My family has faced many challenges throughout our lifetime. At a young age, my mother lost her mom so she had to grow up very fast especially when kids came into the picture. My mother is a single black woman who practically had to raise her three kids on her own. This often meant working long hours and having family watch us growing up. Due to her having to grow up faster, she obtained the ability to persevere through a lot of obstacles that we faced. Together as a family, we worked through financial issues by being cautious of the things that we buy, the amount of money we spend, and being able to save money when needed. Often times it would also be our great-grandmother that would also help out when needed to make sure that we were doing okay. Having such a great family support system was something that really helps our family get through the tough times to make sure that the kids are still able to have a good. With a supportive family, we were able to come together and raise money when needed. Such as when I wanted to join a medical program that would allow me to gain experience and learn more about the medical field. Programs like this often cost well over $1000 and I was able to raise the money otherwise I would not have got the opportunity to do so. Though things are not always easy for my family we always find a way to overcome adversity by working hard and working together. I wish to help my community by being able to advocate for not letting financial issues stop you from getting to the places you want to go in life. Sadly, that is often the reason that many people choose not to go to college because they can not afford it, but there are ways to find more affordable options for school and get scholarships. Everyone deserves the chance and option to continue their education if that is what they desire. Financial issues should not be something that can hinder you from applying for college or continuing your education. Having someone that can advocate for why there are ways to pay may just help a person who was on the fence about going to school. This allows people to have hope that they can do this, it may be a bit of a struggle to balance school life and finding money to support you for school but knowing that it can be done goes a long way. Nothing can feel better than when you reach the end of schooling with your degree knowing that you did something that once seemed like an impossible goal. Then they can continue to inspire others to work hard in order to achieve their goals in life.

There have been various amazing songs that Taylor Swift has created, especially from her ‘1989’ album. These songs allowed her to win multiple awards and obtain a considerable amount of streams on different streaming platforms. The album has a lot of popular and catchy songs such as ‘shake it off’ and ‘bad blood.’ While selecting only one song from the album as a favorite is quite tricky, I would choose ‘Wildest Dreams’ as a personal favorite. ‘Wildest Dreams’ would have to be my favorite from the album because it is a song that I believe many people would be able to relate to it in some way. In the song, we can determine that Taylor is talking about a relationship that she can tell will not last forever. This type of scenario is quite common, people start relationships that they know will fail but choose to live in the moment and have fun even if later on it will hurt them. Taylor goes on to say that she hopes this person will go on to remember her and the nice times that they had. Realistically when relationships end people do hope that even though they have run their course together that there was some sort of significance in what they had and felt that the person would not be able to easily forget them. Often people want to be able to look back on their past relationships and realize that what they had was like a dream even if it does come to an end. While the song/video explains wanting Taylor to be remembered in their wildest dreams there is also the idea she dreams of being with the guy but not every dream can become a reality. This song from her album has always seemed very beautiful to me the way she sings it and portrays it in the music video. Taylor really embodies the idea of all of it being a dream one that you know would never be able to last forever. We all face times when we envision such dreams that we wish were real or could last a lifetime. It is a song where everyone could connect to that sense of longing that she portrays whether or not you have been in a relationship with someone else. She is really able to make me understand and connect with the emotions she felt during that time of her life throughout the entire song. Even though so much time has passed since the album was released on October 27, 2014 ‘Wildest Dreams’ is a song that I have constantly gone back to listen to. I also know that it is a song I will continue to listen to as time goes on.

I have read many books in the span of my life, albeit I have only been alive for 19 years. In my time on earth, I fell in love with reading novels of all types of genres and though I have read many there is still one that is always been a part of me. This particular book I had discovered when I was in elementary school, a mear fifth or sixth-grader, but once I read that book I know it would always be my favorite. One may think that having been that young and there still being multiple books out in the world that the idea of this particular book being my favorite would last only a few days, but to this day, being 19 years old, I would still choose this novel as my favorite. The book in question happens to be Legend by Marie Lu, the first novel of the series. I believe one particular reason why I was drawn to this book is that it does not focus on one main character. Instead, the book is told from two different perspectives (Day and June) and each chapter switches off to their point of view sometimes leaving the reader on cliffhangers and guessing what is going to happen once starting the new chapter. The two perspectives of the main characters also give an insight into their world, one being from the upper society and the other from the slums. Usually, in a book, you have one main character that either comes from a bad background or a great one but never both so you never get a great view of the novel’s world. With Lu’s use of two main characters from vastly different backgrounds there is a full view of their society.

