For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a nurse. When I was younger, the reason was because of my experiences as a sick child. During hospital stays and doctor’s office visits, it was the nurses that consoled my parents and I. Especially at that young age, there was a lot about my health I did not understand, but the nurses stood out in my mind as the professionals who helped ease that confusion. As I’ve grown, so has my passion for nursing. In high school, I participated in volunteer work in healthcare settings and for health charities. One experience that especially was meaningful to me was my time volunteering for “Heart in the Game” when I was in high school. This organization was founded by a local parent who lost his child to sudden cardiac arrest. Every year, this group works with healthcare professionals to provide free EKG screenings to prevent other adolescent deaths from this condition. When I volunteered for this group, I worked alongside experienced nurses to provide the EKGs. After contributing to this project, I was inspired by how these nurses volunteered their time for this cause and started to plan all the ways I would give back to my community once I get my degree and license. It was not until my senior year of high school though that I found my true motivation for being a nurse. In November of 2022, my mother lost her two-year battle with Leukemia. During the time that she was sick, I took notice of how the healthcare professionals treated her, and the steps they took to care for both her and our family. When my parents got the bad news that there was nothing else they could do, my father told me that he found the most comfort in the nurses who showed compassion for them. When my mom was in hospice, I was told that there were even nurses who would pray with and for her. Religion meant a lot to my mother, so I know these nurses made a meaningful impact on her during her last days. Overall, the nurses that cared for my mother treated her like a full human being, not just a patient. They took note of her personality, her spirituality, and everything else that was meaningful to her. This well-rounded perspective helped my family begin our steps to acceptance and has become my personal blueprint for the kind of care I want to provide my patients and their families someday. These encounters I have had with nurses are what guide my future career. When I am a nurse, I hope to give back to the community as the type of nurse who provides compassionate and genuine care. Like the nurses who treated me as a child, I want to ensure that patients and their families have access to health education resources. As inspired by those nurses who I worked with at “Heart in the Game,” I want to participate in charity organizations and volunteer my time for important healthcare causes. Learning from my experiences as a family member of a sick patient, I will remember to treat patients as individuals. This standard is how I will best be able to advocate for both my patients and their families. Finally, I want to advance in my career to become a nursing educator and inspire the next generation of nurses to practice with these same core values. Doing all of these things is how I hope to contribute my nursing skills and career to the community.

Sabrina Carpenter's portrayal of Maya Hart on "Girl Meets World" is what put her on the map for me. When the show first aired in 2014, 10-year old me was instantly captivated. Its characters perfectly encapsulated what it feels like to be a young girl, navigating her feelings, her relationships, and the world. Despite being the "sidekick" to Riley, Maya especially struck a chord with me because of the complexities in her character. Though she had a tough exterior, Maya clearly longed for feelings of hope and belonging. Her journey of finally letting down her walls in the later seasons is what encouraged me, growing up, to let down mine. Ever since then, I've kept up with Sabrina's career because of how much her performance of Maya meant to me. Casually keeping up with her music throughout the years, I remember one of her earlier albums, "EVOLution", was always playing in my earbuds on the bus. Songs like "Feels like loneliness" and "Shadows" showed her musical talent and made me curious in where her career might go. However, it wasn't until the release of "Emails I Can't Send" that her music became really meaningful to me. Her different approach to songwriting on this album added so much depth to my listening experience. Though songs like "Nonsense" and "Feather" were the ones that topped the charts, it was "Decode" and "Things I Wish You Said" that helped me finally come to terms with wounds I hadn't realized never healed. Having both platonic and romantic relationships come to a close, I found solace in Sabrina's writing. These songs to me feel like a mixture of reminiscence, resentment, and finally, acceptance. As a person who keeps a lot to herself, these songs encouraged a lot of self-reflection. They made me realize that though I try to look for the best in people, sometimes they show their true colors and shouldn't be given any further grace. Sometimes people leave one's life and it's for the better. Ultimately, Sabrina's music encourages me to accept the past and move forward. With the newest songs coming out, I feel even further empowered by Sabrina. Her embracement of femininity for the "Short N' Sweet" era is something I really adore. As a feminine girl myself, I love how she has cultivated this softer aesthetic, one with light colors and delicate materials, while still maintaining a strong, confident persona. Along with this, I adore how her personality shines through in all she does. Even through her heartbreaking songs like "how many things," her humor shows through with lines like "You used a fork once." I appreciate how she shows vulnerability while also displaying her comedic side, something I tend to do a lot. That is perhaps why I enjoy following her career so much. Our personalities and ways of handling situations tend to coincide with one another. Because of this fact and Sabrina's most recent success, I feel like I too am capable of finding self-love after heartbreak. I cannot wait to see what she continues to do in the future.

From a young age, I always loved answering the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I was unwavering in telling people that I wanted to be a nurse. I had a clear vision of my future in healthcare, working with and saving people. Perhaps my childhood self was inspired by the other nurses in my family or the ones who treated me when I was sick. I also tended to gravitate towards learning about the human body, finding joy in understanding its anatomy. For me, the idea of a career in nursing kindled a fire of ambition and felt like the most natural path to follow. However, it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I began to question if this was actually the right decision. Amidst filling out my college applications, I admittedly had hesitations about my career choice for the first time in my life. I wondered if my childhood dreams were enough to fuel my passion. During that time, my mom was losing a two-year battle with leukemia. With COVID-19 restrictions, I was not able to visit her in the hospital as much as I would have liked. A week before her passing though, I was able to see her before she was transferred to hospice. What struck me most about this visit was how my parents responded to the nurses. Despite her weakened state, my mother still engaged in small talk, as that was her personality. She always loved to have conversations with people, a skill I deeply admired about her. I watched her light up as she spoke to the nurse about simple things, like her children and new movies. From the outside, it was just a simple conversation, but I could see how much it meant to my mom to have a little bit of normalcy, to be treated like a real person rather than just another patient in a bed. My father also appreciated the nurses. He was the one who was able to be with my mom while she was in treatment, often spending nights sleeping in a cot next to her hospital bed. He told me later on that when things took a turn for the worse, it was the nurses who gave him and my mom hope in their most hopeless time. Though they were honest about my mom’s condition, they remained empathetic. They were always attentive and showed compassion. It was this genuine care, including shedding tears when my mom was transferred to hospice, that my father remembers most about that period. Knowing that there was a caring team looking after my mom, when I wasn’t able to, reassured me that she didn’t spend her last moments completely alone or in pain. Dealing with this tragic event, I learned how complex nursing truly is. It’s not just about saving people, as not every patient can be saved. Instead, it’s about doing all you can for a patient and their family, regardless of their condition. It’s about treating people as individuals, not just cases to cure and discharge. It’s about understanding the depth of being responsible for another’s health and not taking that responsibility lightly. I know now that choosing to be a nurse is more than just liking anatomy and wanting to help people. It’s about embracing compassion, gaining resilience, and staying determined. Witnessing the impact these nurses had on my mother and our family has solidified my desire to choose this profession and provide honest care to people, whether it may be in their most speedy recovery or darkest hour.