I would like to become a medical doctor so that I can help people from all over and give them the help they need. Growing up I was the sick child, always going to the doctors office for something new that has happened or popped up and with that I have experienced many different doctors and have had very different experiences with all of them. I would like to become a physician who can give a good experience to a child who may need a pick me up depending on their situation. If you couldn't already tell I have been intrigued into pursuing the pediatric route in medicine! I believe that children are really strong and to be able to be the one who helps a child become even stronger and hopefully overcome what has tried to take them down would be really amazing to me. Being the doctor to the patient who needs it also means that I would be able to follow along ones health journey and be there the whole way through and watch as one gets better and to be there with support and encouragement throughout the race. Getting into college made me realize that I have to work extra hard to get to where I want to be, the first two years were really difficult as I had to learn how I learn best and learn how to study in order to excel in my classes - I had never had to study before in high school and this has been a tricky obstacle for me to try to figure out. But I feel like that shows that I will work harder to get to where I want to be and to be the doctor that I want to be for someone else. This shows myself that I am capable of working harder in order to pursue my dreams and also shows that I can work harder for the need of someone else too and to be able to advocate for the health of someone else. I am lucky to have parents who have been able to help me this far in my academic career but I also have two siblings who are also in school and I would like to take any financial burdens off of my family if I can so that they can further help aid my siblings and not have to worry about me. I cannot say it enough but I hope that these experiences just help push me to be a better me and a better physician for someone else one day wherever I may end up.

Social media has taken a personal toll on my mental health and self esteem growing up. From a young age I learned what it meant to look at other people's posts on social media platforms and compare myself to what I was seeing on the screen. What I was seeing on the screen did not apply to what I saw in person. On the screen one can see what it looks like to live a "perfect" life and have the perfect body, the perfect outfit, the perfect Homelife. In the seventh grade I began my struggle with mental health and these thoughts. Seeing these perfect looking lives from such a young age makes a person start to wonder why it could not be them in those pictures having such a life to live. The questions of "why" and "how can I change" are where the bad habits start to come in. These questions lead to self doubt and self hatred for not conforming to this perfect life we see on the internet. But in reality it takes a lot to realize that no body is perfect and we were made to be who we are and to not be someone else. That idea took me many years to finally grasp, it wasn't until my freshman year of college that I realized what was on the screen in not how life really looks to all people and that every one person is beautifully and wonderfully made and no one is made to be the image of someone else. Our experiences are what grows us as people, so no two people can be the exact same and we can find beauty in that. I would like to think that implementing an older age access limit to social media may be able to start making a change in the view of society but in reality these false realities are implemented wherever one looks. Increasing the age of access to social media may allow children and people to realize who they are within themselves and becoming confident in that before seeing what other lives look like. But I am not sure that the self comparison in the back of our heads ever truly goes away, I think we have to learn how to fight it day by day. I am about to be 21 years old later this year and every once in a while I find myself with this thought of comparison, but to help me I have started putting limits on my cellular devices so that I am not constantly looking at someone else or what someone else is doing. That goes into my next address, which is limiting screen time. No body really needs to be on a screen at all times and if the time in front of a screen is shortened then there is less time for impacts on ones mental state to occur. Close monitoring of screens could make an impact too, like what is being seen on the every day and what is being told to the person on the other side of the screen. Today, there are so many videos saying with a purchase of a supplement or an object that ones whole life could change but nothing changes unless the inside of a person and their mindset changes first.