Late August of 2023, I found myself with 12 other students and some professors from my physician assistant program bumbling up the side of a mountain on an unpaved road only wide enough for our van. Some classmates prayed, some squeezed their eyes shut; all of us white-knuckled the seat in front of us for that 30 minute stretch of the drive. Once safely at the top, the welcome we received from the community that lived there quickly helped us forget that we had to make that drive in reverse in about 8 hours. This was just one day of a week-long medical mission trip that the Salus University PA program undertakes every year through Hearts in Motion. For five days of the week, with the other two being travel days, we transported medications, water filters, and other medical materials to five different communities in rural Guatemala and set up and ran healthcare clinics for eight to nine hours each day. Armed with information from our didactic year of education and extremely rudimentary medical Spanish, we excitedly got to work. We provided omeprazole for GERD, Tylenol for headache, albuterol for asthma, and, thanks to water filters from last year's efforts, not a single course of mebendazole for parasites. Learning about other cultures and finding ways to navigate the social determinants of health surrounding impoverished communities has always been of interest to me, and it is a passion that I believe will be lifelong. The first service trip I participated in was as a sophomore at Dickinson college, and we focused on public health. The group traveled to Nashville, TN to work with United Cerebral Palsy of Nashville to build accessibility ramps at client homes for no cost and to work with Project CURE out of Nashville to organize and prepare to ship medical supplies to clinics and hospitals overseas. Through this trip, I first began to learn about the many social determinants of health that deeply impact a person's ability to get healthcare, or even to have mobility in their own home. As a junior, I had transferred to Lebanon Valley College and participated in another public health service trip. Because this was the spring of 2021, we were unable to travel to Brazil, where we would have performed our service, but we were fortunate to still connect with our Brazilian hosts via Zoom to learn about the healthcare system and the cultural beliefs regarding healthcare throughout the different populations of Brazil. On the home front, we worked with organizations in our own community such as the Free Clinic of Lebanon County and Habitat for Humanity of Lebanon County to address yet more social determinants of health. Outside of these trips, I continued my volunteerism through Volunteers in Medicine of Lebanon County and the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center of Lebanon County, ultimately earning a Gold Service Award from Lebanon Valley college. This award requires a student to complete 150 hours of community service and participate in a service trip in their 4 years at the college. Because I was a transfer student, I had met these requirements in 2 years. Volunteerism is something that has truly become my passion, and currently, as I stare down my impending October graduation and certification as a physician assistant, I am excited to enter the workforce with my own panel of patients and continue to give back to my community in whatever way I can. I would like to return to my roots from my undergraduate career and return to Volunteers in Medicine and SARCC.

At present, I am a clinical year physician assistant student at Salus University. With each clinical rotation, I feel more confident in my decision to pursue this career. Thus far, I have been in family medicine, women's health, internal medicine, and mental health settings, and I am excited to continue my experiences and find my niche. Before PA school, I worked as a home health aide with geriatric clients, helping them to continue living independently in their homes. This developed my passion for this population and taught me to find what is important to the patient. Though there are many changes one goes through as one ages, there are many things they are still able to do with accommodations, adaptive technology, and patience from those around them. I hope to take this knowledge and these interests into my career, regardless of the population with which I work. Throughout my undergraduate career, I was highly involved in my communities. I started my career at Dickinson College, where I served as the Director for Service and Community Partnerships for the college's chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta. In this position, I set up and encouraged attendance at service events, such as volunteering with a local animal shelter and helping to winterize the college farm. I also participated in a public health service trip to Nashville, TN. After transferring to Lebanon Valley College, I continued to serve my community through the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center and Volunteers in Medicine, both in Lebanon, PA. Here, too, I participated in a service trip with a focus on the social determinants of health. Lastly, at Salus, I traveled to Guatemala with some of my peers to provide healthcare in rural clinics. In my future career as a PA, I hope to continue this service.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the sciences, an interest which was fostered by my Neuroscience Professor mother. In high school, I excelled in AP Biology and Honors Chemistry, captivated as I was by the experiments and investigations we performed. I even pushed further, taking Honors Genetics, Epidemiology, and a course specifically discussing stem cells. It was around this same point in high school that I developed a passion for healthcare, beginning for the first time to see the disparities that existed across different populations. A person's livelihood, happiness, and life itself are dependent on their access to healthcare, both preventative and sick care, and I began to realize that healthcare is not treated as a human right but rather as a commodity, meaning that individuals who need care most are often barred from receiving it. Carrying these ideals of healthcare equity with me, I began my BS in Neuroscience at Dickinson college. For the two years I spent there, I grew so much as a person, meeting some of my best friends and gaining experiences that would shape my future. I knew that I loved science, but I was still unsure how I wanted to use it. I was introduced to the physician assistant career by my primary care provider, a physician assistant. I trusted her implicitly with my health because I felt listened to at all of my appointments. I started looking more and more into the career and into PA programs, but the experience that truly pushed me into this career field was a public health service trip I embarked on through Dickinson. A team of classmates and I traveled to Nashville, TN in December 2020 where we worked with United Cerebral Palsy, an organization that works to make patients' homes accessible to wheelchairs, canes, and other mobility aids. We built 3 ramps and helped to organize the main office for the organization during our time with them. Additionally, we worked with Project Cure to organize and box medications and medical supplies for shipment to underserved clinics globally. This work was immensely rewarding and demonstrated the many ways in which a person's health status impacts their life, from the access their have to their medications to the very ability to get into their home. I transferred to Lebanon Valley College in Fall 2020, and here I began to acquire healthcare experiences that would help me in my PA school applications. I was a home health aide at Home Instead Senior Care, and developing such beautiful relationships with my clients remains a highlight of my life. Additionally, I began to volunteer for Volunteers in Medicine and the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, both in Lebanon, PA. I learned to advocate for patients and to provide trauma-informed healthcare. A public health service trip in Lebanon, PA deepened my understanding of the social determinants of health patients face. Finally, I shadowed an LVC alumna, a gerontology PA, from March-August 2021. As a PA student at Salus University, I have completed rotations in Family, Women's, and Internal Medicine and am currently doing Mental Health at a prison. I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Guatemala with my school and Hearts in Motion in August. There, we set up clinics in 5 communities and provided healthcare to over 500 people. I am pursuing this career because of the quality of care I have received from PAs and because I have a passion for making high-quality healthcare accessible for all. A future where we are all well is a future where we all succeed.

On May 14th, 2022, I walked across the stage at Lebanon Valley College to receive my diploma for my BS in Neuroscience from my mother. She graduated from the same school with the same degree 30 years prior and is now a professor there, naturally of neuroscience. Not only that, but minutes before she had been awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award for all of her hard work as a professor and advisor for her pre-med students. Sitting alongside my brother and grandmother, looking on proudly was my father. He had been there not only for all of the celebratory moments such as there but also for all of the moments of struggle that had come before. He had supported my mother through her undergraduate, PhD, and post-grad careers before supporting my brother and me in all our ventures through high school and college. None of us knew that we would be saying goodbye to him for the final time in 3 days. In the immediate aftermath, none of us knew what to do. We didn’t know how to talk about him because we couldn’t bring ourselves to use the past tense. How do you reconcile the plans that you made with someone just days before with now never seeing them again? I had been telling him about my first apartment and planning for the move the day before we lost him. Now, he would never see me living independently. He would never see me go to graduate school, which I was set to begin in August. I had no idea how I was supposed to focus on my academically rigorous coursework when I was barely making it through my day. However, after a period of deep uncertainty, I realized that my dad would never have wanted me to put off school and my goals. He would want me to keep moving forward even in his absence. This knowledge made me sure of my decision to continue with my plan to move into my first apartment and start my master’s through Salus University’s physician assistant program. I thought of him a lot throughout my first year. I still do. There are many times when studying is impossible through grief, and, after experiencing his loss, there are moments in the healthcare setting that can be triggering. But I know that I want to be a physician assistant, and I know that I can do it, even when there are difficult days. More than any other experience I have had, the loss of my dad has re-shaped my relationships with everyone in my life. My significant other came into my life around the same time that I lost my dad, and they never knew each other. Additionally, few people my age have lost parents, so I find that they cannot understand what I am experiencing. Because of this, I have become much more direct about my needs, telling others how I would like to be supported and what they can do to help me most in the hard moments. My relationships with my family have changed immensely, too, as I have watched my younger brother take over the tasks that my dad used to handle, like answering my questions about my car. Some things are still difficult to talk about with my mom, and there are times at holidays when it is obvious that he is missing, but no one wants to acknowledge it. We are all still learning how to navigate the tough conversations and each other in the aftermath, even over a year later.

As the van holding my fellow graduate students, our professors, and our hosts in Guatemala made its way up the mountain, getting a little too close for comfort to the edge of that mountain, we all reflected on the difficulty that residents of this high-altitude community would have getting resources of any kind, especially the healthcare we were there to provide. For one week in August 2023, my class of physician assistant students from Salus University traveled with several professors and our Guatemalan hosts to set up single-day clinics in rural communities through the organization Hearts In Motion. While we recognized that many communities in rural Guatemala lived in poverty and had limited access to healthcare, we were still amazed on arrival to each of the communities. We set up our clinics in a church, a school, a nutrition center, and even a woman's home which doubled as a community center when needed. Armed with our stethoscopes, otoscopes, and medical Spanish packets, we did our best to identify the problems our patients were experiencing and provide the appropriate care with what we had available. The medications and other supplies consisted of what we could fit in our own carry on bags, a few extra suitcases, and what was left at the host house from the previous trips. For many, treatment consisted of providing acetaminophen and multivitamins, which were gratefully accepted and for which we were graciously thanked. This trip was my first time leaving the contiguous United States, and it taught me a great number of things. Even concepts I understood intellectually, like that rural communities have fewer resources and struggle to get to hospitals or doctor's offices which are typically located in cities many miles away, were starkly obvious during this trip. Trying to imagine myself, sick or injured, traveling down the side of a mountain for hours or more to find a hospital and care that I may not be able to afford shook me to my core. It made even the longest wait times for my provider seem like nothing. Additionally, picturing keeping myself healthy with parasite-riddled drinking water, limited protection from the sun and heat, and a job requiring physical labor was almost impossible. We were able to provide water filters and education on their use and maintenance to each household that we saw each day. Similarly, we had a blindness and low-vision studies student along with us who was able to provide some reading glasses and sunglasses to patients. However, aside from these materials, the care we practiced was limited to problems we could treat in the immediate setting, such as with acetaminophen and omeprazole, and preventative education, such as tips about healthy eating, toothbrushing, and hand-washing. While I do feel that we made an impact on this trip, having the ability to see the barriers that many rural Guatemalans are faced with daily is an experience with no equal. It made me incredibly grateful for the things in my life that I often take for granted, such as access to potable water, the ability to drive to my primary care office when sick, and my education and health literacy. Aside from an understanding of the needs of rural communities, I was fortunate to also experience the beautiful culture of Guatemala. Breakfast and lunch were prepared daily by two Guatemalan women who made us traditional dishes with native fruits and vegetables. We also experienced day and nightlife in Antigua and experienced the presidential election. This experience changed me deeply, and I know that more travel and service is in my future.

Currently, I am in my second year of the Physician Assistant program at Salus University. This year is the clinical year in which I will have 10 rotations in different medical settings including surgery, internal medicine, family medicine, and others. Thus far, I have completed family medicine, women’s health, and internal medicine rotations and am in the second week of a mental health rotation. These experiences have already deepened my understanding of medicine and shown me settings in which I can see myself practicing in less than a year. I learned from my family medicine rotation that I want to develop long-term relationships with my patients and hope to follow-up with them routinely to see the progress they are making with their health. In internal medicine, I found that the challenges posed by the challenging and sometimes acute cases in addition to the opportunity to work with a wider team of specialists taught my something every day. In women’s health, I learned the importance of listening to patients and understanding that they know their bodies. People have a profound capacity to know when something is wrong, even when they cannot tell you exactly. Currently, through my mental health rotation, which is in a correctional medicine setting, I am deepening my passion for neuroscience, in which I did my undergraduate degree. Additionally, psychiatry is a field that requires a unique skill set, especially while working with addiction, to make progress with patients. Though I have 6 remaining rotations, I feel increasingly confident that I am meant to be a neurology PA. This position would fulfill my desire for relationships with my patients and continuity in their care, my curiosity which is piqued by complex cases and the ability to work with others to solve problems, my passion for listening to and believing patients when they know something is wrong, and my background knowledge in neuro in combination with my evolving ability to build trust with my patients. Additionally, much of my patient care experience prior to PA school occurred with geriatric patients as a home health aide. The passion that I had for this job was unlike any I had experienced before and the connections that I made were valuable to both myself and my clients. The geriatric population is one that is sometimes forgotten. As a society, we forget the struggles that they might be facing, including loneliness, anxiety, and depression linked to the loss of family and friends and their own mortality. Many geriatric patients also have neurological changes as well, whether they are normal changes to processing or disorders like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s Disease. Despite how complex these issues can be, they can have fairly simple solutions if one takes the time to seek them out. For example, many clients I worked with simply wanted someone to talk to, whether the conversation was about what they did that day, how they missed their husband or wife, or about their incredible life experiences. Because of my unique set of interests and my knowledge and experience with geriatric patients with various neurological states, I believe that my niche as a PA will be in neurology. One of my elective rotations is in neurology, and I am extremely excited to take advantage of that opportunity.

Though I did some occasional volunteering in high school, I hit my stride in college. I truly found my passion for helping others beginning in my sophomore year with my role as Director of Volunteerism and Community Partnerships for Dickinson College's chapter of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society by organizing service events for the chapter members. Over winter break of the same year, I participated in a public health service trip to Nashville, TN. At Lebanon Valley College, I completed over 150 hours of service through organizations like the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, Lebanon Valley Volunteers in Medicine, and another public health service trip in which we served our own local community due to COVID-19 restrictions. Prior to graduation from LVC, I received the Gold Service award for my work in these various environments. In August, I went on another service trip to Guatemala with my graduate program in which we set up a clinic in a new community each day and provided healthcare to members of those communities via Hearts in Motion. Currently, I am in my second year of graduate school with plans to be a physician assistant, and, in addition to my career, I want to continue to serve my local community in whatever way I am able, especially using my healthcare background. My volunteerism taught me an incredible amount about the importance of teamwork, something that I had explored throughout my high school soccer career but which solidified in these experiences. I could truly see how each person comes with their own unique set of skills that benefit the team and community in which you're working. Now that I am on clinical rotations, I am appreciating again the teamwork that I see occurring on the floors of the hospital daily. While we each have our patients, we rely heavily on the knowledge base of pulmonology, cardiology, and other specialists to support our diagnoses and suggest the best strategies for the treatment and management of conditions. In return, we provide our expertise and skills where needed. This scholarship will help me continue to receive my graduate education and support me in my endeavors to become the best team player I can be and to continue to work with underprivileged communities as a professional. It will alleviate some of the pressure of student loans and, subsequently, the associated anxiety. I am excited to move into this next period of my life, and this scholarship will help me to be as prepared for every learning experience.