The idea of mental illness is a broad term that classifies a variety of conditions. What some people often fail to notice is that there are conditions that are readily visible and those that are more hidden from plain sight. The public generally has no knowledge of the difficulties of those facing mental health issues unless they themselves have a loved one facing these types of experience. People can not understand what they don’t know, making the lives of those with health problems problematic as they may face criticism or backlash. My older brother, Cameron, is one of 3.5 million Americans that have autism. My brother and I are only half-siblings, so we don’t live together, but he would visit on occasion. Having been a child I did not understand why he did certain things when he would come over. For instance, whenever he was dropped off he would cry after his mother left and he would not stop crying for a long period of time. Or why he would never talk to us but rather only make noises and would constantly hit himself. It wasn’t until I was older was I able to understand what he was going through. Since he lived far away and wasn’t able to visit often in his mind we were strangers that his mother was leaving him with, not his siblings and father. Every day he has to depend on his mother, she is his support system and without her he was afraid. Situations like that made me sad since we are his family but we can’t blame him for something that he has no control over. Just like when he gets upset when we do not know what he wants and begins to hit himself. Being in a position where one can not speak is difficult for the individual because no one around them will grasp anything they want. Situations like this are what some people face every day. The experiences of those with mental illness should be shared, 1 story of 3.5 million is not enough to give justice.

As a child, I often visited the doctor's office whether it was for constant ear infections, respiratory syncytial virus, or asthma. Having to go there often I saw what it was like to work in the medical field and to help those in need. After all those visits I knew that I wanted to study in the medical field yet I didn’t know which path to take due to there being multiple different areas of study. As I got older and began to take science classes at school I realized that they weren’t difficult and that I rather enjoyed learning the new lessons in class. Taking biology and chemistry showed me that this is another possible direction for an area of study in college. Realizing the two aspects that I wanted to further study, I decided to go towards medical science since it contributes to both areas that I want to study in college. I love how the science field is one of the ever-changing principles as the world grows and adapts. Whether it is the creation of more advanced technology or discoveries found within the human body and earth. Being a part of this field means having to be willing to have more divergent thinking and expect the unexpected because some inventions have been created by accident, such as penicillin. The idea of being able to further help the world grow and learn along the way while meeting others who have the same major as me is what drives me to want to study. I want to be able to help others the way that our doctors were there for us as we were growing up through all of our health issues. Once coming to an understanding of what I plan to do with my future I wanted to gain a bit of real-life experience as to what it will be like to work in the medical field. Though coming from an impoverished family, the different opportunities that were given to me had been difficult to be a part of because of the cost. Roughly a year ago I was allowed to attend Envision’s 2019 National Youth Leadership Forum (NYLF) Advanced Medicine & Health Care Program hosted at Johns Hopkins University. This was going to be the experience of a lifetime because medicine/neurology is my main career goal to major in when I go to college. Since I was young I knew that I would either go into medicine or science and this event would help push me towards my goal. Programs like this are not cheap and make it difficult for people who come from struggling families to join. The program costs about $4000, it was enough to make me feel like I would never get the chance to attend. I knew it made my mother sad that I may not be able to go since she has known how interested I was in the program, but her being a single mother with three kids to take care of made it difficult. Instead of being upset and dejected at the possibility of not going, I tried to find different ways to gain the money needed. Eventually, I was able to obtain the money due to my family coming together to raise the money so that I could have this experience which was something that changed my life and pushed me to pursue a career in medicine. Being a part of my family has shown me that we will hit multiple roadblocks but there is always a way around it as long as there is determination.