My mom has impacted my life by encouraging me to go to college. My mom has always encouraged me to do better all my life and always felt confident in asking for her opinion or for advice since she knows what’s best for me. My mom encouraged me to go to college. She would always tell me that I would be the first generation college student since she didn’t get a degree which is what motivated me to want to go. Nobody else in my family went to college and got a degree. I did some research and realized that I want to go to school to become a medical lab technician since I think DNA is interesting and at least I would be helping out others by detecting cancer cells and other various sicknesses. I took a lot of science classes and realized I was great at the periodic table and attention to detail. My teachers throughout school would tell me how good I was at it and I liked the classes. Throughout my life I got bullied a lot. I struggled with fitting in and many of times when I wanted to give up and quit. There were times in the past when I thought about committing suicide since I was told many of times that I could never be successful. I was never invited to any parties or celebrations. I would come home to my mom in tears all the time about how I was getting bullied a lot and how teachers were telling me that I could never succeed at anything. My mom would always give me a hug and tell me that I’m going to be successful and be the first one in my family to get a degree and be successful. She would tell me to not allow them to tear me down and to prove them wrong. My dream is to go to Miami University to get my degree as a medical lab technician, it’s been my dream since high school. As soon as I told my mom that she was proud of me while everyone else was telling me I couldn’t do it. She was proud that I took her advice and didn’t allow people to walk all over me. My mom motivated me to do better in life and to not allow anything to get to me. This scholarship would mean a lot to me since it would allow me to pursue my dreams that I’ve been passionate about for a long time.

My experience with selective mutism has affected me by getting bullied and individuals not involving me in any activities. I struggled with gaining friendships and relationships. Throughout my years of school I would see students planning to hang out after school or going to birthday parties that I was never invited to and felt left out. I even got bullied at jobs and other co workers would look for reasons to get me fired and would stare me down since I’m silent and afraid to open up to people due to getting bullied since I was a young child. I was even laughed at if I wanted to go out on a date. I have cried many of times because of it. There are times when I feel left out of things to boost my confidence and self esteem I usually spend time with my family, go to the library, look at activities to do on Event bright, or bake cookies or a cake to help me to regain my confidence. I even did a couple quick dating service events to help me better communicate with people since there are moments when I struggle knowing what to say and get nervous of being judged since I was a young kid. I used to spend most of my time playing video games and found myself staying at home a lot due to how bad I would get bullied even going out in public and was later diagnosed with depression from it. It got to the point where I would just go to college and come back home to study and go to work and only went out when I needed to, or for doctor appointments and medication. I realized that by staying home all the time and only going out when I needed to only worsened things, but felt like in order to avoid the drama I needed to stay home in order to protect myself. I later reached out to a councilor about it and even currently seeking help from all of it. I realized that there are also good people and not everyone is going to get along. I am currently looking for groups to get involved in to better myself since I believe there is always room for improvement. I would like to get involved in sports which I think will help me and get into things that I like since I would already have something in common with those people. Pursuing a higher education is important to me because I’ve always been told by teachers and other students that I couldn’t do it and that I can never get a degree. I am not going to allow that to get to me instead I’m going to use it as motivation to pursue my dreams. My mom was the only person who believed in me that I could be successful and told me to not let anything stop me from being the person I want to be. She inspired me to further my education. I did some research and realized that I want to go to college for medical lab technician since I think it’s interesting to work in a lab and I like things that are challenging and trying to figure things out. It would mean a lot to me to get the scholarship money since that would allow me to pursue my dreams of being a medical lab technician.