On May 14th, 2022, I graduated from Lebanon Valley College with my degree in neuroscience, my mother, father, and younger brother in attendance. By May 19th, I was saying goodbye to my dad for the last time. This loss was entirely unexpected, and the memory knocks the wind from me to this day. I was set to matriculate into my dream graduate program, move into my first apartment with my lovely roommates, and start the next phase of my education journey. My brother would be finished with school by Spring 2023 and entering his career field. My parents were supposed to be enjoying the freedom of having two grown children. Instead, we celebrated Father's Day and what would have been my dad's 58th birthday within the next two months. While we had plenty of hands to move furniture into my apartment, we missed one particular set of hands that always knew how to maximize the space in the truck bed, knew how to deconstruct and reassemble the furniture. Though his initial loss was devastating, it would be these moments that would truly demonstrate the impact of his loss on my life and family. The knowledge that he would never see my first apartment, come to my white coat ceremony, attend my wedding, or meet his grandchildren is something that I continue to struggle with in my day-to-day life. Celebrating holidays, birthdays, and accomplishments is always bittersweet now because there is an empty chair at the table. We all know deeply that he would not want us to cry and certainly would not want to overshadow our best moments, but there is no option but to know what is missing and to wish it were different. We still have joy, we still have support, and with the passage of time, we learn to exist in the new reality, but we can't help the tears and we don't try to fight them. When we first lost him, I had no idea how to picture the future and certainly no idea what I would do about grad school in 3 months. However, my dad would never have wanted me to put my life on hold on his behalf. I knew I wanted to be a physician assistant, and it felt that there was no other option but to push forward and go to school. Now, I am in my clinical year of the physician assistant program at Salus University, and though my dad wasn't physically here to see me through, I know that my 22 years with him has made me the strong, caring, dedicated person that shows up everyday. Through his loss, I was created a more compassionate and empathetic provider. There are some experiences that you cannot understand without going through them youself, and learning to grieve and navigate a world that looks completely different than it did yesterday has helped me work with patients who are dealing with loss or difficult diagnoses. Though I still do not always know the perfect thing to say, I know how to be present with them in their hardest moments and validate their feelings, even the ones they didn't expect. Though there will always be hard moments, but the things I have learned from those moments have equipped me to be a better support system for my future patients.

My true passion for volunteerism was born while I was an undergraduate. Though I had some service under my belt from high school, I knew that there was more I could be doing. Going to two small colleges allowed me to find my niche in both places and contribute to the greater community. I spent my first two undergraduate years at Dickinson College, where I served as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships our campus's chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta honor society. We served within the campus community and in Carlisle at large. In January 2020, I followed my dual passions for healthcare and service through a public health service trip to Nashville, where we helped organizations sort healthcare materials for transport and built access ramps at the houses of people whose conditions do not allow them to use stairs. I learned an incredible amount from these experiences. It was interesting to see how "behind the scenes" work, like sorting bandaids and eye drops, can greatly improve an organization's ability to help people. I also learned the importance of fully understanding the community you are seeking to help. Though you may identify needs that you would like to meet through your work, the community might prioritize other issues that you were unable to see. Ultimately the best work will come from bridging the gaps that the communities identify. I took this revelation into my junior year at Lebanon Valley College. Now committed to the pursuit of a career as a physician assistant, I was invested in seeing the social determinants of health not only through my worldview but also from the perspective of international communities. I registered for another service trip, this time based in Brazil, set for May 2021. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 precautions, we were unable to travel internationally. Instead, we connected with the Brazilian partners and received a lot of education on healthcare in Brazil via Zoom, Simultaneously, we did hands-on work in our own community around the college. Though I was disappointed to be unable to travel, I gained so much from seeing the needs that existed in my own community. I was able to compare and contrast the type of services I was performing locally with that which would have been done abroad. The impact of the income levels and socioeconomic status of the individuals in each community on the type of service we provided was clear; however, more interesting to me was the impact of culture on the service provided. At home, health education was based on biological views of health, such as Germ Theory, whereas in Brazil, some regions engage with healthcare similarly to the US and are amenable to biological explanations, while other populations have cultural and religious explanations for disease states. They are less likely to use or have access to prescription medications and more likely to use generational knowledge of health to use herbs and plants to treat illness. Understanding the cultural and religious implications of health and disease states is important in determining how best to interact with and provide service to a particular population. Bringing Ibuprofen and Metformin to communities that have always used more holistic methods will not be as successful as working within their religious and cultural framework to encourage preventative behavior and to understand the indications and efficacy of the traditional healthcare with which they are familiar. Now, as a physician assistant student, I am going to Guatemala on a service to provide healthcare in rural regions, and I am taking all this wisdom with me. Certainly, I am taking it into my career.

The dream version of my future self is someone who has built a life around caring for others in terms of being present for my family, cultivating relationships with my patients at work, and volunteering within my community to create a situation in which others can work toward their dream future self as well.

Throughout my life, I have developed a powerful belief in healthcare as a human right, yet it is still a resource to which many, even in the United States, do not have access. For individuals with low or nonexistent insurance coverage for healthcare, going to see a provider becomes financially unfeasible. Worse yet, these individuals with decreased healthcare access tend to be the same individuals who experience occupational health hazards, live in food deserts, and have less safe housing. I knew that this was a problem that I am passionate about solving, but the way that I wanted to approach it was something that I explored as I exited high school and entered college. Initially, I thought I wanted to tackle the issues from the legislative side, promoting health public policy that would increase access to high-quality, affordable healthcare. However, as I looked over the course catalog in the summer before my freshman year of college, I found myself much more drawn to the biology department than the political science department, so I enrolled in freshman introductory biology and chemistry, in addition to my freshman seminar and French. Throughout undergrad, I participated in two public health service trips, one within my home community and one in Nashville, Tennessee, and both experiences greatly reinforced my passion for helping others, especially through enhancing healthcare access. As I progressed through my major, I realized my interest in the pathophysiology of disease, and I was now able to view the social determinants of health on top of the biological basis of health conditions. My ultimate conclusion is that I am meant to provide the accessible, affordable healthcare that I remain so invested in. The physician assistant profession attracted me because of its flexibility, hands-on patient interaction, and my great experiences with PAs personally. I began shadowing a physician assistant and volunteering with Volunteers in Medicine to get exposure to the profession from the side of the provider. Additionally, I began to acquire experiential hours for PA school through my jobs as a home health aide for senior citizens and as a newborn hearing screener. The relationships that I developed with my clients solidified my passion for providing healthcare. In May 2022, I graduated from Lebanon Valley College with my BS in Neuroscience. Now, I am in my second semester of the Master of Medical Science - Physician Assistant program at Salus University, and even through the challenges inherent to the program, I have never questioned that this is the path for me. This summer, I am excited to embark on another service trip, this time to Guatemala, with other members of my class through Hearts in Motion. On this trip, we will work with underserved, rural communities to evaluate conditions that the residents might have and provide basic medications for their management. In addition, we will provide health education to promote the prevention of conditions. In my future career, I plan to continue working with underserved communities in practice and through volunteerism. I am especially drawn to the geriatric community because of my healthcare experiences prior to PA school. Additionally, I am interested in neurology, as I have a neuroscience background from my undergraduate education. However, no matter where I end up, I am passionate about providing care to individuals in need and promoting the expansion of access to affordable healthcare as a physician assistant.

From the time we are little, the adults around us, teachers, parents, and coaches, all tell us that we should persevere. That we should push forward, even when things seem difficult, in pursuit of our dreams. I finished second in my high school class in spite of my near-constant anxiety and routine panic attacks, and I considered myself to have persevered. In the fall of my sophomore year, we lost my grandma, and I was proud of myself for persevering by returning to school after the funeral and continuing to be the student she knew me to be. That spring semester, the COVID-19 pandemic developed, which caused us to be sent home from our campuses, to adapt to a new learning environment, and to find ways to stay connected while being physically separated. During that time, I also made the difficult decision to transfer to a college in my hometown, unsure when I would be able to see my undergraduate friends again. In my senior year of college, I reaped the fruits of my labors by being accepted to three Master of Medical Science - Physician Assistant programs, and I ultimately committed to Salus University. I was handed my undergraduate diploma by my mother, in view of my brother, dad, and grandmother. I was ready to celebrate all the successes born from my perseverance. Then, three days after I received my diploma in May 2022, in the early hours of the morning, my dad passed away despite my greatest efforts. It was an unexpected, devastating loss of one of my greatest supporters. Just the day before, we had been talking about furniture that I could take to my first apartment. An apartment he would never see, shared with roommates he would never know, and near a school at which I was to have a white coat ceremony that he would now never attend. Suddenly, all these plans felt too heavy. They felt impossible without him beside me. However, after many conversations with family and counselors, I decided to go forward with my plan for graduate school. My mom, brother, and friends helped me take everything I needed 1.5 hours away from home and set me up in my new space. Suddenly, perseverance took on an entirely new meaning. I still pursued my life goals, but perseverance was no longer about the big picture. Instead, it became about successful grocery store runs, choosing to go meet future classmates, and, ultimately, getting up for every class of my fall semester, despite missing my dad every day. It became about finding new meaning in my dad's life, as well as my own, and using the experiences I had to deepen my relationships with others and offer others more grace. Unfortunately, since then, disaster has continued to strike. My 19-year-old brother was in a severe motorcycle accident and needs support while he recuperates at home. Additionally, my grandfather, who has lived with Alzheimer's Disease for many years, has indicated to our family that he is ready to move on. Often, when I share these details, people ask me if it is a good idea to remain in my graduate program and if it might not be better to take time off for my mental health. And I often consider it myself. I would consider that perseverance of a different kind, with a different focus. However, I have chosen, in spite of everything, to persevere in my program. To me, perseverance is doing what is right for yourself, in the present moment, to ensure that you are moving foward and caring for yourself daily.

A person's health is integral to their well-being, self-esteem, and ability to get the most out of life, and one's best health comes from the best possible care from their provider. I have always felt that all people have a right to accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare and that a stellar provider is a major part of that healthcare. In my undergraduate career, I participated in two public health service trips in which we looked at social determinants of health, in addition to the medical aspect of one's health. Through these trips, we realized the importance of having a provider that listens to their patient and who values their values and input. All care should be patient-centered and patient-guided, looking at the patient as a complete person. This means accounting for their beliefs about their health, medications, procedures, and other interventions that they may not be comfortable with, and listening to what they are saying about their own well-being. Equally as important is that the provider asks questions with answers that provide them with context about the patient's home and work life. What health-compromising exposures might the patient be experiencing? Is the patient safe and comfortable in their home? Do they have a stable home to return to every day? Of whom is their support system comprised? These questions and more allow the provider to better understand what gaps in the patient's needs might not be met and to provide them to the best of their ability with the resources to make that happen. Additionally, it allows them to see barriers to accessing healthy foods, medications, and joyful movement that the patient might be experiencing. A provider can best help their patient when they understand what solutions to a particular health challenge will or will not work for that individual. Therefore, I am pursuing my chosen profession, Physician Assistant, through Salus University so that I can be that provider for my future patients. I want to make a change in the healthcare field by personalizing healthcare for the people that I see. I am excited to cultivate relationships with my patients that will allow me to know them outside of the healthcare facility, where they meet most of their healthcare challenges. Additionally, I aspire to give back to my community in ways that I have seen other providers do in my prior community service experience. For example, I worked under providers at Volunteers in Medicine in Lebanon, PA, and these providers volunteered their time and resources to provide low-cost or free care to uninsured individuals. I am excited to use the skills I am going to develop in the next two years of my program to serve people. Finally, I simply find the science of medicine extremely rewarding. It astounds me the difference that you can make in a patient's life simply by listening to them and providing them with the appropriate resources to recover or to make changes. Though it is cliche, I am truly entering this career because I want to help people.

When I completed my Bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College, I was awarded a Gold Service Award, which is given to students who had completed 150 hours of community service and a community service trip through the school or who had completed 200 hours of community service in general. From Fall 2020, the semester in which I transferred to LVC, to my May 2022 graduation, I accumulated over 200 service hours and participated in a public health service trip. I served with Volunteers in Medicine in Lebanon, PA organizing patient files and doing other office housekeeping as asked. Additionally, I served in the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in the same city by taking calls on the crisis hotline, performing acts of outreach to local community groups, and completing office housekeeping. Additionally, through LVC, I was re-connected with my home school district, wherein I spent a semester tutoring a student in middle school. Finally, the service trip was completed within our community. While students usually travel abroad to complete their service, the COVID-19 pandemic kept us on the homefront, and we found it extremely impactful to see and meet the need in our own backyard. During this service trip, we focused on public health, including how health is impacted by socioeconomic factors. At Habitat for Humanity, we saw how health and having a safe, dry, warm place to call home is integral to a person's health. We also met with individuals who are in charge of some of the community's resources, like the Free Clinic. Finally, we packed pregnancy and birthing kits for mothers who have home births. I gained this Gold Service award in my two-year span at LVC, where it is generally given after the completion of 4 years. More importantly, I gained incredible insight into aspects of health that a provider may not see or consider in an office setting. I made valuable connections to the resources in the community and identified gaps in the services provided that could be improved upon in the future. My first two years of undergrad were spent at Dickinson College, where my true love for community service was cultivated. At Dickinson, I served as the Chair for Community Service and Partnerships for the first-year honor society Alpha Lambda Delta. In this position, I established service opportunities for the ALD cohort at Dickinson, which spanned all four class years. One of these service opportunities was a trip to the college farm in November to help them "winterize." Additionally, I participated in a service trip at Dickinson. This trip was also rooted in public health, and we traveled to Nashville to work with Project Cure (to sort and pack medical supplies for underserved clinics internationally) and with United Cerebral Palsy (to build access ramps at no charge at the homes of individuals who could not use the stairs to their front door). Now, I am at Salus University in the Physician Assistant program, and I hope to use all that I am learning here and all that I have taken from my community service opportunities to be the best possible Physician Assistant. I would like to participate in this program's service trip, as I have at both my prior institutions. Next August, we will travel to Guatemala for a week where we will use and develop our skills as providers-in-training to provide care to underserved communities there. Importantly, we will be able to see healthcare environments with which we are less familiar and to better understand global public health. This scholarship would cover much of my travel expenses for this trip.

