Life is full of hardships, which leads people to make decisions that affect who they become. Whether it be past traumas or personal demons, like depression, everyday people fight through struggles to make the best out of their life; oftentimes, embracing their past by choosing a career that is related to them. These are people who make the best out of the life they are living, and they may try to embrace their past by using a career that relates to their struggles or traumas. My life is no different. My choice to go into medicine is based on the personal struggles I overcame, putting me on a path to help people overcome similar struggles. My decision is hard to define because my past traumas have shaped me but aren’t all quite medical related. I have learned that the medical field puts me in a position where I can help people to the best of my ability. I have always wanted to do things my way, but when I got into junior high and my parents divorced, my mind changed. I wanted to be worth something. I wanted to make sure I could make a difference in the world and not be selfish. My parents divorced when I was thirteen, which would make anyone believe my life would have been significantly different, but I persevered through. Nonetheless, I had to go back and forth between households and be the middle person between my parents, I was the oldest and my mom had a restraining order against my dad. This made my brother and I want to focus on academics and basketball. This is all that my life became. Sports and school. This wasn’t a bad thing at the time because I never had to focus on the bad things going on in my life. But as soon as my love for sports peaked, I learned that I wanted to help as many people as I could. Then I tore my ACL playing varsity basketball in eighth grade, turning my life upside down. Afterward, I had to self-reflect on my life and my future so I focused on the little things (home life, becoming academically preoccupied, and non-physical extracurriculars). This was hard. I dropped to a very low spot, on the verge of depression. I didn’t know how to react because I used sports to keep myself preoccupied with the struggles I was going through. I learned that I wanted to focus more on medicine so that when I graduated from high school, I wouldn’t have to worry about myself or anyone else feeling this way once again. It slightly worked, except for when problems started arising with my dad and alcohol. My dad became an alcoholic by my freshman year, and I have done everything in my power to protect my brother from the struggles and embarrassments of my alcoholic father. This wasn’t that bad, just put more things on my plate to focus on. Nevertheless, this helped me learn some useful skills such as managing school, dual credit, sports, other extracurricular activities, and family. Through these traumas, I have matured and grown into the independent, goal-oriented, and organized person that I am today. I have learned so much from the people that surround me that has aided me in my decision of going into the medical profession. Additionally, I volunteer for many community service activities because I get satisfaction from helping others. I have made it this far on my own, through the struggle and pains, to achieve my goals and assist those that are suffering or in need.

Life is full of hardships, which leads people to make decisions that affect who they become. Whether it be past traumas or personal demons, like depression, everyday people fight through struggles to make the best out of their life; oftentimes, embracing their past by choosing a career that is related to them. These are people who make the best out of the life they are living, and they may try to embrace their past by using a career that relates to their struggles or traumas. My life is no different. My choice to go into medicine is based on the personal struggles I overcame, putting me on a path to help people overcome similar struggles. My decision is hard to define because my past traumas have shaped me but aren’t all quite medical related. I have learned that the medical field puts me in a position where I can help people to the best of my ability. I have always wanted to do things my way, but when I got into junior high and my parents divorced, my mind changed. I wanted to be worth something. I wanted to make sure I could make a difference in the world and not be selfish. My parents divorced when I was thirteen, which would make anyone believe my life would have been significantly different, but I persevered through. Nonetheless, I had to go back and forth between households and be the middle person between my parents, I was the oldest and my mom had a restraining order against my dad. This made my brother and I want to focus on academics and basketball. This is all that my life became. Sports and school. This wasn’t a bad thing at the time because I never had to focus on the bad things going on in my life. But as soon as my love for sports peaked, I learned that I wanted to help as many people as I could. Then I tore my ACL playing varsity basketball in eighth grade, turning my life upside down. Afterward, I had to self-reflect on my life and my future so I focused on the little things (home life, becoming academically preoccupied, and non-physical extracurriculars). This was hard. I dropped to a very low spot, on the verge of depression. I didn’t know how to react because I used sports to keep myself preoccupied with the struggles I was going through. I learned that I wanted to focus more on medicine so that when I graduated from high school, I wouldn’t have to worry about myself or anyone else feeling this way once again. It slightly worked, except for when problems started arising with my dad and alcohol. My dad became an alcoholic by my freshman year, and I have done everything in my power to protect my brother from the struggles and embarrassments of my alcoholic father. This wasn’t that bad, just put more things on my plate to focus on. Nevertheless, this helped me learn some useful skills such as managing school, dual credit, sports, other extracurricular activities, and family. Through these traumas, I have matured and grown into the independent, goal-oriented, and organized person that I am today. I have learned so much from the people that surround me that has aided me in my decision of going into the medical profession. Additionally, I volunteer for many community service activities because I get satisfaction from helping others. I have made it this far on my own, through the struggle and pains, to achieve my goals and assist those that are suffering or in need.

