She always told us to reach for the stars, “she” being my mom. She has always been my source of motivation and guidance through life and told me that as long as I was willing to work hard and never give up, then the infinite sky was the limit. My mother has been struggling with Type 2 diabetes since childhood along with kidney stones and hip bone degeneration. She told me that it could’ve all been avoided if she had just been physically more active and fit. Ever since then, I desired a career in the healthcare field that would enable me to care for the sick and the ill and the ones in need of help. Because of her experience, my mom enrolled me in swim lessons in the hopes of getting me to exercise, which unexpectedly sent me through the next ten and a half years of championships and practices and student-athlete dynamics. It was tough, I won’t lie about that. Every night was more miserable than the last as my muscles cramped with fatigue and my chronic shoulder pain roared in agony. But at the very least, the rest of my body was incredibly fit. I had no breathing problems or bone issues, no immune or kidney pain, unlike my mom. I never needed to worry about asthma or having to take steroids or go on a diet, all because of my intense swimming career. Because of this, I also desired a career that would keep me physically active and moving around, combined with working in the healthcare environment. While I am still mostly fit, I had shoulder problems that could only be fixed through physical therapy. My physical therapist, Dr. Linder is my career icon. Not only is she a physical therapist, but she is also a referee for kickball and an incredibly active woman, always working out and attending exercise competitions. Through her help with physical therapy, Linder helped boost my physical performance in the water, which in turn also made me more confident as an athlete. Both my mom and Dr. Linder are my inspiration for what I want to be in the future: a physical therapist who helps patients feel physically confident and boost their physical performance, whether from recovering from an accident or injury. The real reason I want to be a physical therapist is the impact that I hope to make on athletes. To be able to help someone move and walk confidently and to boost their athletic performance has a fulfilling meaning that no one can take away. It would make my whole life just to be able to help a patient or an athlete reach their physical goals. Believe me, I was the patient not too long ago. To have been able to compete in the championship series for swimming after months of physical therapy helping me recover is unforgettable, and I want to be able to make that impact on other people. While physical therapists often are not recognized as real doctors, it doesn’t mean that we can’t make an impact on people. Athletes or not, they are still patients who need help. Being a physical therapist and having to physically interact with patients and learn their lifestyles and correct their physical movements is something that can’t be easily taken over by a robot or a computer. I hope that in the future, this stays true and that I can hopefully open or join an existing clinic to help boost athletes into becoming their best selves. One step at a time.

I’m Annabelle, and I am an incoming freshman at the University of Texas at Dallas who is currently majoring in Healthcare studies on the pre-physical therapy route. I am a first-generation student, the first in my entire family tree to attend undergrad studies in the United States. While I have always had a love of biology, which was my original major choice, I found a desire to enter the healthcare field in a career to impact people who I can resonate with. I was raised by my immigrant parents who are native to Taiwan, with historic roots stretching as far back as the Hakanese natives and Japanese people. They came to America hoping for a better life for themselves and me. Growing up, I was immersed in many opportunities such as classical music and the liberal arts and Sunday volunteering with Chinese school. Not only that, but I was also a competitive swimmer, swimming for championship series at college pools. Needless to say, I had a very busy yet full life. Although I no longer swim competitively anymore, I found that I wanted a healthcare career that involved surrounding myself with my kind of people: athletes and those with disabilities from accidents such as strokes or trauma. As a former competitive swimmer, injuries were very often, especially in girls. We often were more susceptible to muscle and bone injuries and thus more likely to drop a sport due to constant pain and poor treatment options. I had to call it quits on swimming at a collegiate level in fear of my chronic shoulder injury getting worse. It didn’t help when my mother told me that physical therapists don’t make enough money. But it was never about the money. If I wanted a money-throwing career, I would’ve chosen to be a plastic surgeon or some other job that would pay six or seven figures. The real reason I want to be a physical therapist is the impact that I hope to make on athletes and recovering trauma patients. To be able to help someone move and walk confidently and to boost their athletic performance has a fulfilling meaning that no one can take away. It would make my whole life just to be able to help a patient or an athlete reach their physical goals. Believe me, I was the patient not too long ago. To have been able to compete in the championship series for swimming after months of physical therapy helping me recover is unforgettable, and I want to be able to make that impact on other people. While physical therapists often are not recognized as real doctors, it doesn’t mean that we can’t make an impact on people. Athletes or elderly or trauma patients are still patients who need help. Being a physical therapist and having to physically interact with patients and learn their lifestyles and correct their physical movements is something that can’t be easily taken over by a robot or a computer. I hope that in the future, this stays true and that I can hopefully open or join an existing clinic to help boost athletes into becoming their best selves and for elderly and trauma patients to be able to move confidently again. One step at a time.