Like any journey, mine has had its fair share of successes and pitfalls. Trying to develop a routine that allows for physical exercise, college classes, studying, homework, a job, and eating well can be daunting, but I got into the hang of it in the summer of 2019. I was able to adapt the routine I had created for the 2019-2020 school year... until COVID-19. Sent home from college with instructions to Zoom into classes from my dining table, I was losing the physical activity required to walk to breakfast and then to classes. Additionally, I no longer needed the morning routine that I had established. That combined with an inability to go to gyms and the stress of wondering if and when my family would get sick, and if I might lose them, made it nearly impossible to maintain the same level of fitness and health. Throughout that year, I focused less on my physical health and more on my mental health, trying to cope with the worries and being cooped up in the house. Since then, as we have all adjusted to pandemic life, I have gotten back into the swing of things, returning to the gym and thinking more about the foods that I am putting into my body. Recently, I moved into my own apartment, and it has made it even easier to ensure that I am keeping myself healthy because I can purchase my own foods and go to the gym owned by my apartment. Of course, I will soon enter graduate school, which will put new pressures on these healthy decisions, but I intend to do my best to retain my habits by keeping a close schedule planning my meals in advance of the week. Additionally, I have not abandoned my mental health either. After a major setback in the spring of this year, I began therapy, which has massively improved my quality of life. Having an unbiased individual to talk to, one who can see the big picture when I cannot, helps me to recenter my thoughts around positive things in my life, while still taking the time to cope healthily with the things that are not. I support my mental health outside of sessions by using the coping and body-calming skills that she provides me with when needed. Additionally, I focus on getting eight hours of sleep and drinking a healthy amount of water. I also ensure that I get out of my apartment and into the sunlight at least once a day, even if my workload feels overwhelming. I know that my journey to health is not actually one with an "end." Rather, it is a process of setting and achieving goals as they become relevant to my life. It is also about growth, whether that growth is physically, mentally, or emotionally. I know that there will never be perfect circumstances under which to pursue my healthiest self, so I must continually work at it, giving myself both motivation and inspiration as well as rest and grace when needed.

My mother and aunt were first generation college students at Lebanon Valley College, and it was possible for them to pursue their career paths because of this education. However, despite their academic achievements, it may not have been possible for them to receive higher education if it were not for the work of my grandmother, a secretary at that same institution. Because of her work they, going to college was more affordable, and altogether possible, for my mother and my aunt. My mother then went on to earn a PhD in Neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University. Since then, my mother has continued the legacy of my grandmother by working at LVC as a Professor of Biology. Her work in combination with my academic performance opened many doors in the world of education. I was able to attend Dickinson College for the first two years of my undergraduate experience because I was offered a tuition remission scholarship offered through an association between Dickinson and Lebanon Valley College. Then, when COVID-19 hit, I was able to transfer to LVC and come back home. Now, I am headed into a Master of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies at Salus University, and I know that the place I am today is owed to these women who came before me and worked hard so that their children would have these opportunities. Higher education has made all the difference in the case because each of us who were fortunate enough to attend college and even pursue higher degrees are able to pursue our passions and continue in our love of learning. Of the four grandchildren on my mom's side, one is set to become a pharmacist, one is working in digital communications at a college, one is pursuing an associates in Computer Integrated Machining, and the other, myself, aspires to be a physician assistant. Without higher education, none of those career paths would be possible for us, and the world would not have access to our natural and practiced talents. Higher education has also provided me with an extraordinary community of people from whom I have learned more than I can express. I have met and befriended international students, individuals from across the United States, and people from 10 miles away from me, none of whom I would necessarily have met otherwise. They have each enriched my life by offering me new perspectives on the world and sharing with me their experiences. Many of us are separated by geography now, pursuing our futures, but we all keep in touch because of the deep bond that our college experiences has developed within us. My experiences in higher education have made an incredible difference, as I can see between the person I was when I graduated high school and the person I am now as I enter my graduate program. I have learned an incredible amount that I would not have otherwise learned both in and out of the classroom. I have developed a great appreciation for the opportunities that higher education provides to the students that can access it, and it is a great hope of mine that one day everyone will have the ability to go to college if they so choose.

Between the COVID-19 pandemic and transferring schools, my undergraduate education felt anything but consistent. However, one thing did remain consistent throughout my undergraduate career, and that thing was my commitment to community service. Though I was only an hour from home, I truly wanted to feel connected to the new community I was living in: Carlisle, PA. I wanted to leave a mark on the place that I would call home for the next period of my life. In my freshman year, I was inducted into the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society, which accepts high-performing members of first-year classes and exposes them to new opportunities to connect with others on campus and with the broader community. Through this organization, I had the fortune to participate in community service activities and then to organize them myself. At the end of freshman year, I was selected via interview to serve on the executive board as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships. In this position, I organized a service trip to the Dickinson College Farm where we helped to winterize the farm and learned more about the purpose of the college farm. In the spring, I planned a trip to a local animal shelter but could not make that happen due to the outbreak of the pandemic. In sophomore year, I served with a team of peers on a Public Health Service Trip to Nashville, TN, where we worked with Project CURE to organize and package medical supplies to send to developing clinics around the United States and the world. In the rest of the week, we traveled with United Cerebral Palsy of Nashville to houses of community members to build no-cost accessibility ramps. We built three ramps in our time there. Similarly, immediately following my junior year of college I was fortunate to join another Public Health Service 'Trip' wherein we served in our local community at a Habitat for Humanity site, Lebanon Christian Ministries, and other organizations while learning about social determinants of health. In the evenings, we would connect with Brazilian partners, to whom we would have traveled had COVID not still be predominant. From them, we learned much about the public health system of Brazil and compared it to that of the United States. I have also served with Volunteers in Medicine in Lebanon, organizing physical patient charts, doing clerical work as needed, and shadowing the volunteer medical professionals. Through this volunteerism, I learned more about the 'Mask-Up Lebanon' campaign and got to see how masks that I had made the last summer at my job were being used in the community to protect underprivileged individuals. Shortly thereafter, I had the fortune to work with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center (SARCC) of Lebanon where I underwent sexual assault counseling training and served on the crisis hotline. In the office, I performed clerical work such as digitizing physical file information and consolidating it into an Excel sheet. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had these, and other, opportunities to serve my community because they demonstrated the ways in which a person's health is impacted not only by medical professionals in an office but also by the environments in which they life and work. Additionally, they showed me that members of disadvantaged communities known their needs better than anyone else, so it is important to follow the lead of those community advocates and members while doing service. Lastly, it has helped me to grow my compassion and empathy for others because we all deserve to live our best lives.

An old adage states that 'Health is Wealth,' and I find this to be not only true but also powerful. Health is central to a person's abilities get up each day and accomplish their goals. Therefore, good health is essential in achieving life satisfaction. While I do not believe that health and maintaining a healthy lifestyles looks exactly the same for each individual, I do believe that each person should pursue their best health to the best of their ability. In my life, I am fortunate to have access, especially in the summer, to locally grown fruits and vegetables, and I incorporate those into my meals to get the necessary nutrients and to support my local farmers. In addition, I have had access to a gym through Lebanon Valley College, Dickinson College, and Salus University at various points of my life. In high school, I played on the soccer team, and in my transition to college, I became more comfortable in a gym setting. I found myself enjoying those minutes on the treadmill or lifting weights. Now that I am moving to graduate school, I plan to find time in my schedule for physical activity and to adapt my routine to the opportunities available. I will still have a gym and some exercise classes at my disposal, and I hope to take advantage of those at Salus University. Though it can easily be overlooked, I also believe in the power of a person's mental health. One's mental health determines their entire outlook on life and can make it possible to do anything they set their mind to or impossible to get out of bed in the morning. Though mental health can be unpredictable, I believe it is important to support yours as best you can. To this end, I have been seeing a professional who helps me work through my mental health challenges. This step, which I was at first not comfortable taking, has changed my life and made it far more manageable. Outside of therapy, I support my mental health by remaining active, continuing to challenge my mind through my education, and resting when needed. Though it is not always this simple to maintain one's mental health, I believe that these are impactful first steps that a person can take, and even this small choices can a person feel a little better. Supporting myself in these ways allows me to pursue my graduate-level education and a career as a physician assistant. Because that is a career that requires a lot of emotional intelligence and enough bandwidth to care for another person's needs, I need to protect my own. I can only help someone else after I have set myself up for success. Protecting my physical and mental health through my lifestyles choices empowers me to tackle each day as it comes, even if they come with challenges.

As the saying goes: health is wealth. Being healthy, whatever that might look like for you, is the key to accomplishing everything else in life. Without a healthy body and mind, it becomes exponentially more difficult to do day-to-day activities, such as going to work or school and creating meaningful relationships with those around us. I firmly believe that health can look different to everyone and that no one lifestyle is the best one for every individual; however, I believe that each person should seek out their best health to the best of their ability. To me, a healthy lifestyle means looking after my body and my mind. To stay physically healthy, I try to find time for activity everyday. During high school, I played soccer for the team, and we had practice everyday after school when we didn't have games. When I transitioned to college, I found a love for the gym, spending a lot of my time on the treadmill and weight machines before moving to cardio kickboxing. Now that I am moving to graduate school, I will have to adapt my workouts to what the school's gym has available. In addition, I intend to schedule time within my (likely busy) week to get in some activity, even if it is a brief walk through a park. Being physically active is good for my physical and mental health. Since I have begun lifting weights, I have found myself able to lift heavier and heavier dumbbells and adding more and more plates to the bar. This translates to being able to do more in my day to day life, such as conquering a set of stairs that was daunting before or lifting heavy furniture to clean underneath it. Mentally, I have a more positive outlook on life and of myself because I feel more capable and proud of what my body can do. I also feel more organized and functional when I find time for activity. Exercising helps me to sleep better in the evenings as well, ensuring that I can meet each day with the energy I need. Though it can often be overlooked, I also believe in the power of strong mental health and strengthening my own has been a major focus of my life recently. I have dealt with anxiety for my whole life, and I discussed this issue with my healthcare provider, but I was hesitant to go to therapy. I was nervous about explaining my feelings to anyone else, so I kept putting it off. However, I recently began attending therapy sessions and just the few appointments I have had greatly increased my attitude and gave me more confidence in my own abilities. I feel more equipped to handle anything that life throws at me because of the tools provided by my therapist. By taking care of my health in all these ways, I ensure that I feel my best daily, which sets me up for success in all my goals and overall live satisfaction. These strategies work for me, and while they may not work for everyone, I think that it is important for each person to evaluate their needs and seek out whatever resources they have open to them to look out for their health.

On May 17, 2022, I lost my dad. This loss was sudden and shocking because he had been at my college graduation three days before and my graduation party two days before. He was always working on projects around the house, and the last 24 hours of his life were no different. Before this loss, I had not given much consideration to legacy or what that might look like for myself or those I love. However, my dad's legacy became immediately apparent as we grieved with those who knew him most of his life. My dad was a caring, giving, compassionate person who would go out of his way to help others. He was extremely talented at fixing anything broken, especially cars, as he had gone to school to be a mechanic. He offered up those talents to anyone who expressed a need. Additionally, every summer he would mow neighbors' lawns, and in the winter he would shovel neighbors' walkways. Seeing so many people who, like us, could not imagine life without him, was comforting and made me extremely proud to be his daughter. Though we miss him daily, my family also knows that my dad would want us to honor him by living life as if he were still here. He would want us to continue to reach for our goals and find what makes us most happy. For him, this was helping others. Therefore, I truly feel that I am continuing my father's legacy, even though we had vastly different career paths. In August 2022, I will begin my Master of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies at Salus University. I am passionate about providing and advocating for access to affordable, high-quality healthcare for all. I have volunteered with Volunteers in Medicine, which calls on medical professionals to volunteers their time and energy to support individuals in low-income communities who may not otherwise have access to necessary healthcare. Additionally, I have completed my shadowing of a physician assistant in a state-run nursing and rehabilitation facility, which cares for individuals who have low income, with some coming directly from homelessness. I hope to continue providing care within these communities in my future career as a physician assistant myself. Beyond providing diagnoses and prescribing treatments, my goal is to get to know each patient as an individual and to gauge, to the best of my ability, the social determinants of health that have an impact on their life. These patient-centered relationships create an environment in which the patient feels listened to and respected, thereby increasing the quality of care through personalization. Though I wish he were here to see all that I will do, I know that he was proud of me and the direction in which I am headed. I hope to continue his legacy of helpfulness and compassion throughout the rest of my life, in both my personal and professional settings. Beyond academic or career accomplishments, my dad wanted his kids to perpetuate his legacy through their everyday words and deeds. Legacy, to me, encapsulates all the ways in which you have impacted the lives of others, and when you can no longer make that impact directly, it is the ways in which those you leave behind remember you. I hope to both remember and honor my dad's legacy through compassion.

In the fall of 2020, fairly early in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as my junior year of college, I began a job with Home Instead Senior Care in Annville, PA. As an aspiring physician assistant, I wanted to explore healthcare in various settings, including in the home. Upon taking this job, I was connected with a couple that I have spent almost every Saturday in the year and nine months that have followed. Every week, I help the couple dress for the day, prepare breakfast, and assist with physical therapy exercises. In applying for this job, I expected my average shift to look something like my Saturdays do with this couple. What came as a surprise, however, was just how much I would love these workdays. In our time together, I have found myself doing much more than making breakfast. I have been there with them through high highs and low lows, from an exciting move to loss of family members. I have been there to guide them through social media and to help get them better connected to the world around them. My heart is warm to know that they have been there for me through a lot as well, from my graduation to of the the biggest losses of my life. In addition to showing me how large of an impact I can have on another person's life, even through the little things, this job has given me many skills that I have applied in other areas of my life. For example, my grandpa has required an increasing amount of care in the last two years. He has also needed us to deepen our patience, understanding, and creativity in the process. As his family, we will always be there when needed, but it can still be difficult to deal with these circumstances when they impact you so deeply. This caregiving job has given me the skills to work with him in a more efficient, effective manner that helps him to still perform his activities of daily living in spite of the changes. This job has also made me more certain of my career path, in which I will be a physician assistant. I am excited to pursue my Master of Medical Science degree in physician assistant studies beginning in August at Salus University. There, I hope to deepen my understanding of science and of care and to take those skills, and the ones I have picked up in this job as a caregiver. From there, I hope to continue my work in geriatrics, as it is a field that I have come to care deeply for and in which I see a need for more compassionate, dedicated caregivers.

