One of my favorite hobbies in running. As a little boy I would always run outside just for fun, but I never knew how good of a runner I was until middle school. The year of 2016 I was in eight grade, and I really wanted to play sports, but I was very insecure about running in front of people. One day I was told by the track coach to come out and run. At the end of practice he told me that I had made the team, and that I was going to need a lot of work, but he also told me that I can overcome that. The next week of track practice came and he seen so much growth within me, he told me that my events for this season was the 200 and the 4x200 relay. I was scared to be a part of team, cause I fear that I would let them down. The district championship is what I think made me love running even more. We were in the top eight to go on to county and all the pressure was on me. The gun goes off and the first leg is behind, then its on to the second leg who is still in last place, then it's onto me, as i grab the baton I catch six other boys then I used the form and skills I by my coach and catch the last boy, and put my team in first place and pasted it onto the forth leg. We made it on to county and won the county championship on December 5, 2016. My love for running has grew ever since that day and although I'm not running on a college team I still run everyday just for fun and I love it more than any hobby in the world.

This past semester as a new first-generation college student has been an adventurous up-skill. Challenging myself as a biology major, with no intention about how college was, made me work even harder. In much the same way, I hope to work very hard and up-skill my education as a future researcher. I believe that I am a great example of students who are misrepresented in STEM and do not have opportunities to be presented to them. As a black gay Haitian man, coming from non-American parents who raised me in a low-income community, I was always limited with not enough opportunities, and most likely to be turned down from a lot of chances to show that I too, can be successful. With my background, I bring a lot of diversity into the STEM world and demonstrate my success and serve as an inspiration for students with the similar background; which are students that are misrepresented in STEM. Science has always been an inspirational subject for me, during my primary and secondary years of education. It started when I was five, an unexpected death, of my aunt who died of cancer, with no clue of how to stop it and no cure to save her; only made my curiosity of where cancer came from, and how could we cure it, only grew stronger. Ever since her death I have built on my knowledge of what science meant to me. Science to me is an eye-opener to the world, learning and figuring out about the structures, functions, and behaviors of the natural world is an amazing experience. Science allows me to challenge myself by critically thinking more about the five W’s and how things work in our natural world. Throughout my middle school and high school years, I began to realize how much I adored science and pondered about what I wanted to do as a career. It was not until I took Anatomy and Physiology and biology during my high school years, that I discovered a desire to research the human body. Eventually, this persuaded me into studying biology in undergraduate school. My long-term goal is to become a cancer researcher. I want to be a part of something that brings masses of people comfort, peace, and non-life-threatening problems, and mainly to help others in the way that I, unfortunately, could not help my aunt who died of cancer. Overall I really want to be a world changer.

This past semester as a new first-generation college student has been an adventurous up-skill. Challenging myself as a biology major, with no intention about how college was, made me work even harder. In much the same way, I hope to work very hard and up-skill my education as a future researcher. I believe that I am a great example of students who are misrepresented in STEM and do not have opportunities to be presented to them. As a black gay Haitian man, coming from non-American parents who raised me in a low-income community, I was always limited with not enough opportunities, and most likely to be turned down from a lot of chances to show that I too, can be successful. With my background, I bring a lot of diversity into the STEM world and demonstrate my success and serve as an inspiration for students with the similar background; which are students that are misrepresented in STEM. Science has always been an inspirational subject for me, during my primary and secondary years of education. It started when I was five, an unexpected death, of my aunt who died of cancer, with no clue of how to stop it and no cure to save her; only made my curiosity of where cancer came from, and how could we cure it, only grew stronger. Ever since her death I have built on my knowledge of what science meant to me. Science to me is an eye-opener to the world, learning and figuring out about the structures, functions, and behaviors of the natural world is an amazing experience. Science allows me to challenge myself by critically thinking more about the five W’s and how things work in our natural world. Throughout my middle school and high school years, I began to realize how much I adored science and pondered about what I wanted to do as a career. It was not until I took Anatomy and Physiology and biology during my high school years, that I discovered a desire to research the human body. Eventually, this persuaded me into studying biology in undergraduate school. My long-term goal is to become a cancer researcher. I want to be a part of something that brings masses of people comfort, peace, and non-life-threatening problems, and mainly to help others in the way that I, unfortunately, could not help my aunt who died of cancer. Overall I really want to be a world changer.

"Coming to America was hard, but we did it to give you and your other brothers and sisters a better chances at life" says my parent. As a black Haitian man coming from non-american parent who raised me in a low income community I was always limited with not enough chances to show how successful I can be. When asking my mom how her experience was in Haiti she told me, that she suffered a lot, because it was one of the most poorest country ever, that not a lot of people come out to become very successful. She told me that education is very important and that is why She came to America so that we can do better, unfortunately I did not have a lot of leader in my family to look up to so I became the leader by being the first boy in my family to go to college. I want to become a general surgeon and help masses of people fight cancer. I always get ask why this career and it really due to an unexpected death of my aunt who died of cancer. I want to help people in the way that I could not help her when she had cancer. So, education is important to me not only because I want to be a Doctor, but because a lot of diverse people are being misrepresented and not giving many opportunity to show there success. I had such a hard time learn in school and felt like I was always shut out because of my English speaking, skin color, gender and much more. I want to keep serving as an inspiration for many others who have similar backgrounds just like me because we are looked down upon and it is not right. I want to give back to my community by being active with many children who need leaders not to hold their hands but leader to show them that anything is possible, with hard work, grit, and self love but of course with all of the support they can get from a mentor. I plan to also give back to my community by starting a series called Pockects of Love, because I believe that love is really not shown a lot, and a lot of people lack showing love. I plan to working hard on making this series and hoping to impact to many lives.

The year of 2020, February 29 at 2:32 am I pressed the send button on Instagram. Many worst case scenario running through my mind about my post. That day I decided to walk in my truth and let the world, my family, and friend know that I am gay. My heart race as my phone lights up so fast with some many people commenting on my post. Later that day I open up my phone and seen the wonderful comments that everyone had said to me. I thought to myself maybe this might not be as bad as I thought. Then, the next week came and I went to church and I was told by more then ten people that the pastor needed to talk to me. After the end of the service I was told by the pastor that because I was gay that I could no longer serve with children. I felt hurt and so upset, because I felt like I was a threat to children. I began to lose lot of male figures in my life, and everything felt like it was falling apart, with the world dealing with a crisis and my problems, I fell into deep depression and struggled with my mental health, I blamed myself for everything. I lack self worth and could not see a future for me all because I was gay and I believe what people told me about being gay and black. I had one thing to hold on to and that was my goal of becoming a general surgeon. I read a quote from my favorite show Grey's Anatomy that said " sometimes the future changes quickly and completely and we are left with the choices of what to do next, be can choose to be afraid of them, standing there trembling or we move forward into the unknown and assume that it will be brilliant." This quote meant so much to me because it was an eye open to me understanding that it is up to me to allow people to hurt my future, and that it is up to me to be strong, hard working, and passion about what I want. My passion for medicine and helping others fight cancer is want helped me get over my mental health. I picture my self as this gay black man helping the world becoming a better place and serving as an inspiration to many others who have similar background as me. My passion of the future Dr. Alin Joseph was how I was able to cope with my mental health.