As a young man, I often wondered who I was meant to be. I knew my identity of course, but I wasn't sure where that would lead me in life. I've traveled around the world seeking experiences that would help me understand the answer to that elusive question. After years of volunteering, meeting new people, and seeing so many environments did I realize what kind of person I wanted to be, a person who dedicates their life to serving others. To pursue this goal, I have chosen to study public health with a focus on community health. I chose this specific field because I want to help the community as a whole. I believe that helping individuals improve their health is important, but it doesn't meet the environmental, and often systemic, factors that lead to diminished health in a community. When I lived in a rural part of Huizhou, a city located in the Guangdong province of China, I was able to gain experiences that helped me to view the community in a new light. In California, I had become accustomed to having many high-quality healthcare options to choose from, the clean living spaces of suburbia, and the privilige of a living in an environment that is generally conducive to good health. Huizhou, however, was a different world for me. In the rural community that I lived in, I met many people who were often ill, not because they didn't want to be healthy or didn't try to be, but rather because they lacked the resources and sometimes knowledge, to live a healthier life. For instance, many people in my community had never heard of the idea of sneezing or coughing into their elbow instead of their hands, young women weren't taught about the benefits of seeing a gynecologist, smoking was seen as a very manly thing to do and highly encouraged, and seeing a therapist or pyschologist made someone a pariah in the community. This stark contrast from my hometown really sparked my desire to share the little knowledge that I had with the members of that community. It also caused me to begin to ponder the question of what factors caused a community's health to either thrive or decline. Pondering that question in turn prompted me to pursue a formal education in public health, where I aim to bridge the gap in healthcare disparities and address the underlying social determinants that impact community well-being. My experiences in Huizhou underscored the importance of cultural sensitivity and community-specific interventions. I saw the potential to enact positive change not only through individual health education but also by advocating for systemic changes that could elevate the overall health infrastructure. As I embark on my journey in public health, I am committed to understanding the unique needs of diverse communities and tailoring interventions that empower them to lead healthier lives. Through research, community outreach, and collaboration with local stakeholders, I aspire to contribute to the development of sustainable health programs that address the multifaceted challenges faced by communities like the one I encountered in Huizhou. In essence, my pursuit of a career in public health is not just a personal journey of self-discovery but a mission to empower communities with the knowledge and resources they need to thrive. I am driven by the belief that every individual, regardless of their background, deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy and fulfilling life, and I am determined to be a catalyst for positive change on this journey of service and advocacy.

There are many challenges that I have overcome and will continue to have to surmount as I pursue my goal of obtaining a degree in history. As a minority student, I have faced many inequalities. There are fewer opportunities that I have been afforded by birth than other, more privileged, people have. If it were only lacking opportunities, it would not be so bad. Yet, in reality, it is not just opportunities that I've lacked, but additionally, I've also been disadvantaged due to having to deal with prejudice. When I was a student, teachers and fellow students often made remarks about my ethnic heritage. I recall one such instance where I was placed in a group for a school project. My parents were kind enough to open up our home to my classmates so that we could work on the project together in a place that was more convenient for everyone. My dad even went out and bought pizza for all of us. However, upon his return, my classmates ridiculed him by saying "David, don't look now, but your house is being robbed by a black man". It was remarks like these and other experiences that made it difficult to focus on my studies. When going to school or having classmates over, I always had to worry about what sort of uncomfortable situation I would be placed in next. As someone with a white mother and a black father, I even had to argue with teachers about who I am. Several teachers in my life even suggested to me that my mother did not know who my "real" father was. So, my early primary education was a battlefield of sorts. Yet, I did not lose because here I am today, working to achieve a brighter future for myself. Though I do not know all the specific challenges I will face as I continue to study, I am confident that I will be able to overcome them just as I always have. Due to a plethora of historically negative experiences with the healthcare system in the United States, many in the BIPOC community distrust the healthcare institutions and experience poorer health outcomes. So, in the future, I plan to help my community by utilizing my knowledge of Public Health to help disseminate accurate health information and practices in a culturally sensitive way. This in turn will allow people in my community to understand what options and services are available to them. On the hand, I would use my knowledge to help educate healthcare providers on the culture of my community so that they can use a culturally-sensitive approach when providing care for BIPOC patients.

Education is an essential component of personal growth and development, and my educational goals have always centered around using my education to make a positive impact on my community. Specifically, my educational goal is to graduate with a Master's degree in Public Health, so that I can better serve my community by helping to improve health outcomes in disadvantaged groups. Obtaining a Master's degree in Public Health is no easy feat, and there have been several obstacles that I have encountered and had to overcome along the way. One of the biggest obstacles that I have faced is financial difficulties. School is expensive, and the cost of tuition, books, and other supplies can quickly add up. However, I have been able to navigate this obstacle by applying for scholarships and financial aid, and by working full-time to help cover my expenses. While it can be challenging to balance work and school, it is a sacrifice that I am willing to make in order to gain the tools necessary to turn my dream into a reality. Another obstacle that I have faced in pursuing my educational goals is poor mental health. During my first year of university, I experienced a significant amount of stress and anxiety, and I even considered dropping out of school altogether. However, I realized that quitting was not an option, and I sought out help from a counselor to develop coping mechanisms and establish a solid routine. I also reached out to friends and family for support, and this network of people has been crucial in helping me stay motivated and focused on my educational goals. I remind myself of why I am pursuing my degree and what I hope to achieve with it, and this helps me to stay motivated and continue to thrive despite my ongoing battle with maintaining a healthy mental state. Although the challenges I face are hard to deal with, I remain committed to facing them head-on and with a positive attitude. I am passionate about community health, particularly in disadvantaged communities, and I believe that a Master's degree in Public Health is the first step in being able to make a difference in this field. To that end, I have developed a plan of action that includes seeking out research opportunities and internships in public health, as well as reading additional journals and articles related to trends in the field to supplement my knowledge, and networking with professionals in the field. I feel that doing these things are crucial in ensuring my success. Although it has been a long journey and I still have a long road to follow, I believe that it is a worthwhile pursuit for me to continue my education. As John Donne put it in his famous poem, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent”. Yes, my achievements are not merely my own, my community helped me get to where I am today, so I believe I should give back to the community in turn. Everyone is worthy of support, especially as it relates to health, and I want to be one of the many who are working toward improving the lives of those who surround me.

