When I was in high school my senior honor's English instructor asked us to look around the room and asked if we thought we had much in common with kids who grew up in South Central LA. You see, my teacher was from California and had in fact taught at a high school in Compton before coming to our school. I grew up in Appalachia, and the particular corner that I lived in was 98% white and very rural. Naturally, we did not think that we would have a great deal in common with kids our age in Southern California. But the next thing he said to us changed all of our perspectives. He said, "What if I were to take one kid from this class and one kid from the class in California and drop you in the middle of Pakistan, How much would you have in common then?" This simple thought exercise helped us to recognize two things, 1) that we shared more with other Americans no matter that we looked different or grew up in different environments and 2) That the problems we faced in our communities were similar to the ones faced in urban areas. The second point leads me to the answer of how I want to shape my community for the better. You see, Appalachian people are a strong bunch and we have had a tendency to lean towards self-reliance based on the feeling that we are overlooked domestically when it comes to many problems. It is for these reasons that I returned to school to pursue a career in nursing. Though this is changing, slowly, I think there is ample opportunity to help educate my and future generations in the ways of healthy lifestyles as well as how they can avoid many health problems that plague the people of the mountains that we call home. Two of the biggest health issues in this area are diabetes and opioid addiction. Two very different disease processes but two that effect more people in our area than the national average. With respect to diabetes in Appalachia, this is a problem that continues to plague people including and alarming amount of children. This is an issue that has seen efforts to combat it in our area but there is still much more work to be done. People lack empathy until it effects them directly and I feel as though many younger people are doing better with educating themselves. However, there are issues for some communities related to access to fresh fruits and vegetables. These so-termed food deserts make it more difficult for Appalachians to follow a diet conducive to preventing diabetes. Opiod addiction has been somewhat in a lull over the past few years, however, we are met with a new crisis which is that of the higher prevalence of fentanyl in our communities. Nearly every week we hear about a horror story of someone overdosing from fentanyl, many times with fatal outcomes. As a nurse I hope to have a direct impact in the fight against fentanyl overdoses and on a greater scale, to help members of our community that are battling addiction.

My name is Austin Smith and I am currently enrolled in an associate's degree program to pursue nursing as a career. While enrolled at my local community college, I am also co-enrolling at Arizona State to pursue my BSN as well. While that doesn't answer my why as far as pursuing a career in nursing, I think it should lend some evidence to how serious I am in my pursuit. For the why, I have to take you back about 7 years. You see, I was a business major originally in college and after spending some time working in the world of business, I found that there was something missing. I had the opportunity then to leave my cushy office job to work for my mother who ran a group home for individuals with intellectual disabilities. In this 'job', I found exactly what I had been missing. It was caring for my guys day in and day out that I discovered that helping those in need of the most basic care filled my heart and soul with the deepest satisfaction that I had felt. It was at that time in my life that I knew I was on the right path in life. However, 6 years ago, as the entire world knows, the COVID 19 pandemic hit and we were not immune to it's effects. Over the next several years, the clients we served, the clients I had known for years experienced exacerbations of their health conditions. Some of them were complicated by exposure to COVID 19 during their hospitalizations or doctor visits. Unfortunately one by one they passed away over a period of a few years and my mother was forced to close her group home. In my roll with her, I was not required to hold a CNA license or any other specialty license or certification so when the group home closed, I was out of work. Thinking quickly I was able to find work in remote call centers for a time. I took pleasure in helping people with their needs but I was still missing something. In January of 2025 I was hospitalized for the first time in my life for cholecystitis which required emergent surgery. During my experience I was amazed by the nurses that cared for me and I got to see for the first time in my life the crucial role that nurses played in caring for patients on an every day basis. My experience reawakened my experience as a direct care provider and I felt as though I would be ignoring my calling if I did not pursue becoming a nurse. During the remainder of my hospital stay, I spent time talking with my wife who is also an RN about the possibility of me going back to school to become a nurse. She thought that it would be an excellent decision and encouraged me to do it. Immediately on discharge, I went home and enrolled at my local community college to pursue nursing as a career. I completed pre requisite coursed last Spring Semester and applied for nursing school. I was accepted and ever since then I have done everything I could to learn and help my classmates with my unique experience as much as possible. It is for these reasons that I feel compelled, or "called" to be a nurse. I will not forget my 'why' and I know it will drive me forward to be the best nurse that I can be to effect the most lives possible. Thank you for taking the time to read my essay.

