I want to see the world be a more honest and less hateful place. So I work to advocate and reduce the stigma that I face as a disabled and Queer student. I also want more students to feel welcomed in STEM spaces if they want to pursue that path. I volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I usually help out at freshman orientation and recruitment events so that incoming students are aware of the services that they can access through the center. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism. I am also one of the copresidents of Delta Alpha Pi, a community service based honor society for disabled students. I was just elected so I am just starting out, but I am already working on a project to change the policy at my school regarding class registration for disabled students who are eligible for early class resistration. I am also starting a project to help contribute to the sensory days that the disability center on campus hosts. These sensory days are a way to advocate for the sensory needs of neurodivergent students. I will continue to think of ideas for new projects to discuss with my team in Delta Alpha Pi. Last summer, I participated in a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. We ran activities every day to teach the students about different fields of engineering. For example, we had a day where we taught the kids about computer engineering, and another day where we taught them about bioengineering, and so on. It was a really fun week and the kids learned a lot. I am in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and I helped run a high school outreach night with some of the other members because I learned how rewarding of an experience it is to help show younger students how cool engineering is. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. For example, we discuss how homophobia can negatively impact healthcare, how different factors of hormone therapy in gender transition can cause a need for change in health procedures as a patient's endocrine system changes, and other LGBT related healthcare topics.

I want to see the world be a more honest and less hateful place. So I work to advicate and reduce the stigma as a disabled and Queer student. I volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I just finished a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism. I am also one of the copresidents of Delta Alpha Pi, a community service based honor society for disabled students.

I have Autism and ADHD. I was diagnosed with both of these neurodivergences at a very young age. I have a very strong belief in justice and equality. This is a very common Autistic trait based on my research. I think that one of the main signs of unintelligence is being biased against other people. I think that all people should be treated based on their actions; not their culture, gender, religious beliefs, or who they want to date. And I believe in telling people the truth, even when I am perceived as being too blunt, because that feels less rude in my opinion than lying to them. This compulsion to being almost too honest is also a common Autistic trait, and a weird one, because I am often accused of trying to start fights when my goal is usually to prevent them beause I don't want to get involved in drama. It can be difficult to socialize with neurotypical people, because of the double empathy problem. This is when two people with different neurotypes misunderstand each other. For example, a neurotypical person may perceive me as too blunt when I am trying to be honest and helpful. Just as validly, I may accidentally perceive that person as being dishonest for trying to be polite. It is called the double empathy problem because both people experience social interactions differently and this means that they can struggle to empathize with each other. Because of this, pretty much all of my friends are Autistic or have ADHD as well. I met some of my closest friends a few years ago in a therapy program for Autistic students. My neurological diagnoses have indirectly influenced my decision to be a doctor. I used to be treated with a lot of prejudice in my childhood, mostly because less was known about neurodiversity back then. Basically, being a kid was frustrating for me because I felt like I was always getting in trouble for existing. I was constantly in time-out or the principal's office. My teachers and parents had no clue how to manage my ADHD, so they were taking the approach of trying everything and hoping something would work, like throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. And nothing was improving for me. I was already in middle school when I started an effective therapy program. So I internalized the idea throughout my childhood that I had to do something great to have any worth. School was also one of the few contexts in which I got any support for a long time, so I have also internalized a strong need for academic validation. People generally respect doctors and doctors go to school for a long time, so that was another reason to be a doctor besides the fact that I was inspired by my doctors. My main reason for being a doctor is that I was inspired by my team of doctors, so the factors connected to my neurodivergent conditions are pretty minimal.