Life is full of hardships, which leads people to make decisions that affect who they become. Whether it be past traumas or personal demons, like depression, everyday people fight through struggles to make the best out of their life; oftentimes, embracing their past by choosing a career that is related to them. These are people who make the best out of the life they are living, and they may try to embrace their past by using a career that relates to their struggles or traumas. My life is no different. My choice to go into medicine is based on the personal struggles I overcame, putting me on a path to help people overcome similar struggles. My decision is hard to define because my past traumas have shaped me but aren’t all quite medical related. I have learned that the medical field puts me in a position where I can help people to the best of my ability. I have always wanted to do things my way, but when I got into junior high and my parents divorced, my mind changed. I wanted to be worth something. I wanted to make sure I could make a difference in the world and not be selfish. My parents divorced when I was thirteen, which would make anyone believe my life would have been significantly different, but I persevered through. Nonetheless, I had to go back and forth between households and be the middle person between my parents, I was the oldest and my mom had a restraining order against my dad. This made my brother and I want to focus on academics and basketball. This is all that my life became. Sports and school. This wasn’t a bad thing at the time because I never had to focus on the bad things going on in my life. But as soon as my love for sports peaked, I learned that I wanted to help as many people as I could. Then I tore my ACL playing varsity basketball in eighth grade, turning my life upside down. Afterward, I had to self-reflect on my life and my future so I focused on the little things (home life, becoming academically preoccupied, and non-physical extracurriculars). This was hard. I dropped to a very low spot, on the verge of depression. I didn’t know how to react because I used sports to keep myself preoccupied with the struggles I was going through. I learned that I wanted to focus more on medicine so that when I graduated from high school, I wouldn’t have to worry about myself or anyone else feeling this way once again. It slightly worked, except for when problems started arising with my dad and alcohol. My dad became an alcoholic by my freshman year, and I have done everything in my power to protect my brother from the struggles and embarrassments of my alcoholic father. This wasn’t that bad, just put more things on my plate to focus on. Nevertheless, this helped me learn some useful skills such as managing school, dual credit, sports, other extracurricular activities, and family. Through these traumas, I have matured and grown into the independent, goal-oriented, and organized person that I am today. I have learned so much from the people that surround me that has aided me in my decision of going into the medical profession. Additionally, I volunteer for many community service activities because I get satisfaction from helping others. I have made it this far on my own, through the struggle and pains, to achieve my goals and assist those that are suffering or in need.