My name is Jared Smith and I want to share my story of the effects of drug addiction on my life. I have been privileged in my life as I have not personally succumbed to the temptations of addiction, however, growing up in Appalachia it is an all too common occurrence to see how it effects people’s lives first hand. Personally, it made me a father at 19 to a child that was not mine. Over the last 10 years I have kept the story mostly to myself but I have come to realize that it can be an inspirational story to others and so I do share it more often than I did previously. It began when I was a young man fresh out of high school and into the real world. I lived in a house that I rented with my then girlfriend, as I had been kicked out of my family home. She and I had a good relationship but we had not discussed the possibility of having children at this point as we were focused on surviving in the real world as a young couple. Around 9:00 one night we had a knock on our front door and were surprised to see a sheriff’s deputy on our front porch. We answered and the deputy told us that my wife’s uncle’s girlfriend had been found passed out in a cooler at a convenience store the next town over. We did not have any contact with this person or my wife’s uncle so we were a bit surprised as to why the officer had come to our house. At this point, he explained that they had found a 13 week old baby, my wife’s cousin, in her car and told us what had happened. We had been given as the name of the closest family members that would be able to take the baby and give her a safe place to stay for the night. Without a thought, we agreed to take her in for the night. Later that night, we had to call the sheriff’s deputy back to our house because we found drug paraphernalia in the baby’s diaper bag. Over the next few days, we learned what atrocious shape the infant was in when we took her to her appointments. We learned she had C. diff. and was nearly diagnosed with failure to thrive based on her check-up with the doctor. We decided from that point on, we did not want the baby to go back where she came from so that we could give her the best chance at a decent life. We experienced many hardships and court appearances due to the nature of our adoption not being a ‘close-family’ adoption. However, we were able to make it through all of those things and we have raised our daughter in a healthy environment over the last 13 years. Unfortunately, she was born addicted to methamphetamine and as she has aged, many of her mental struggles have become apparent. In a way, this has become a new chapter of our journey with addiction. All we can do is continue to meet the challenges using all resources that are available to us. Through doing this, we will persevere in helping our daughter live as normal of a life as possible. As for me, I am in school to become a nurse based on my drive to help others in my community. I feel that for as much help as we have received, I am in a unique position to give back to my community as a nurse.

My name is Austin Smith and I was formally diagnosed with anxiety and depression about 3 years ago. Though my diagnosis was somewhat recent, I have struggled throughout most of my life with depression and anxiety however, I got really, really good at masking my feelings. You see, I was raised in a household where sharing your feelings was not always welcome, and frankly, being a male meant I should hide how I felt even more. However, as I grew up, my ability to mask my feelings both got better, but also came with periods where I would bottle things up so long that I would blow up at my family. This is not something that I wanted for myself or my loved ones so I recognized the need to change. I reached a point where I knew that I couldn’t do it on my own any more and so I used a resource through my insurance to talk with a psychiatrist who I talked with a good bit. He suggested I begin taking an antidepressant medication and begin counseling. I did start taking the medication and after a few weeks I did start to feel better but I put off counseling. I think it was mostly due to a hold-over feeling that men shouldn’t discuss their feelings from when I was younger. However, I nearly had a complete mental breakdown about a year after taking medication and reached a point where my wife was considering if I needed to reach out to crisis services. Fortunately I reigned myself in enough to schedule some counseling and it was one of the best decisions I had ever made. I began meeting with a counselor virtually over the next few weeks and I believe the experience was exactly what I needed as a complementary measure for my medication therapy. I discussed how I was feeling and how I should process everything that was going on in my life at the time. I learned healthier ways to cope and how to have productive conversations with myself whenever negative feelings were creeping in and pervasive. I have friends but as a stay at home dad of 5 it is rare that I get to hang out with them as all of our schedules are crazy. However, I did learn the importance of making an effort to foster these friendships so that they continue to flourish. The most important thing that I had reinforced was that we are not on an island and we have to continue to keep our lifelines open because relationships are extremely important to our experience as human beings. Being connected is something that all human beings desire to some extent and when we are able to share with on another, we are able to off-load at least a portion of our burden. I think that is the single most important aspect of mental health that often gets overlooked today as we are both more connected, and less connected at the same time. My mental health today is much better than it was based on all I have learned in the last few years and by strengthening myself, I allow myself to be helpful to anyone I work with, whether that is my family or the patients that I help to care for in my professional life.