I am going to be a doctor someday. I'm primarily considering interventional radiology as a specialty right now, but optometry, nephrology, oncology, and pathology are very interesting too. I have a few years until medical school, so I have time to decide which specialty that I want to pursue. They are all very interesting and there are a lot more cool specialties out there that I can learn about. I am shadowing many different specialties and keeping an open mind so that I can learn as much as possible and consider all of the possibilities. I am feeling really optimistic about my future and this is what I am passionate about, so I am willing to put in all of the hard work that it will take to become a doctoe.. When I go to medical school, I want to get a MD/PHD dual degree so that I can get my MD qualification and become a physician, and also get a PHD in bioengineering so that I can have more of an educational background in medical technology so that I can be more qualified to run clinical trials and conduct medical research to find new lifesaving technology and medications. I am specifically interested in the technology behind vision therapy right now, but prosthetics are also absolutely fascinating. I chose to major in bioengineering out of every possible premedical major because I think that medical technology is one of the most interesting aspects of the field. I am going to make a positive impact by saving lives. I will also improve the quality of peoples' lives through healthcare. I know that this is kind of an obvious answer with the career path that I am pursuing, but it is the truth. I am multidisabled, so I have a whole team of doctors and they have all improved the quality of my life so much. For example, my psychiatrist helps me manage my ADHD and be happier and more focused in school. My endocrinologist makes sure my bones are healthy so I am less likely to break any bones and be hurt in the future. My nephrologist and cardiologist monitor to make sure that very important organs are not failing. This type of interaction with my doctors is what made me see how interesting healthcare is and inspired me to be a doctor, so this is the aspect of the job that is the most meaningful to me.

The reason that I want to be a doctor is because I am disabled. When I was in sixth grade, I was diagnosed with Turner Syndrome, so I found out that I cannot be an astronaut because I have a heart valve issue. So I decided to be a doctor instead because my doctors have made such a difference in my life helping me. I am interested in nephrology because I am at a high risk for kidney problems. I have learned how interesting that kidneys are because of this, so I am now inspired to maybe be a nephrologist. I also have amblyopia due to my Turner Syndrome. Amblyopia means that my right eye is not aligned correctly with my left eye, so I do not have very good three dimensional vision. This means that I really struggle with directional and spatial processing. I havestarted vision therapy recently, so I have also been really interested in optometry lately as a future specialty. I am also interested in immunology as a specialty because I am immunocompromised. It would be amazing for me to be able to study ways that people like me can avoid getting sick as often and as badly. My academic path has heavily been impacted by my path and I can bring this passion into my work and be able to help people. This is why I want to be a doctor. I have been exposed to how amazing that many specialties are, so I am still deciding, but I have a few years until I have to make a decision. In the meantime, I am working hard and learning all that I can so that I can be a better doctor someday.

This poem is called Seven. It is about growing up with ADHD. I am seven years old. I am learning to be still. I need to sit still because no one believes That I am paying attention and that I don’t mean to be a disruption in class. I am seven years old. I am learning to Be quiet and sit still, but I am so bored, Because my mind moves too fast for second grade. I have finished my work because I had not faced off Against the geometric hydra on my academic journey yet. My only weakness. This is when school was too easy. And I can’t read a book because I will get in trouble For reading when I am supposed to be working On the assignment, which I finished half an hour ago. I tap my pencil on my desk, and I am told to stop. I am seven years old.

My name is Elizabeth Sweeten. I am a Junior majoring in Bioengineering at UC Riverside. I dance Ballet Folklorico, Salsa, and Bachata. I collect comic books. My favorite series is the X-men, because I think it is very interesting how the lore of the series is an allegory for the civil rights movement, and the history of the 1960s is one of my special interests. I play the violin, ukulele, and flute. I play video games and I adore RPGs (role playing games) and horror games. I also write poetry, and I have some published poems. I am actually in the process of writing my first book of poetry. I volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I am the copresident of Delta Alpha Pi, a community service based honor society for disabled students. I also recently finished a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We basically educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. For example, we had a meeting last year teaching our peers about the history of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and how the homophobic attitudes of government officials made the crisis so much worse. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism. I am passionate about science and I absolutely love learning about the universe and how it functions. I have known that I wanted to pursue a career in science for as long as I can remember. When I was in elementary school and middle school, I wanted to be an astronaut and explore outer space. When I was in middle school, I found out that I have a bicuspid aortic valve, so I would not be able to be an astronaut because of my heart condition. I am also 4'10", so I am also a fraction of an inch too short to be an astronaut for NASA. So I had to find a different path to take in life. I decided that I want to be a doctor when I was in 8th grade. I was inspired by my team of doctors and I wanted to save lives like they do.I am majoring in bioengineering so that I can meet all of the requirements for a medical school application and have an educational background in engineering so that I can work with medical technology. I am going to go to medical school after I graduate. I will study in a dual MD/PHD program, so that I will have the MD qualification to be a surgeon and work directly with patients, but also a PHD in bioengineering so that I can research and develop new medical technology. My Turner Syndrome means that I am immunocompromised, so I specifically want to help develop more effective antiviral treatments because that would improve my quality of life so much. On the surgery side, I am currently absolutely fascinated with orthopedic surgery, but I am keeping an open mind as I am shadowing different doctors.