Life is full of hardships, which leads people to make decisions that affect who they become. Whether it be past traumas or personal demons, like depression, everyday people fight through struggles to make the best out of their life; oftentimes, embracing their past by choosing a career that is related to them. These are people who make the best out of the life they are living, and they may try to embrace their past by using a career that relates to their struggles or traumas. My life is no different. My choice to go into medicine is based on the personal struggles I overcame, putting me on a path to help people overcome similar struggles. My decision is hard to define because my past traumas have shaped me but aren’t all quite medical related. I have learned that the medical field puts me in a position where I can help people to the best of my ability. I have always wanted to do things my way, but when I got into junior high and my parents divorced, my mind changed. I wanted to be worth something. I wanted to make sure I could make a difference in the world and not be selfish. My parents divorced when I was thirteen, which would make anyone believe my life would have been significantly different, but I persevered through. Nonetheless, I had to go back and forth between households and be the middle person between my parents, I was the oldest and my mom had a restraining order against my dad. This made my brother and I want to focus on academics and basketball. This is all that my life became. Sports and school. This wasn’t a bad thing at the time because I never had to focus on the bad things going on in my life. But as soon as my love for sports peaked, I learned that I wanted to help as many people as I could. Then I tore my ACL playing varsity basketball in eighth grade, turning my life upside down. Afterward, I had to self-reflect on my life and my future so I focused on the little things (home life, becoming academically preoccupied, and non-physical extracurriculars). This was hard. I dropped to a very low spot, on the verge of depression. I didn’t know how to react because I used sports to keep myself preoccupied with the struggles I was going through. I learned that I wanted to focus more on medicine so that when I graduated from high school, I wouldn’t have to worry about myself or anyone else feeling this way once again. It slightly worked, except for when problems started arising with my dad and alcohol. My dad became an alcoholic by my freshman year, and I have done everything in my power to protect my brother from the struggles and embarrassments of my alcoholic father. This wasn’t that bad, just put more things on my plate to focus on. Nevertheless, this helped me learn some useful skills such as managing school, dual credit, sports, other extracurricular activities, and family. Through these traumas, I have matured and grown into the independent, goal-oriented, and organized person that I am today. I have learned so much from the people that surround me that has aided me in my decision of going into the medical profession. Additionally, I volunteer for many community service activities because I get satisfaction from helping others. I have made it this far on my own, through the struggle and pains, to achieve my goals and assist those that are suffering or in need.

I am Baylee Pruitt, a current freshman at the University of Providence. I grew up in a low-income and single-parent household, which made me become a helper in my community. Most of my family in my hometown work at my old K-12 school. My mom was someone I greatly looked up to as I grew up because she was so strong, even when she had every reason to not be. In Saint Regis, Montana we have a couple of restaurants, a school, a mill, gas stations, churches, and houses. So if you work in one place, you are most likely involved in our community in more ways than one. My family has always been involved in my community, but since they work at the school they see the problems of small-town families through the kids. My family wants to help make small changes in my community by being there for their students in the best way possible. As a direct result, my brother and I have always taken struggling students under our wing and tried to get involved in our community. My brother is a daily leader in the school and takes so many younger athletes under his wing to help them get out of their struggling homes. In high school, I became the organizational leader for a youth group at my church. This wasn't only to bring young kids to God but to allow the kids in my community to be involved in something other than sports so that they can be out of their struggling home life. The kids had someone to talk to, were surrounded by their friends, and had food. My ultimate goal for the youth group was to help these children while also bringing them closer to God. After I left for college, I realized how much of an impact I had on my community. Many children would reach out to me off and on just to talk but I wasn't there in the same way as I was busy with basketball and a good drive away. This made me realize I want to come back to my community and help them in the best ways possible. I want to go into family practician so that I can come back to my rural community in Montana to help families and people medically, while also using my outside time to help the children and families in different ways by volunteering. Overall, I will use my future career to come back to my community and make an impact on families and children so that they all have a chance at a bright future.

My family has always had low income and that has resulted in us getting by with what we had. This would range from where we lived, the food we got, the clothes we had, and what we did for fun. My mom always tried her hardest to give us the best she could and she did amazing. My brother and I have always been super interested in basketball so that meant that our mom spent lots of money on us for our equipment, camps, and injuries. Being in a single parent low income household made this cut things quite tight for us. We would probably go grocery shopping once a month and make sure we didn’t go places to often so that we could have money for other things. I know that I struggled personally because of our financial situation but I knew that families in my community were off much worse. That is why I started a youth group, helped at my school, became a mentor, and volunteered so much. I wanted to be able to make an impact on my community and show the young children that they can do amazing things no matter their situation. I now will be going to play college basketball and work my way to becoming a doctor so that I can help others.