Throughout history, and perhaps without even realizing it, humans have concerned themselves with genetic modification. Selective breeding in livestock, crops, and even pets has existed within most civilizations because it allows farmers to generate the most prolific crops and the heartiest animals. Historically, the strategy has been to breed the plants or animals that have the most favorable qualities to create offspring that perpetuate those qualities. Success in this arena has allowed many civilizations, and truly humanity itself, to propagate and develop. One of the most exciting innovations in this line of work has been the recent work on CRISPR technology. This technology harnesses the ages-old strategy that viruses use to propagate: hijacking host cells to create more viral particles that go on to infect even more host cells. In this case, however, the goal of the technology is to hijack cells in order to fix a problem that has developed and is impacting quality of life for the person. By swapping viral genetic material for gene sequences of interest (such as those that code for helpful proteins), the cell can be made to produce materials that can overcome the activity that is unsuccessful in the host cell. The viral particle enters that host cell and inserts its length of genetic material into the host genome as it normally would, but when this insertion is read, the cell forms a helpful product, rather than a viral particle. This helpful product, whatever it might be, can help to overcome the issue. For example, someone lacking in certain proteins might seek this treatment, which would allow them to successfully produce that specific protein, and the presence of these proteins might ease symptoms associated with the condition. This technology is still in its infancy, but I am excited to see its future.

In signing up for a community service trip, one does not generally imagine that the trip will take them only ten minutes from their hometown, and yet this was exactly how far I traveled with my peers for our public health service trip in my junior year of college. While these trips generally take students elsewhere in the United States or abroad, COVID relegated us to locations within reasonable driving distance, but regardless of location, myself and the team were excited to learn and serve. In fact, remaining local made this service even more impactful than a past service trip which took me to Nashville. While listening to a woman who served locally for decades, I realized there were needs within my own community to address. On this 'trip,' we worked with Lebanon Christian Ministries, Lancaster-Lebanon Habitat for Humanity, and the Lebanon Free Clinic to organize birthing kits, contribute to the construction of a house (and the creation of a home), and gather information about the resources already present in the area. By day we were material handlers and construction workers, and by night we were once again students, listening to and asking questions of the Brazilian partners that connected with us via Zoom. If it were not for COVID, we would have traveled to Brazil to work with them on Brazilian projects, but as it stood, we had the opportunity to compare resource availability and health culture in the two countries, identifying where one could learn from the other. Most importantly, I realized that volunteers often misidentify another community's needs, so it is necessary to trust that community to guide the efforts and resources. Similarly, that creates the extraordinary potential for myself and my peers to make change in our own communities, which we understand deeply.

The different transitions throughout life, but especially the transition from high school to college, can be extremely stressful periods in which it is difficult to center oneself. Becoming wrapped up in one's thoughts is the easy thing to do, as you are overwhelmed with new information and trying to figure out how to use that information. Yet, allowing yourself to exist in that overwhelmed state contributes to high levels of stress and burnout. Therefore, I have found some ways to cope with the stress of life and to "reset" myself after a particularly intense period of life. Lately, one of my favorite ways to clear my mind has been through exercise. Finding time to be active can be challenging, especially when it feels that I have too many things to accomplish and too little time. One of the first things to be sacrificed when my to-do list gets long is exercise. However, I have noticed that the difference I feel mentally and physically when I am committing to at least semi-regular workouts is worth the expenditure of the time. This academic year, I made a commitment to attend weekly kickboxing classes at the school gym, and throughout this year I have only missed two classes. Additionally, I try to go to the gym at other points during the week, or at least take a walk and get away from my computer. Another hobby of mine that I sometimes struggle to find time for is reading. I used to read for fun regularly, and I realized in college that I often go an entire semester only reading texts or books provided from my classes. It is important, though, to take my mind off of the subject matter I am learning, even if only for half and hour. So, I have been reminding myself lately to take time to read books that I am interested in and which are not for school. It increases my creativity, decreases my stress, and allows me to decompress from my other obligations. Finally, I simply like to rest. Sometimes this just looks like a nap, sometimes it looks like a guided meditative activity, and sometimes it looks like spending a casual evening with family and friends. Choosing to be present in the moment, without the distraction of a cellphone, television, or schoolwork, takes a lot of effort on my part, firstly by reminding myself that I am here in the present moment and secondly by choosing to turn off notifications on my phone and ignore my emails. I find that rest is incredibly undervalued in our modern society but that the only way to truly accomplish what you want to accomplish in life (and feel your best while doing so!) is to intentionally create free moments in which you can rest.

I find that making sure you are keeping track of your expenditures, not simply to the dollar amount but also to the percentage of your income that is going into all of the things you need to pay for, is incredibly important. It can be easy to not realize that one category in particular is draining your bank, such as entertainment. And, while it is important to find ways to make yourself happy and to enjoy life, it is also important to understand what you are spending on those things and where that money might be better used. Choosing to put aside some of the extra money into savings can greatly impact your quality of life later on, but these types of choices cannot be made if you are not consistently tracking and evaluated your expenditures in all of the categories.

Through some of the tougher parts of my life, I have found it very easy to lean into pessimism and feel certain that things will not work out. However, through those experiences, I have learned that things generally do work out, and when they do not, it is a good indication that that situation was not a good match for me. For example, I have worried about getting accepted to schools, both for undergraduate and graduate education, and it can be easy to see what others have accomplished and to feel that your own merits are not good enough. It can be incredibly easy to convince yourself that what you want cannot happen. I always feel, though, that you should not count yourself out. If a person or program is going to reject you or something is not going to go your way, you can only do your best to advocate for yourself and then move on, knowing that you put your best foot forward and it was not a good match. When I applied to graduate school, I was not accepted into my top choice, which was a dual MPH/MMS-Physician Assistant program, and I felt frustrated that all of the work I had put in was not enough. However, I realized that I had been accepted to the MPH at that school, just not the physician assistant program. Choosing to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to know that some things were working in my favor helped me to move forward in my grad school search. This confidence to move on helped me interview successfully with another physician assistant program, to which I was accepted two days later and which I will attend beginning in August.

Undoubtedly, the most impactful book of my collegiate experience has been "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond. I first read this book in the spring of my sophomore year for a class called 'Inequalities in the U.S.' It was one of the few times that reading for class was truly engulfing and did not feel like an assignment or like something to slog through. Desmond's salient depiction of poverty, told through the day-to-day lives of many individuals and families that he worked with over a long period of time, is enraging, tragic, and deeply insightful. While a research paper can easily report the poverty rates of various regions across the United States, they lack the "personal" feel that Desmond takes in his writing. These other papers report statistics on access to healthcare and clean water, on teacher-to-student ratios, on crime rates in certain neighborhoods, and so on, but Desmond shows the ways in which lack of access to healthcare means that a person becomes unable to work, which contributes to an inability to pay their rent, which leads to a court case and often an eviction. This eviction makes it nearly impossible for the person to find a new place to live, making it impossible to find a new job, a new school district for their children, and so on. He clearly delineates the compounding effects of living in poverty on American families and demonstrates that a person can make every single 'correct' choice and still find themselves in poverty. Then, once in poverty they must make impossible decisions like putting food on the table and taking a child to the doctor when they are ill. This book was incredibly inspirational and impactful in my life and has taught me far more compassion.

I think that inclusivity in education will improve education quality for future generations. Inclusivity can be introduced into academics in a variety of ways, and the most predominant way that individuals in authority imagine a more inclusive environment is through anti-bullying speeches and lectures. While these certainly serve a purpose and are valuable opportunities for students to learn that their words and actions have consequences in the lives of others, we have to dig deeper than that. In my middle and high school career, I spent 1 of 6 years studying a subject other than American History or American Government, and this one course was about ancient history. Therefore, prior to college, I had very little understanding of other cultures around the world and their relationships to one another. What I did know I had gathered from my own personal research and by paying attention to world news. Therefore, an essential change that will improve the quality of education will be to introduce students to subjects that are outside of their cultural and societal norms. Through classes geared toward the history and culture of other societies, we can learn more about one another, making us less wary of people who do things "differently" than we do. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to introduce this type of content, and these strategies are well-modeled at the collegiate level. In my college career, I have taken a biological anthropology class, which taught me about the origins of the human species evolutionarily but also regarding the origins of civilization, such as the development of language and early evidence of caring for one another (evidenced by healed wounds). The fact of our shared origin introduces the idea that humans are all truly the same, it is just that our societies have diverged along the way. In a class called "Ecological History of Africa," I learned about the development of African societies around farming and agriculture. My professor also showed us the ways that African cultures have used different plants to treat conditions, and the ways that that information has been co-opted by big pharmaceutical companies for profit. There was also lively conversation about the importance of food to culture in that it reflects what is available to a group and who and what are important to that group. Finally, we discussed many ways of life that are unlike our own but are the desired way to live in these different places across Africa. Lastly, an important part of introducing inclusivity into the educational system is to allow and actively invite diverse perspectives into the educational field. While anyone can tell a class the facts about herbal medicine in Africa, only an individual from Africa who has lived experiences with those medicines can truly explain the experiences, feelings, and meanings behind these cultural norms. Additionally, Africa is a broad continent, so these norms change largely from one country or locality to another. To strengthen inclusivity in education is to strengthen education.

Currently, I am a senior at Lebanon Valley College and will earn my Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience in May. I am incredibly excited to have been accepted to Salus University's Master of Medical Science - Physician Assistant program, and I will begin my graduate education there in August. Initially, I choose the neuroscience major because I have always had a talent for and been deeply interested in biology, but upon looking at course options, I found myself drawn more toward the human health courses, rather than ecology courses. Neuroscience provides students with a strong biology background and builds on that by introducing human perspectives. What most interested me was learning about neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. As we move forward as a species, we are experiencing longer lifespans and higher rates of these noncommunicable diseases, making it only natural that we tackle these next. There is an incredibly amount that we do not know about the human brain because of all of its emergent properties (such as consciousness) and limitations in research. Therefore, the field is in a perfect sport for exploration. After realizing my interest in these conditions, I began to consider careers I might make from that interest. While I have spent significant time each semester in a lab for my classes, I always felt that a position where there are more interpersonal connections and one-on-one interactions was for me. I want to take the knowledge that individuals working in the lab are uncovering to treat human beings personally. Therefore, I decided to move into a career as a physician assistant, hopefully working with geriatric populations upon my graduation and certification. Additionally, I have always felt a deep need to fight for human rights, and I have completed two service trips surrounding public health and healthcare as a right. I believe that everyone deserves accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare, and yet, there are many for whom there is a daily decision between going to the doctor and putting food on the table for their family. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen much of this reality, where individuals had to choose between remaining at home for the safety of themselves and their families and making money to survive. One of the most elucidating books I have read was "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond. This was required reading for two courses I have taken: Inequalities in the U.S. and Individuals Experiencing Homelessness. In the first read, I was astonished at the ways that various aspects of poverty confound one another and make it nearly impossible to come out of. Poverty impacts every part of a person's life, contributing significantly to the social determinants of health to which everyone is exposed. Without stable, safe, clean housing, one cannot live their healthiest life. Similarly, without an ability to pay for fresh fruits and vegetables, a person cannot have a diet that will sustain them. Therefore, I am determined to commit myself to a life of service, in and out of my day-to-day career. I hope to work with low-income populations to provide the high quality care that they deserve, both through taking a job in facilities that support Medicare and Medicaid patients and through working with nonprofit organizations such as Volunteers in Medicine (with whom I have worked previously) to make healthcare more accessible. I want to use my talents in biology and neuroscience and my compassion for others to make a difference in the field of healthcare.

A practical solution for helping more people with their mental health would be to make mental healthcare more accessible. Some insurers are required to provide coverage for mental healthcare, and Medicaid provides coverage for mental health support; however, there are still providers that do not ensure that their constituents have access to this form of care. Additionally, simply requiring some insurers to provide this form of coverage does not ensure that mental healthcare will be accessible. They may offer coverage that only supports therapy and not medication, medication and not therapy, or other combinations of treatment plans. Research has indicated that individuals with mental health struggles benefit the most from a combination of medication and therapy, so it is essential that everyone have access to both. In that same vein, providing coverage for mental healthcare does not ensure that it is affordable. The amount that insurance covers on your bill might still leave you to pay an obscene amount of money, which would make this care prohibitively expensive regardless of coverage. Therefore, to help people who struggle with mental health, we must ensure that insurance providers are offering coverage for a wide variety of treatments, including combinations of treatment strategies. We must also make this care affordable by covering a larger percentage of the cost through insurance and reducing out-of-pocket expenses.

While I do not consider myself to be the most artistic person, I apply my creativity through arts and crafts in my life. One of the most important ways that I incorporate creativity in my life is creating art with my clients at work. For the past year and a half, I have been working as a senior caregiver with Home Instead Senior Care, and one of the major ways that I interact with my clients with dementia is through art. Many of my clients have collections of coloring books, and we spend a significant amount of our time coloring, discussing pictures themselves, the colors that we might choose for certain aspects (whether logical or not!) and the finished products. I worked alongside one client to paint a birdhouse that he had built. We consulted one another on what might look good on each side of the house and then practiced sketching the pictures out before committed to the paint. Seeing the joy that it brought my client was so gratifying, and I still smile when I see that birdhouse outside his apartment. In my personal life, I also enjoy coloring in adult coloring books. Making a picture come to life is incredibly exciting and rewarding, and choosing where to place certain colors as well as where to add depth or more light in the picture requires a lot of attention and thought, making it intellectually stimulating as well. Art is also an incredible outlet for emotions, and I have found that you can make a picture look happy or melancholy simply by choice of color.