My favorite song on Taylor Swift's ‘1989’ album, while tying with many close classic favorites, would have to be ‘Wonderland.’ Don’t get me wrong, I love all of her other songs from this album, especially since I grew up on these pop classics as a younger-generation student. The main reason why I chose ‘Wonderland’ over the usual pop favorites like ‘Shake It Off’ is because of the deep references that are mentioned in the song and how much it resonates with me, as well as my love for ‘Alice in the Wonderland,’ a classic read. It represents the whimsical beauty of being in a chaotic relationship and trying to navigate out of “wonderland” after falling down a rabbit hole of being head over heels for romance. Before you go mad with loneliness and hate, of course. In my first relationship, my partner was head over heels for me, so I ended up falling down that rabbit hole with him. We flirted and joked about spending the rest of our lives together all the time. Our closest friends talked, saying that the both of us have finally found our forever soulmates. But not even after a few months of close dating, he woke up from what seemed like a trance and told me that he wanted to break it off. I understood why, but the thought still hurts. The twists and turns in our wonderland got too complicated to navigate, almost like an infinity maze. We weren’t getting anywhere in our relationship, both of us were too busy to even just see each other. We got lost in Wonderland. Until the both of us woke up and realized that we needed to get back to our lives before we were lost forever. It was almost a fairy tale, except that this one didn’t end happily ever after. We broke the relationship, and ever since coming out of the rabbit hole, the both of us have been different. Like we went mad down there and came back different. Awkward. Shy. Never really knowing how to talk to each other after talking for 4 years straight. The song hits hard. And it’s still hard to find my way back home, after falling those few months. It makes me scared to go down the rabbit hole again, and the fear of being trapped forever is acknowledged. The fact that Taylor Swift wrote this song represents her immense power to take amazing references and put them into heart-wrenching songs that resonate with so many of us fans. Her music speaks to us, literally, and her philanthropy shows her compassion for every human being out there. And this song speaks to me.

If I was the lucky person who could get every single person on Earth to read just one book, the answer for me would be Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It isn’t just the fantasy and action of the book that makes it such a compelling read. It’s the character development that rolls through the plot and the clever connections that Bardugo hints at in the book that makes me want to share it with the whole world. The characters of the book are a team of convicted criminals who are offered a too-good-to-be-true opportunity to become rich beyond their wildest dreams. Basically a ragtag crew against all impossible odds to pull off an impossible heist with the prospect of becoming disgustingly rich. However, each of these criminals has a dark background, whether it was slavery, war, gambling debt, or failed justice. With each of these criminals having troubles with themselves and each other, they must bond together to redeem the money that they were promised in the hopes of a better future. My favorite character is Inej Ghafa, an incredibly talented spy and acrobat who hopes to hunt slave ships as a means to find justice for her previous enslavement. What makes me want to share this book with the world is the hope that they can identify themselves with one of the crew members on this criminal team. Not a desire to commit crime! But mostly that even though the characters in the book are a mess themselves and make plenty of mistakes, they keep fighting and never give up. What these characters represent isn’t just a thirst for revenge and justice, but the spirit of never giving up and never forgetting the wrongs. I hope that everyone who reads this book finds it just as compelling as I did and can identify with one of the crew members. Even if they don't, I hope that people who read Six of Crows are at least able to escape into an incredible world of bustling trades and heists.

