I recently started singing in Spanish at church. When I learn a song, I usually listen for the notes first. Now I listen just as closely to the words. Sometimes I go back over a phrase because I know how the melody goes but still want to hear how the words fit together. It feels a little strange that I can sing in Spanish in front of my congregation when I’ve sometimes been too nervous to speak it at my own family’s table. My mom immigrated to the United States, and I grew up Mexican American. At family gatherings, I’d sit with my relatives to play Lotería. I could follow the game and still lose track of the conversation around me. Sometimes I knew what I wanted to say, but by the time I’d worked out how to say it in Spanish, everyone had moved on. The part I remember most is how often I let a question go. I wanted to know more about whatever story my relatives were telling, but I was so busy worrying about saying the words right that I missed my chance to ask. Singing at church has given me a different experience with Spanish. I can practice a line as many times as I need to, and when it’s time to sing, I get to hear other voices alongside mine. I’m there to help lead a song, and I also get to learn from people who are more comfortable with the language than I am. That’s become one of my favorite parts of singing at church. I can contribute what I know while getting better at something that has always felt harder for me. I want to bring some of that confidence back to my family’s table. The next time I’m curious about a story, I want to ask about it while everyone is still talking. I plan to study neuroscience and become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I’m interested in how mental health conditions develop during adolescence, and I want to use what I learn to help young people get care earlier. I also think about the conversations that will make that care possible. A parent might come in worried because their child has stopped doing something they used to love. A teenager might have an explanation that sounds different from their parent’s. I want to hear both of them out and ask questions that give each person room to explain what they’ve noticed. I hope to work with families who have a hard time finding mental health care, including families who are most comfortable speaking Spanish. I want to keep improving my Spanish and work with qualified interpreters when families need them. If we talk about starting treatment, I want a parent to be able to ask what changes to watch for at home. I want a teenager to feel comfortable telling me if something I’ve suggested would be hard to do or if they have a question they’d rather ask privately. Those conversations can help me understand what kind of care will work in their everyday lives. When I think about the impact I want to make, I picture a family leaving an appointment with a plan they understand and a say in what happens next. I remember how easy it was to let a question pass at the Lotería table. In my practice, I want to give families the time and language support to ask their questions.

In “making the bed,” Olivia Rodrigo sings about “another perfect moment that doesn’t feel like mine.” I thought about that lyric when I caught myself counting my college acceptances two different ways. Eight out of eight. Eight out of thirty-five. Eight out of eight meant every college I’d heard from had said yes. Eight out of thirty-five made me think about all the schools I was still waiting to hear from. I had the same eight acceptances either way, but I could go from feeling proud to wondering who would answer next without getting a single new email. When I got into the University of Houston, the first way I said it sounded like a question. "I got into UH?" Then I corrected myself. "I mean, I got into UH!" I like that I said it twice. The first time, I was still processing it. The second time, I got to hear myself say something I’d spent a lot of senior year hoping I’d get to say. As a first-generation college student, I’ve had to figure out applications, fee waivers, and financial aid forms while finishing high school and taking classes at Dallas College. For a moment, I got to enjoy what all that work had led to. That’s what makes Olivia’s lyric feel personal to me. My UH acceptance felt like mine when I said it out loud. The feeling was harder to hold on to once I put it back into a tally. I’d spent months doing things I’d never done before, like figuring out how to use a fee waiver when an application portal still showed a balance. Yet when I counted my acceptances against my whole list, all that work became a fraction I could change just by switching the number on the bottom. I still catch myself thinking ahead. My teacher always tells me I need to work on being on track, not ahead, not writing ahead of everyone else. I recently started taking her advice; I try to follow the lesson instead of finishing my notes early. I want to study neuroscience and eventually become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. When I picture college, I’m already thinking about the research I could do and the people I hope to work with. I like that about myself. It’s part of what pushed me to take college classes while I was still in high school. I also want to feel what it's like when something I’ve pictured for months finally happens. I still have decisions to make, and I know I’ll keep checking my email. In college, I hope I bring some of the excitement I felt the second time I said I got into UH. When I finish my first semester or get through a class I thought might be too hard, I want to give myself a minute to enjoy it. And when my next decision comes in, I hope I say it out loud before I start counting again.

