One person I admire a lot is my grandma. She has gone through many hardships in her life, yet she has always come out of them without any complaint. She has four siblings, and in her early childhood, after her parents moved from Germany near the end of WWII, her twin sisters got sick. Her parents were nowhere near rich; they barely spoke any english. She learned to fend for herself and support her siblings, and continued to college to get a degree in healthcare to be a nurse. My grandma has taken care of my brother and me since I can remember. Even at her age of 66, she still works at a nursing home to get extra money to continue to support my father and me, who live with her. For a long time, I was deeply afraid of speaking in front of people. When I was young, I got talked over or yelled at for speaking too much. By the time I was a teenager, I stopped talking regularly. This heavily impacted my social connections. I knew I needed to get better, so, in an attempt to propel myself forward, I joined my competitive speech club in high school. It was terrifying to be in a room full of experienced high schoolers as the only freshman in the class. My coach tried his best to push me out of my comfort zone, but every attempt was in vain. The one thing that finally broke me out of my shell was the category of poetry interpretation. In the beginning, I was told that I needed to choose someone else's poem to perform at the competition. No matter how long I searched for a poem, I wasn't able to find one that really resonated with me. At that point, I decided that I was going to write my own poem. At my first competition, just before my performance, I had a panic attack. Even so, I was able to collect myself enough to push myself into that room and give a performance. As the years have gone by, my voice has gotten stronger. I may still be afraid of people's thoughts and ideas of me, but it's shrunk immensely. In the past three years, I have made it to state speech with my original poems. I refused to give up, I wanted people to hear my voice, hear my story. The thought of people able to push my words out into an emotionally moving piece for so many people to hear made my fear lessen and lessen. I still get worked up sometimes. I believe that fear will always be a part of me. But that fear is what compels me to do more. Reciting my poems for people gave me a purpose. It made me confident and gave me hope that I could make a difference. Speech made me realize my words do matter and can have an impact on people.

When I was younger, I didn't think I'd make it to the age of applying for scholarships. I never knew exactly where I would end up in life, but I never imagined the plan I have for my future that I am reaching for now. I come from a family with a long line of mental illness. From seeing it within my parents and brother, to going through the symptoms of it myself. My parents are addicts; it seems to run in the family. I've had to see my mother be hauled off by an ambulance after overdosing, and greet my brother coming home from his third mental hospital stay. Not only that, but I've gone through a lot myself. Around age twelve was when life really started to hit me. At points it became too much, I wrote letters, and made plans that I thank god I didn't follow through with. I realize that countless people deal with the same illnesses. However, I always wonder why the number of fatalities associated with these illnesses is so high. For a long time, I wondered why these things affected my family, how it worked, and how it would be better. That's the moment I got into psychology. The idea of contributing to reducing the number of suicides in the US was what made me push through it. After looking into it more, I wanted to go into an even deeper level. Why do these things happen? Why do we know so little? Why don't we have more resources for people to access? All of these questions led me to neuropsychology. I've always liked school, but twelve years seems like a lot, doesn't it? Even so, the idea of going through the brain, testing each and every outcome for a simple solution that could impact even one person, would be the world to me. So many diseases and illnesses are understudied or not taken seriously enough, and it's killing people. I want to be a person who goes further, digs deeper. I want to contribute my entire life to figuring out this intricate piece that lives inside all of us. Alzheimer's, Bipolar, and multiple personality disorders all of them deserve to be studied as thoroughly as possible. If I could be a person who even finds the smallest detail that could lead to a bigger understanding, that would mean the world to me. These discoveries could help people like future children and me not have to watch the people that brought them into the world struggle because there isn't enough help in the world. To be able to do this, I need to have an extensive education. In todays econemy, I will most likely be paying off my debt still while I'm six feet under. This scholarship would mean the world to me; even a little bit would bring me closer to my goal of changing the world and saving lives.

I come from a very disfunctional family. My parents split when I was young, and I bounced back and forth between them for many of my childhood years. My father had been discharged from the army, and my mother had many mental illnesses that made it difficult for her to take care of my brother and me. Both of my parents struggle with addiction, and it caused many issues for our family. There were times when my brother and I had to hide money we got as a present, and if it was found, we would get yelled at for not giving it to them, or it would simply get stolen. Not only that, but when living with my mom for short periods of time, I had to learn how to cook for myself at the age of 11. There were times where I would eat old food just because I was so hungry. Not just, "it sat in the fridge for two days", I ate month old food that sat on the counter. She would always say she was sick or too tired to do anything, so food would end up running out. Both of my parents are without a job. I have lived with my grandma for quite a few years now, and she takes care of us. However, due to the lack of income, I have had learn how to fend for myself. I bought my first car, I am working two jobs, and currently looking for a third when school ends. I pay most of my bills, buy myself most of my own food, and pay for all my own lesuire times. I rarely ask for money, and that parially comes from the fact that it always ended in a battle that I never paid my parents back, so it would get taken from me. I've always had free lunch, which was difficult at times. It would almost be embarassing when I would go to school, a few times my account wouldn't work and I had no way of paying for my food. I have an older brother, he is twenty one. Even though he is out on his own, he constantly recieves help from my father, while I have to worry about gas money each week. My brother has no job, dropped out of college, and has no interest in moving forward it seems. However, he is constatnly covered up for. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be better than my parents. I never wanted to have to live in fear that I wouldn't make rent, that the groceries wouldn't last me a week. I have worked my entire life to keep up my good grades, I got a job as soon as I could and worked as many hours possible. All I wanted was to get out of the situation I have been put into with my family. I recieve almost no help with any of this from them, all of my accomplishments have happened because of my effort.