If I am being completely honest, faith was hard for me to understand growing up. No one would really explain things to me and searching it up on google just seemed too artificial. I decided that I would not force anything on myself and see how faith connects with me. One day it hit me, something happened where I found myself on my knees praying to God for help. And when He answered my prayer, I knew that this was my trip to my faith. Even though this happened in my late adolescent years, it is never too late to get in touch with yourself nor your faith. I started reading into all religions and taking classes to understand them more. Then I found myself praying regularly. Always praying for my family and friends first, then myself. I still continue that to this day, years later. Praying and reading about my faith has helped me understand myself, my life, and my future pathway clearer. It has given me confidence and guidance throughout my life and my mind. Things being in my life are always happening for a reason, the reason may not be clearer and sometimes it is not meant to be clear. Things are there for me to figure out why they appeared, how they appeared, and what I need to do about it. This has given me much clearance to understand situations. I was presented with so many problems and step by step, I found solutions. These are tests set in my life to overcome and solve. Little bumps in the roads that I will eventually solve even though some might take me longer than others because life is not perfect and never will be. God has already set our pathways, it is for us as individuals to decide what to choose and how to choose. Whatever we choose is in our hands, but God will help lead the way. Knowing what I know and what I believe in, I know that my faith will help tremendously with my career and my future. I know that God will help me in times of need, I know that God will give me the strength and courage to keep going and help save others. Especially with my major being respiratory therapy in the health care field, I know that God will guide me in making the correct decisions in saving my patient's lives. Receiving this scholarship will help me achieve my goals because it would give me a little weight lifted off of my shoulders on how I will be paying for school. Less stress about financial stress, is more focus on school and education.

1. After doing research on majors, I found something called Respiratory Therapy and fell in love with it instantly. I started searching universities nearby with the major and found the University of Indianapolis, the IRTEC program. After being in the program for a year, I have just fallen more and more in love with respiratory. I have shadowed and done my clinic hours at various facilities and have experienced so much all within a year. I have one year left in the program and I am ready to go out there on my own and help. As a respiratory student in the clinic field, I have already took leadership and made decisions to help save a life. Seeing my decision being taken into action and saving someone’s life as just a student meant so much to me and has encouraged me to keep going. 2. As a human being, I have a whole list of strengths and weaknesses. I would say that my top 3 strengths are that I am hardworking, friendly, and have proficient leadership skills. I would say that my top 3 weaknesses are indecisiveness, self-criticism, and being a little bit of a people pleaser. 3. I am Amira, a first generation Muslim college student in my family. Daughter of two wonderful parents who came to America to give me a better life. Getting a proper education for myself and making a future for myself, but also to give my parents the recognition they deserve for coming to America with nothing and doing their best to provide for us. I am applying for this scholarship because as much passion as I have for respiratory therapy, I would love to have additional financial help so the stress of paying for school would not interfere so much with being in school. 4. My all time favorite book has been “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette. It has meaning to me and I can relate to the book very strongly due to my bringing up in life. My all time favorite movie has been “A Walk to Remember” because of its meaning to me and a close relative that I have lost to cancer. I have way too many favorite songs, but one that I will always love is “Dammi Falasteeni” by any artist really. I feel the pride and honor of my religion and all of my brothers and sisters out there. 5. As a Muslim, I would consider my greatest achievement in life to be the guidance that Allah has given me. He has placed what is meant for me in my life and has taken every prayer that I have ever given to Him and helped me.

Listening and learning, let me explain. I think one of the main ways to properly demonstrate leadership is by being a thoughtful person, which leads to a thoughtful leader. As a thoughtful person who listens to others, people tend to be more respectful and can see you as someone who is positive and proactive. Leading people by understanding them is the key. When you can work along with your peers by respecting one another and listening to one another, it makes up a proper team. Now, there are definitely groups out there where the teams are not like this, but sometimes in those cases, the leaders are not the best. I like to take chances and take risks because you can never be sure what you can miss out in life. As someone who always volunteers to lead, I like to make sure that I listen and understand everyone in our group. I encorporate everyone in the group, I make sure that everyone is included and encouraged. During groups like this, I learn so much about how others work especially in a group together. I like to stay positive and friendly, making sure that everyone gets a say. Coming together as one to look at the bigger picture involved and doing it all with a purpose. Making sure to embrace diversity and not judging anyone for anything. Being a leader helps me understand how others are in different ways. Understanding how people are individually and as a complete group. Being a leader helps build the strengths and weaknesses of a person, like myself. With my leadership skills, I hope to achieve a lot of things in my future, but with my confidence in my leadership skills, I know that I will achieve the goals of my future. As a full time student studying respiratory therapy, with a year left in my education, the things that I have learned are phenomenal. As a student, I learned that in various situations, you need to take leadership and make harsh decisions that can save someone's life. In clinical settings, I have taken such leadership and have saved a couple of patients so far. With this education that I have received, it has given me such confidence in my leadership skills which has made me take on more responsibility as a student of course, but as a person in my life. Leadership is so important in my life, and I will continue to do so by furthering my knowledge and my education.

My brother has always supported me in reaching my education goals. I had a rough patch with my education goals in the fact that I did not have any at first because I was focusing more on what everyone else was telling me to do and telling me to be. I had to step away from all of that and really focus on myself and what my heart was telling me. There was only one person by my side the entire time and that was my brother. After figuring out my goals and want I wanted to do in my career, my brother was in the front of the crowd cheering me on every step of the way. When school got hard, my brother was there to lean on. When costs got difficult, my brother was there to help come up with solutions. I come from a line of family who never went to college and some never even went to and/or finished high school. Education was not something that was talked about too much in our household. Education was also something that was not even supported in my family. English being my second language was hard for me to grasp certain words and concepts in school. The only way that I learned everything that I had grown to know is through my brother. He has been a solid rock in my life when everything else was crumbling down. I owe my life to my brother. He has always been there to see me thrive and achieve my goals. I eventually want to continue my education after my Bachelor's degree that I will be recieving in May 2024, and want to pursue a PHD. Ever since telling my brother this, he has been calling me "doctor" ever since which has been putting a smile on my face and giving me strength to keep going. Being in school has made me realize a lots of things specifically about life. One of which, life can get SO HARD, but as long as you have one person, just that one person to lean on, everything will BE OKAY! Yes I am further my education to provide a life for my family that they have never had. And yes I am further my education to provide more knowledge to myself, but none of this would be possible without my brother. The way that he believes in me, provides me so much strength to keep going in my career and my life. Thank you.