The first time my mental health club tried making slime, the slime refused to come together. I had planned the activity as a way for students to unwind, and I remember feeling discouraged that something so simple had gone wrong. At a later meeting, we had the opposite problem. So many students wanted to make slime that we ran out of activator. Mind Matters, the club I founded at my high school, had grown from three students at our first meeting to more than 45. I used to wonder whether anyone would come back. Now I had to figure out how much glue to buy. I started Mind Matters because I wanted my classmates to have a place where they could talk about stress without feeling embarrassed. I learned that sometimes the easiest way to start a conversation was to give everyone something to do with their hands. A student could come for the slime, sit next to someone they didn’t know, and spend a little time talking. Seeing my classmates come back made me proud of what we had built. It also made me think about what happens when a student needs more support than a school club can offer. Where do they turn? What if their family has trouble finding someone who can help? Going to college means becoming the first in my family to earn a bachelor’s degree. It also means getting to spend time on questions that started with people I know. I want to major in neuroscience and join a research lab where I can learn how scientists study the developing brain. I’m especially interested in adolescence because it’s a time when symptoms of serious mental health conditions can begin to appear. I want to understand what makes some young people more vulnerable and how that knowledge could help clinicians recognize when someone needs support. My long-term goal is to earn an MD–PhD and become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I want to spend part of my career listening to young patients and their families and part of it investigating the questions that come up in their care. I’m especially interested in working in communities where it can be difficult to find a specialist. When a teenager finally tells someone that something feels wrong, I want them and their family to have a clear next step. I still think about those first three students. They showed up when Mind Matters was just an idea I was trying to make work. In college, I want to keep building the skills to show up for young people in return, including on the days when what they need is more than I know how to give right now.

My paternal grandma’s nursing home had one flaw: no Ariana Grande in the clubhouse karaoke catalog. When I was around ten, I often visited my grandma and got to know her friends, including Gloria. We spent karaoke nights in the clubhouse together, and she always encouraged me to get up and sing. Gloria wouldn’t sing, but she always helped me pick classic old songs since I didn’t know any. One day, I asked Gloria about her holiday plans. She wished she had someone to spend the holidays with because most of her family lived up north. I made her a Christmas card with bright red crayons and holiday stickers, hoping she would feel remembered. That weekend, I begged my mom to drop me off at my grandma's nursing home. On my way to her room, I spotted Gloria and handed her the card. She cried as she admired it. I had made something small, but her reaction stayed with me long after my grandma moved out. Years later, that memory inspired a holiday project through Mind Matters, the mental health club I founded. In December, we collaborated with our school’s Hope Squad chapter, a suicide prevention club, to prepare cookies and handmade cards for more than 200 residents at a local nursing home. I wanted our members to understand that mental health advocacy reaches beyond our school. We spent hours illustrating the cards and writing messages. As I wrote, I thought of Gloria. Each card would reach someone with their own friendships, memories, and holiday traditions. Remembering her helped me approach the project with a particular person in mind, even when I didn’t know the recipient. When I delivered the cards, residents smiled and thanked me as I offered them cookies. Their reactions reminded me of Gloria and brought me back to the Christmas card I made years earlier. My grandma and her friends shaped my understanding of community. Some had family far away, but they also had family at the nursing home where they enjoyed spending time together during Friday Karaoke Nights. Through visiting my grandma, I learned that community could grow across generations through showing up and taking an interest in one another. As an incoming freshman at Rice University, I hope to join Alzheimer’s Buddies and build relationships with older adults in Houston through regular visits and shared activities. I hope to invite fellow students into the connection I found through visiting my grandma, turning our holiday card tradition into relationships that can continue beyond December. My grandma and Gloria taught me to notice the people around someone I already loved. I want to carry that attentiveness into Rice’s community as I get to know the people around me, listen to their stories, and help them feel included. Earning the L. Renee Burch-Bealer Memorial Scholarship will allow me to continue my education throughout my undergraduate years, making sure older adults in the Houston area feel like they have a family full of students who care too. After graduating from Rice University, I plan to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist. As I got to know Gloria, I brought my tradition of giving cards to other older adults who may want a friend during the holidays. I still smile at my younger self searching for Ariana Grande in the karaoke catalog. Today, I'd ask Gloria which song she would sing.