I never thought how happy a can of green beans could make someone. After all, it was a simple can of green beans, unsalted and plain. There wasn’t anything incredible about this can of green beans; just another non-perishable vegetable that goes well with any meal. But what made this can of goods so wonderful was who it was going to and how it would impact the life of whoever got it. I was a part of my varsity swim team for my entire high school career, and every year we would collect canned food as part of a donation drive and give them to people in need at our local community food drive. Our coach always insisted that we participate, as he often repeated that not everyone comes from the same financial and living conditions. And so we did, all four years, even through COVID-19, where the world went virtual and isolated, but people were still in need of cans. I remember one particular memory, where during my junior year, a bunch of my teammates and I did our best to raid the canned food aisle at HEB just so we could reach the goal of 1000 cans for the drive. Just rows on rows of HEB shopping carts filled with tomatoes and corn and beans and green beans. And all of it would go to a good cause. Later, when I handed a woman a can of those plain green beans, I never thought it would bring such a happy smile to her face. The little boy who was clinging to her skirt saw the can and immediately demanded to know if it would be a part of their dinner soon. He looked no more than four years old, and yet he and his family were already relying on generous food donations. The fact of this reality cracked my heart. I could never imagine living in this family’s shoes, always having to beg and plead and hope for a donation. Volunteering has changed the way I see families and canned foods. While green beans are the same left and right, it cannot be said the same for every family. Not every family comes from the same background; some have harsher living realities than others. Some have much more sorrow and misery than the next family, and I learned that while I am fortunate enough still to not have to rely on donations, it isn’t the same for everyone else and that I shouldn’t be quick to judge or resent. And it changed the way I see canned foods, something most people would look at with disgust. It might not be a luxury food, but to people like the woman and the little boy, it represents hope and survival. While my family is lucky enough to not rely on donations and food stamps, it seems that that kind of future is more likely than ever. The cost of college has risen to five times the amount compared to when my immigrant parents went to college, and now I am estimated to be nearly 22k in debt by the time I graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. The only thing left that I can do is apply for scholarships, and this is one of them. If I received this scholarship by some means, it would mean a lot to me; just like it did with the woman and her little boy. It would ease a bit of my financial burden and give me hope, just like that can of plain green beans.

Growing up, my plans went a little something like this. 10 years ago, if you had asked 8-year-old Annabelle what she wanted to be when she grew up, the answer would’ve been a dermatologist. Growing up with severe dermatitis all over my body with no real cure in sight, it seemed obvious that I wanted to become a dermatologist so that I could advance my knowledge and help others relieve their suffering from skin-related diseases. My mother told me that being a dermatologist would be a good job because I would be helping others, and my dermatologist believed that I would make a good dermatologist because of my own experience. I thought that life was set for me. Fast-forward a couple of years later, somewhere at the beginning of a fresh high school start. If you had asked me the same question at the age of 14 years old, I would have said pediatrician. After years of Sunday Chinese School volunteer work to help younger kids learn their Bopomofo code and Pinyin, I found that I desired a career involving caring for younger children. I still had an impulse to specialize somewhere in the medical field. When I asked my mom, she said that being a pediatrician would be a good job for me because I would be helping others, and my pediatrician thought that I would make a good pediatrician because of my multitude of experiences being surrounded by little humans. I thought that life was set for me, just now on a slightly different route. Now let us fast forward to the present day. As a new high school graduate about to major in a B.S. degree in biology for the next four years at UTD, I was truly unsure of where my route led. The past plans that I had made seemed to have fallen off of a cliff, to the point where chasing it would have led to apprehensive futures. Then again, apprehensive futures were everywhere for a BIPOC girl. Unsure of what to do with my life for the rest of my life, I asked my mother for advice. She told me that as long as I did something to contribute goodness to the lives of others, it would be considered a job well done for me. So I decided on a career that would impact the kind of people that I’ve been surrounded by the most: athletes. As an elite competitive swimmer, injuries were quite often, and many of my teammates didn’t have access to quality physical therapy care hence they eventually retired much too early in their careers. Instead of waiting years and years to enter medical school, I decided that I would first complete my degree in biology and graduate on time. I have already begun looking up DPT programs to enter, hoping to become a physical therapist. There are quite a lot of internships for physical therapy in Dallas, which I will consider during my time at UTD. My own physical therapist also offered to educate me over the summer in her clinic, giving me hands-on exposure. The internships would certainly help me gain the experience that I will need. I hope to use my education to become a physical therapist to help not just swimmers, but tennis players and soccer players and any athlete in general. These are the kind of people that I wish to help and contribute to, no matter how diverse or what sport they might play. I simply hope to help them on their active journey through their athletic career.

