The nursing industry interests me because I love caring for people. I specifically want to be a pediatric nurse. I love kids so much, and most of my job experience is with kids because I have not gotten medical experience. So I chose to work with kids to get experience with the pediatric part of nursing. My previous jobs have been working as a preschool teacher and taking care of school-age and toddler- to infant-aged children. When I work with children, I love every second of it. I know that I will love being a nurse because, no matter what age the patient is, you get to come in and bring a little light into their day. As nurses, we do not know what news our patients got before coming to the clinic or hospital or what their home life is, but we can make a difference by giving them the best care as well as giving them someone to talk to.  My current job is as a caregiver for the elderly, and I love it. I can come in every day and take care of people who are not at the point of taking care of themselves. Most of the residents at the caregiving facility are on hospice, and we have to make sure they have their medications to spend their last days comfortably. We get to prepare meals for them, and it is rewarding because we get to see them enjoy the meals because they are very honest, and if they do not like a meal, they will not eat it. We get to be their family when they are not surrounded by their family like they used to be. My goal for a successful career is to become a registered nurse and then specialize in pediatrics. Personal accomplishments that have brought me closer to my career goals are getting my bachelor's in sociology and getting into an accelerated nursing program. I am proud of these accomplishments because they were not easy. I unfortunately do not have past medical experience, but I have been fascinated by medical-related topics. I graduated this year, and my thesis was about healthcare equity in Roanoke, Virginia, within the African American community. One thing that I value when it comes to healthcare is equity. At one point, I was not able to get medication because I could not afford it at the time, and I do believe that we need more healthcare professionals who fight for people who do not have insurance or are a part of a marginalized group. I want to be a nurse to help people and make their lives easier while they are going through their toughest times.

There is a lot that I have learned from being born and raised in Alaska, and there is even more that I have learned from going to college outside of Alaska. At first, I wanted to get out of Alaska, but once I was at college in another state, I realized that no one is nicer than the people in Alaska. I learned that Alaskans treat each other as a community, and we help each other when in need. I realized that, as a Black person, I never had to worry about people not liking me because of my skin color like I do in other states. I was able to get a good education without being scared to go to school, either from gun violence or racial bullying. I have learned from leaving Alaska to go to college that there are tons of people from different social locations that I am their first person that they have met from Alaska. I have learned from others that how lucky I am to be from such a beautiful place like Alaska with the aurora and tall mountains and all the wildlife. I have been able to exchange different knowledge with others when they asked questions about how its like living in Alaska and in turn I ask them. Those are the biggest things that I have learned from Alaska.  I am Dymond Williams, and I want to be a pediatric nurse. I recently learned that I could be a nurse for any age group and would love my job. I am a caregiver for elderly people, and I love going into my job. I am very dedicated and sometimes work 70 hours a week because my job is short-staffed and I know that the residents need people who lighten up their day. Most people are in hospice, and I want to show them a little light at the end of their lives. I am very dedicated and work hard for my grades. I have faced many obstacles when it comes to my education. When I was younger, I would not get the best grades because I was dyslexic, but I worked hard and was sent to a special class for people who needed more help. I have worked hard to get into nursing school, and I never thought I would get to this point, but I have. I am paying for my accelerated nursing program by myself and will need to take out student loans but I want to minimize how much debt I have by also applying for scholarships. I am going into a 15 month accelerated nursing program and I am not able to work while attending because it is a rigorous. I am proud to be from Alaska and have had the experiences that I have had and met amazing people from all over the world.

Being in college is a huge success for me because when I was younger I almost got held back in kindergarten. After all, I was not excelling like the other kids. From kindergarten to second-grade teachers would wonder why I kept on failing in all my subjects, I would get my IQ tested and would be evaluated on what could be the reason. I was also born prematurely which contributed to my learning difficulties. In 4th grade, I was sent into a separate class called SOS where kids would go who needed special help in specific subjects. In SOS I learned how to tell time and count money properly at 10 years old so I was pretty behind. I was diagnosed with dyslexia and I needed help in math and was behind on reading but the trouble that I mostly had was with math. At first, I did not excel in any subject but as time went by I turned my failing grades into A's and B's. In 8th grade, I was able to graduate from the class because of my passing grades. From that point on I worked as hard as I could to get passing grades because I proved to myself that I was able to do it. I excelled more in English classes and would get B's and sometimes C's in math. My field of study is sociology on a pre-nursing track, I am taking stem and sociology classes and my goal after graduating is to go into an accelerated nursing program and then to become a pediatric nurse. If I am being honest I do not know what changes I want to accomplish in nursing but I do want to be able to provide my patients with the best care because many people go into nursing for money and not for taking care of patients.

I practice self-care by planning every week on a certain day to meal prep and plan healthy meals for my week. During winter break I went to the doctor and my doctor wanted me to get lab work done. I found out that I needed to start eating healthier, so every week I looked at my college's meals for the week because each student is required to pay for a meal plan. I cook a certain amount of food for when I cannot eat the food because of my health restrictions. I also try to stay away from social media when I do not need to be on it. I am trying to improve my focus for my classes and with that, I started staying away from social media. Another step that I have tried to do for my self-care is to get enough hours of sleep. I have tested out when my body wakes up depending on when I go to sleep and I found that my wake up time does not change by the time I go to sleep. I decided to go to sleep earlier so that I can get in enough hours for me to have enough energy through the day. I have changed many things in my life to practice self-care, and it has given me more energy and a better mood. I am able to keep moving in the day.