“¡El Camarón!” Upon hearing my tía shout across the table, my family placed beans on their Lotería boards, then she shouted, "¡Lotería!" and slapped her card down. I looked at the pictures on my board, unsure where to place a bean. My mom wasn’t there to translate, and I didn’t know “El Camarón” meant shrimp. While at the table, my confusion over the card caught my cousins’ attention. They mocked me, calling me a “no sabo kid” because I struggled to speak Spanish. I had grown up with my dad’s side of the family, where we mostly spoke English and played bingo. There, I could join the conversation around the table. At the Lotería table with my mom's family, I felt like an outsider. Years later, I moved into my maternal grandparents’ house. I was in a new city, a new school, and a home where Spanish was the main language. My mom worked most of the time and wasn’t there to translate. When my grandparents spoke, I nodded and agreed without knowing what they were saying. After a few months, I started going grocery shopping with them. We visited Fiesta instead of American stores like Walmart, where I used words they taught me, like “frijoles” and “pescado,” to point out beans and fish. My grandpa and I would also visit the Little Debbie aisle; although we couldn’t hold a conversation, we shared a sweet tooth and a smile. Looking back, those small moments were the first ways I learned that connection doesn't always require a perfect conversation. Eventually, I moved to a different house with my mom and siblings, and English filled our home again. Without daily grocery trips, Spanish gradually faded from my everyday life. When I visited my grandparents, I struggled to speak with them because I had forgotten most of the Spanish they taught me. As an intern at Parkland Hospital this past summer, I saw Latino families entering the hospital with their children translating for them. Some Spanish-speaking families gravitated toward me because they thought I understood Spanish; however, I could only say a simple “left or right.” I thought back to nodding along with my grandparents, wishing I understood more. I missed the closeness we had found during our grocery trips, when sharing small moments helped me feel included even without knowing every word. At Parkland, a kind custodian who spoke only Spanish always called me “mija,” an affectionate term meaning “my daughter.” Although we couldn’t hold a conversation, her warmth felt familiar. Her voice and the way she greeted me reminded me of my grandparents. I had spent years focusing on the conversations I couldn’t have, overlooking how people were already welcoming me. For years, I thought my limited Spanish meant I couldn’t fully belong with my own family and my culture. Now I understand that I never had to earn my place in my culture through perfect words. Those connections motivated me to learn more Spanish so I can deepen the relationships I already valued. I enrolled in a beginner college Spanish course and started visiting my grandparents more often, where they challenge me to hold conversations. I still struggle to find the words, but I am always willing to try. I no longer think I need to speak perfect Spanish to belong at the Lotería table. Now, I always shout out the card names in Spanish even if I pronounce them wrong. I want to keep learning so I can join more of the conversations around the table, not just call out the card names.