For the past year and a half, I have worked as a caregiver with Home Instead Senior Care. At this job, I have built strong connections with the seniors of Lebanon County, creating unique relationships with each person that I meet. I work in their homes and on the Traditions of Hershey campus to assist seniors with their activities of daily living. Though I meet many clients, I have one regular client I see on Saturdays. I make breakfast for this client and his wife, assist as needed in his hygiene and dressing activities, and provide reminders for medications and physical therapy. Another major aspect of my work with him is to stay with him in his apartment while his wife runs to the store for groceries. While she is gone, this client and I watch television (he really enjoys hockey and golf!), listen to music, talk about his sons and grandson, and perform his physical therapy exercises. We also go for walks in the hallway outside his apartment. This client has a sweet tooth, so we usually drink hot chocolate as well! Similarly, I have been spending more time with my grandfather under the same circumstances. He is developing dementia, and my grandmother needs someone to sit with him while she runs out to complete errands, or to run the errands while she stays at home with him. My grandfather and I color, put together Legos, and watch TV. These moments in both my job and my personal life are incredibly important to me and work has become something that I look forward to every week, rather than something I dread (as is typically the case with work). Through performing these assistive activities, I have developed amazing relationships and learned so much about the individuals that I work with.

One of the most important lessons I have learned in my life is that it is easy to judge without thinking and far harder to reach out to people, to listen and find compassion for those around you. While I have always considered myself a kind person, my experiences through my undergraduate degree have pushed me to develop both my patience and my compassion for others. Because of my liberal arts education, I have been asked to take classes that are outside my major, resulting in my exposure to many aspects of the world I was unaware of before. One of the most striking classes I have taken is Inequalities in the U.S., which examined many of the ways in which race, sex, gender identity, sexuality, and other factors, and especially their intersectionality, play into opportunities afforded to someone by society. Growing up in the United States, it is easy to believe that anything is possible, even achieving the American Dream. Under this narrative, it can be easy to become reluctant to look deeper than the surface level of a person, and this is where the work must begin. Taking this sociology class exposed me to all of the confounding factors that stack up to make it impossible for people to achieve the hallmarks of the American Dream such as stable employment, home ownership, family, and retirement. There are many circumstances in which impossible decisions have to be made by everyday people, and it often seems that no choice is the 'best.' They each have their consequences, and these consequences are placed on people who have done nothing but try to survive in a difficult world. Therefore, this class caused me to reflect on the way that I view the world and be more cognizant of the underlying factors that might contribute to someone's choices or life circumstances. Though it may seem that an individual is making irresponsible choices, we have to be aware that we cannot see everything that is happening 'behind-the-scenes' in their life, and the other choice they may have made might look just as rough. Additionally, I have seen that we need to make grand systemic changes to our society if we expect people to be well-adjusted and stable within it. We do not provide opportunities for anyone but the wealthy to thrive, but then we shame the people that do not come out of impossible circumstances of poverty. We do not want people to commit crimes, but we do not provide programs that keep them from those situations. Then, upon release from prison we have no infrastructure to provide them with mental health services, housing, or education that would prevent recidivism. Once again, they are faced with circumstances in which they have to do what they have to do for their sheer survival, no matter what that may look like to others. Perhaps most importantly, as previously mentioned, is the lack of access to mental healthcare. The brain and the way that it causes us to look at the world has just as much of an impact on our health and wellbeing as our physical health. There are many individuals with mental health conditions who are placed in prison as a result, and in this environment there is no treatment or rehabilitation that can help them to overcome these conditions. Instead, they now have an arrest record as well. Overall, the greatest lesson I have ever learned is to appreciate the resources that I have access to and to support others wherever possible. Where I cannot give monetary or physical support, I can extend grace.

One of the most inspirational songs for me lately has been Hozier's 'Jackboot Jump.' This song lays out many of the modern circumstances in which people are being harassed and beat down simply for wanting to express themselves and live according to their own culture and morals. Additionally, it calls out authoritarian and despotic governments that want to put their own people down simply for the sake of having more power. Though I love the song in its entirety, there are two lines that I think about often. The first is, "It's always corporate infrastructure over the structure of your face." This line exemplifies the ways that we as humanity put profits over other living, breathing people. We are collectively willing to allow others to suffer and die to maintain our capitalist lifestyles. The second is, "All around the world you'd think that things were looking rough / but the jackboot only jumps down on people standing up. / So you know good things are happening / when the jackboot needs to jump." This second one demonstrates to me that as individuals, we are able to see the worth in other humans over the worth of physical property. We also are brave enough to stand up when we see a wrong being committed. Overall, this song is actually quite hopeful because, while it acknowledges that when we collectively stand up we tend to lose individuals in mind and body to the corrupt systems that put us down; however there is hope in the fact that these systems fight us back because they feel threatened by our presence. We know 'good things are happening' when the corporations need to make us behave, and though we experience loss when that happens, we are making progress.

A major theme in social media posts lately has been finding 'love languages' for yourself and for those around you. I have found these to be insightful because not everyone gives or experiences love in the same way, and we might feel as though we are clearly demonstrating our love for someone, but they may not be interpreting it in that way. For example, someone who experiences love through acts of service may not feel very connected to some one who shows their love through physical touch, despite the fact that the "touch" person feels that they are being extremely lovey. Therefore, when I am showing love to those in my life, I simply take the most direct route and ask them what they need. Perhaps they need some help with the dishes, maybe they need a hug, or they might need some alone time and space. There are many ways that we can show love for one another that we may not initially realize. Once you set that aside and discover that almost anything can be a demonstration of love, it becomes easier to reach out and see what the other person needs, rather than approaching them in the way that you like to receive love. I also do my best to communicate my needs while giving them the opportunity to say that they do not have the space to provide those things in that moment. Before jumping into a conversation and complaining or laying down something heavy on my friends, I take the time to ask them if they have space to help me handle my emotions, given that they may be dealing things in their own personal life. I do my best to make others feel loved by simply doing my best to provide what they need.

Nature is incredibly important to me and should be important to all people because it provides everything that we need for the survival of our species. Before becoming industrialized, humans relied on the products of nature for survival. That is still true today, and now we have established ways to harness the powers of nature to support the largest population in all of human history. Furthermore, I appreciate nature because it is very calming. Going for a walk in nature is meditative and can bring you back into yourself and return to your roots. Whether this is going for a swim in a lake, a jog on a trail, or simply existing in the forest in a present moment, nature can clear your mind and restore your emotional state. I do my best to show my appreciation for nature through its protection. I do my best to recycle and to reduce the waste that I produce in my daily life. I also enjoy exploring nature parks and going for hikes when the weather is nice. These help me to gain some perspective in what has been happening in my life and generally shows me that the things I feel are major problems in my life are actually relatively small and manageable in the grand scheme of the universe. Additionally, I show my appreciation by taking time to look at the stars. Humanity was once guided by stars alone, and now we take them for granted. Light pollution makes it nearly impossible to see the beauty that our ancestors enjoyed every night, and though I cannot make everyone turn off their lights in the evenings, I try to take time myself to look at the stars and appreciate that which I can see from my tiny corner of the universe.

Though there have been many impactful women throughout the course of history, I am most inspired by Florence Nightingale because of the major contributions she made to the fields of epidemiology, statistics, and public health, at a time when those fields were male-dominated and highly exclusive. For a long time, and still today, in some respects, the field of medicine was about treatment of conditions and the science underlying those conditions. There was much less thought given to the humanitarian aspects of medicine, and Nightingale found medicine lacking in compassion, ethical administration, and commitment to quality care. She found this to be especially the case in military hospitals and clinics through the Crimean War, when she and other volunteer nurses and nuns were sent to the Ottoman Empire to care for soldiers from the battlefield. Rather than succumbing to the overwhelm of the situation, she took immediate action. After graduation from my undergraduate program, I will attend Salus University's physician assistant program to get my Master's in Medical Science. This pathway will lead to my certification as a physician assistant, so that I might provide care for those around me. I am incredibly passionate about healthcare because a person needs their health in order to pursue their life to the fullest, and yet, healthcare is one of the first things that people give up when they fall on hard times in the United States. Despite being among the wealthiest countries in the world, the United States has some of the worst health outcomes. I hope to become a leader in the medical field as a physician assistant by providing high-quality care to underserved communities. Outside of being a knowledgeable, compassionate, competent provider, I hope to advocate for legislation and policy change that will make healthcare affordable and accessible to all by pushing for a universal healthcare system. I also have hopes to one day get another degree in either public health or epidemiology, leading to a deeper understanding of some of these policy issues and community situations that contribute to decreased population health. I am fascinated by social determinants of health because they have such a deep impact on a person, but they are so easily overlooked by the medical community. The resources that a person has available to them, such as stable housing, healthy foods, and support systems, are great predictors of their health outcomes. It can be easy to only view the health problem at hand and to tell them to take an antibiotic or rest, but public health is much improved through prevention and education. With this knowledge, I am hoping to become a leader in my own field through a well-rounded understanding of health that goes beyond bodily systems and account for all aspects of an individual's life, including the practices that are important to them ethically, socially, emotionally, and religiously. I want to educate other healthcare professionals so that they can support their patients in the same way. Just like Nightingale, I hope to develop the field of healthcare by reminding professionals of the humanist principles that she found so essential to the successful treatment of patients. I also want to expand my knowledge as much as possible to support as many people as possible. I recognize the resources that I have to my advantage, and I want to put them to good use supporting other people who may not be as fortunate.

I have found three strategies that help me so success academically throughout my undergraduate experience. Before material is even presented in class, I read through the content in the textbook or any other readings that are made available and take notes on the important aspects of the text. During class, either take notes from scratch or annotate provided PowerPoints to capture the pieces of information that the professors find most essential. When I go to study, I take these notes out and rewrite them in complete sentences to ensure that I have an understanding of the content. Handwriting these notes helps to consolidate the information in my memory through further exposure, active engagement with the content, and muscle memory. It is important to study not only in days leading up to an assessment but throughout the semester. Reviewing content presented in class shortly after plays a large role in my ability to retain the information and connect it to prior knowledge. Through undergrad can be busy, I try my best not to wait until the last moment to look at the material again. Lastly, as a neuroscience major, I am aware of the importance of getting good night's rest to have the best possible brain function the next day. Not only are you not groggy through an exam, but your brain has ample opportunity to consolidate the information that you have reviewed into working and long-term memory, giving you better recall when you take your exam. Many of my friends pull all-nighters before an exam, but I have found that, even if I do not feel fully confident on a topic, I should stop studying with plenty of time to wind down and get 8 hours of sleep. It helps me to remember concepts I do feel strongly on.

I will shortly graduate with my Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience from Lebanon Valley College, and after a short summer break, I will begin a Master of Medical Science - Physician Assistant program at Salus University in August. My goals have always been to help people in whatever way I am able; however, how I have imagined that happening has changed significantly through my undergraduate experience. I have long been passionate about protecting human rights, especially those of access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. While I originally thought that I might pursue a career in law or politics to advocate for universal healthcare, I have since changed my track. Yet, my goals remain the same. As I mentioned, I am now accepted to a master's program that will lead me to a career as a physician assistant, through which I hope I can provide for underserved communities through both my paid and volunteer work. I took a lot of inspiration through my undergraduate volunteerism with Volunteers in Medicine in Lebanon, PA, and I felt hopeful that medical professionals were finding time in their busy lifestyles to give back to those in need. My goals are to pursue such a path myself. My shadowing experience with a physician assistant, in addition to my part-time job as a caregiver, have instilled in me a passion for geriatrics, especially for low-income elderly individuals. I feel drawn toward a career in primary care providing medical care to these communities. I also hope to serve on boards and in organizations that advocate for universal healthcare and increased resources for underserved communities. I hope that I can use my skills in communication and my neuroscience education to support those most vulnerable.

The wisest advice I have heard in my life was to stop trying to just "get through" certain periods. It can be easy to think that if you can just "get through" this next week, things will get better. While some periods of life are certainly better than others, it is all life. It is important to find time to be present in moments all throughout, rather than in just the good ones. Similarly, many people spend their time waiting for "real life" to begin, but "real life" is occurring from the moment of birth until the moment of death and is a finite resource that we should be taking advantage of. Real life does not begin after high school, after college, or when you have a family of your own. It is going on all around you, and you should try to make the most of every moment.

The most helpful piece of financial advice I have ever received is to place all of a paycheck into savings except that amount which exceeds that last $100 interval, meaning if the check is $550, $500 goes into savings and $50 remains available for personal use. While you do not have to use all of it at once, it provides a cushion wherein you can still enjoy life and spend a little on yourself while increasing your savings at a quick rate. While I recognize that this is not possible for everyone - there are many for whom an entire paycheck is not enough to pay for their everyday costs - I have found that this system works for me and helps me to hold to my boundaries around spending, especially while I am still living at home and have minimal expenses, relatively speaking. This strategy has allowed me to save thousands of dollars from my part-time jobs since high school and has helped me to structure my expenditures in a responsible way. Additionally, I always make sure that I have everything paid off before spending anything on superfluous expenses, even if that means that there is nothing left from that paycheck to spend on myself. It is important to set aside money for rainy days to ensure that you have something to fall back on if things do not go as planned.

The biggest problem facing the world right now is the ongoing climate disaster that has resulted from mass industrialization of nations across the globe in the last 250 years. The amount of CO2 constantly pumped into the atmosphere is at an all-time high, and it only gets higher with each passing year. Additionally, oil, trash, and other pollutants are being spilled or disposed of into our clean water systems, making it increasingly difficult for people to gain access to potable water. The pollutants also kill our ecosystems, which produce the oxygen and food that we consume while processing the carbon that we place into the atmosphere. If we kill these organisms, there will be no recourse because there will be significantly less carbon cycling, less drinkable water for a larger-than-ever human population, and decreased food sources for a world in which people are already facing starvation. This issue is only further complicated by the interests of the big companies and nations contributing the most pollutants. Everyday people can do their part to reduce their waste, but it cannot compete with the output of contaminants from these organizations. Finally, many individuals are employed by fossil fuel companies and would be unable to provide for themselves and their families without these careers. In spite of all these challenges, however, it is possible to make positive change to decrease the impacts of climate change. One such change is not allowing companies to have influence in legislature, especially where it pertains to climate protections. Another is one in which we do not immediately replace our current infrastructure that may not be environmentally friendly but rather wait it out and replace them at their natural failure with more sustainable options. Finally, cross-training individuals from fossil fuel to sustainable energy careers will help the climate situation.