I value my empathy towards other people and situations the most. I have always been really sensitive. I cannot watch movies with animals in them that are sad because they make me cry even if it is a kids movie. I also do not like history classes because it breaks my heart that people can be so evil. I have mostly viewed my empathy as a weakness because I feel so much and no one understands why, but now I see it as a strength. I am able to stand up for people because I feel deeply about treatment towards people. My friends say I am like a mother bear because I am caring and loving and if anyone messes with someone I stand up against it. People can also feel the love I have for them because of how genuine I am. This characteristic has helped me in life, but it also has led to some obstacles. When I was younger, I had a friend who had a terrible childhood and even though she was in a different situation it was not that better. We went on a school trip, and she accidentally left her money at the school and so I told her it is fine I can pay for anything you happen to need on the trip because my dad has always taught me to share if you can. I told her she did not have to pay me back because I did not want her to stress about it but one day she started being mean to me and bullying me saying that my life was perfect. That year I fell into a depression, but I also learned a lesson that just because I am caring and loving does not everyone else is. Now I know how being empathetic will help me in life, it will help me with my job because I love kids and I want to be a pediatric nurse so that I can always smile when I come to work. I love kids because I can feel their innocence and they are naturally happy which makes you happy because they do not have a care in the world. It helps me in knowing how to care for certain people and how to understand people instead of judging them right away. I am able to look at both sides of situations and understand why people feel how they feel about things. I am now happy to be empathetic, or some people may say sensitive.

The biggest problem in the world right now has always been inequality of all kinds, black, white, gay, straight, women, men, etc. I think it cannot be fixed only because it has been going on for so long and its roots are too deep, but I think to help it is for it to not be allowed. People have tried to find solutions and we still are trying to find solutions. Inequality is accepted and is tolerated so it keeps on carrying on. Even when it is not accepted by one group, there is not much they can do because they are a minority. I think where racism begins free-speech needs to stop, there are so many laws that make a buffer for hate speech and treatment. People should not be able to be killed because of the color of their skin, and the killer should not be able to get a slap on the wrist as a warning. Inequality is not just in America, but it is everywhere we turn, when we go on social media we see people being killed for having a different religion. There is also inequality with gender wherein certain communities a wife cannot leave her husband because she is seen as less than. We cannot change how people think but we can change what can be accepted. I believe that by changing what can be accepted we will change how many people can get away with, which will bring more peace into the world.

I have had severe anxiety ever since I was little, in second grade if I was late even by one minute to school I would break down and cry. I thought that my anxiety was my identity, and I thought people would not like me without it. Last year I was doing school online because of Covid-19 and it was my first year in college. Finals were coming up and my parents would fight every day non-stop. My boyfriend told me that I needed to see a therapist because he got worried for me. I would forget to eat, and I would not sleep, I found out that my mental health was not just affecting me it was affecting him so I went through my college and got free therapy which helped a lot. I learned that I was afraid of everything because there was always a chance of something bad happening and my therapist helped me think differently. My doctor gave me an anxiety medicine which I only needed to take for a month. After I had learnt how to control my anxiety, I was able to adapt to situations and I bought earphones that dim noise so I would not get as overwhelmed and have yell then run out of the room. My experience with my mental health has helped me understand peoples behaviors instead of judging them. I used to get overwhelmed then yell at someone because I could not handle all of the noise and stimulation so now I know that people always have a reason for behaviors. I also realized that mental health affected relationships, and my closest ones were affected. My goals are to not worry over small things because life is full of amazing things and stressing over the small things like I used to takes my focus from what is important.

To be independent means for me to do what I want to do not what others expect me to do. After high school I realized that I tend to people please so I started turning away from that, I was able to notice that I can be nice and still have boundaries. I am striving to be independent by eating more healthy for myself and budgeting to stay eating healthy, I also have been trying to stay more focused by saying no to things that will distract me and not better me. For example if my friends ask me to go hangout late at night but I know that I have a track meet the next day I say no because it would distract me from what I have to accomplish the day after. I am also making more decisions without asking others about what they think of the decision I have made. That is what independents means to me.

In my junior year of high school my house burnt down unexpectedly, I was at the store with my cheer coach when I get a text from my sister that our house is on fire. At first when I read it, I thought my dad must have burnt something while cooking again. That was not the case. My sister follows up her text message to me by a picture that shows half of our house in flames. I freak out and yelled at my coach "our house is on fire," my coach tells me that yes, it is on fire but I need to stay calm, and she takes me home. When I see the house just burning to the ground, I start to cry because everything we have had in that house was gone. Looking back at that moment, I only cried that one time because I was so grateful to God that my family made it out of the house in time, even my dog. My sister woke up and went upstairs to get food, she sees smoke and then wakes up my parents and grabs my dog. When I got home, I was so happy to see my family standing there in their pajamas because I could have easily been alone. A few days after the event people donated our family things like clothes and the red cross donated us essentials and we went to a hotel. I went to school, and my friends would ask me why I was not sad, and I would tell them because I have my family. The event taught me that materials meant nothing when you can buy them again. People mean everything because once they are gone you cannot buy them. After the house burnt down, I stopped caring so much about materials and I started being in the present. It turns out the house burnt down because of an electrical issue that occurred when the house was made.

I have big dreams and goals and the piece that I shared was an original. One of my goals in life is to tell people about God, I do not see myself as a natural speaker, but I have been able to sing about God on social media to spread His name. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be what I would call at the time a "pop star." My friends and I would have talent contests and I loved them, when I was around the age of nine, I was telling my mom that I wanted to be a pop star and she said it was not realistic and I need a plan B. I cried and that day forward my lives focus changed and I have found other things that I also love to do. Now I sing on Instagram and TikTok for fun and when I was in high school, I sang the national anthem before basketball games. My focus now is to become a pediatric nurse, but I also want to go to the Olympics for Track and field. I am not even close to the level I need to be, but as you could tell I have always been a dreamer and I still am today.