The photo that my boyfriend sent me of all of the AP Physics C students at his high school startled me in a way that I have never been shaken before. Out of the twenty or so students that were in the photo, only one of them was a girl. She stood at the very center and front of the group, hands in her pocket, a black and purple AP Physics C shirt stark across her chest, smiling proudly along with the rest of the students. She was the only girl. Out of the whole school. In a difficult STEM class that took no procrastination or excuses. She was the stand out of the crowd, a diamond in the center of hard granite rocks. I do not even know this girl; all I had was a photo of her. However, what she represents is hope. Hope for the representation of women in STEM fields such as physics and biology and mathematics. Instead of the class being an entirely male-dominated environment, she at least broke the ratio into 25:1 instead of 25:0. When I saw that photo of her standing alone, it felt like that moment was made just for her to shine; to prove that her dreams were not forgotten in a class dominated by her male peers. And it brought me hope that the STEM field wouldn’t be completely underrepresented of women. A little shining beacon that hoped that more girls would rise to the occasion of studies traditionally taken by male students. What I saw has brought me motivation as well. The motivation to take on those studies and fields traditionally handed down to men and boys. Even in my high school, the number of boys in STEM classes was nearly triple the amount of girls, and by next year, there will be no girls in the AP Physics C program. And because of this noticeable pattern, I started encouraging more of my younger friends, particularly female friends, to begin taking those harder STEM courses such as physics and chemistry and biology. I didn’t want those classes to eventually become an all-male class. I wanted to confront this inequality with just my presence. In the future, I hope to become a pediatrician or perhaps even a dermatologist. Either way, these careers will require that I take difficult STEM classes, which most likely means being in a class mostly containing male peers. With a potential degree in biology and neuroscience, I aim to show the young girls out there that being a woman in STEM is not impossible. It’s hard, yes; however, sometimes we have to be like the girl in the photo. Sometimes, just our presence standing out can change the way people see how these fields and studies are changing in terms of gender equality. While the science field is still mainly male-dominated, it is not too late to change the scales. What I can do is to help encourage my female patients to challenge themselves to take those STEM courses and that being a woman in STEM could change another woman.

/!\ MISSING PERSONS REPORT /!\ Person in Question: Annabelle Chang Location: somewhere in a bedroom in Round Rock, Texas, in a humble low-income neighborhood Time: 9:59 pm, on April 30th, 2023 Investigators: Voila Natural Lifestyle REPORT DESCRIPTION: On April 30th, 2023, at precisely 9:59 pm in the dark humble abode of a bedroom, the hard-working immigrant parents of one Miss Annabelle Chang found their daughter missing from the scene. The only hard evidence they found was a school Chromebook with scholarship essays opened, numerous AP textbooks, and pencils galore. The parents decided to file a missing persons report, hoping that someone would be able to locate their daughter somewhere in the big wide world of possibilities. The investigators who agreed to take on the case were the Voila Natural Lifestyle donors. A reward of $500 has been offered for the safe report of Annabelle. The investigators of this report decided to question all those who were incredibly close to Annabelle. They found that Miss Annabelle has consistently been described as an individual who “was comfortable with being herself” and as “an easy person to talk to about anything.” Many of her school classmates come to her just to chat, and they also find her to be humorous and a good study buddy who knows how to tune in to Lofi hip-hop and focus. Despite Annabelle’s claim that she is a procrastinator, her jealous classmates refute that claim, saying that she has never experienced the horrendous disease known as ‘senioritis’ and is often seen doing homework and being studious Deeper evidence needed to be acquired. A search through the school Chromebook yielded crucial documentation in the form of school-related websites and emails. To date, Annabelle has been accepted and will be attending the University of Texas at Dallas after getting capped at UT Austin. It should be noted that when the news came about this, Annabelle became frequently absent from many of her social outings, potentially due to the fact that her college tuition is expensive, and she is worried about paying for it. Furthermore, Annabelle has dreams to attend medical school and enter the field of medicine; however, after seeing her yearly tuition, Annabelle fears that this dream may not be possible. The future has been deduced to be blurry for her. The investigators decided to question the parents, who admitted that they wished for Annabelle to apply to many scholarships in order to help pay for her education. Being the good daughter that she was, Annabelle agreed to do so, furiously typing essay after essay despite having not won a single dollar yet. However, Annabelle’s long-time professional swim coach notes her to be “a stubborn individual who does not give up easily” and also hopes for her safe return, either to her home or to a dorm at UTD. She has repeatedly said that every single dollar of any scholarship that she wins will go to fund her undergraduate education so that she may still nurture her dream of attending medical school in the future. The investigators have concluded that this report will go into the other thousands of essays that are to be reviewed and considered. However, the leads given in this report are strong enough to suggest that Annabelle will most likely be home very soon. Signed, The Voila Natural Lifestyle committee