Imagine showing up at a battlefield to find all of the soldiers dying of not only severe wounds but also poor and even inhumane conditions. Now, imagine willingly fighting through all of the challenges posed to ensure that the future of healthcare is changed forever by bringing humanist principles into the nursing profession. She was a true scholar in numerous fields, including statistics, epidemiology and public health, and healthcare. All through her life she demonstrated compassion and empathy that far exceeded a vast majority of humans through history. Nightingale founded the profession of nursing, which is made clear in the many aspects of nursing for which she is the namesake. Not only did she open more opportunities for women to pursue higher levels of education and careers outside the home, she did so with intense social awareness and drive for social justice. She caused a shift in the profession from poor, untrained women who needed an income for survival to trained individuals with a desire to care for others. Nightingale also excelled in statistics and produced large amounts of data on health and disease, especially on the warfront, and represented it by pioneering forms of graphing that are still in use today. Additionally, she used the trends she saw to inform her next moves. For example, she was a big proponent of increased sanitation in all settings but especially in healthcare. Her suggestions led to a significantly improved survival rate in hospitals and significant procedural changes in healthcare. Every aspect of healthcare today has been impacted by the works of Nightingale, and she did these works out of the goodness of her heart and by using the resources she had available, rather than resting on her family's wealth. I admire her incredibly because I hope to health people through healthcare.

Generosity means a willingness to give to others in need. Though generosity is usually associated with giving money, such as hearing talk of a 'generous donation,' I think that generosity can come in many forms. Everyone has their own unique talents, perspectives, and resources with which they can give back to their communities. Therefore, I think that people can be generous by giving their time, skills, knowledge, or financial/physical resources. Something that has become incredibly important to me throughout my college experience has been community service. I have served as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships for Dickinson College's chapter of the Alpha Lambda Delta first-year honor society. I organized, provided transportation for, and attended service events that members of our chapter could participate in. Since then, I have been on two public health service trips in which we learned about social determinants of health and gave back to the community. Additionally, I currently serve at SARCC Lebanon, which supports survivors of sexual assault. In all of these cases, I, as an undergraduate student, could not support these causes with money or physical resources, but I could share my time, energy, and talents. With Alpha Lambda Delta, I used my organizational skills, my driver's license, and my time to provide opportunities for myself and others to serve their community. With the service trips, I once again provided transportation and time and energy to build accessibility ramps and sort medical supplies. With SARCC, I have used my knowledge from sexual assault counselor training and my passion for trauma-informed healthcare to support survivors. To me, generosity involves using whatever resources you have available, even if it is not the traditional monetary donation, to provide for others who are in need.

One of the most memorable times that I used persistence to overcome an obstacle occurred after the death of my grandma. She passed in the fall of 2019, when I was in the middle of my first semester of sophomore year of college. Her passing was sudden and being away from home during that time was challenging. I stuck out the days until her funeral at college and then had a friend drive me home. Upon my return to school, I had to make up a missed physics test. Physics had already been my most challenging class that semester, requiring the majority of my time and energy. I had done my best to keep up with the topics and to attend review sessions, but my brain was simply not present in those moments. After turning in my exam, I knew that the results would not be good. I had done my best, but I could not figure out a majority of the problems with any degree of certainty. When the results did come in, I was disappointed but not surprised. The class average was 63%, and I had failed. However, I did not give up on myself or my grade. In the following week, I went to see my advisor to speak with her about getting a tutor. She informed me that there were not tutors available at that point in the semester, so I set out to get help from the professor as much as possible, attending office hours and emailing with any questions. I continued to study as much as I had been, going back and reviewing the content that I had missed or felt weak about. I always attended review sessions, and I worked with classmates. Ultimately, I finished the class with a B.

To me, the purpose of a person's life is to use the abilities and resources that they have to improve the quality of life for those around them. I believe that one has to be selfless in order to fulfil this purpose because they need to be willing to give of themselves with no expectation of repayment. They need to be open to listening and understanding, building community and raising the voices of others above their own. I am committed to being selfless because I believe that that is the purpose and best use of a person's life. In pursuit of this, I participate intensively in community service, having been part of two public health-based service trips, an internship and ongoing service with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in my county, and other activities that give back. I enjoy giving my time, resources, and energy to others who need it, especially knowing that I could easily find myself in those same circumstance. In my career, I hope to continue serving people and using my talents to help them live healthier lives.

Humans are incredibly social creatures, and we find ourselves reaching out to one another for support, empathy, and partnership. Though our lifestyles have vastly changed throughout thousands of generations of history, this aspect of human nature has not. Therefore, I wholeheartedly believe that the meaning of life is to help others. Because I hold this perspective, I live my life such that I am regularly giving back to the community that has supported me in my life, as well as preparing for a career path in which I hope to improve the quality of life for individuals in underserved communities. Through my college career, I have collected over 200 hours of community service, many of which have been in the field of healthcare, but in other fields as well. Through my community service, I provide physical labor, complete and file paperwork, reach out to outside organizations, and, most importantly, serve, directly and indirectly, members of the community. One of the most impactful ways I have given back to the community has been through serving on the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center hotline. This hotline provides listening ears and support for sexual assault victims who may find themselves in crisis. Speaking directly with survivors has changed the way that I interact with individuals in my regular life and made me more aware of the fact that everyone is dealing with something that may not be apparent on the surface. Moving forward, I plan to continue my participation in community service, and I will be attending a physician assistant program in the fall of 2022 to become a physician assistant. In my career as a physician assistant, I hope to work with underserved populations to ensure that everyone receives high-quality, affordable healthcare.

Growing up, I would have always described myself as shy. I was always hesitant to approach a new person, participate in an activity that looked fun, and even to answer a question when I was confident of the answer. I would often break out into hives while giving presentations or speaking in front of people in my class. While I still consider myself somewhat introverted, I am incredibly proud of how far I have come in learning to use my voice, and I now consider myself to live with more bravery and boldness than I ever would have imagined as a child. In high school, I began to realize that many of my classmates did not hold the same worldviews as I, meaning that my perspective was never shared in a classroom setting. Moreover, my perspective was often looked down upon or openly mocked in these same settings. While I was quite aware that I would not necessarily change any minds, I knew that my opinions were worth hearing and that I deserved to speak my mind. Therefore, throughout high school, though it made me shaky and sweaty, I more often than not spoke up for what I believed in and served as the opposing voice in the room. The more I spoke out, the more I realized that there were more people than I thought who shared my opinions but who felt too scared or like it was not worth it to express them. This realization gave me a lot more courage to continue on my path. Now, I continue this pursuit of openness and sharing my opinions, even when they might be the unpopular ones in the room. I stand up for what I feel is right and give space to others to speak their truth.

In my four-year undergraduate career, I have found a deep love of community service. From serving on my school's first-year honor society executive board as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships to two public health service trips to my internship with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in my home county, I have learned an incredible amount. I have always tried my best to be aware of all of the ways I am fortunate, but working first-hand with underserved communities really drives home that I have so much to be grateful for and that I should strive to use what I have to raise up others so that they can find a place to thrive. One of the most impactful realizations through these experiences came during my service trips. We often discussed the social determinants of health that impact lives on a day-to-day basis. On the second service trip, our team worked with Habitat for Humanity to work on local houses with other volunteers, and we discussed the implications on health of having no or unstable housing. We also discussed poverty. Though it seems clear in hindsight, it is easy to take for granted everything that you have when you are not near, at, or below the poverty line. While living in poverty, there are many choices that have to be made, many of them health decisions. For example, someone might need to pay to see a dentist but also needs to pay for groceries. Should they have nothing to eat or not have preventative dental care? These impossible questions were brought to the forefront in these experiences, and it made me realize that I have everything I need on a daily basis, and that I should be grateful for that fact.

For the first time in my life, it is actually fairly easy to anticipate where I might be in 5-years-time. In high school, I expressed interest in biological sciences and political science and wanted to create legislation that would improve healthcare equality, sustainability, and LGBTQ+ rights. Interestingly, my actual college career took me in a different path, one that led me to where I currently stand, as a senior neuroscience major preparing to graduate and begin a physician assistant program at Salus University. When I made that change from political science to neuroscience, I was still playing with what I would do as a career, considering I still retained all those passions from high school. Now, I am excited to realize that I can advocate and assist in many of those areas within my practice as a physician assistant by advocating for scientific literacy surrounding climate change, providing high-quality care to LGBTQ+ individuals, and by ensuring that I am serving within underserved populations, whether that is in my job, through volunteerism, or both. Though I am quickly approaching the end to my undergraduate education and have been accepted to a graduate program, I know that the hardest part of my journey is yet to come. Salus University's physician assistant program is 25 months long, with one year of didactic learning and one year of clinical learning. Therefore, much of the information I have learned in 4 years of undergrad, plus even harder material, will be taught in one year. I anticipate the burn out from what will be, upon graduation from college, 16 consecutive years of academic work. I am passionate about what I am learning, however, and I know that those passions will get me through even the most overwhelming moments of grad school.

In the fall of 2021, I received word that I had been accepted into Salus University's Physician Assistant program, after spending my undergraduate career completing the prerequisite classes, shadowing a physician assistant, being an active member of many campus organizations, participating in community service, and maintaining high academic achievement. This felt like the culmination of everything that I had been working toward, yet I found myself disappointed that my undergraduate career and all its experiences would soon be over. Having said that, I dug deeper into all that Salus has to offer and found that many of the passions I pursued in undergrad are still possible at the graduate level, including participation in on-campus organization and activities, like being a campus representative, and being active in community service. Importantly, Salus emphasized the importance of treating the individual in healthcare, which I found incredibly impactful. I have always believed that everyone deserves access to high-quality, affordable healthcare, meaning healthcare that is individualized. However, members of Salus University's faculty took all my beliefs a step further, challenging me to think even more deeply about all the factors that occur in a person's life that cannot be evaluated in a doctor's office. Therefore, my dreams for my future career include continuing on the passions I found in undergrad and am excited to continue at Salus by working with underserved populations in a medical setting, challenging myself to think of all the socioeconomic factors that influence a person's health, and to seek out gaps in the healthcare system where people are not being cared for. Essentially, I hope to use my career as a physician assistant to connect with patients and communities at large and help advocate for them. I plan to do this both through my full-time job and volunteerism.

I grew up in a community whose beliefs were largely different than my own, and, despite being an extremely shy person, I learned to speak up early. I felt that, even if I did not change any minds, I should still expose people to my perspective so that they might at least hear it. In my English classes especially, I spoke up a considerable amount on the social issues we discussed, often finding myself alone against the crowd. Yet, I would do it every time, emerging from class sweaty and certain that everyone hated me. To this day, I continue speaking my mind. I have since learned how to be more refined and diplomatic in my arguments, as well as how to pick my battles so I do not burn out. One of the biggest ways I commit to speaking my mind is actually by doing a considerable amount of research. I read news from a multitude of reputable, nonpartisan sources like BBC and NPR, and I read first-hand accounts of events from people. Additionally, when possible, I read scholarly articles and other scientific publications. I often find myself reevaluating a belief that I hold, determining why I hold that position. I then examine if I truly feel that way and if I have substantiating evidence for it. I stay committed to speaking my mind because I know that it is important to stand up for what you believe in and to use whatever privilege you might have to speak up for others who do not. Change can only happen when people who are not directly impacted by injustices become aware and passionate enough to stand with those who are, and I am determined to help people gain and retain their human rights.

Throughout my college career, one of the biggest motivators has been my service to others. Though I have had many opportunities to volunteer within the community, three of these experiences made an incredible impact on me, motivating me to go further and do more to make the changes that I need are needed. The first of these was a public health service trip I went on when I attended Dickinson College. On this trip, our team traveled to Nashville, Tennessee and spent one week serving with United Cerebral Palsy and Project CURE. For the former, we built accessibility ramps at the homes of individuals in the community whose houses had become inaccessible. We cleaned and organized the garage at the main office, sorting wood and stacking it onto shelves. With Project CURE, we sorted and packed medical supplies for shipment to start-up clinics abroad. At Lebanon Valley College, I joined another service team for a virtual service trip to Brazil, while serving in person in our home community of Lebanon County. On this trip, also based around public health, we worked with Habitat for Humanity, Lebanon Christian Ministries, the Lebanon Free Clinic, and other local organizations to improve public health in the county. In both these service trip experiences, we discussed the differences in cultures between our hometown and Nashville and Brazil (which we 'traveled' to via Zoom and a partner through Amizade.) We learned about direct impacts on health as well as social determinants of health. Lastly, I have been serving for almost a year with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, and through that I have gained a lot of knowledge on trauma and trauma-informed practice. These service opportunities fuel my life because I can meet new people and give back to my community.

When I think about my background, I find a few themes that I feel are important to reflect upon. One of the most prominent threads is that of small communities. I graduated from high school with a class of approximately 125 students, surrounded by a town of nearly 5,000 people. I know everyone in that graduating class by name, if not closely. My parents know their parents and we have all had the same teachers since early childhood, making us a close-knit group. As I searched for colleges, I only looked at small schools. I wanted a cohort that would allow me to meet new people but which would ensure that I would recognize the faces each new semester. It was also important to me that I make meaningful faculty and staff connections so that I had a network of both friends and professors supporting me. I began at Dickinson College and am finishing at Lebanon Valley College, which are extremely similar small liberal arts colleges. Now, as I move to graduate school, I have chosen to attend Salus University, a school of entirely graduate students, where I will be in a program of 40-50 students. Once again, I knew that I wanted to be able to recognize faces on campus and make connections with professors. I think that this theme is interesting to me because it has shown me that I have a deep desire to explore the world around me. Though I like to keep my community small, I like having many groups of people that I connect with from many different places. I want to leave my small town and find new (perhaps still small) places to expand my reach to. My background has given me an appreciation for strong roots but wide branches.

