER is a song that has brought me to tears countless times with how beautiful it is. It’s straightforward but holds so much meaning. The song lovely surprised me because I thought it would be an upbeat and happy song when I first heard it, but it’s quite the opposite. It’s about how it’s so lovely being so miserable and in such a depressive state. It’s about how lovely it is to feel this way while trying to fight the feeling. It causes the feeling of home and even says welcome, but has lines such as “need a place to hide, but I can’t find one near.” it is one of my favorites because it encompasses how I felt in my darkest times. I was going through it mentally, and I didn’t want any help. I was just very comfortable in my sadness, even when I was fighting to get out of it. It was a peculiar and almost self-sabotaging feeling, but Billie Eilish and Khalid could encompass it beautifully and show all its aspects.

My favorite athlete to cheer for on Team USA is Sha’Carri Richardson. I love to cheer for Sha’Carri Richardson because of her background, her professional career, and the backlash that she received online. During the 2020 Olympics, I recall her receiving so much backlash online for having bright orange hair, longer nails, her name, appearing to others as 'ghetto,' and other things that viewers were nitpicking. With all of this backlash, she continued to thrive. This is all while her mother had died, so she was mourning the loss of her mother, receiving backlash online regarding her appearance instead of her abilities, and was still outrunning everybody. The way people spoke about her online prompted me to look more into her background, and I gained more respect and awe. As a Howard University Alumna, I know just as much as the next person that your background or outward appearance does not determine your abilities; whether she was to have bright green braids or a pink wig, her running abilities would remain unaffected. Unfortunately, people love to criticize black women and nitpick over every little thing. A prime example of this is when Barack Obama was president, and it made headlines and was breaking news that his wife, Michelle, had braids in her hair instead of straight hair. They called Michelle all sorts of unprofessional with hairstyle change. That being said, there is a negative stigma with the appearance that Sha’Carri Richardson portrays, and I know that that does not affect her ability as an athlete. The hate she received always gave me the antiblack impression. She also grew up in an unconventional household, raised by her grandmother and aunt. This means she didn’t grow up in the nuclear two-parent households many Americans portray for success. As an individual from a single-parent home, I have had people come to my face, assume that my father was in jail, and tell me that that was exactly where I and my brother were going to go because "like father like children." My brother is now a software engineer at Meta and I am pursuing my Masters to pursue my PhD in Clinical Psychology and become a practicing doctor. However, the negative stigma of people in unconventional households exists that they will not succeed. Despite all odds, Sha’Carri Richardson proved many people wrong, and I greatly respect her craft. Therefore, Sha'Carri Richardson is my favorite person on Team USA to root for.

I recently became a fan of LeBron James through TikTok. My feed showed many young and aspiring artists making songs praising LeBron James by calling him the greatest of all time and other huge names. I haven’t watched a basketball game besides the Pistons versus Nets game since 2015. But seeing how so many people spoke about LeBron James made me want to research him myself, and with the research I had done, I decided to become a fan of LeBron James on and off the court. One of my favorite of his accomplishments off the court was providing funding for a student from his hometown named Mya Smiley to graduate and become a social worker to help foster kids. As an individual pursuing psychology, this made a significant impact on me because not only was he giving back to his community, something that I want to do long-term, but he hopped out somebody who ultimately is going into a field to help foster kids. My field and my desired population are underserved youth, and many of them end up in the foster care system, so this is very personal to me. While I have not read up on much of his on-the-court seats, nor do I watch the sport enough, knowing that he has won four different championships, is called King James, and has made it to the finals 10 other times, with eight of them being in a row. He is also the oldest active player and holds awards such as Olympic MVP, NBA MVP, and the Rookie of the Year award during his career; I know that he is a very decorated man with so many different championships.

I have been playing New York Times games for the last few years, and connections are one of my favorite daily challenges. After taking some time to contemplate this prompt, and as a lover of the New York Times connection puzzle, I thought of four groups of four with some words that would trip up the person playing the game.  The first category is entitled "Words That Mean Money," and the words in this category are dough, bread, bill, and check. I picked this category first because there are double meanings for all of these words, and can definitely trip somebody up if they are not paying attention. This is by far the hardest category. With this knowledge, I played off the word dough as something for baking and got a few other words in the various categories to trip a person up into thinking one category is baking-related. The second category is "Types of Infections", and the words that I picked for this category are yeast, worm, bacteria, and cold. This category was explicitly picked with the word yeast in mind so that people could associate it with bread or dough in the first category. The third category was picked similarly to the second, and it is "Homonyms that Begin with the Letter F." The words in this category are flour, fax, faze, and feat. Homonyms serve as an extra way to trip up the player. If someone cannot distinguish between flower and flour, fax and facts, faze or phase, or feat and feet, this might pose an extra challenge. They might associate these words with another under the wrong meaning, and it may take them longer to ponder the puzzle. The last category was designed to finish the potential baking finds using the word butter. It is entitled "Synonyms for Praise." The words in the previous category are butter, laud, honor, and applaud.