In 30 years, I will be a child and adolescent psychiatrist. When I was around 8, I would often take care of my younger cousins after school. I would talk with them about their day and try to get their attention by teaching them to read and write. I felt icky about feeding them, giving them baths, and changing my toddler cousins' diapers. I loved talking with them about their day, and whenever they argued, they came to me. They eventually stopped visiting my house often as they stopped attending daycare and preschool, but I also grew older and began tutoring them in science. I taught them basic life sciences, and I was also known as the family “therapist” because whenever my cousins argued, I was the first to step in, solve it, and talk it through with them. When I entered high school, I took courses like AP Psychology and Human Growth and Development, and I learned about different career fields in psychology. I began thinking about psychiatry because I wanted to pursue medicine while also learning about psychology. I felt so interested in psychiatry that I started a club at my high school based on mental health. Mind Matters is the first mental health club at my school. As our club grew, so did our efforts to give back to the community. In my junior year, I learned about a mental health organization called Metrocare. Metrocare is a non-profit in the Dallas area. They serve all ages in therapy and psychiatric care. For our community service donation, I wanted to focus on children and adolescents. We ran a donation drive at my school, church, and neighborhood and donated toys, hygiene products, and school supplies to children and adolescents in psychiatric care at Metrocare. After wrapping up the donation drive at Metrocare, I visited my cousin's house that day. I told them about the different types of support Metrocare has and how I want to make an impact on children. As I talked to them more about mental health support for children and the stigma, as they listened to my conversation, they got off topic and began arguing over a toy. I calmed the situation down and asked them to share politely and talk it out. Then it clicked; I began thinking about pursuing a career in child and adolescent psychiatry. Although I was sure I wanted to work with younger children, I began thinking about the adolescent part of “child and adolescent psychiatry.” With adolescents, I often talked with my friends to see how they were feeling and whether they were doing well. If they got into situations they weren’t sure about, I would comfort them; if the situation was very confidential, I would refer them to a trusted adult. My family and friends, especially my cousins Sofia, Gael, and Carlos, and my best friend Keyla, have supported me and been important in my journey toward becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist. They often challenge me with different situations I might encounter as a psychiatrist. My family and friends, especially my cousins Sofia, Gael, and Carlos, and my best friend Keyla, have supported me and been important in my journey to becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist. They often challenge me with different situations I might encounter as a psychiatrist. They also support me with advice surrounding psychiatry. My life has always been successful because of the support system I have around my goal of becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

I believe mental health support should be accessible to all, regardless of income. At my high school, students in the social services pathway study mental health and counseling. As we learned triggering topics, I noticed classmates needed to step out of the room. During my sophomore year, I did too. Getting mental health support that year helped me understand something my therapist told me: therapists sometimes need therapists to rely on. That year, I created the first mental health club at my school, Mind Matters, to give students a place to practice caring for themselves and their community. We held activities like writing positive affirmations in chalk and making slime. This was our way to pause after school every other Wednesday in room 106. We also made cards for older people in nursing homes during the holidays. As the club grew, I wanted to reach my community, and we decided to step in. We hosted a donation drive for children and teens in mental health care; we made cards and donated toys and hygiene products to children and adolescents at Metrocare Dallas. I collaborated with people from my club, church, and my neighborhood to donate and document our collaboration. Metrocare stood out to me because you can receive support regardless of your expenses or health insurance. I recommended Metrocare to a couple of family members who struggle with finding mental health support because of financial struggles. I saw my cousin, who struggled to get support growing up, finally receive it. The smile I saw on my cousin's face as she told me she was receiving mental health support from Metrocare, and how she wished she had received support earlier, encouraged me to help others, especially children, receive the same support regardless of any financial burdens. Since middle school,ol I always knew I wanted to be a child and adolescent psychiatrist; I doubted myself because I believed I was too “sensitive” to be a psychiatrist because of my past and because I cried if someone told me something personal and upsetting. Since I walked out of class, I felt like I couldn't handle mental health. My therapist had advised me that mental health is important regardless of whether you help others with mental health support. Now, I want to own my own practice and help families feel relieved knowing they can receive the same mental health support as everyone else, even without financial support. I hope the world can do the same; mental health support is just as important as physical support