The health and stability of the Earth we live on is important, not just for those of us who live in the present, but those who will live in the future. While there are many problems that we face today, climate change is a big one that is already starting to have dire effects on our ecosystem. It is no longer an issue that can be ignored, we must all work together now to ensure the continued health of the planet. There are two major schools of thought when it comes to combating climate change. The first, which I subscribe to personally, is to place stronger controls and regulations on the manufacturing, agricultural, and production industries that often engage in practices on a large scale that produce excessive amounts of pollution. I believe that highly regulating the environmental impact of a factory, or similar enterprises, is the most efficient way to combat climate change today. I believe this because it is difficult to regulate people and on the other hand, it requires many more resources to campaign for individuals to make changes in their lives than it is to ensure compliance at enterprises known for being very damaging to the environment. The second method is to encourage individuals to make choices with sustainability in mind. Although not as efficient as the first method, this method is still important because a little effort from a lot of people goes a long way. To that end, in my own personal life I strive to make environmentally conscious decisions that will decrease my impact on the environment around me. I strive to shop locally, where products or foods come in from the surrounding area, I walk to any business located 1-2 miles from my home, and I use reusable plastic bags for shopping or store foods so that I can lessen the amount of plastic waste in my life. I do these things because they help me to take ownership of my actions and their consequences on the environment. I also believe that one cannot encourage people to do things that we are not willing to do in our own personal lives. I believe that it is for this reason that some people in my life have also started to emulate my behavior. It’s not everyone, and it’s not all the time. Yet, I have seen friends of mine trying out walking to nearby places instead of driving as well as looking for other unique ways to lessen their impact on the environment in their own lives. Ultimately though, which method is most effective is not the most important issue right now. The Earth is in crisis right now, so right now we all need to act to the best of our ability. If somebody isn’t willing to recycle, but they are willing to reuse old materials, then they should be encouraged to reuse old materials. In this way, their environmental impact can be lessened immediately and overtime they can be encouraged to take more steps towards a more sustainable life. Therefore, I will continue to encourage those around me to be more environmentally conscious, as well as leading by example, so that my actions can have a long-term positive impact on my community.

My ethnic background, much like my educational journey, is not typical of the average person in the United States. I was born to a black father and a white mother, that makes me biracial. According to the 2021 population estimate on census.gov only 2.9% of people in the US identify as multiracial. I am one of those people. In other words, even among minorities, I am still a minority. As a child I thought it was pretty amazing that I had parents who were two different colors, I felt that it meant that I would get the best of both worlds. However, as I grew up I have learned that many people are not very accepting of what I am, and what I represent. Simply put, I often found myself in a scenario where I was “too light-skinned” for many members of the BIPOC community and then again subjected to many forms of racism by the caucasian community that surrounded me. In many ways it was an isolating experience, but it also helped me to grow as a person. Though it was painful at times, I learned that I should never compromise who I am for other people. To that end, I’ve always been very up front with those that I meet about my background, when appropriate. Unfortunately, this has caused me to lose friendships or experience ridicule from those that don’t quite understand what it means to be mixed or how certain genetic phenotypes present themselves. I used to hate the ridicule I would receive, but I realized that people who would ridicule me weren’t the type of people that I wanted to befriend anyways. To overcome this hardship I decided to become more selective in who I wanted to seek out as a friend. I also became a more observant and understanding person. I came to the understanding that there are many people who face hardships for whatever reason and simply by being a compassionate person, I could then get to know others better and form real bonds with them. I’m not the type of person who makes a dozen new friends a day, but just by making those changes in myself, I have been able to make and maintain a good number of friendships over the years that have lasted to this day. If anything, I feel that my personal hardship has given me the ability to form much deeper relationships with others, because I’ve learned empathetic and accepting of who potential friends are and when they realize that I accept them, they also open up and accept me as well.

Golf is not a cheap sport, but it is a meaningful one. I’m not a professional golfer and never will be, but I am grateful to the sport for the connections it has helped me to develop and maintain with other people. Golf is a sport that takes time, dedication, and patience. However, it is these same characteristics that have allowed me to refine myself as a person and build friendships with others. I believe this because even a casual golfer is a dedicated person, they have to be, or there’s no way they could spend hours per round each time they play. While some people are very earnest and have the focus necessary for golf from the beginning of their journey, I myself was not one of those people. I began golfing at a young age and at that time I found it difficult and boring. To be honest, I would have quit when I was younger if not for my father’s encouragement. He himself was a casual golfer and liked to spend his free time golfing with friends. However, one day he started to slowly introduce the sport to me. It began with having me watch golf on tv with him and sometimes allowing me to tag along with him as an observer while he played with his friends. Sometimes we would go to a driving range so that I could practice my swing with different clubs. Although my dad was not an expert, he taught me everything he knew about control and which clubs to use at the appropriate time. In the area that I live in there are many beginner level courses that are suitable for young people and my dad began to take me to these courses so that I could try out a round for myself. Even though my father was providing these opportunities for me, I didn’t really appreciate them until later on in life. As I got older though, golf became an activity where I could spend quality time with my father and that was very important to me. As a business professional my father didn’t always have a lot of time to spend with me, so being able to join him in an activity that he enjoyed made me happy and as I played more golf I began to meet more people my own age that were also learning and made new friendships. Eventually, as I spent more time golfing with friends and family I began to really appreciate the sport itself and now I’ll even go to a driving range alone just to get a few practice shots in when I can. However, as a graduate student, I don’t have as much time as I used to. That being said, exercise and time spent with friends and family is still important to our health and well-being. Currently, I have a job, and that pays for my day-to-day needs, but with the costs associated with graduate school I find myself in need of more funds. I am pursuing scholarships so that I can mitigate the need to work overtime so that I can maintain a balanced life. If I can obtain the financial aid that I require, then I can avoid putting in an extra 15-20 hours of overtime per week to pay for school and dedicate that time to studying and maintaining my golfing activities as part of a balanced life where I am able to maintain relationships with others, exercise, pay my bills, and pursue my education.