Attending an institute of higher education for me will have a direct impact on the community that I am in as well as the greater community. I have chosen to return to school in an effort to become a nurse. In my life, I have experienced the difference that one individual can make in the lives of countless people. As most of the world knows, there is a shortage in the nursing field. Even greater is the disparity of males who go into nursing. Those two facts in and of themselves are worthy I believe of displaying my reasons for why I want to go into nursing but I think that it is only fair that I dive deeper into the subject. Originally, I was a business major and I dreamed of a world where I led a team. I did not hold this dream because I wanted simply to be a manager. I have always been passionate about helping people and specifically helping them to attain goals that they did not know they were capable of or that they believed were unattainable due to personal hardships. I later learned that my dream was a bit incomplete and I learned it in an unlikely place. I had the opportunity about 7 years ago to work for my mother who ran a group home for intellectually disabled(IDD) adults. This work was a far cry from managing a team that I had at the time, however, it exposed me to the idea of serving more than just myself and those immediately under my supervision. During this time, I performed direct care for adults who were intellectually disabled. This experience was as incredible as it was humbling for me. Frankly, the experience was completely transformative in terms of what I wanted to do with my life. It made it abundantly clear that I was meant for more than just a job. I was meant to care for people who needed more than the average person. Last year, I decided to return to school to obtain my registered nursing license with the idea that I would be able to help an even larger portion of the country, not only the intellectually disabled community. However, I still believe it is imperative that I focus on that community due to my unique experience. As a caregiver, I saw first hand the disconnect and even the discomfort that some health care providers had when caring for the ID population. Therefore, I believe I am poised to make the largest impact on that community both locally and to an even greater extent after I graduate. I plan to pursue a Master's degree and become a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner(PMHNP) in order to help those suffering from a wide variety of mental illness. As mentioned, I believe that my unique perspective will allow me to have a huge impact on this community as well as mental health as a whole.

My name is Jared Smith and I am a returning student in an associate's degree program to become a registered nurse. I have also recently co-enrolled in a BSN program for nursing with Arizona State University as well. My passion for nursing is a recent realization of something that I have known for a long time. I spent about 5 years of my life as a direct care provider for 5 adults with intellectual disabilities. During this time, I was responsible for medication administration, feedings, cooking, cleaning, and assisting them with activities of daily living, among other responsibilities. It was a lot of work but during this time my wife was also attending school to become a registered nurse. One day she pointed out to me that everything I was already doing in my career was about 80% what nurses would do in hospitals or other facilities. At that time, it didn't exactly click to me that I should get my RN license. However, early in last year I experienced a need for an emergency surgery. Being a relatively healthy individual, I had never spent a night in the hospital, except for the births of my children. During my time in the hospital as a patient, I saw how the nurses operated during all hours of the day. I continued to have a recurring thought that I could help them. Fueled by this newfound drive as well as my wife's and other's encouragements from years past, I decided it was time to pursue my career in nursing. I found over the last year of clinicals that I am still as compassionate about helping people from all walks of life to heal and be able to live their best lives. I have never forgotten how deeply satisfying it was to care for my clients with intellectual disabilities and that continues to drive me forward. I hope to enter the world of behavioral health and to specifically help the intellectually disabled population in my area. I have always felt a connection with that population as my mother was a caregiver for IDD individuals for my life growing up. I discovered early on that many people, including health care professionals struggle to connect with special needs clients. I recall how during appointments health care professionals would often look at me and ask me questions instead of asking the individuals. I understand the 'why' behind this behavior but I always felt that it left a gap in their care. What if I didn't give them complete information, or good information for that matter? Would there have been issues that were overlooked? We always maintained good records and advocated for our clients to get the best health care but I recognize that not everyone cares for their clients in the same thorough manner that we did and that is a thought that is tough for me to reconcile. It is my desire to impact the behavioral community in a unique way that providers who have never directly cared for adults with intellectual disabilities can. As someone who understands this communities daily needs, I hope to affect my area and all those that I serve with a more complete and thorough understanding of their daily challenges.