Growing up, I saw how financial hardship could affect more than a family's ability to pay bills. It could also determine whether a child had access to the support they needed to understand their own mental health. In my family, professional mental-health care was not always financially accessible. I watched siblings, cousins, and other people I loved navigate difficult emotions without the resources or guidance that could have helped them better understand what they were experiencing. Their circumstances did not define them, but I saw how growing up without mental health support could leave someone without the language or tools to recognize what they were feeling. Those experiences changed the way I think about mental health. I began asking questions: What happens when a child needs help but their family cannot afford it? What happens when parents want to support their children but do not know where to begin? Most importantly, what can I do to make sure children do not have to face those questions alone? My answer is to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist. I want to study neuroscience, pursue medical training, and eventually build a practice where families with limited financial resources can receive compassionate mental health care without feeling that seeking help will put their family's financial stability at risk. I also hope to work beyond a traditional practice by providing outreach to children experiencing homelessness and children in foster care or residential settings, offering care to young people who may have even fewer resources available to them. My own circumstances have taught me to pursue every opportunity I can find. I have challenged myself through advanced science courses and college classes while working toward my associate degree, and I have sought experiences that allow me to understand medicine and public health firsthand. As a high school student, I knew I wanted to make an impact early on. I founded a mental health club at my school to educate the younger generation about mental health and how they can educate others about mental health awareness. My high school is 76% economically disadvantaged. I want students to know early on that mental health struggles are acceptable, and you can reach out for support anywhere. Mind Matters serves 50+ students at my school and hosts open discussions to break the stigma around mental health. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds deserve opportunities because financial circumstances should not determine how far someone's potential can take them. A scholarship would make my undergraduate education more attainable and allow me to devote myself to service, preparing for a career in medicine, and helping future children and teenagers access mental health support. I want my education to become more than a personal achievement. I want it to become a way of ensuring that children and families who once felt that mental-health care was out of reach can finally feel that someone is there for them.

1. I am someone who is constantly asking “why?” Why does the brain respond to stress differently from person to person? Why do some experiences affect us for years while others do not? And, most importantly, how can we use what we learn to help people? My curiosity about the human mind led me to neuroscience and shaped my goal of becoming a physician-scientist specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry. But my motivation goes beyond a career title. I want my work to matter to people who may feel overlooked, misunderstood, or unheard, especially young people navigating challenges they may not yet have the words to explain. I have pursued that purpose through both science and service. This past summer, I interned at Parkland Hospital’s North Texas Poison Center, where I contributed to poison-prevention efforts reaching communities across Texas. At the Perot Museum, I help children engage with science through hands-on experiences and discover that science can be exciting and accessible. Each opportunity has shown me that knowledge is most meaningful when it improves someone else’s life. If I could do anything with my life, I would spend it discovering how the brain works and using those discoveries to help people. I hope to combine research, medicine, and advocacy to better understand mental health and improve care for young people. I do not simply want to learn about the world. I want to use what I learn to change it. What excites me most about STEM is that it allows curiosity to become something tangible. A question can become an experiment, an experiment can become data, and data can lead to a discovery that changes people’s lives. 2. I am especially interested in neuroscience because the brain remains one of the most complex and least understood parts of the human body. Information technology gives us increasingly powerful ways to study that complexity. From analyzing large datasets to processing medical images and identifying patterns in brain activity, technology can help researchers see connections that would otherwise be impossible to find. This intersection of technology and neuroscience excites me because it could transform healthcare. As a future physician-scientist, I hope to use technological tools alongside medical and scientific knowledge to understand mental-health conditions better and improve treatment, particularly for children and adolescents. I am especially interested in how data-driven approaches could help researchers identify patterns in conditions that can look different from one patient to another. I also believe positive impact comes from making technology useful and accessible, not simply advanced. Innovations mean little if the people who need them cannot benefit. I want to contribute to solutions that help researchers work more efficiently, physicians make better-informed decisions, and patients receive more individualized care. STEM has taught me that solving a problem begins with being willing to ask difficult questions. Information technology expands the tools we have to answer those questions, and I want to use those tools to make healthcare more informed, innovative, and human. 3. One of the greatest challenges I have faced has been learning to trust myself when I did not feel confident in my abilities. For years, academic pressure made me doubt myself, especially when I faced important exams or unfamiliar challenges. There were times when I knew I had prepared, yet anxiety made me question whether I was capable of succeeding. I began to associate difficult moments with the possibility that I was not good enough. Changing that mindset required me to redefine what success meant. Instead of expecting myself to excel immediately, I learned to ask for help, identify where I needed to improve, and allow myself to learn through mistakes. I began focusing less on proving that I was capable and more on actually becoming capable. That shift changed the way I approached opportunities. I became willing to pursue experiences outside my comfort zone, from healthcare internships and scientific programs to founding a mental-health organization. Each experience challenged me to trust that I could learn as I went. I learned that confidence does not always come before taking a risk; sometimes, it is built because you took the risk anyway. I still experience moments of doubt, but I no longer see them as proof that I should stop. They are reminders that I am challenging myself. Overcoming this challenge taught me something more valuable than how to handle one difficult exam: I learned that my abilities are not defined by one result. I can struggle, adapt, grow, and keep moving forward. That resilience will follow me wherever my education and career take me.