I am multidisabled, but Amblyopia is the disability that affects me the most because I am majoring in bioengineering. I have a lot of complex math and science classes that use a lot of geometry, so it is very frustrating that I struggle to understand three-dimensional concepts in physics or geometry. I almost failed my organic chemistry class last quarter because I was struggling to learn about the three-dimensional structure of molecules. I failed both midterms but ended up with a C at the end of the class and was able to move on to the next class. I accomplished this because I worked very hard and got support from my professor. I have been managing this entire time by working very hard, going to lots of extra tutoring, and asking my professors for help. I just found out last month that Amblyopia is why I have that struggle, so I have started vision therapy. Hopefully, that will make my future classes a little bit easier. It will be interesting to see how that goes. I have learned how to develop good study habits to compensate for my disabilities and manage my time well. I spend most of my time studying to balance out my grades. It is very useful to organize a planner well to keep track of my assignments and exams. It is also a very good idea to google concepts and find problems similar to what I am working on so that I can see the relationships between the concepts and how they can be used to solve my assignments. When I struggle to connect diagrams with the concepts that they are showing, this is a very useful method to be able to learn how to work through various types of problems and see how the concepts that I learn are useful when they are applied to answer a question. This method helps me process my assignments and makes a huge difference. I have also learned the value of perseverance. I work very hard every day to be able to do decently in school, but I have never given up because I know that I need to keep going. I have also learned how to stay motivated when I am struggling and really feel down about some of my classes. I use to-do lists so that I can check off the different assignments and that keeps me going in a good study session. I also make study plans to keep track of what I have already learned and what I still need to study. It puts everything in perspective and motivates me to keep studying as I progress through my study plan. Relationships are difficult for me because I am Autistic and can struggle to socialize sometimes. I also identify as Asexual, which can be an obstacle in romantic relationships. I use the same problem-solving techniques that I use for study plans and apply them to conflict resolution. For example, I struggle with recognizing sarcasm, so one time I thought my boyfriend was mad at me for some reason. I came up with a plan for how to figure out whether he was mad or not, and how to apologize if he was mad at me for something. If I can handle difficult situations academically, relationships can be handled as well.

"When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city to see a marching band!"! This iconic opening line begins one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Welcome to the Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance is an emo rock classic. It is a song from a concept album written from the perspective of a man dying of cancer. Each song illustrates a different part of the man's journey as he grieves the end of his life. Welcome to the Black Parade shifts the story of the concept album as the man begins to accept his fate and look back on his life. The song has a strong message of strength in adverse circumstances as the patient finds strength in his acceptance of his fate. This song has gotten me through so much, and it was a magical moment when I got to see it performed live at a MCR concert last fall.