My brand new challenge idea for Love Island would be called the Anonymous Love Letter challenge. The point of this challenge is in the title. Each islander is given three letters to write to anybody. This could be to somebody else in another couple they have their eyes on, maybe somebody they do not like. It could be written to somebody who is doing their friend wrong. The scenarios are endless. The letter will not be delivered to the person immediately after everybody writes them. The letter is delivered when everybody is away from one another, such as in the confessional or when caught one-on-one. That way, the person receiving the letter cannot assess everyone's facial reactions and figure out who wrote it for them. Additionally, there are many other challenges for the recipient to learn who wrote one of their letters through mini "missions." These missions are time-based challenges known only to the recipient. For example, they may receive a super secret mission to get a kiss on the cheek from every islander, and if they complete this in the allotted time, producers will let them know who wrote one of their letters. The letters are also anonymous to the viewers, as they will enable us to guess more on who it could be from via the Love Island app. While not a bonding challenge, it could be a good means of stirring the pot, reaffirming feelings, and other plot thickeners. An example of a season that would have benefited from this challenge was Love Island, USA, season six, where Leah and Liv both wanted Rob. Leah could have written a letter to Liv about how she wanted her to back away from her man, or Liv could have written a letter to Rob about how she tried to steal Rob, or Rob could have written a letter to Leah stating that that is who he wanted to be coupled up with. Either way, because the letters are anonymous, the recipient would not know who gave it to them. It would spend that whole day or next few days spiraling on the island, making for both great television, and a way to admit feelings on their chest. Another example of this being a great pot-stirring challenge could have been the Kaylor, Aaron, and Daniella situation. Kaylor would have written a letter to firm your feelings for Aaron. After or during Casa Amor, producers could have revealed to Aaron who wrote that specific letter, even if he already had a preconceived notion. Learning who wrote the letter could have changed whether he would have continued with Daniella during those few days or ended it early on with guilt.

The lyric from Olivia Rodrigo's album GUTS that resonates with me the most is "Another day pretendin' I'm older than I am" from making the bed. This lyric effectively encompasses my own experience as a teenager and adolescent overall. This started when I transitioned from my small private school to a bigger Catholic school with new people. That was the first time I had seen anybody my age wearing make-up and heels, talking about boyfriends, and doing things I considered grown. The other kids were in disbelief when I told them I hadn't kissed anybody, had a boyfriend, or that it wasn't on my mind yet. But to fit in with this new crowd, I sometimes made a flirtatious joke with a few classmates. This encompasses "another day, pretending that I was older than I was" because I knew I wasn't ready to be in any relationship, which I would put off until I was older. This feeling persisted in high school and my early years of college. Between the peer pressure from substance use, indulging in sexual actions, and being grown, there were many times that my actions contradicted my senses to fit in since we were all pretending to be older than we were. I had witnessed people as young as 18 go on dates with people in their late 20s, and now, at 22, are looking back and reflecting on how they were acting older than they were. Nowadays, the preteen phase is erased. There are no more stores like Justice, and the preteens shop in the same stores and sections as the adults. No more toys and activities are marketed towards this age group, forcing them to act older than they are due to a lack of resources. Between this, instances of peer pressure, and other sociological or psychological factors, adolescents are constantly pretending that they are older than they are to be socially accepted, feel secure, or have a lack of resources. This lyric captures the feeling in high school of people wanting to be more grown-up and be seen as more grown-up but being stuck between childhood and adulthood. One of the challenges of pretending when you are older than they are is that you forget to live in the present moment. Now, at 22, I can't relive anything from when I was in secondary school. I can only reminisce on my actions and how I would've gone about them with my current knowledge. As old as I had tried to act, it would never equate to the current knowledge and life experience that I have now. Sometimes, I missed out on being a kid by trying to rush through that part of life. Another challenge is imposter syndrome. Because I was trying to act so grown up, there were times when I was unsure of myself and if I was faking it to make it. It also weighed very heavily on me when choosing a future path because I didn't even know what I liked and wanted to do, but I had my whole life figured out ahead of time. Lastly, I struggled with asking for help because although I felt like I was grown, asking an actual adult for help would easily ruin the façade. There were also times when I felt like I shouldn't need that help because I was grown and could handle a situation independently, and the intern didn't handle it as effectively as I could've if I had called my mom.