My personal inspiration for pursuing a career in nursing is two-fold. Firstly, my wife has completed her education as a Registered Nurse a few years ago and her career has been very inspiring to witness from my unique perspective as her husband and partner. I have seen the highs and lows that she has experienced as part of her working career for the past 5 years. Secondly, and most relevant to me is my experience as a direct care provider to adults in the Intellectually Disabled(IDD) population. For roughly 5 years I had the privilege to serve as a care taker for 5-7 adults with intellectual disabilities with varying levels of needs according to their diagnoses and age. During my time with those individuals I helped them with everything from medication administration, making and attending doctor's appointments, and checking vital signs routinely to basic activities of daily living including, bathing, toileting, and feedings as needed. During this time, I was humbled to understand that there are people right in my community that needed care that I was able to provide. This experience was one that has been with me ever since I cared for those guys and truly it helped to point me in the direction of what I believe my life's calling. Eventually, I want to become a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner so that I can continue to give back to the IDD and greater mental health community in my area. Like Ms. Losinger, I hail from a small town in Southwest Virginia and understand the unique challenges faced by rural communities. I hope that through my career I will be able to give back to my area in a significant way. The phrase "human touch" is an attribute of health care that is at times missing from some health care. Often times, we are concerned with scheduling, insurance billing, and the paper trail that is necessary to help our clients receive the care that they need. The 'human touch' is a concept that I believe nurses are uniquely in a position to understand as we provide most of the direct care for patients that they receive in both acute care as well as long-term care or rehabilitation facilities. I would define it simply as making the patient and their family or care providers feel as though they are truly a person and not just another appointment, room number, or diagnosis on a piece of paper. I would also loosely define it as the intangible human connection created by the interaction of all health care professionals in a care team and our clients. Simply put, my philosophy on nursing as a whole is that our clients will feel more 'seen' if we listen to and care for them as if they were our own family members. The subtle art of being present is one of the best ways that nurses can make the difference in patient outcomes in ways that I don't believe we can accurately measure. There is no special formula for attaining this type of connection but I do believe that anyone can work on and sharpen these skills. At a recent training I attended for my work as a Nurse Intern, I heard something that stuck with me. The word 'listen' and the word 'silent' are comprised of the same letters. It's a bit of irony, however, I think that the message is golden. If we simply listen to our clients as a means of learning about them as opposed to as a means of having a reply for them, we can connect and learn from our clients in a way that makes the experience more personal. In this way, I believe we can foster good rapport and better the outcomes that we all are seeking, which is overall community health one person at a time.

My name is Jared Smith and I want to tell my story as to why I am pursuing an advanced education in the field of nursing. Originally, when I graduated high school I was on my own and did not have much guidance. I was an intelligent young person but I did not have anyone to help me with a sense of direction when it came to college. You see, neither of my parents graduated college, nor did they place a great influence on attending. So, as a fresh high school graduate I attended a local community college and got the notion in my head that the field of study wasn't that important. So, I chose business as I always had a penchant for people and liked the idea of managing a well-oiled team of professionals. However, I live in a relatively economically depressed area of the country in Southwest Virginia. This meant that my opportunities to use my education were few and far between. However, I had the opportunity to begin working with my mother who operated a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. This is where I inadvertently discovered my passion for people and specifically caring for the most vulnerable members of our population. During my time working with her, I realized that helping people with ADLs, feeding people, and basically helping people who otherwise were not able to help themselves did something for me beyond just a paycheck. It was at this time that I discovered that not only did I enjoy people, but by taking care of people I filled a deeper need within myself. I gained the perspective that helping people during their times of need was more fulfilling to me than any job I had ever had before. During this same time my wife was attending school at the same community college that I had attended to become a Registered Nurse. Shortly before she graduated, one of our clients entered hospice care. I had never experienced anything like what I was about to experience. I was challenged to switch my mindset from 'taking care of a person in order to help them have their best life' to the inevitable one of 'helping this person die comfortably'. I don't think it is possible to understand what this change is like until you have gone through it with a loved one or as a caregiver. The experience helped me to recognize that nursing was my true calling whenever one of the visiting hospice nurses was surprised to learn that I was not already a nurse. I will never forget her asking me inquisitively, "Wait, you aren't a nurse?" followed by, "You all are caring for this man at the same level as a registered nurse". She later encouraged me to consider nursing in the future. Well, that time came at the beginning of last year when I decided it was time to return to school and complete my associate's degree in nursing to later sit for the NCLEX and become a RN. If I am able to complete this, and I believe I will be, my next goal is to try and become a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner(PMHNP) which will allow me to continue serving not only the Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities(IDD) population, which is already critically underserved, but to also help the larger mental health community. This scholarship will greatly help me because I am no longer eligible for federal loans due to my previous degree. Therefore, I am restricted to paying out of pocket or to receive scholarship funds.