When I was little I use to look up to girls in my school that were strong, good at sports, independent, and smart. I used these people in a way to help mold who I was and who I wanted to be. I became good at sports because I wanted to be like them and do even better. I am interested in medicine because one of my aunts was too and as I grew up I experienced some severe anxiety, two ACL tears, and family with health problems that have influenced me to go into the career field. I want to make an impact on younger kids in my community because they don’t have many that will step up and show them the right path. In my community kids tend to be in this continuous cycle of alcoholism or addictions and they need someone to come into their life and show them that there is more to life then that. I saw this and when I had an option of choosing a senior project this previous year, I chose to start a Youth Group at my church to help get children in my community involved so that they can have mentors and be able to know there is more that they are capable of. At first, I didn’t think that the youth group would be successful but over two months we had almost 60 kids coming to our youth group nights. It was such an amazing realization because not only were they there with their friends or to worship god, but they had mentors that they could talk to and get help from when things went wrong. Sometimes these mentors weren’t me but I was glad to have started and be apart of something that had such a big influence.

Keeping the environment safe and to impact the climate I helped my school reduce plastic usage and making my own personal goals that I try do daily. At my school I did by research on how our school cafeteria was using too much individual plastic and shown how much plastic would be going into the trash to get burned or put in the ocean. The amount was much scarier than I originally thought. The results of my research paper shocked interest in my school and they started to change what they bought or used. At my school we also planted trees on our school grounds to help our environment. I personally have tried to carpool or ride a bike, make sure I turn off my lights at home if I’m not using them, and buying so many individual packages items. Ever since I took my environmental science class this past year I felt that I need to make a difference and this is just the beginning to my part in the difference.

I am a person of care and determination so that means I also have high expectations for myself. I have always been this way because I always surround myself with people I can help or where I can be of most use. That is why even today I have put myself in positions to help others, and eventually become either a medical examiner or ER doctor. I do this today by getting involved in many extra curricular activities that help my community. I have done almost all of these six activities on top of athletics since I was a freshman in high school, and even more when I was younger. Now that I am a senior at Saint Regis High School, I have narrowed down my activities so that I can focus more on medicine related activities. Before all of this, I would go with my Aunt to ambulance class and I learned quite a bit of medical terminology and medical procedures when I was young. This led me to have a small interest in helping others and the medical field. My two ACL tears in high school basketball led me to have many physical and mental struggles, and my second ACL tear my sophomore year made it worse. As a result, I began to understand that I wanted to pursue medicine where I could help people at my best and when they were at their worst. After all of this, I made it an overall goal to become an ER doctor and as an alternate choice I could advance my knowledge in forensic science such as a medical examiner. I love helping people and if I can do that I will. I hope to get the highest level of learning and come back to my community to help them.

Learning about each environmental science issue and finding out multiple different ways to solve the problems could help a person understand better and will then lead them to make a difference. This means that spreading knowledge and information is the top priority to help resolve environmental science issues. Knowledge is almost key to making a difference economically, but the willingness of a person to do it is also very essential. I believe that for our environment to be sustainable, people need to make a change. I feel that changing small things at a time and then moving to the big steps necessary to keep the earth sustainable is the most important way of solving the problem. The most important part of making an environmental change is to focus on each individual’s carbon footprint as well as the world’s increasing population, even though it may not be the most ethical solution. Ways that I could help reduce the problems that contribute to the world’s carbon emissions are to look at different types of ways to transport, change my diet or eating habits, and informing people about the problems people contribute to carbon emissions. Leaders in the world could look for alternative sources of energy like nuclear power plants, or renewable energies like wind turbines, solar energy, and hydroelectric power. I try to reduce their carbon footprint also by changing their use of transportation. I can do this by cycling to work or carpooling so that I can use less vehicles that use carbon emissions, walking places so that I don’t have to use vehicles, or take public transportation that allows for less vehicles used in the world. Not using single use plastic, changing my diet, eating more plant-based foods, and eating less meat are ways to reduce carbon emissions my self.