“You have been offered CAP. We are unable to offer you admissions this year.” Just two sentences ultimately undermined my entire future plans for college and completely turned my world upside down. It would start a new milestone that would eventually feed into my journey since mid-Jaunary. As a lower-income student who was unable to afford any schools out of state, my options were severely limited. My parents, despite their high education degrees, were paid considerably less, having immigrated from Taiwan to America in the hopes of a brighter future for themselves. For me. While many of my peers applied to Ivies and private institutions, I stayed within the range of in-state schools. I had dreams to go to UT Austin because it meant I could live at home and not pay for the expensive dorms that robbed my parents of their retirement savings that they had worked so hard to build. I would go to UT Austin, attend the honors program, do well in school, and make my parents proud, all while not having to spend wads of dollar bills. That changed when decisions were released and that I was offered CAP; a feeling that many understood a bit too well. The shock I received was unbearable; I cried, unable to stop myself from reading the same two sentences over and over again. My plans were in ruins, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for college at all because my best option was no longer an option. The only other school that was available for me was UTD, all the way in Richardson, Dallas. Even then, tuition is expensive in Dallas because my parents would also have to pay for housing and necessary living expenses for me. I felt as if nothing had changed; my beloved hard-working immigrant parents would be toiling their backs until they collapsed under the weight of my college tuition. For a few weeks, I wallowed in self-pity and the sense of being worthless because I wasn’t “good” enough to even get accepted into UT Austin. However, I knew I couldn’t stay in the pit of depression for long. My parents needed to know where I was going to go and what I was going to do. So I picked up a pen and started jotting down notes, from how much my tuition would cost per semester to any discounted dorm supplies that I could potentially buy from places like Walmart and Target. Even then, the experience was not all fun and games. I had to calculate how much I would have to work over the summer and how often and where in order to help ease the cost burden. And it turns out, I was not alone. Similar classmates of mine were also concerned about tuition, even a few of my friends who were lucky enough to get into UT Austin were worried about the price of living expenses. It seemed to be a widespread problem during the season of college decisions. To help, I brought many of my friends together, and we would brainstorm and search for summer jobs that could help us pay for college instead of leeching from the bank accounts of our parents. At the core of it was me, coordinating the spreadsheets that we created and shared with other friends and families. What I learned is that it’s okay to be sad and lost when things don’t go exactly as planned. The important thing is to be able to pick yourself up and move on because life moves on with or without you.