In the fast-paced world that we live in it can be very difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle. When I was a young 18 year old, I was somewhat heavy-set but it wasn’t until I started college that I really put on weight. I was so focused on school and work that I didn’t spend much time exercising or eating healthy meals. By the time I was 22 I was very heavy and had difficulty sleeping at night due to my bones aching from all the weight I had accumulated. However, it was at that juncture in my life that I started making changes in my food choices and exercise habits that really helped me to become much healthier. Cycling is one of my favorite forms of exercise. It can be intense or fun and relaxing. What I love most though, is the sense of community that exists between cyclists. Cycling is very much a social activity, so I’ve been able to meet a lot of really great people when I go out and ride and have also received a lot of encouragement from the people I ride with. On long rides, I have plenty of time to talk to my friends about different issues that I’m trying to work through or get great advice on many different topics because cyclists come from all walks of life. This helps me to stay motivated, de-stressed, and makes me actually look forward to exercising. However, the road is not always a safe place for cyclists, each year many cyclists get injured during their rides. I believe that one day, I can help change this sad reality. I am currently a graduate student studying public health. As road safety is very much a public health concern, many public health institutes work together with other organizations, such as the police, Health and Human Services, etc to tackle this issue. With my training in public health, I too will be able to participate in helping to improve health by making the roads safer. Obtaining my degree will allow me to study these issues on a macro level so that I can get a meaningful understanding of how and why these crashes occur, so that I can then develop interventions to decrease or eliminate the conditions that are causing so many cyclists to be injured on the road today. My dream is to work with the Center for Disease Control in the United States, or even the World Health Organization, so that I can help solve issues like this, that are damaging the health of entire groups of people. I want to do this because I want to give back to the communities that have supported me throughout my life. If I can support them, then they can continue to thrive and support others too.

The thing about college that excites me the most is the new opportunities that it will open up for me. My goal is to be able to prevent or lessen the impact of infectious diseases as well as helping to improve health outcomes for people in the BIPOC community in the United States. My studies at college will give me the tools and knowledge necessary to accomplish that goal to the best of my ability and open the way for me to further serve my community. There are many challenges however, associated with school but I have a system that works for me that helps me to maintain my overall well-being and peace of mind. Every week I plan out what I need to do for the week. I assign complementary tasks to different days so that I make efficient use of my time. For example, I have noticed that exercising in the early morning gives me energy for the day, but exercising at night disrupts my sleep which makes it harder to get up in the morning. So the first thing that I do everyday is my morning run. I run early when there are no cars. This calm environment helps me start off the day very peacefully as the calm environment is quite soothing to me. After my run, I take a nice hot and soothing shower to relax and clean myself up. Then, I go outside to my backyard and I enjoy the sunshine that has just started to come out and drink my morning coffee as well as eating a simple breakfast usually consisting of a grain, such a bread, and raw vegetables or fruits such as carrots, apples, bananas, or a handful of nuts. This ensures that I have a nutritious start to each day and again, as it takes place in a relaxing environment, I am able to start my day off very relaxed. After I start my day, I review the tasks that I have written out for the day and go about accomplishing them, whether they be work or school related. When it is school related tasks, such as homework, I try to parse simple assignments in between difficult assignments so that I do not begin to feel overwhelmed. Additionally, I budget in time for entertainment, so that I do not feel like the only thing I do is work, or attend school. The entertainment might be watching an episode of a tv show I enjoy, drawing, or doing some other activity that brings me joy. This helps me maintain as much of a stress free life as possible. The last thing I do is set reminders for myself on my phone, on my calendar, and for my important tasks, I ask a friend or family member to help me remember. These reminders help me remember when to take breaks, when to eat, when to relax, when to go to the store, when I'm supposed to hang out with friends, and when to focus on work. Although there are many methods that help people maintain balance in their life, these are the methods that work best for me. I find them extremely effective and have been able to thrive in life because of them. I have a good GPA in school and am able to accomplish any task that I need to without becoming overwhelmed or neglecting my personal health.

Knowledge is power. The more well-rounded that we become through a good education, the more goals we can accomplish in life. While it is true that one does not need to attend university to understand a topic or change the world, higher education exists to help us do just that. Very few people have the discipline and resources to succeed in accomplishing their high level goals in life without higher education in some form -- whether it be community college, a four year university, or graduate program. However, the most important benefit to me that higher education provides is options. From a young age my parents instilled the value of higher education into me. They themselves had benefited greatly from their education. However there was one story that I was often told that really stuck with me and helped me understand how beneficial higher education truly was. It was an experience my dad had when he was in middle school. One day his class teacher was trying to explain to them the value of going to college and one student interrupted the teacher and said that going to school was a waste of time for the teacher himself, because being a garbage man doesn't require a degree and they earn substantially more money than that teacher did. The class laughed and my dad went home and told his dad about the experience. My grandfather then told my dad, that it may true that garbage men earn more money than teachers, but at the end of the day, a teacher can get a job as a garbage man if they lose their jobs, but if the garbage man has not gone to school, they can't simply get a job as a teacher. My grandfather was not a highly educated person. He was forced to drop out of school in the eighth grade, but he understood the value of education. Hearing that story inspired me to do my best to get a good education so that I would have more opportunities in life whether they be financial or otherwise and I am so glad that I did. My education has paid for itself in dividends. I have lived in multiple countries, both Taiwan and China. While living abroad I learned that it was nearly impossible to get a legitimate residency visa or work permit sponsored by a company without at least a bachelor's degree or higher. Thankfully, due to my educational background, I was able to get hired and sponsored with no problems. Yet, there are many people who want to live abroad that have far fewer opportunities to do so because they lack the option without a degree from higher education. Whether right or wrong, it is reality. If I had not finished my degree, I never would have been able to chase my dreams in life, or at the very least they would have been much more difficult for me to accomplish. Higher education truly is beneficial in so many different ways and is one of the most worthwhile endeavors that we can pursue in life.

The STEM major that I have chosen to pursue is Public Health. I have chosen to do so because there are so many communicable diseases spreading throughout the world that can be quite deadly for the people they infect. Therefore, I believe that studying these diseases and devising ways of controlling them on a macro level is paramount to the safety and the continued good health of all. Public health is also a field that relies heavily on statistics, without biostatistics it would be nearly impossible to determine the causes of diseases, the impacts of medicine on patients, or even how long a person who has contracted a disease might be able to survive with it. In other words, without the statistics gathered from Public Health scientists, so much data would be just that, data without any clear understanding of its implication. There is another reason why I chose this field as well. Members of the BIPOC community often see a huge disparity in their health outcomes when compared to caucasian Americans. This is often due to economic reasons as well as systemic racism. Caucasian health practitioners are often simply unaware of how various illnesses present in BIPOC patients and often ignore or downplay their symptoms. I want to study more about the effects of medicine on people in the BIPOC community, as well as how the symptoms of various illnesses present themselves, so that I can take this knowledge and strengthen the medical field. Furthermore, I want to use this knowledge to promote positive health practices, that are based on their bodies and health requirements instead of caucasian bodies, among the BIPOC community to help improve the overall health of all. I am uniquely qualified to take on this challenge because I too am a member of the BIPOC community. However, I'm not just a member of that community, I am biracial, so I am in fact concurrently a member of two very different ethnic communities. This comes with the benefit of being able to understand and avoid certain biases that often arise when conducting research and interpreting data. I feel that my contributions to the field will allow for a more equitable and higher quality system of healthcare for everyone in the United States.