My name is Elizabeth Sweeten. I am a Junior majoring in Bioengineering at UC Riverside. I dance Ballet Folklorico in a dance group for my school. I have been dancing for about a year and a half now, and I absolutely love it. I love learning different dances from the different states in Mexico. I collect comic books. My favorite series is the X-men, because I think it is very interesting how the lore of the series is an allegory for the civil rights movement, and the history of the 1960s is one of my special interests. I play the violin, ukulele, and flute. I play video games and I adore RPGs (role playing games) and horror games. I also write poetry, and I have some published poems. I am actually in the process of writing my first book of poetry. I volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I just finished a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We basically educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. For example, we had a meeting last year teaching our peers about the history of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and how the homophobic attitudes of government officials made the crisis so much worse. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism. I am Autistic, I have ADHD, and I was born in 2002, so a lot of my early childhood was being taken to various therapies that did not help me very much. We know more about Autism and ADHD than we did back then, so things have changed a lot even, improving a lot even compared to a time as relatively recent as the 2000s. Basically, being a kid was frustrating for me because I felt like I was always getting in trouble for existing. I was constantly in time out or the principal's office. My teachers and parents had no clue how to manage my ADHD, so they were taking the approach of trying everything and hoping something would work, like throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. And nothing was improving for me. I was already in middle school when I started an effective therapy program. A big part of why this program was effective was because it helped my parents learn how to help me manage my mental health. My teenage years were a lot better than my childhood because I felt like I was finally being listened to and being treated with respect. I am going to go to medical school after I graduate. I will study in a dual MD/Ph.D. program, so that I will have the MD qualification to be a surgeon and work directly with patients, but also a Ph.D. in bioengineering so that I can research and develop new medical technology. My Turner Syndrome means that I am immunocompromised, so I specifically want to help develop more effective antiviral treatments because that would improve my quality of life so much. On the surgery side, I am currently absolutely fascinated with orthopedic surgery, but I am keeping an open mind as I am shadowing different doctors.

I am multidisabled, but Amblyopia is the disability that affects me the most because I am majoring in bioengineering. I have a lot of complex math and science classes that use a lot of geometry, so it is very frustrating that I struggle to understand three-dimensional concepts in physics or geometry. I almost failed my organic chemistry class last quarter because I was struggling to learn about the three-dimensional structure of molecules. I failed both midterms but ended up with a C at the end of the class and was able to move on to the next class. I accomplished this because I worked very hard and got support from my professor. I have been managing this entire time by working very hard, going to lots of extra tutoring, and asking my professors for help. I just found out last month that Amblyopia is why I have that struggle, so I have started vision therapy. Hopefully, that will make my future classes a little bit easier. It will be interesting to see how that goes. I have learned how to develop good study habits to compensate for my disabilities and manage my time well. I spend most of my time studying to balance out my grades. It is very useful to organize a planner well to keep track of my assignments and exams. It is also a very good idea to google concepts and find problems similar to what I am working on so that I can see the relationships between the concepts and how they can be used to solve my assignments. When I struggle to connect diagrams with the concepts that they are showing, this is a very useful method to be able to learn how to work through various types of problems and see how the concepts that I learn are useful when they are applied to answer a question. This method helps me process my assignments and makes a huge difference. I have also learned the value of perseverance. I work very hard every day to be able to do decently in school, but I have never given up because I know that I need to keep going. I have also learned how to stay motivated when I am struggling and really feel down about some of my classes. I use to-do lists so that I can check off the different assignments and that keeps me going in a good study session. I also make study plans to keep track of what I have already learned and what I still need to study. It puts everything in perspective and motivates me to keep studying as I progress through my study plan.

I am interested in medical technology because biology is my favorite field of science. I chose to study bioengineering because medical technology is very interesting. Scientists have done some amazing things to improve peoples' health and quality of life. An example of medical technology from my life is that I use smartphone apps for my vision therapy for Amblyopia. I just started vision therapy recently to improve my three dimensional vision, and my vision is improving so far. I have noticed my handwriting improving and my choreography being smoother at dance practice, so I am hoping that my engineering and math classes will be less difficult in the future as I continue to develop better binocular vision. Currently, I am interested in developing new forms of technology that can be used for vision therapy, since this is making such an impact on the quality of my life. I would be interested in developing vision therapy programs using virtual reality technology to help patients who also suffer from Amblyopia develop their three dimensional vision more efficiently. I would also be interested in developing technology that can help people compensate for various types of vision deficits, maybe through specifically calibrated camera adjustments. This could potentially work similarly to the colorblindness color filter I use to see shades of red more clearly, but with more features in the display, like compensation for spatial vision deficits. I would also be interested in developing technology to help doctors monitor various aspects of their patients' health more efficiently and accurately. For example, the clinic I always go to for my appointments has blood pressure monitors that are not always the most accurate, so I always have to have my blood pressure measured multiple times. It would specifically be nice in my life to develop blood pressure monitors that are more accurate than the current technology allows. It would also be useful for doctors to be able to measure patients' oxygen levels, temperature, heart rate, and other vital statistics more accurately and efficiently. It would be nice if there was a way to more efficiently prepare lab data and let doctors and patients know specific information regarding health conditions. There are so many ways that bioengineers can use technology to improve the healthcare experience and save lives. As a bioengineering student, all of these possibilities are very exciting to me. I would love to be able to use technology to make a difference someday.