I am a person of care and determination so that means I also have high expectations for myself. I have always been this way because I always surround myself with people I can help or where I can be of most use. That is why even today I have put myself in positions to help others, and eventually become either a medical examiner or ER doctor. I do this today by getting involved in many extra curricular activities that help my community. Business Professionals of America, I am a youth group leader, I am active in GEAR UP YLA where we are planning to build a resource closet, National Honors Society, and Student Body Council at Saint Regis High School. I have done almost all of these activities on top of athletics since I was a freshman in high school, and even more when I was younger. Now that I am a senior at Saint Regis High School, I have narrowed down my activities so that I can focus more on medicine related activities. This summer of 2021 I took a CNA course and passed with flying colors. I am now capable of working at either the local clinic or the Mineral Community Hospital. While exploring healthcare careers and taking my CNA course, I found that I really enjoyed helping people but I definitely did not like being a nurse. Though, I liked the adrenaline rush of the ER and I found that I liked forensic science through one of my dual enrollment classes. After all of this, I made it an overall goal to become an ER doctor and as an alternate choice I could advance my knowledge in forensic science such as a medical examiner. I love helping people and if I can do that I will. That is why in 5 years, I will hopefully be going into medical school at either New York University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, or Johns Hopkins Medical School. With these prestigious schools being my goals, I can get the highest level of learning and be able to come back to my community or a similar community to help them.

Gratitude and appreciation are something that people should feel every day because it makes a person humble. I am especially appreciative for my mom because even through her own hardships, her divorce, and constantly working to keep a roof over my brother and I's head, she pushed to be there for us and show a strong front. I have some high goals, but when it comes back to it I want to be humble and strong just like my mom because she is a super important person in my life who has always been there for me. This doesn't mean my mom is perfect because everyone makes mistakes, but she is close enough to perfect for me and she is better than most parents in my community. I am also very grateful for having an opportunity to pursue my love for basketball at the women's NAIA college basketball level. I have always wanted to play college basketball since I was in elementary school, but when I tore my ACL my eighth-grade year and my sophomore year during basketball season, I found myself believing that I didn't have the ability or the determination to play college-level basketball. Though after the last couple of years of high school, I have worked harder than ever to get myself to be a good player and was offered a scholarship. This makes me super grateful for the opportunity of my athletic director/mentor, my mom, and the coaches at the college I'm going to.

For my future I have goals of playing women's college basketball, which is able to happen because I got a scholarship to play NAIA basketball in Montana. That is one of my smaller goals so far. I have always wanted to help people and after tearing my ACL twice, I realized that I wanted to do that through a hospital to so one of my goals is to graduate college with good grades and then go to a really good medical school so that I can get the best learning experience and then become either an ER doctor or a medical examiner. I have wanted to be an ER doctor since I was a freshman, but when I was a junior I took a introduction to forensic science class through online dual credit at Great Falls College - MSU and I realized that I really liked it, so I have both options open for me so that I can follow both. When I was a sophomore a goal of mine along the way was to achieve my associate's of science by the time I graduated and I was able to do that with dual credit by the end of my first semester senior year. I also wanted to pursue a pre-med major in college, but the school I am going to doesn't offer it so instead I am going to pursue a double major in forensic science and biology so that I can stay for all four years of college to play basketball.

The world is complicated. There are so many struggles that everyone goes through and no ones knows what another may be facing. This is challenging, but we all also know that lately COVID has impacted so many people. Either it be getting sick, being quarantined, being pulled away from friends, or family members getting sick. Everyone has been impacted one way or another. This has lead to many problems emotionally for people around the world. I believe that the best way to work on this problem is by people checking up on their peers and outings that allow people to interact while also being safe. With COVID people weren’t able to hang out or interact which has a huge influence on mental health, especially on teenagers. Though, recently things have been opening up and the amount of mask mandates are decreasing. And at the same time COVID numbers are going up once again because of COVID delta. This is going to change things for people once again. With this being said, we should come up with a way for people to interact and do activities while also being safe and healthy. We should also encourage people to check on their peers to help decrease the negative mental health mindsets that COVID has affected. Though, the struggle people might have with this is that they are pretty shy and feel uncomfortable reaching out, but it could help them as well if they go out of their comfort zone and help their peers as well.