In the fall of 2022, I will begin a physician assistant program at Salus University, and I am extremely passionate about pursuing a STEM-based education because I know that it will afford me opportunities to impact underrepresented communities. I care deeply about ensuring that each person has access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. Another reason that I am passionate about my education has come from working with senior citizens for a year and a half. Many clients, upon hearing my educational plans, are excited for and supportive of me, believing that I will make a good physician assistant in both my demeanor and my intelligence. One client in particular has mentioned to me many times that she is both happy and sad to see these opportunities that I am fortunate enough to access. She always tells me that she is proud of me and that she is thankful for the work that I do with her, adding that she is excited to see women moving into careers of their own choosing, having pursued any educational path that they desired. This client laments that because of her life circumstances, she was never able to attend college, but that she had always loved learning and was sad when her high school education came to an end. This client has three children, all of whom have graduate degrees, and I often remind her that learning is a life-long process and that it does not have to end when formal education ends. Yet, I feel incredibly inspired by her and her choice to share these feelings with me. While learning can be life-long, there are many things that are far beyond one person's control that can make it more difficult and even unattainable. Additionally, I know that she wants to see me succeed in the things that I want. Having said that, one of the the biggest, and more recent, reasons that I am passionate about my education comes from my interactions with this and other female clients who never had the opportunities that I some times take for granted. On the days that I feel I am drowning in coursework and just want to get to the finish line, I remind myself that I have access to a wealth of knowledge within my school's library, across the internet, and within my professors that many would love to have, even when it is difficult. Therefore, my passion for my education comes from the knowledge that it is a privilege, one that women were especially restricted from in not-so-distant history. I know that they see me with these opportunities, and I know that I have to do my best to get the most from the experience. I am passionate about my education because I know that there are many who do not have these opportunities. I also know that being passionate about my education means that I will get more out of it, ultimately making me a stronger physician assistant and a better advocate for my future patients.

To me, confidence means having faith in your own abilities. For a long time, I thought that having confidence meant being certain that you knew and could do anything and everything asked of you, and this was extremely intimidating because it is not possible for one person to master every skill or subject. In recent years, I have become much more comfortable with reaching out when I am in need of help, and this growth has boosted my confidence immensely. One of the most intimidating spaces in my college career has been science labs. Though I am in a STEM major (neuroscience), I perpetually worried that I would mess up an experiment or not know how to perform some calculation. In this case, there were two realizations that I had that led to my increased confidence in the lab. The first was that I am far more competent than I realize, having paid attention in lecture and prepared myself with the prelab. The second is that I am learning, and it is okay, and even natural, to be unsure or to have questions about material or procedures. Using professors, and lab and teaching assistants as resources does not show weakness or failure but rather strength and desire to grow as a student and scientist. Asking questions of those around me has grown my confidence by showing me that those around me are not judging me, and oftentimes they have the same questions. Asking questions to deepen my understanding, especially when it helps me to perform better, strengthens my confidence. Having said that, I am working to build more confidence through making even more connections as I move forward, especially into graduate school, where I will be surrounded by individuals of different academic backgrounds who may have more experience than I.

With $1,000, I would pay for some of my current school expenses (such as honor society dues and graduation cap and gown), and I would put the rest into savings. I will be starting a physician assistant program as Salus University next fall, and I will need resources for class and clinicals, as well as money for housing and food. Right now, saving money is extremely important to me because it ensures that I can continue to pursue my life goals and will not find myself in unmanageable debt in the aftermath. I love the career path I have chosen and am extremely passionate about it, but it can be difficult to finance. It is not recommended to work throughout PA school because the workload and class schedule is intense; therefore, I will take all my finances to pay for housing and other necessities.

One of my favorite ways to take care of my mental health is through exercise. I have found that, though it can be difficult to make time for exercise, I generally feel better when I do. Going to the gym and taking the time away from things in my life that can be stressors, like work and school, allows me to focus on something else. Taking a step back from things lets me clear my mind and get a better perspective on life, usually allowing me to come up with better solutions. Similarly, exercise is a time to focus on what I can do with my body. When I don't exercise, I feel weak and less capable, whereas working out makes me feel stronger and shows me that I am more powerful than I give myself credit for. Exercise is also good stress relief because it lets me take out all of my anger and frustrations, as well as producing endorphins that raise my mood. For example, my cardio kickboxing class lets me literally fight off any stress from the day. Additionally, exercise wears me out, meaning that I can go home and easily fall asleep, whereas I have to find other ways to wind down on nights that I do not get to exercise. This makes it easier to get all the sleep I need and to recuperate from the day. My mental health is better as a result of getting a full night's rest.

I strive to be an empathetic person each day, and one of the primary ways I practice my empathy is through redirecting my mind from any assumptions I might make about other people. Though it can be easy to make a split-second judgement about a person based on their circumstances, or even their looks, I practice challenging my assumptions as soon as I notice them. Personally, I try my best every day, and I go into everything I do willing to learn and contribute as best as I can, so I have come to extend that same grace and patience to those around me. I am not perfect, so I sometimes have to take a step back and 'reset,' reminding myself that for all the things that I may know about a person, there is so much "behind-the-scenes' that I may never know. I plan to take this outlook into my career as a physician assistant by recognizing that there is so much happening in a patient's life that is not going to be visible in a short check-up. Things like financial, work, or relationship stress and more are major contributors to a person's actions and lifestyle choices, and if I want patients to be completely open and honest with me, I have to practice empathy everyday. Extending empathy to people around us creates an environment in which everyone is safer, healthier, and happier, so I make sure that I am treating others with empathy by listening more than I speak, reminding myself of all the circumstances I may not be aware of, and recognizing that I am not a perfect person myself, and I benefit from the empathy of others in ways that I may not even realize, so I should do this for others in my life.

Currently, I am a senior neuroscience major, and I pursued this degree because I am naturally-inclined toward biology, both academically and in my interests. I am not only a good biology student, I am also deeply interested in what can be done through the biological sciences. When I started my college career, I was taking classes in the more broad biology major, and I found that I was much more interested in human biology than in ecology or botany, so I looked at the degree plan for the neuroscience major. I knew that this was the path I wanted to pursue because these classes hit on all of the things I was curious about: human health and disease; brain development and degeneration; and relevant psychological outcomes of those events in the brain. I also realized that this major provided a strong foundation for the career that I am pursuing: physician assistant. Not only did I find that I wanted to attend my classes, even the 8 AMs, I knew that I was receiving a strong educational backbone with which I applied to PA programs. Three years later, I have been accepted into 3 physician assistant programs and 1 public health program and am committed to attending Salus University's physician assistant program beginning in the fall of 2022. Gaining those acceptances felt like the culmination of everything I had been working toward through my undergraduate career, and the neuroscience major is providing for seamless transition into that program. In my educational and professional career as a physician assistant, I hope to give back to underserved populations. I firmly believe that everyone deserves accessible, affordable, high-quality healthcare, yet, in the United States, healthcare tends to be one of the first things to go when people run into financial troubles. Because medical care is prohibitively expensive, people are living with and dying from entirely treatable conditions in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. I want to be a physician assistant to not only directly provide high-quality care to my patients in underserved communities but also to advocate for healthcare access and rights within my home state of Pennsylvania and in the country at large. Ultimately, I chose to entire STEM, specifically neuroscience, because of a deep interest in and love of learning the content, but I have stayed in it through my undergraduate career and into my Master's program so that I can become the best possible medical professional and serve my patients with the best possible care. I entered sciences for the fascination, and I am staying for the potential that it gives me to care for the rest of humanity. Science gives me hope for the future, and I would like to use this hope, my interests, and my natural inclination for the greater good.

Though it can be difficult to look at the world around us right now and feel that the future is bright, there is one thing that gets me through and gives me hope that things will improve. That is science. Through a vast majority of the problems the world is facing, there is hope in using the scientific method to continue to explore the world and find solutions that will improve life in the future. One of the most terrifying aspects of our reality is climate change, which is currently threatening all species on Earth - including humans - and which continues to worsen with every passing year. It is easy to fall into a pessimistic view and say that we are already beyond the point of no return and nothing can be done, but through science, there are constant discoveries that provide opportunities for creating a more positive future. These include advancements in renewable energy harvesting, such as more efficient solar, wind, water, or geothermal power. For example, in the works are solar-powered charging stations for cars that could potentially be used to create a society largely dependent on solar power for everyday transportation. Transitioning vehicles to solar power and away from fossil fuels would lead to less output of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and decreased impact on our ozone, which protects us from the intense radiation of space. Reducing our carbon output also protects our biodiversity by reducing the impact on the Great Barrier Reefs, and other natural oxygen-producing systems and by lowering the prevalence of oil spills and other pollution events that destroy entire ecosystems. Another way that science is creating hope for the future is in the medical field. Looking back over the last century, it is easy to see the enormous impact that advancements in medical science have created. For example, development and rollout of childhood vaccines has created a society within the United States wherein the mortality rate is associated with nontransmissible diseases like cancer, heart disease, and stroke. This is significantly different than the early 20th century, where the main killers of Americans were influenza, polio, tuberculosis, measles, and others. This truly dramatic change is perhaps best exemplified by the current generation or two of medical professionals who have never seen a case of polio or small pox outside of their textbooks. It is exemplified by the eradication or near-eradication of these conditions. Additionally, the survival rate of conditions like heart attack and cancer is significantly increased, as well, so we have not only nearly eliminated one category of killers, we have significantly reduced the impact of others. While there is a lot of work to do through science to make the future a better place, I have a lot of hope, powered by the recent historical impacts of scientific advancements, that scientists and researchers all around the globe will contribute to a much better tomorrow.

Recently, I have been enjoying two hobbies: reading and exercise. I have realized throughout my undergraduate experience that it can be incredibly difficult to find time in one's schedule for either of those things. Often, reading for classwork can be time-consuming and can lead to burnout, which makes me not want to read recreationally either. Yet, I realized that I am significantly happier when I make time in my schedule for reading because it forces me to spend time on myself and something that I enjoy. It forces me to realize that everything I do does not have to be 'productive.' I can participate in activities that I enjoy. I really enjoy many types of literature. An all-time favorite is The Great Gatsby, which I read in high school and continue to reread. In this vein, I enjoy fiction, whether that's historical, realistic, fantasy, or mystery. I feel that reading challenges me to think in ways that I do not normally in my daily life, as well as allowing me to explore my creative side. As someone in the sciences, I am not always afforded an opportunity to make interpretations with no 'correct' answer or to explore my creative side, and this hobby gives this opportunity back to me. Another hobby of mine has developed fairly recently: cardio kickboxing. Realizing that my mental health is much better when I regularly exercise, I committed in the fall semester to attending cardio kickboxing class once a week, as offered by the college. After the first class, I realized how much I enjoyed it and how much it tires me out. I continue to attend these classes and get great satisfaction from them. It helps me to be 'in the moment' and to focus on myself, rather than the world around me.

Providing care for other people brings me the most happiness in my life. In my two current jobs, I am able to support other people in different stages of life, and they both have shown me that I care deeply about ensuring that others have a high quality of life. In my job as a caregiver, I help people perform activities of daily living, do light housekeeping, give medication reminders, and provide companionship. In my other job, I am a newborn hearing screener, so I ensure that the babies born at UPMC Lititz are receiving the appropriate care related to their hearing. Even the small contributions I can make in the lives of these seniors and newborns and their families gives me joy and makes me feel important and valuable in my life. A lot of this happiness comes from meeting different people from all walks of life. Seniors have experienced such significant societal changes throughout their lives and can provide perspective on things that textbooks cannot, so it makes me happy to spend time listening to their stories and supporting them so that these memories can live on. Additionally, I enjoy meeting newborns and their families because, even in the 20 minutes that the tests takes, you can learn a lot about who the newborn is going home to and the life experiences they are going to have, which is incredibly exciting and gives me a completely different perspective on life. Working with and caring for other people brings me the most joy in my life, and I have learned this about myself through my two jobs that I have had throughout undergrad. I also get deep satisfaction from engaging in community service, and I try to schedule as many opportunities as I can in my life.

One of the most important parts of my life is performing acts of service for others around me. I perform community service, most notably working as an intern at the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, PA. I have been able to work on the crisis hotline and in the office, receiving sexual assault counselor training in order to support survivors in the community. I also share posts on my social media that are related to SARCC to ensure that there is increased access to resources. I also have two jobs, one wherein I am a caregiver for seniors in the community with Home Instead Senior Care and one wherein I am a newborn hearing screener. As a caregiver, I perform acts of service including medication reminders, help with activities of daily living, light housekeeping, and companionship. I thoroughly enjoy this job because I get to interact with people and perform these services for them so that they can live more independently than they may have been able to otherwise. It is also fun to meet these people and learn their life stories. In my second job at UPMC Lititz, I screen newborns for hearing loss, and performing this service takes more work off of the hands of the nurses who are already incredibly busy, removes stress from the parents who want their children to begin life happy and healthy, and ensures that the child gets the necessary care from an early age if there is evidence of hearing loss. I also perform acts of service within my family by doing laundry for other members of the household, cooking dinner to take some strain off of my parents, and providing academic help for my brother, who is adapting to his first year at college.

To me, listening means not only using a sense of hearing to detect that something is happening, but to use that sense to process the inputs in a meaningful way. Especially when having a conversation with someone, listening means focusing on not only the words they are saying, but also the tonality and even the body language they are producing to support the words they are saying. Active listening is seeking understanding from what the other person is saying, and attempting to relate to them. I practice active listening in my life by allowing the speaker to produce an entire thought before providing feedback or an addition to that idea. If I accidentally interrupt, I practice stopping my train of thought and allowing them to finish. Additionally, I seek complete, deep understanding by asking questions about what the person is saying or feeling, and asking them to clarify meanings that are muddied or with which I am unfamiliar. Active listening is also being present in the moment, meaning that I try not to let my mind wander to other things I need to do that day or to what I have just done. Instead, I try to focus all my attention on what is being conveyed to me. Similarly, I try to take my thoughts away from what I might say next or the point that I want to make and focus fully on the other person. Active learning is seeking complete understanding of what another person is telling you by hearing and thinking about what they are saying, asking clarifying questions as necessary, and allowing them to produce their complete thought before contributing to the conversation yourself. It also means interpreting body language and other nonverbal communication. All of this can be accomplished through focusing on the other person.

I think that some of the most satisfying aspects of life are those that meet the most basic needs of humans because they scratch some primal itch that has been maintained throughout 100,000 years of evolution. Some of these simple pleasures in my life include spending time with friends and family, exercising, resting, and eating. Spending time with my family makes me happy because I can feel the love and appreciation that we all have for one another through the efforts that they all make to see me and the efforts that I make to see them. We share about events happening in our lives and provide support for one another, as well as doing more lighthearted things like playing card games and teasing one another. Exercise and rest, while seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum, are some of my favorite parts of life because they help me to appreciate my body. Exercise helps me to develop my skills and recognize the ones that I already have. Rest helps me to practice respecting my body's limits and understanding that I deserve to take a break once in a while, especially in a society that places high value on near-constant productivity. Eating makes me happy because it satisfies the natural need to eat as well as stimulating my sense of taste. Eating usually involves spending time with family, making it satisfying physically, mentally, and emotionally. Eating also makes me feel fueled for the day and that I have provided myself with the nutrients that it needs to meet the physical obligations of the day. Eating healthy and satisfying foods makes me feel that I care for myself and that I do what is best for my body.