I have Amblyopia. This means that my right eye is not aligned correctly with my left eye, so I do not have very good three dimensional vision. This means that I really struggle with directional and spatial processing. I am multidisabled, but Amblyopia is the disability that affects me the most because I am majoring in bioengineering. I have a lot of complex math and science classes that use a lot of geometry, so it is very frustrating that I struggle to understand three dimensional concepts in physics or geometry. I almost failed my organic chemistry class last quarter because I was struggling to learn about the three dimensional structure of molecules. I failed both midterms but ended up with a C at the end of the class and was able to move on to the next class. I accomplished this because I worked very hard and got support from my professor. I also started vision therapy recently and I am using some amazing technology in this process. I just found out last month that Amblyopia is why I have that struggle, so I have just started vision therapy very recently. I have apps downloaded on my phone where I look at animations or shapes or even play games. In these vision therapy displays, the colors on the screen are split between red and blue. While I am looking at these apps, I wear 3D glasses where one lens is red and one is blue. The color splitting of the display forces my eyes to learn how to work together, and this improves my binocular vision. My handwriting has improved in the last few weeks, and I have noticed that I am more coordinated in my dancing now that my spatial vision is beginning to improve. I hope that my grades will improve as my vision is developing, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

I have Autism, ADHD, Turner Syndrome, and Amblyopia. Autism and ADHD are neurological disabilities that affect how I think. My ADHD basically means that my brain is constantly at hyper speed, and this is both a blessing and a curse, because it is great when I am hyperfocused, but it is frustrating when I am struggling to focus because my brain is going so fast. My Autism primarily affects me socially, but I do have sensory issues as well. I mostly struggle with certain lighting and sound levels. I also get cold very easily because my brain struggles to regulate my temperature. Turner Syndrome means that I am missing X chromosomes, so I am short and I am at risk for a lot of health problems due to my cells not producing enough hormones. Amblyopia means that my right eye is not aligned correctly with my left eye, so I do not have very good three dimensional vision. This means that I really struggle with directional and spatial processing. Amblyopia is the disability that affects me the most because I am majoring in bioengineering. I have a lot of complex math and science classes that use a lot of geometry, so it is very frustrating that I struggle to understand three dimensional concepts in physics or geometry. I almost failed my organic chemistry class last quarter because I was struggling to learn about the three dimensional structure of molecules. I failed both midterms but ended up with a C at the end of the class and was able to move on to the next class. I accomplished this because I worked very hard and got support from my professor. I have been managing this entire time by working very hard, going to lots of extra tutoring, and asking my professors for help. I just found out last month that Amblyopia is why I have that struggle, so I have started vision therapy. Hopefully that will make my future classes a little bit easier. It will be interesting to see how that goes. I have learned how to develop good study habits in order to compensate for my disabilities and manage my time well. I spend most of my time studying in order to balance out my grades. It is very useful to organize a planner well to keep track of my assignments and exams. It is also a very good idea to google concepts and find problems similar to what I am working on so that I can see the relationships between the concepts and how they can be used to solve my assignments. When I struggle to connect diagrams with the concepts that they are showing, this is a very useful method to be able to learn how to work through various types of problems and see how the concepts that I learn are useful when they are applied to answer a question. This method helps me process my assignments and makes a huge difference. I use to-do lists so that I can check off the different assignments and that really keeps me going in a good study session. I also make study plans to keep track of what I have already learned and what I still need to study. It really puts everything in perspective and motivates me to keep studying as I progress through my study plan.