Legacy is all about what you can pass onto the next generation. It can be something physical like property, or something intangible like an ideal, a dream, or a philosophy. Often, people think of a legacy in terms of how great the impact of a person's wealth, ideology, or findings in life leave on others. But to me, I have a more humble view of what a legacy is. I believe it doesn't matter how legendary the legacy that we leave behind but rather how positive the memory we leave behind is. That is because to me, the memories people have with us are the only legacy that truly matters. If we live a good, moral, and considerate life we will be remembered as a person that truly cared about others by those who knew and loved us and that will impact future generations more than anything. Though our name may be forgotten, the values that we instilled into those around us will continue to live on forever. This is something that my grandfather taught my father and has since passed on to me. It is my sincere hope that, when the time comes, this will be the legacy that I can leave on the world. Regardless of how far I go in my secular career, or the heights that I climb to in society, I want my legacy to be that I was a person that cared about others. These values that have been inculcated in me since a young child have had a strong impact on my life. They've caused me to look at the problems in this world and have given me the motivation to do my best to help others. That is why I decided to study Public Health. Since the pandemic, so much life has been needlessly lost. I feel that if I can enter a field where I study diseases and learn how to control them, I can help people on a worldwide scale and this will help to avoid pointless health related suffering in the future. I plan to continue this cycle by instilling the values that were passed on to me into my future children and others by continuing to live a life that is spent serving my community to the best of my ability.

The STEM major that I have chosen to pursue is Public Health. I have chosen to do so because there are so many communicable diseases spreading throughout the world that can be quite deadly for the people they infect. Therefore, I believe that studying these diseases and devising ways of controlling them on a macro level is paramount to the safety and the continued good health of all. I believe that science is important to society because our current society is only possible because of science. This can be plainly seen by studying the effects of the deadly Covid-19 virus on the world and comparing them with the effects of the Bubonic Plague in Europe. In Europe, the Bubonic plague decimated the population because there were not sophisticated methods of disease control. There was no refined study or understanding of how or why the disease was spreading, nor did people fully understand how they could protect themselves. It was only once mass quarantining began did the spread taper off, but by then millions had died. Today, we have just recently dealt with an extremely world pandemic. However, due to the efforts of epidemiologists, virologists, and other scientists, we were able to mount a much better response to the disease as well limit the amount of people who succumbed to the disease. Yet, science has more benefits for society than ensuring that we have better health outcomes. Science seeks to provide solutions for almost any question or problem that we may have as a society. Many of the products we enjoy today, such as computers, cellphones, video games, high-quality clothing, bags, and homes that are both beautiful and structurally sound are only possible due to science. Yes, science is directly related to the comfortable lives that we live today. Without the efforts of those in the STEM community throughout history our society would not be the global society that it is today and so many of the things that we enjoy would simply not exist, or would be limited only to the enjoyment of a highly elite group of people. To me, science truly is the backbone to our world society and without it this world would be much worse off.

Learning is important because as long as we are still learning, we are still growing. Continuous growth is important to our mental well-being and our sense of fulfillment in life. To that end, I have done my best to never stop learning and while I have learned many new professional skills since I entered the workforce I don't limit myself to learning skills that I feel will enhance my career. I place a high value on learning things that will help me grow as a person and have a better understanding of the world around me. When I was 19 years old I moved out of my parents' home. I was a student, I had a job, but I wanted to know more about the world I lived in. It just so happened that I had a roommate who was from China. I realized that I really knew nothing about the country or the culture despite it being one of the biggest nations with one of the richest histories on the planet. I took great joy in listening to my roommate teach me about Chinese culture. I quickly learned however that to truly understand, I needed to do more. So I began to learn Mandarin so that I could communicate with more Chinese people who couldn't speak English. This also inspired me to move to both China and Taiwan so that I could gain a deeper understanding of the culture. While in Taiwan I noticed that there were many Indonesian migrant workers there. I often spoke to them in the parks on their days off to try to understand what it meant to be a migrant worker in Taiwan. I was again surprised at how ignorant I was about a country and a people with such a large population, which further inspired me to learn the Indonesian language so that I could better understand their experiences. I don't only learn new languages, but it is my thirst to understand more about this planet that has motivated me to do so. It is also due to these learning experiences that I learned to re-evaluate my own privileges that I was born with and how they fit into a greater world context. Being a continual learner isn't about what you learn, it's about why you learn it. It is about a consistent desire to gain greater understanding in life. In my pursuit to gain greater understanding, I have given many financial opportunities. However, this has always been without regret, because for me, the greatest reward is the learning itself. Therefore, I plan to continue to learn by exposing myself to new thoughts, ideas, and people in life. I always strive to stay just outside of my comfort zone so that I can continue to learn and grow through the many new and interesting experiences that I am sure to have.

In the United States the health outcomes of black Americans are much worse than those of white Americans. My dream is to enter the field of public health so that I can address the systemic inequalities that lead to BIPOC patients often receiving inferior care. I want to teach fellow healthcare practitioners how diseases present differently in the BIPOC community as well as promote positive health practices among the BIPOC community to help improve the overall health of all.

A good education is an extremely rewarding endeavor that can have both tangible and intangible benefits for us, whether it be a better job, a new perspective in life, or helping us to find wonderful friends to share our lives with. However, due to the rigorous nature of attending school, it can be easy to make decisions that cause our physical, mental, and nutritional well being to suffer greatly. Thankfully I have been able to develop a system that works very well for me, that helps me to maintain my overall well-being and health. I have done so through proper-time management and setting reminders to keep myself on track. There are 168 hours in a week and life comes at us at fast, at speeds of 60 minutes per hour and it doesn't slow down because we are not prepared. So, every week I plan out what I need to do for the week. I assign complementary tasks to different days so that I make efficient use of my time. For example, I have noticed that exercising in the early morning gives me energy for the day, but exercising at night disrupts my sleep which makes it harder to get up in the morning. So the first thing that I do everyday is my morning run. I run early when there are no cars people out. This calm environment helps me start off the day very peacefully as the calm environment is quite soothing to me. After my run, I take a nice hot and soothing shower to relax and clean myself up. Then, I go outside to my backyard and I enjoy the sunshine that has just started to come out and drink my morning coffee as well as eating a simple breakfast usually comprised of a grain, such a bread, and raw vegetables or fruits such as carrots, apples, bananas, or a handful of nuts. This ensures that I have a nutritious start to each day and again, as it takes place in a relaxing environment, I am able to start my day off very relaxed. After I start my day, I review the tasks that I have written out for the day and go about accomplishing them, whether they be work or school related. When it is school related tasks, such as homework, I try to parse simple assignments in between difficult assignments so that I do not begin to feel overwhelmed. Additionally, I budget in time for entertainment, so that I do not feel like the only thing I do is work, or attend school. The entertainment might be watching an episode of a tv show I enjoy, drawing, or doing some other activity that brings me joy. This helps me maintain as much of a stress free life as possible. The last thing I do is set reminders for myself on my phone, on my calendar, and for my important tasks, I ask a friend or family member to help me remember. These reminders help me remember when to take breaks, when to eat, when to relax, when to go to the store, when I'm supposed to hang out with friends, and when to focus on work. Although there are many methods that help people maintain balance in their life, these are the methods that work best for me. I find them extremely effective and have been able to thrive in life because of them. I have a good GPA in school and am able to accomplish any task that I need to without becoming overwhelmed or neglecting my personal health.

