Over the years of my high school career, I have been given lots of advice on how to handle my financial life in the future. I have been told to get scholarships to pay for college and avoid falling into student debt. My parents divorced when I was five years old and my mother has always had issues finding a well-paying job up until five years ago. My mother got a job that pays around thirty thousand a year. My father, however, has had a steady and well-paying job since I was ten. My parents never told me much about financial advice. However, I learned it from watching how they spent their money and how they saved it. My mother has only recently begun to save her money, and before now, my mother lived paycheck to paycheck with leftover money from the paycheck spent on nonessentials. Since she was paying for things paycheck by paycheck, sometimes my mother would pay for essential bills and items late. My father lived his life completely different though. My father made sure to save some of his money for emergencies and nonessentials. He learned to pay for things in advance and to find a job that paid more than enough for him not to live paycheck to paycheck. While in school, I learned about the 50-20-30 rule, which says that fifty percent of a person’s paycheck goes to necessities, twenty percent goes to savings, and thirty percent goes to wants. I do not believe this rule to be possible or easy to keep up with. If a person's bills and necessities take up to eighty percent of their paycheck, do they put the rest in savings, or do they split it to go to both savings and wants? The 50-20-30 rule can be challenging for most people to put into practice simply because they are unable to split up their paychecks. I look to my parents for help in handling money safely and intelligently. Since I do this, I can learn from my parents' mistakes and try to save my money in better ways. I have learned from my parents to start saving money early by putting it aside for later use or letting it accrue interest. I have also learned to be aware if I slip up and get close to living paycheck to paycheck. With all of the things I have learned about money and will continue to learn, I know that I will end up better than my parents and able to support myself with no issues.

I have a lot in my plans for the future and how I should accomplish them. These plans include getting into Mississippi State University and graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. After graduating, I want to transfer to the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine and graduate as a veterinarian. From there, I hope to do many internships with multiple veterinary clinics to learn as much as I can from other veterinarians, then eventually open my clinic. I hope to specialize in treating small and exotic animals. I am on my way to getting my dreams accomplished. I have gotten high grades my entire grade school career and my GPA is very high because of this. I have also already been accepted to Mississippi State University and am on track to join the school next year. To secure a place for myself at the College of Veterinary Medicine, I am trying to accomplish their “Early Entry Program” which includes getting almost 500 hours of veterinary experience. To get this veterinary experience, I have taken up job shadowing at a local vet clinic. The vet school is very competitive and I will experience many hardships including having to make sure that my application to the school outshines other students. Hardships that I have experienced include my parent’s divorce and people that I know telling me that I should look for another career path. My parents divorced when I was five years old. I have gone from one house to the other for years, and because of this, I was never able to participate in sports, spend time with friends, or take up hobbies like other children my age. Due to my parents being divorced, I can have many different experiences with many types of animals. At my mother’s house I have always spent time with dogs, while at my dad’s house, I have always spent time with cats. At my dad’s house, we also had hedgehogs and fish. With all of these experiences, I learned to love and cherish any time with animals. Despite all of this time spent with different animals, I am still told by various family members and other people that I know that I might not enjoy the veterinary field and that animals and people are very difficult to assist. I still want to help animals and help people by treating and caring for their animals.

My dream is to become a veterinarian. I wish to go down this career path because I wish to help animals in pain or keep them from being in pain. I desire to go to Mississippi State University and get a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry. I plan on joining clubs that will help me learn more about myself and get a job that can help me get further in my pursuit of becoming a veterinarian. With these clubs, I want to gain leadership positions that can help me in gaining more confidence in myself so that I feel confident when in charge of a vet clinic. I also want to use these clubs as a way to get involved in my community and take part in many service projects that can benefit the people in the university and in the state of Mississippi itself. After getting my degree, I want to then transfer to the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine to become a veterinarian. While at the College, I still want to take part in clubs and get more experience in helping people with changing their community for the better and helping their furry friends when they are in trouble or pain. After I finish school, I plan on doing an internship for one to two years at a nearby veterinary clinic. I will then go on to open my own clinic and see hopefully exotic and small animals. I am well aware that the veterinary field is one of the most difficult to stay in but I feel prepared for the challenge if only to help animals and people understand their furry friends. There is a positive impact that I want to give the world and that is my will to help people take care of and learn about animals that they love and know. Not only do I wish to help animals, I also want to keep them from either hurting themselves or letting people hurt them. I will try to make more laws in protecting various types of animals, specifically animals that are labeled as “roadkill” or “dangerous” to people. I thoroughly enjoy seeing and learning about all types of animals, even animals that most people do not like. I want to see pets, creatures, and/or any type of animals safe and without fear of humans or other animals. I believe that all types of animals can be considered “humans' best friends” and lifelong companions, but only if both parties are taken care of fairly, which is what I wish to convey to people all around the world.

I enjoy listening to many genres of music. The song that I believe to have an important message to me is "I Pissed Somebody Off" by JNTHN. The song is about a man who is realizing that he made a woman upset with him. The woman goes on to tell the man that she wants nothing to do with him, which makes the man even more desperate. Due to this desperation to make the woman happy with him, the man tries to threaten the woman with a gun. He tells the woman to not be afraid, to instead dance with him and that he will love her and do as she says forever. The artist goes on to repeat the chorus by saying that he upset someone and that they do not wish to have anything to do with him. This message is powerful and important to me because it shows me that if someone does not get love and attention at all times, they could become dangerous. This song helps me realize that no matter who I meet, I always feel a small amount of love towards them, as long as I have known them for a while. I sympathize with the man because I feel as if I lost the love that I receive from the people I know, I would become very upset and perhaps even dangerous; not to others, but to myself instead. I enjoy the message of the song and how I interpret it.