I have Autism, ADHD, Turner Syndrome, and Amblyopia. Autism and ADHD are neurological disabilities that affect how I think. My ADHD means that my brain is constantly at hyperspeed, and this is both a blessing and a curse, because it is great when I am hyperfocused, but it is frustrating when I am struggling to focus because my brain is going so fast. My Autism primarily affects me socially, but I do have sensory issues as well. I mostly struggle with certain lighting and sound levels. I also get cold very easily because my brain struggles to regulate my temperature. Turner Syndrome means that I am missing X chromosomes, so I am short and I am at risk for a lot of health problems due to my cells not producing enough hormones. Amblyopia means that my right eye is not aligned correctly with my left eye, so I do not have very good three-dimensional vision. This means that I struggle with directional and spatial processing. I volunteer at the Student Disability Resource center at my school. I help run events for the center, like sensory nights. I raise awareness of resources for disabled students, especially at campus tours so that incoming students know their rights. I also serve as a peer mentor through the center's mentorship program, and this is a great way to support disabled students know how to adjust to college life. This school year is my second year as a mentor. I won an award last year for my community service at the Student Disability Resource Center. I was also recently nominated as one of the copresidents of the Delta Alpha Pi honor society, which is a community service based honor society for students with disabilities. I am looking forward to having more volunteering opportunities to further support my community. Now that I am newly one of the presidents of Delta Alpha Pi, I am in a brainstorming phase with the team, and we are coming up with projects that I can start next year to support the community. I am currently at the center of an advocacy project to change the class registration policies to improve priority enrollment policies for disabled students, and I am excited to see how this goes. I am also discussing a way for Delta Alpha Pi to help expand events that the disability center runs, like sensory nights. I am also pitching to run a meeting about being a disabled premedical student because so many members are also on the premed path. So I have a lot planned and hope I can make a difference before I graduate.

I am studying bioengineering at UC riverside, and working through a dual degree program. I am working on both my Bachelors' and Masters' degrees. I am pursuing degrees in bioengineering because medical technology is amazing and I want to be a doctor someday. When I graduate, I am going to go to medical school, study through a dual MD/PHD program, and become a surgeon and a biomedical researcher. I am considering orthopedic surgery as a specialty right now, but I am open to exploring different specialties through my shadowing opportunities. I have Turner syndrome, and a bunch of disabilities that are connected, so I want to be a doctor because my doctors have improved my quality of life so much, and I have been very inspired by them. I also want to get a PHD in bioengineering because medical technology is amazing and can help doctors do their work and help their patients. As I previously mentioned, I am disabled. I am also a Queer Latina woman. It makes a big difference in my life and my career path, from the experience of being part of so many groups that are often minoritized in STEM fields. For example, I want to be a doctor because of my experience with my own medical history. Because of these experiences, I am a member of a lot of specific professional development groups at UC Riverside that emphasize diversity, like the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), the Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA), the Society of Women in Engineering (SWE), and Health Queers. These groups help me build a community with other students and network with professionals that face similar struggles to us. Diversity in the workplace ensures that no one feels alone in their struggles. For example, many Hispanic professionals give presentations for SHPE, and this means that my friends and I have role models with a similar cultural background, so we can relate and learn more about being a person of color in engineering. Diversity in the workplace also means accessibility to me. For example, when there is more of a focus on hiring and supporting neurodivergent professionals in healthcare settings, many employees may receive diversity training and learn more about neurological disabilities. These employees may also learn more about how to build a supportive workplace culture through interacting with neurodivergent colleagues. When hese healthcare workers are more equipped to know how to support their colleagues who have Autism, ADHD, and other disabilities, this can make a big difference in the quality of the workplace culture. With a better workplace culture, the quality of life for neurodivergent employees increases exponentially. With this scholarship, I will continue my journey and build bridges for future doctors like me. I can make a big difference someday, and I will keep fighting. I will make it through my physics classes even though I struggle with my spatial processing. I will go on to medical school and be the best doctor that I can be.