My name is Abigail Joseph. I graduated from Howard University with a degree in Psychology in 2024. I am also an incoming graduate student at American University for my Master's in Psychology on the Clinical Sciences track. I plan on making an impact in my career by working and serving underserved communities. I want to work with black and brown youth in a majority-minority city where resources are limited because those are often the areas that are overlooked.  As somebody of Caribbean descent, choosing to pursue a psychology degree is difficult. In the Caribbean community, mental health is very negatively stigmatized. I recall that before switching my degree from biology to psychology, I was struggling with my mental health due to the isolation during the pandemic. When I brought this up to my mother, she said that it was all the devil and that our people do not suffer from mental health illnesses. It was then brought to the rest of the Haitian community for them to pray on me and tell me that I, as a child of God, experience no mental health troubles. When I switched my major, she went back to the same community, and they all complained about how there was no money in the industry and that I would be working with all sorts of demons. I shut them out because I am highly motivated about my future career goals, which affected my support circle slightly. Aside from my own personal and professional experiences with mental health, I witnessed expertise through this volunteer organization that I was a part of. Howard University has a program called Howard University Alternative Spring Break, where people can volunteer their spring breaks to do volunteer work in various underserved communities around the country. During my first year with the program, I was placed in Baltimore, Maryland, where I witnessed a struggle with a six-year-old. The six-year-old expressed to his teacher and me about suicidal thoughts because he was frustrated, and when I confronted the teacher about it, she told me that he always said things like this, to pay him no mind, that he didn't know what he was talking about, and that his mental health is not in danger. This concerned me greatly, as this is an active mandated reporter who actively dismissed such a charged statement. Since then, I have been dedicated to making sure I can help alleviate these feelings in future youth. My experiences have influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations because I put psychology at the forefront of everything I do. My beliefs actively shape my day-to-day thoughts and emotions, so by leading with the psychology of myself and those around me at the forefront, I can be a better communicator and listener to my environment and the people around me. This helps me be more in tune with everyone I encounter while keeping me career-oriented.  I envision shaping my future as a scholar and leader in my field by being that listening ear backed by my scholarly studies.

One of the global issues that I am passionate about is poverty. I learned that although poverty can be brought upon an individual by their own decisions, it could happen to anybody. Most of us are one unfortunate event away. Oftentimes, it's a systemic thing that the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor. However, people in poverty are not the only ones who lack money. Those individuals are denied basic human dignity. They don't have access to food, places to live, and a community to back them. Pair that with the fact that some multi-millionaires and billionaires have the resources to solve this issue but do not give back in any capacity. Due to how the system has been built, people reside in their comfort off the backs of those who cannot get to where they are. I'm so passionate about poverty because it is a solvable issue. There are more than enough technological and physical resources to end poverty; people are unwilling to act upon it and would rather look the other way. I learned about the link between capitalism and underserved individuals because for there to be people at the top, there needs to be a person on the bottom. Learning the real-world effects of these systems that are in place makes it hard to know that there are solutions, but there's a system rooting directly against the success of people with low incomes. Using my skills, experience, and education, I would like to create a better future for those in impoverished communities and people experiencing homelessness. While living in DC, I volunteered with many different groups of people, researched underserved communities, and worked in places like food and clothing shelters for people experiencing homelessness. I can use my degree in psychology in various avenues to help this community. If I choose the research route, I can further discover more about the inequalities and find research-based solutions to help amplify treatments in my work. If I pursue the education route, I can empower the next generation on the issue and how they can solve it. Aside from those two avenues, I can offer therapy and crisis support for these individuals, as many do not have insurance or receive basic medical or therapeutic attention. With my experience as a secretary, I can hone my writing skills to fight for political changes that can help alleviate the problem. There is a direct link between poverty and trauma, anxiety, and depression, and because of the accessibility of mental health resources to these people, they are not able to either get diagnosed or receive proper treatment. With my teacher assignment, I would be able to provide long-term support.  Aside from my education and skill set that can help with this issue, my commitment to the problem will make a difference. I always have been and always will be someone willing to advocate, work humbly, and show up even on days we are in. They seem rough. Even if I don't have all the solutions, my willingness to push for Justice, learn from the past and through research, and collaborate with those around me will make a difference, even if it's in one person's life.