Games are meant to be fun and have always been an activity that is usually enhanced by the addition of extra players. In online games, forums are typically created so that players can interact better with each other, answer each other's question, find partners to play with, and create a strong sense of community that in turns keeps the game enjoyable for all for as long as possible. However, more and more there are bad actors that lurk within games and on the forums that are associated with those games. These people disregard all normal social conventions and use the anonymous nature of the forums to say things, or behave in ways that are not typically acceptable in real-life situations. The problem with this phenomenon is that the effects of these aberrant exchanges between players does not stay online in the world of make believe. Instead, this aberrant behavior bleeds into real-world social interactions. This is due the fact that while people who are exposed to aberrant behavior online might at first be shocked by it, they eventually become desensitized to it and may even adopt this type of behavior themselves. Eventually, this behavior spreads throughout the gaming community and people become more and more brazen in their conduct. Their views begin to change to the point where they begin to act out these behaviors in real life. When I was a kid, I played a lot of online games and was exposed to of the brazen conduct that has become so prevalent on gaming forums today. It even had a negative impact on my life. In online gaming forums, trash talking is extremely common. People say all manner of rude and extreme things to other players in these spaces, this also tends to lead to intense arguments between players, particularly where moderators are not very active. I participated or read quite a number of threads where this occurred as did many of my friends who also played online games. When I look back on things now, I realize that the more we were exposed to these types of exchanges that would never be okay in real life, the more we started to act them out in real life. This was especially common in school. We started to become very disrespectful of our teachers and classmates around us. We even began to say things that would be considered shocking to non-gamers to show each other how little we cared for social norms. However, by the time I was entering high school, I was no longer able to play online games. This is not necessarily because I didn't want to, but rather because I couldn't. My family computer was old and couldn't handle the requirements of new games and my parents didn't want to pay for gaming subscriptions. On the other hand, my friends did have access to newer and better computers and their families did pay for their online subscriptions. As I could no longer play with those friends, I was no longer frequenting online gaming forums. This caused my behavior to slowly fall in line with normal social conventions and I began to realize just how harmful that previous exposure had been for me, especially as I saw how my friends continued to become more and more brazen.While the gaming world may have left me behind I am glad it did. If it hadn't I may have continued down that bad course that I was on and not become the person that I am today.

Healthy eating habits are important because there is a strong connection between physical and mental health. For much of my youth, I had very poor eating habits. I over-indulged in processed foods and sugary drinks and did not eat many fruits or vegetables. However, it wasn't just what I ate, but how much I ate. It was not uncommon for me to eat an entire pizza or chicken by myself for one meal. Initially this type of lifestyle did not seem to affect me very much. I was young and still had that excessive amount of energy that people tend to have when they are teenagers. However, as I got older, I realized that I was always tired and my moods were becoming more and more foul. I was not happy with myself. One day I looked in the mirror and realized, I had gained so much weight that I could not even recognize my own face in the mirror, I felt like a complete stranger in my own body. This of course led me to have even more negative feelings. One day as I was getting ready to leave the house for an important meeting, I injured my back just by bending over to tie my shoe. This injury led to severe lower back pain for about two weeks. At that time I was almost completely unable to move due to the pain. However, after I recovered I vowed to myself that I would make changes in my life, so that I never had an experience like that again. The first change I made was that I quit drinking sugary drinks and instead limited myself primarily to water. It took several weeks for me to get used to this change, but after a while I didn't think about soda anymore and started noticing how much more energy I had just from drinking water. After I became accustomed to drinking more water, I made another change. I began to eat less processed foods, especially from fast food restaurants. When I did go out, I tried to go to restaurants that had healthier options available. Once I started doing this I noticed that I started losing weight from week to week. This helped with my confidence a lot and I noticed that it was a lot easier for me to get to sleep at night and wake up feeling refreshed. Healthy eating habits truly do have a powerful effect on our physical and mental health. At this point in my life, I am a long-distance runner. When I eat a healthy meal before I run, I feel light and enjoy the run. Yet, when I eat processed and unhealthy foods, the run becomes difficult and my body feels very heavy. I also feel less motivated to finish my exercises. Although I did not appreciate just how important healthy eating habits are as a young person, I definitely do now. Eating healthy makes a big difference in how our body reacts to external stresses, such as exercise, and even affects our mood, our confidence, and our overall mental well-being.

As a society, mental health is not taken as seriously as it should be. However, good mental health is paramount to good overall health as our mental health affects so many aspects of our lives and the lives of those around us. When our mental health suffers, our very thoughts, feelings, and actions are negatively impacted. We may become very irritable, depressed, or unable to cope with various challenges or obstacles that we face in life. This can cause us to make decisions that hurt those around us. For example, if poor mental health has caused us to become extremely irritable, we may inadvertently find ourselves getting into high intensity arguments with people that we care about and saying things that truly hurt them. On the other hand, poor mental health can cause us to make decisions that harm ourselves. A good example of this is if we become severely depressed. This can affect our eating habits, we may eat too much or too little causing us to experience rapid weight gain or weight loss, both of which can have serious consequences on our physical health. While there are many negative effects that arise from poor mental health, I chose those two specific examples because I have lived them in my personal life. Before I started taking better care of my mental well-being, I often caused pain for those around me as well as myself and of course, this only caused my mental health to further decline over time. However, now I take better care of myself mentally and am in a much better place in life. Although there are many paths to good mental health, I was able to improve my mental well-being through important steps. The first was that I began to take care of my physical health more. After developing healthy eating and exercise habits, my confidence improved as well as my energy. Exercising has also helped me to find away to burn off excess frustration that I feel from time to time. That first step gave me courage to take the next step that helps me maintain my mental wellness. With improved confidence, I was able to overcome my anxiety enough to start spending more time with friends and family. Establishing a sense of community and belonging, by being more social has been important for me. It has helped me to see and feel that there are others who care about me. On the other hand, it has provided a healthy outlet to talk about my concerns and other problems in life. The last step I took was to constantly find new ways of challenging myself. I realized that for me personally, when my life is static, my mental health starts to deteriorate. I need meaningful challenges in life to motivate me to continue to work hard. Completing these challenges also gives me a great sense of personal fulfillment. I've taken challenges like becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese, which has allowed me to also make many new friends all over the world. There is no one specific path to positive mental health, but nevertheless it is important for all of us to continuously take steps to maintain our good mental health. Doing so will allow us to live happy and fulfilling lives. It will also help us to have the strength to help others who may be struggling with their own mental health to be determined to find a path to good mental health and happiness that works for them.