My name is Elizabeth Sweeten. I am a Junior majoring in Bioengineering at UC Riverside. I dance Ballet Folklorico in a dance group for my school. I have been dancing for about a year and a half now, and I absolutely love it. I love learning different dances from the different states in Mexico. I collect comic books. My favorite series is the X-men, because I think it is very interesting how the lore of the series is an allegory for the civil rights movement, and the history of the 1960s is one of my special interests. I play the violin, ukulele, and flute. I play video games and I adore RPGs (role playing games) and horror games. I also write poetry, and I have some published poems. I am actually in the process of writing my first book of poetry. I also volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I just finished a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We basically educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. For example, we had a meeting last year teaching our peers about the history of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and how the homophobic attitudes of government officials made the crisis so much worse. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism. I am Autistic, I have ADHD, and I was born in 2002, so a lot of my early childhood was being taken to various therapies that did not help me very much. We know more about Autism and ADHD than we did back then, so things have changed a lot even, improving a lot even compared to a time as relatively recent as the 2000s. Basically, being a kid was frustrating for me because I felt like I was always getting in trouble for existing. I was constantly in time out or the principal's office. My teachers and parents had no clue how to manage my ADHD, so they were taking the approach of trying everything and hoping something would work, like throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. And nothing was improving for me. I was already in middle school when I actually started an effective therapy program. A big part of why this program was effective was because it helped my parents learn how to help me manage my mental health. My teenage years were a lot better than my childhood because I felt like I was finally being listened to and being treated with respect. I am going to go to medical school after I graduate. I will study in a dual MD/PHD program, so that I will have the MD qualification to be a surgeon and work directly with patients, but also a PHD in bioengineering so that I can research and develop new medical technology. My Turner Syndrome and I am immunocompromised, so I specifically want to help develop more effective antiviral treatments because that would improve my quality of life so much. On the surgery side, I am currently absolutely fascinated with orthopedic surgery, but I am keeping an open mind as I am shadowing different doctors.

I have ADHD as well as a spatial processing deficit due to Turner Syndrome. I really struggle with math and physics classes specifically, due to my lack of spatial processing. I have been struggling with math since I was in middle school, when my math classes started to introduce some more complex geometrical concepts. I am also trying to learn how to drive, and struggling due to my spatial processing deficit. I just got a referral for an adaptive driver's education program where I will use driving simulators to become more used to driving in a safe environment so that I can build up my skills before I get in some driving practice on the open road. I am looking forward to learning how to drive, because I feel like I would gain a lot of independence from learning this new skill and getting my drivers license. My lack of spatial processing is a major obstacle in my life, especially because I am majoring in bioengineering. I am making the most of my situation though. I study very hard and I go to tutoring sessions frequently to try to succeed in my classes and catch up with my peers. All of this extra work is worth it though, because I think that bioengineering is an amazing field. After I graduate, I am going to go to medical school. I will study in a dual MD/PHD program, so that I will have the MD qualification to be a surgeon and work directly with patients, but also a PHD in bioengineering so that I can research and develop new medical technology. My Turner Syndrome and I am immunocompromised, so I specifically want to help develop more effective antiviral treatments because that would improve my quality of life so much. On the surgery side, I am currently absolutely fascinated with orthopedic surgery, but I am keeping an open mind as I am shadowing different doctors. I am a good candidate for this scholarship because I am a hardworking and ambitious student with a bright future. This scholarship can make a big difference in helping me follow my dreams and making amazing new discoveries someday. I am on track to being a very strong applicant for medical school. My academic record is decent considering the fact that I struggle with math and I chose such a math heavy major. My GPA is 2.94, and it is about to go up next school year now that I finished the roughest year of my degree path. When I am not busy studying for my engineering classes, I am a leader in my community. I volunteer at my school's Student Disability Resource Center whenever I have an opportunity. I just finished a volunteering internship through a university outreach program where I taught middle school students about engineering and what it is like going to engineering school. I am also a leader in a student organization called Health Queers. We basically educate students about LGBT issues, healthcare issues, and how they intersect. For example, we had a meeting last year teaching our peers about the history of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and how the homophobic attitudes of government officials made the crisis so much worse. I have also volunteered as a tutor for Autistic elementary school students through a student group called Fight for Autism.