Understanding my mental health problems has shaped me to learn and treat others' mental health problems. My high school focuses on learning about different mental health disorders and how to treat others with mental health problems. While I was learning about triggering topics about self-harm in my Counseling & Mental Health course. I had to exit the class and take a deep breath to remind myself that my trauma doesn't define my career goal of becoming a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. Since that day forward, I decided to start my mental health club named "Mind Matters." Our mission is to have self-care activities in a school setting to promote self-care of incoming mental health professionals, including myself and my peers who plan to become social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Discussing triggering topics that may reflect on an individual's trauma during class can make us feel like we aren't "good enough" for our future career, it's important to have self-care at an early age if you plan to go into the field of mental health, or even if you don't, it's important to be mindful and understand what your boundriaies are. The events we host include art night, making slime in class, and journaling. Mind Matters has hosted events partnering with Metrocare Clinics to raise funds for youth mental health. We raised over 100+ stress toys, hygiene products, art supplies, and stuffed animals for the youth in crisis at Metrocare. The members, partners, and the sponsor of Mind Matters have shaped me into the person I am at this moment. I am not letting my past define my future goals of helping others with mental health issues.

In my culture, earning a high school diploma was considered the "bare minimum." No one in my family has tried to achieve higher education beyond high school. What motivates me is being #1. Being #1 in my family to set foot in Europe, being #1 to earn a selective internship, and being #1 to know more about my culture. Watching my parents come from Mexico and work hard to achieve their goals, but not for themselves, but for my siblings and me. As my parents praise my siblings and me for doing well in school and look down on themselves for not getting an education, all I can think about is their hard work for this country. My dad, who is a construction worker, and my mom, who cleans houses for a living, are real-life stereotypes of a Mexican household. My parents reflect on their education, not graduating from high school, makes them feel like they cannot help me whenever it comes to homework, college advice, and trying to understand what "FAFSA" is. Therefore, I don't have connections, and my family didn't donate a 100k building to Harvard; however, my parents motivate me to pursue a higher education after college. I don't need parents with money or an education; I just need my parents who support me while trying to support themselves and my family. Sometimes I struggle getting college advice and financial aid advice, but I am thankful for my school's Education is Freedom (EIF) team. EIF has supported me while stressing about my SAT's, college advice, and just general advice whenever it comes to school. EIF supports students who are like me, mainly first-gen, low-income, and struggling to find which colleges they want to attend. My EIF advisors have been in the same scenario as I am, first-gen, and trying to figure out which college they plan to attend. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunities EIF has supported me with throughout my high school journey, which also primarily motivates me. The only college my parents know about is our local community college, Dallas College. And of course, Harvard University. Just like the phrase "we walked, so you can run" completely applies to my parents, my parents planted a life for me in the U.S., so I can do great things and earn a higher education in this country. I am dedicating this last part of my essay to my mother, Michelle Granados, and my father, Miguel Alvarado. Gracias por todo lo que haces, te amo.