My favorite Disney character is Simba from the Lion King because I relate with him on a very personal level. Of course, it's not because I am the prince of some kingdom, nor have I inadvertently been a part of a Hamlet-esque play in my real life, but rather it is because, like Simba, I have had to overcome many challenges in my life. As a prince, Simba's life course was already set out before him. He always had people telling him what he needed to do and needed to be, but really all he wanted to was explore the lands and satisfy his curiosity and if he had been a lower born lion, he would have been able to do so. He also had to deal with animosity from his own uncle, who disliked him because he wanted the throne for himself. While I may not be anything nearly as noble or majestic as a lion prince is, I do have my own unique situation. I am a biracial man, born to a black father and a white mother. All throughout my life I've dealt with people from both the BIPOC community as well as the majority White community telling me who I am and who I need to be. Many people told me that I needed to "choose" which ethnic heritage to honor and identify with, but I have always chosen both. This choice led to a lot of animosity for me though. I was never really able to integrate into either community and just be the me that I wanted to be, like Simba. However, also like Simba, I chose to walk to the beat of my own drum. As a kid, I always felt that if Simba can overcome the challenges in his life in his own unique way, then so can I. I care about my communities, but I also express my care in my own way. I honor both heritages and work to promote understanding between the two and have created an environment that works for me, similar to how Simba was able to create an environment where he remains good friends with what many of the lions considered to be lunch.

Several years ago, I was preparing for an important meeting, the kind where you need to dress up and wear formal attire to attend. I put on my suit and then I put on my shoes. They were a modest pair of black dress shoes that needed to be laced up when worn. I bent over to tie my shoe and felt a strange shift in my lower back. At the time I thought nothing of it, but nearly forty minutes later as I was well into the meeting, I was in a fair amount of pain. By that evening, I was almost completely immobilized by the pain that I was feeling in my lower back. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't get out of bed without great effort and the pain was so intense it was all that I could think about. This pain lasted for about two weeks before finally subsiding. This event inspired me to make changes in my life because I never wanted to experience that kind of pain again. At the time I was a very heavy set man, I weighed about 275 pounds. I also ate a lot of processed junk food and drank a lot of soda. After I recovered from my sudden injury, I made many changes in my life so that I could be healthier. These changes took time and I did not make them all at once. The first change I made was that I quit drinking sugary drinks and instead limited myself primarily to water. It took several weeks for me to get used to this change, but after a while I didn't think about soda anymore and started noticing how much more energy I had just from drinking water. After I became accustomed to drinking more water, I made another change. I began to eat less processed foods, especially from fast food restaurants. When I did go out, I tried to go to restaurants that had healthier options available. Once I started doing this I noticed that I started losing weight from week to week. This helped with my confidence a lot and I noticed that it was a lot easier me to get to sleep at night and wake up feeling refreshed. Over the course of the next year I didn't make any more changes. I felt that if I added in exercise, I would derail myself. So, I continued focusing on eating healthy foods as well as drinking water and I continued to lose more weight. After that year had passed I weighed around 200 pounds and that's when I began to research more about the health benefits of exercise. I learned that by exercising I could actually increase my energy. So I began walking one mile each day and I also include a regimen of 10-20 push ups per day, as well as a similar amount of jumping jacks, squats, and stretches to slowly strengthen my body. This regimen helped strengthen my body and I was able to be a lot more active in my day-to-day life without needing to rest. The final change I made after an additional two years was to take up running. I started off with one mile per week and now I run 6 miles several times a week. These changes have given me a lot of energy and confidence and while weight loss isn't the most important thing to me, today I weigh 160 pounds. So in retrospect, I am so happy that I got injured that day, because it inspired to be better to myself.

Debt is scary. Loan practices are often predatory and once a person falls into the debt-cycle it is nearly impossible for them to get out of it. If I am unable to secure the scholarships that I need to help offset the costs of school, I will surely need to take on future student loans to pay the difference. Therefore, I have developed a multi-phased approach that will allow me to confront my future loan payments. I am a current first year graduate student at Northern Illinois University. However, I will not begin classes until the spring semester and payments are not due until the february of 2023. Therefore, I am presented with a unique opportunity to prepare for the loan that I will need to take on. I have been able to take on extra work for an additional few months so that I can save more money that will go towards paying my loans off. My plan is to disperse this money across multiple loan payments, in addition to what the payment dictated by the terms will be. Doing so will allow me to pay down the principal with each payment that I make. I adopted this strategy because interest rates are often higher for smaller dollar value loans than they are for higher dollar value loans. Therefore, accepting a higher debt with a lower interest rate will be cheaper for me, because of the extra money that I have earned to pay down the principal more quickly than loan officers will be expecting. Additionally I have decided to adopt several cost-saving methods so that I can maximize the amount of money that I earn from my job that can be funneled towards loan repayment. The first is the school program itself. I have opted into online classes so that I do not have to drive to school. This saves money by allowing me to use less gas driving back and forth from school throughout the year. My university estimates that this normally costs $1,200 per year. Therefore, by studying online I am able to redirect those funds towards my loan payments. I currently live in my own home but I have arranged with my parents to temporarily move back into the family home while I pursue my masters degree. Although my parents still expect some contribution from me while I am with them, it is much cheaper than living in a dorm or renting on my own. This will again allow me to redirect more money towards the principal of my loan. Essentially my plan is to fully utilize each and every opportunity that I am given so that I can pay back my loans as quickly as possible. I have been changing all of my life habits to meet this goal because I understand how devastating the debt-cycle truly is. So, I believe that with this plan of mine, I will be able to pay back my loans as quickly as possible by paying up to two times the loan payment amount each month.