I stopped following rules in my freshman year of high school. It wasn’t the “break laws and go to juvie” kind of thing. It wasn’t the “stop listening to your teachers about homework assignments” issues that other kids kept having. Instead, I stopped following the invisible rules, the unspoken ones, the ones that say “be like this and not like that” rules. The fashion codes that existed behind a gilded top and skinny jeans and the behavior regulations that were whispered between the halls and the cellphones. Those rules. It was strange when after varsity swim practice was over, every single girl would spend at least an hour dabbing on make-up accessories and curling their hair into unmanageable waves and buns. The enormous display of lip gloss and rouge and foundations that lined the locker room counter seemed surreal. Unimaginable was the word that could be described when every girl that I passed through the halls wore the same clothes every single day: cropped top, ripped jeans, hair let loose over the shoulders, rows and rows of bracelets and unnecessary jewelry that decked their arms and necks. It was a code that I never learned; to look and act the same as every other person on campus. I never looked the part and I never would. My gold caramel skin and black brown hair stood out like a black dahlia in a field of daisies. My clothes looked cheap compared to the Nordstrom dresses and Nike Air Forces in the crowd. Jewelry was not even spoken about in my household. The greatest quality that makes me unique is not just how I look and act, but how I refuse to conform to the standards and rules that have magically been set by predecessors alike. I am no bird; no chain or cage ensnares me like the rest. I consciously choose to stay free and wild, to choose to be different. I choose to be foolish, to break standards. A maverick in her own right. You asked what I plan to do to give back to the community. I plan to become a medical professional in pediatrics care so that I can give back to the children of the future. They hold the world in their hands, that new generation of young hungry ones. Without them, the future is truly uncertain. I plan to help them stay healthy and to keep their hearts beating for a lifetime so that they can work for a lifetime of happy futures. I hope that I can also travel to underserved communities and care for the growing children there, to encourage them to be mavericks themselves. Already accustomed to caring for children younger than me since elementary school, it has opened a new pathway for me to the future and what I could do to join the other millions of men and women serving their communities as well.

A maverick is someone who stands out from the herd and refuses to conform to the standards society has branded; the future version of me is foolish, hungry, and wild, and takes every chance that is thrown at her.

Pill bottles lined the shelves, seemingly endless. Each one had a different prescription with a different instruction for the patient in question: take without food, take twice daily, do not mix, and so on. Cough syrups of every color of the rainbow still stood in their respective positions along the kitchen counter, unused for years and nowhere to go. The inhalers lay forgotten at the edge of some unknown corner of the table, the dose monitor counting down some invisible doomsday. In other words, my home could be described as a mix between a hospital ward and a pharmacy. The cozy residence was practically brimming with prescriptions and drugs. The life I led for nearly 12 years and counting. When I was invited to the homes of other children to play, none of them lived in such a melancholy environment. They were all healthy and happy and without worries of having to pay for the next drug refill or schedule a future kidney surgery. Their mothers especially were perfectly thriving with their energetic children. Unlike mine, who was too busy coughing up mucus and throwing up every night because her body refused to handle basic foods. Unlike my mother, who despite working for every hard-earned cent, still had a worried look on her face when she faced the bills that came every month. She was always alone, with few friends and even fewer family members. Sorrowful solitary. That was the first lesson that I learned. It was expensive to be sick, and even more miserable to be in such a state. And it was even worse to be both sick and alone. It made me so confused as to why it was so difficult to be human. The amount of misery and pain and suffering seemed infinite. When one disease is cured, another arises to take over the potential misery that was to be created. Being able to take care of myself didn’t seem enough to satisfy me. I desperately wanted to help my mother get better, but my current lack of knowledge forbade me to do so. Yet. And so began my long journey to a career, a path that I am still traveling along. The greatest reason why I wish to enter and serve in the medical field is because of the suffering that I witnessed not just through the people that I cared about, but also from strangers alike. I wish to be capable of easing the pain and misery not just by prescribing drugs and pills, but by providing empathy. Shortly after graduate school, I aspire to create an organization of my own that allows those suffering from chronic diseases to be able to find each other in the darkest time and to be able to help each other. It would create a difference for these people, not necessarily in a physical way, but more in a mental way. A change in the heart and the soul. No longer would these people be alone in the dark, facing stacking medical bills and nightmares of sharp needles and scalpels. Instead, they would be in the comfort of people who share that same sorrow, and they have someone to lean against. It was a future that could be mine to create. And it would start with me and the long but definite journey ahead.