I am a biracial man born to a black father and a white mother. Members of the BIPOC community often see a huge disparity in their health outcomes when compared to caucasian Americans. This is often due to economic reasons as well as systemic racism. My goal in life is to obtain a degree in Public Health and this was inspired by an experience I had as a youth. My father had a good job with good insurance, but he did not receive equal healthcare. When I was a young teenager, he was often at the doctor doing various tests because he did not feel well. He was always hot, always thirsty, and had to go to the bathroom a lot. However, the doctors always told him there was nothing wrong with him and he was in fine health. It was only once we moved to California and he had a doctor that dealt with more minorities that he was diagnosed with diabetes. The new doctor said he probably had diabetes for years and was surprised that nobody had diagnosed him before. There’s no overt evidence that the doctors in the majority white town where we previously lived were racist, but it is worth noting that caucasian doctors often fall into the trap of downplaying symptoms described by their minority patients. If my father had been diagnosed earlier on in life, less damage would have been done to his body. This experience, among other similar experiences that I faced in my life, caused me to first want to work in the healthcare field. I wanted to enter the healthcare field because I felt that I could help people like my dad, because I understood what it was like to be a minority, to not be taken seriously. I also felt that I could help educate my fellow healthcare practitioners. This would allow me to promote positive health outcomes within the BIPOC community and address the systemic reasons for inferior care given to minorities within hospitals. This is also why diversity in the workplace is so important. When you have people from different backgrounds working in the healthcare field, the quality of the healthcare naturally goes up. This is because patients can choose healthcare practitioners that look like them and understand them to be their care provider. On the other hand, health practitioners that come from different backgrounds also bring in a wealth of specialized knowledge with them to the workplace. A caucasian doctor may not be familiar with how scarring looks on black skin, but a black doctor does. This knowledge can then be shared among staff and be better used to help a more diverse group of patients. This is all so important to me as well because many other minorities are affected by deep-rooted prejudices in the United States. They go through life just like I have, experiencing overt and subtle racism everyday when trying to get help and it is killing us.

While in high school, I had the opportunity to take an organic chemistry course sponsored by CSUSM. Taking the course sparked my interest in learning about the inner workings of living organisms. This interest inspired me to pursue an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, with the hope that I could one day become a researcher to help discover new ways of tackling the various challenges that we, humanity, are facing today. Although I had such a lofty goal, I faced a challenge early in my studies that completely derailed me. In my freshman year of college I became severely depressed to the point that I felt unworthy, not just of an education, but of anything. I stopped eating. I lost weight. I overate. I gained weight. I failed many of my classes and decided I would never go back to school, but the desire to help others remained in me. Despite wanting to help others still, I felt so worthless. I also didn't feel that I could talk to anybody about my feelings, but one thing that helped me was my father. He could see the changes that consumed me and he was there for me, encouraging me every step of the way. It took nearly two years of battling with my depression but I eventually became motivated enough to go back to school and viewed the way I could help others differently. I decided that although I may not ever receive a degree in biochemistry, I could still find a path that led to helping the community. The path I chose to pursue was a sociology degree in criminology and justice studies. I enjoyed the courses that I took, they opened my eyes to a macro perspective on how I could help my community, especially the BIPOC community, to thrive. To that end, I have spent the past two years as a lead grant writer serving nonprofits that focus on addressing health, economic, agricultural, equality, and equity issues in disadvantaged communities around the world. Engaging in this line of work has been quite fulfilling, but it has also caused me to realize, there is still so much more that I can do to help others. I also learned that, even without a degree in biochemistry, I can still work to improve the overall health of my community because good health is not just related to the medicine someone is taking. It’s about the care they receive both in and outside of the hospital. This isn't just limited to physical health. An extremely important aspect of health is mental health. As a society, mental health is not taken as seriously as it should be. As I’ve learned throughout my educational journey and my work experience, there are so many challenges that affect health in the community. Outside the hospital there are many environmental factors that negatively affect health and within the hospital setting there are many barriers such as cost and prejudicial policies that negatively affect the quality of, or the ability to receive, care. The barriers to good quality care for people, especially minorities, is causing people to die. I want to change this on a macro level. So, while I feel great joy at the small contributions I have been able to make in my position as a grant writer for the previously mentioned organizations I want to be able to do more. I no longer view my depression as something that limits me, but rather as a strength that allows me to view others with compassion and seek to help them. It is for this reason that I have decided to study Public Health. I am confident that by studying this field, I can gain the knowledge and the tools necessary to better serve my community and the organizations that I currently work with.

To me, a good book is one that I can enjoy reading from start to finish, but a great book is one that has enhanced or changed my perspective on any given topic. In that sense, there is one book in particular that has had a lasting impact on my life. The book in question is none other than the “Count of Monte Cristo” written by Alexandre Dumas. In this masterpiece, Dumas expertly tells the story of a man named Edmond Dantes who was wrongfully imprisoned for 14 years in a dark prison cell and his story of adventure, revenge, and redemption. When I first picked up this book, I didn’t appreciate how much I could learn from it. I selected it because I set a goal for myself to read all the books in a classic literature list that I followed. I picked it because I thought it would be a fun book filled with misadventure and it was, but it was also so much more than that to me. This book helped me to understand that life is often unfair but getting caught up in always trying to right the wrongs that have been done to us can cause us to miss out on so much happiness that exists in this world. In fact it can be said that the entire character of Edmond Dantes exists to prove this point. Shortly after his escape from prison he finds a treasure that leaves him richer than his wildest of dreams. He then spends the next ten years traveling around the world going on what many would consider to be fabulous adventures accompanied by a wonderful and loyal woman and yet, he takes no joy in these things. Each of his adventures and all of his wealth were just tools with which he could sharpen his mind and hone his skills to exact his revenge. It is only after the count has nearly completed his revenge that he begins to realize how his obsession with it has caused harm to many innocent people, including the families of people he cares about. It is this realization that caused him to understand that he wasted so much of his life on this foolish pursuit. In the end although he got his revenge, he did not get the satisfaction that he desired from it. However, Dantes was not beyond redemption, this realization also caused him to change his plans for revenge and allow the primary source of his pain and suffering to continue living and after a confession of love from the woman who was always by his side for the past ten years did he realize that there were more important things in life than righting every wrong and she and him went off to live a peaceful life together. This book truly changed my life. I grew up in an environment where I was taught, if someone causes trouble for you then you should make them regret it. However, reading this book made me realize that spending so much time letting the actions of people who have wronged me control me is truly a waste of time. This book taught me to seek happiness and enjoy my time. It also taught me to be a more forgiving person and that is how and why this book transformed my life and became one of my favorite books of all time.

Over the course of the past twelve months I have developed a more indomitable spirit. During this pandemic I’ve been hit with challenge after challenge and setback after setback. Yet, it is these challenges that I’ve had to face that have helped to develop an iron-like will so that I can have the strength to endure and overcome them. Originally, I was living another life in another country with my girlfriend but due to Covid-19 regulations, I was forced to leave the country. This not only caused me to be separated from my girlfriend, but I also found myself in a position where I no longer had work to support myself when I arrived back here in the United States. At first, I focused on desperately trying to find a way back to Taiwan, her country of residence. I enrolled in school there and applied for many jobs - even jobs that I was vastly overqualified for - in an attempt to get back as soon as possible. In fact, I started an S-Corporation so that I could establish a satellite office in Taiwan and then hire myself as an employee there. Yet, with each of these three measures that I took, I was met with success and failure. Yes, each time I succeeded, I also failed. I was accepted into a prestigious university there, National Cheng Kung University, but just after I received my acceptance letter, the government decided that they would no longer allow foreign students from the US to enter the country, because of the extremely high number of Covid cases here. I applied for and passed several interviews at an English teaching company called Joy English that wanted to hire me and sponsor my work visa, but again, as soon as that process was over, the government announced stricter regulations and decided to temporarily suspend issuing new work visas for foreigners to prevent the spread of Covid there. I then successfully established a small consulting company here, so that I could move my business there and arrive on a business visa, but just as I had finished going through the lengthy process of establishing an S-corporation, I was informed that the government of Taiwan had also recently put a temporary pause on allowing companies to establish satellite offices there. My frustration built and I was ready to give up. The distance between us put a huge strain on the relationship I have with my girlfriend. Yet my desire to be with her has only grown stronger, it hasn’t diminished. Although there were times when I felt like I would never succeed in getting back to her, I realized that each of these failed attempts to return to Taiwan was making our relationship stronger. It helped us to become closer and more determined to overcome the neverending obstacles that stood in our way. I’ve changed from a person who liked to take the easiest route in life to one who is not afraid to rise up to challenges, no matter how impossible they may seem to overcome. It has been a year full of financial, emotional, and mental challenges. Yet, I am proud to say that I fought the pandemic and I won. This coming November I will finally be able to move back to Taiwan, as a student, and be with her. I’ve learned to never give up and that by taking each day one at a time and facing each challenge one by one, there’s nothing that I can’t accomplish.

1) The attribute that I embody most is number one. I am a continual learner. While I have learned many new professional skills since I entered the workforce I don't limit myself to learning skills that I feel will enhance my career. I place a high value on learning things that will help me grow as a person and have a better understanding of the world around me. When I was 19 years old I moved out of my parents' home. I was a student, I had a job, but I wanted to know more about the world I lived in. It just so happened that I had a roommate who was from China. I realized that I really knew nothing about the country or the culture despite it being one of the biggest nations with one of the richest histories on the planet. I took great joy in listening to my roommate teach me about Chinese culture. I quickly learned however that to truly understand, I needed to do more. So I began to learn Mandarin so that I could communicate with more Chinese people who couldn't speak English. This also inspired me to move to both China and Taiwan so that I could gain a deeper understanding of the culture. While in Taiwan I noticed that there were many Indonesian migrant workers there. I often spoke to them in the parks on their days off to try to understand what it meant to be a migrant worker in Taiwan. I was again surprised at how ignorant I was about a country and a people with such a large population, which further inspired me to learn the Indonesian language so that I could better understand their experiences. I don't only learn new languages, but it is my thirst to understand more about this planet that has motivated me to do so. It is also due to these learning experiences that I learned to re-evaluate my own privileges that I was born with and how they fit into a greater world context. Being a continual learner isn't about what you learn, it's about why you learn it. It is about a consistent desire to gain greater understanding in life. In my pursuit to gain greater understanding, I have given many financial opportunities. However, this has always been without regret, because for me, the greatest reward is the learning itself. 2) The attribute that requires the most improvement in my life is the fifth. Keeping my priorities straight and managing my time well has been an issue that has caused me trouble in the past. It's not that I do not understand the importance of good time management skills and being able to prioritize various responsibilities and projects in my life, but rather it is that I can sometimes become hyper focused on one specific priority at a time, when in reality I need to concurrently balance multiple important responsibilities in my life. To that end, I have been developing a system that I plan on implementing, especially as a new graduate student, so that I can successfully accomplish all that I need to do in a timely and consistent manner. This system of mine relies on three steps and one emergency fail-safe to keep me accountable. First, I write out what I need to accomplish each week. This includes my secular work, chores, homework, and classes. I then write out which task I need to do during each day of the week. Finally, I take this list and post it in a pinned chat that only I can see on a messaging app that I need to look at every single day for work. This ensures that as soon as I open up the app to do my job, I see my list as well. Second, I set alarms for the different tasks that I have to do throughout the day. I have an alarm that tells me when to wake up, when to exercise, when to study, when to relax, and when to do any activity that I have determined must be done on that particular day. Third, I enter my list into my calendar so that I have yet another thing that I am constantly required to check that can remind me of the tasks that I need to complete. This third step reinforces the first step which helps me to stay on task. Finally, if there is a particularly pressing task that must be completed, or a date that must be remembered, I text a friend or family member about it. This helps keep it on my mind and gives me an emergency contact that can help keep me accountable due to the high possibility of them asking me about how that task is going.

There are many ways to positively impact the community that we live in. A warm smile and a simple hello can be the difference between a good day or a bad for someone. However, more fundamental than even this, is the health status of every member living in a community. Yes, when our physical health suffers, it also tends to negatively affect our mental and emotional health as well, which can then cause us to treat others poorly. When people do feel sick, they often do not want to go to the doctor, for various reasons. So the question then becomes, how can I help the members of my community make better decisions in life that we lead to go health? To me the answer to that question requires two important steps. The first step would be to research how the community approaches health in their private lives and the second step would be to disseminate accurate health information and good health practices throughout the community in a format that is both highly accessible and trustworthy. That means, as health care professionals we have to understand how to reach the community. A masters degree in Public Health will give me the tools and the knowledge to put such an important plan into action. More than that though, I will be able to work towards implementing policies that increase the quality of care that minority patients receive in hospitals as well as decrease the discriminatory practices that they face, whether purposefully or not, by health care providers. This will have an additional effect of increasing the trust and good will of the community in the healthcare system and influence people to put more faith in the guidance that they receive from their doctors, especially if we as a nation face another healthcare crisis like the recent Covid-19 pandemic in the future.