I find that giving is incredibly important to me because I receive many things from the people around me everyday. For example, my parents provide me with love, support, and a safe home environment. Others provide me with opportunities for education or growth, or even the simple physical gifts surrounding holidays or birthdays. Because so much is done for me out of the kindness of someone's heart, I recognize that I need to give back in that same way, to improve someone else's quality of life and support them in their goals. In my undergraduate and future graduate student career, I study so that I can become the best possible physician assistant, giving my future patients positive health outcomes and satisfaction. Outside of academics, I am currently very active in community service. I have previously served on the executive board of Dickinson College's chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships, creating opportunities in the Carlisle and Dickinson communities for people to give back. Since then, I have been an intern at the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, PA since May 2021. I have served on the crisis hotline and undergone sexual assault counselor training, among other assisting with other needs of the organization. Additionally, I have served on two public health service trips, wherein I learned about my own community, other communities in the United States, and communities internationally. I learned about other views of health and served in those communities in a manner that fits the health needs as determined by members of the community, rather than as determined by myself or some other external figure. These opportunities for service have shown me all of the resources that are available to me within my community, and I want to help.

Humans are social creatures by nature, seeking out groups of people like themselves with whom to spend major life events and free time alike. Therefore, there have been very few people throughout history who have not found themselves surrounded by a community. From these communities, people receive an incredible amount of support, including access to public education, access to spiritual services (if that is of interest to them), and access to emotional support. It is not uncommon for communities to come together not only in good times but in hard ones as well. Crowdfunding sites, charities, and fundraisers alike all indicate a willingness of people to give what financial resources they have available to improve the lives of others. Food pantries, “take what you need” boxes, and community closets suggest a recognition of the needs of others and a desire to meet those needs. Finally, there are innumerable non-profit organizations through which people donate what is perhaps their most precious resource – their time. Even with all the resources in the world, an organization cannot function with manpower to use those resources. Reassuringly often, these organizations find hands willing to help. Because everyone benefits from shared resources within a community, it is incredibly important for all individuals to give back to the community when they are able. Groups are much stronger when there are more people to support them, and societies are much more successful when individuals of different skills sets and with different resources connect to make a change. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that people not only receive support from the community but also provide that support when others are in need. Through my college experience, I have had amazing opportunities to work alongside my community members to do great things, and no other accomplishments have given me as much satisfaction and pride as these. In my first year at Dickinson College, I participated in tutoring and mentoring youths in the Carlisle area through the organization Rotoract and served as a campus ambassador at recruiting events on campus. Moving into my second year, I continued my work as a campus ambassador as well as taking on the role of Director of Service and Community Partnerships in Dickinson’s chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta First-Year Honor Society. In this position, I coordinated service opportunities through the Dickinson College Farm and a local animal shelter. This position was incredibly rewarding because it allowed me to connect with members of the campus community from different majors and different backgrounds. That same year, I participated in my first service trip, which was centered around public health. In this experience, the group traveled to Nashville Tennessee to work with United Cerebral Palsy, with whom we built ramps at no cost at the homes of individuals who had decreased mobility, and with Project CURE, with whom we sorted medical materials and packed them for shipment around the globe. Through this trip, I saw how great of an impact just a few hours of work can have. For example, we would often spend only half a day constructing a ramp that gave the client increased access to their house for the rest of their lives. It also provided us with an opportunity to reflect on our own privilege and how we fit into the community. Upon transferring to Lebanon Valley College, I became involved with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, PA, where I have now been an intern since May 2021. Through this internship, I have completed Sexual Assault Counselor training, tabled for the organization, completed supportive office work, and answered crisis hotline calls. Currently, my internship project is to connect with healthcare professionals in the community to provide them with resources and/or training on trauma-informed care so that survivors of sexual assault can feel more comfortable reaching out for support in the aftermath. Through this experience, I have become increasingly aware of the need for trauma-informed professionals and sexual assault resources within my own community. I have also been more comfortable supporting survivors and respecting their path to recovery. Also at Lebanon Valley, I participated in my second service trip, also on the topic of public health. Because of travel restrictions from COVID-19, our group could not travel to Brazil as planned; however, this opened even more opportunities. Instead of traveling, we spent our days working in our own community of Lebanon County and transitioned to Zoom in the evening, over which we connected with the Brazilian hosts, who told us about the Brazilian healthcare system. This experience, like SARCC, showed me that there is plenty of work to be done in my own community. Though travel is fun, I do not need to travel to perform community service. These amazing experiences and others sprinkled in throughout, have shown me my passion for helping other people, as well as showing me that there are needs that need to be met in my own community. Therefore, I feel passionate about continuing this type of work in my future career. As indicated by my participation in public health service trips, I feel strongly about providing access to high-quality, affordable healthcare, and I intend to pursue a career that supports rural and impoverished communities through healthcare services. Upon receipt of my certification as a physician assistant, I plan to work with organizations that take Medicare and Medicaid and volunteer my services with organizations like Volunteers in Medicine. I have chosen to attend Salus University to complete my Master of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies because they have amazing opportunities to work with a wide variety of communities, such as those in prison. I felt that they care about producing well-rounded practitioners that are humanists and care about the well-being of their patients. I trust that they will prepare me for a career doing just that.

The most inspiring book I have ever read was required reading for two of my undergraduate classes. This book, "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City" by Matthew Desmond, follows the lives of families and individuals living in poverty and their landlords. Rather than flooding the book with data points (though there is much of that, too, to support his claims), Desmond takes a far more personal approach, having stayed with and visited the individuals about which he writes. He witnesses their struggles first-hand, and to some degree experiences those struggles alongside these individuals. In this book, Desmond describes the trauma of being evicted, as well as the cyclical nature of eviction. Being evicted once makes it significantly more difficult to find new housing, meaning that a person will likely be evicted again in the future. It does not end there, though. Eviction means attending eviction court to stand a chance of keeping your housing, but many cannot take the time off of work or away from their families to do so. Some do not have transportation and/or live with disabilities that make it difficult to travel. Eviction means children are constantly changing schools, constantly uprooting their lives, and unable to find time to learn or make meaningful connections. Eviction means worldly possessions boxed up and placed in the street, regardless of freezing, storming, or scalding weather. Additionally, eviction means landlords who have to make their own payments. While there are many landlords who are opportunistic and predatorial, others need to pay their own bills and support their own children. Eviction means that everyone loses. Nothing else I have ever read has made me want to get up and make societal change more than this book, and it is one of few required readings I have reread.

Equality is something that I care deeply about, especially within the medical field. I firmly believe that everyone deserves accessible, high-quality, affordable healthcare, and yet there are many who daily have to make impossible decisions between paying for life-saving or life-improving treatments and putting food on their table. Ironically, those with the most access to healthcare are those who need to use healthcare resources the least. I have decided to become a physician assistant so that I can serve rural and underserved communities within the healthcare field and get the hands-on experiences that I love with patients. In pursuit of this currently, I have shadowed a physician assistant in a nursing and rehabilitation facility that takes predominantly Medicare and Medicaid patients, some of whom have just come out of homelessness. It is important to recognize the cyclical nature between poverty (with or without homelessness) and poor health. By providing opportunities for improving health, society can better set people up for success and for overcoming poverty. I also am completing and intern project in my internship with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, PA. This project involves outreach to healthcare providers in the area and presenting them with resources and training opportunities to encourage trauma-informed practice. One key to making healthcare accessible is to make it trauma-informed, thereby creating spaces in healthcare that feel safe and facilitate healing. In each of these opportunities and throughout my college experience, I have met individuals from many different backgrounds, including different cultures within and outside of the United States. Their perspectives on health and care have been incredibly informative and have shown me that many other cultures have more holistic views of health. Rather than being comprised of doctor visits, health also includes spirituality and healthy relationships.

1) I am a terrible student who does not try and can fully afford college. 2) I plan to drop out of school tomorrow. 3) I have never faced any obstacles.

Though it may sound cliché, my daily motivation comes from my desire to improve quality of life for others. Though undergrad classes can be stressful and, at time, demotivating, I have found that what gets me through is the desire to do as well as possible in every class. That desire is fed by my goal of being the best healthcare provider possible in my future career as a physician assistant. I firmly believe that everyone deserves access to healthcare that is high-quality and affordable; therefore, I know that I need to have as complete an understanding of not only biological sciences, but the socioeconomic impacts on public health. Therefore, I attend each class each day knowing that I am developing my repertoire of information and skills that I can draw upon when I go to graduate school and when I then go on to be a medical professional. Only by maximizing my skills can I provide the best possible care and improve a person's quality of life. Additionally, I know that in my current day-to-day life, there are people that are relying on me to perform at my highest potential. These people include my family, who want me to set myself up for a successful and fulfilling life, my friends, who sometimes require my support just as they support me, my classmates, who may be reliant on me performing my share of the work, and my clients at work, who expect me to show up focused and prepared to give them the care and services that they depend on. These cultural expectations boost my motivation to contribute what I can to others' lives as I expect them to put forth the effort for me.

My best skill is my ability to communicate. I have long prided myself on my written communication skills, finding that I performed well in all my English classes, even when I transitioned to college writing from high school. I find that, especially with factual information, I can communicate effectively and get across all of the information in an efficient fashion. Feeling good about this skill is not a reason to stop developing it, though, and I work all the time to improve my communication skills. I continue to practice my written communication skills by reading. I firmly believe that I have become the strong writer that I am because I have read many texts of all types and at high levels, so I can understand the patterns of speech and the formatting that is most appropriate for each setting. Continuing to do so can only further strengthen my writing. Additionally, I am developing my spoken communication skills through learning how to meet people where they are so that we might work together. In doing so, I am practicing my active listening skills. Communicating requires listening to what another person is saying and attempting to meet the needs that they are expressing in their communication. I also try to put my needs out clearly in conversations to ensure that everyone I am communicating with understands where I am coming from and what I am looking to get from an interaction so that there are minimal misunderstandings. Everyday, I practice my communication skills to ensure that it remains my best skill by reading and listening to others, as well as setting myself up for success in my conversations.

In my life, I hope to improve the quality of life of everyone I interact with. I pursue this goal through my jobs: one as a caregiver and one as a newborn hearing screener. In my caregiver position, I assist seniors with their activities of daily living by providing medication and physical therapy reminders, performing light housekeeping, helping them to dress and shower as needed, and providing companionship in these isolating times. The impact of this job on the seniors themselves and their family is great because it creates more independence for seniors, as well as an ability to remain in their own homes as they age, and more time and space for their loved ones to take care of themselves and life their own lives. As a newborn hearing screener, I enjoy supporting healthy beginnings to life and providing a service that brings comfort and reassurance to parents that their child will be happy and healthy. In my academic career, I am shortly going to graduation from Lebanon Valley College with a Bachelor's degree in neuroscience. Then, I am going to attend Salus University's physician assistant program beginning in the fall of this year. In my career as a physician assistant, I hope to continue to provide high-quality healthcare to all the patients I interact with, supporting them through both the best and most challenging moments in life. I also hope that this position will give me a platform to advocate for accessible and affordable healthcare because I believe that healthcare is a human right, and that no one should have to choose between eating and getting care. I hope to improve quality of life for other people through my own life, and I plan to do so by pursuing a career in healthcare as a physician assistant.

Though it may sound cliché, I am passionate about helping people live their happiest, healthiest, most successful lives. The main avenue through which I follow this passion is healthcare. Currently, I am caregiver for seniors in my area with Home Instead Senior Care, and through this job I provide medication and physical therapy reminders, stand-by assistance for activities of daily living, light housekeeping, and companionship for my clients. I have seen the importance of having this type of support in the lives of family members and significant others, who are able to take some time for themselves, or even just run to the store, as a result of our work and our presence as caregivers. Of course, it greatly impacts the seniors as well. Taking some stress out of day-to-day tasks and providing conversation and interaction, especially through times of isolation like these, increases their morale and improves their quality of life greatly. I am also a newborn hearing screener, and I enjoy seeing and supporting healthy beginnings of life, as well. On top of that, I am a senior neuroscience major at Lebanon Valley College and plan to enter Salus University's Physician Assistant program in the fall of 2022. In my career as a physician assistant, I want to work with underserved populations, like those in the rural regions of Pennsylvania, to make high-quality healthcare accessible to as many people as possible. I also would like to continue my volunteerism with a local sexual assault counseling center, especially by bringing resources and information about trauma-informed care into the health professions. I am passionate about improving the lives of others, especially as they interact with something as potentially stressful as the healthcare system, and support them through some of the best and some of the worst moments in life.

My biggest goals for the future revolve around providing and ensuring access to high-quality, affordable healthcare in the United States. Much of my life, I have been distressed at the amount of inequality that exists in the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Additionally, for such a wealthy, democratic, industrialized nation, health outcomes are quite poor. Child mortality in the US is at an all-time low, and yet it remains higher than many other industrialized countries. Simple surveys of individuals regarding their healthcare suggests a lower satisfaction rate than in other nations as well, despite nations such as Canada having higher wait periods for care. Nations that have less wealth disparity tend to have happier residents and healthier populations. In addition, I firmly believe that healthcare is a human right, and that no one should have the make the choice between feeding themselves and getting care. Having said that, I will be pursuing a Master of Medical Science in Physician Assistant Studies at Salus University in the fall of 2022, after completing my Bachelor's of Science in Neuroscience at Lebanon Valley College. Using that degree, I plan to practice in underserved communities, such as the rural areas of Pennsylvania. I also intend to continue with the volunteerism in which I currently participate. I am involved in a sexual assault counseling and prevention organization and am working on an internship project that revolves around educating and providing resources to medical providers on trauma-informed care. Something often overlooked in the rush of the medical field is the impact of trauma, and I hope that by creating these resources, we are creating professionals that can provide the best possible care to all the patients that they seen in their practices.

As a neuroscience major, I see the importance of calculus in every course that I take. Initially, I was unsure why a neuro major would need to take physics, but after a few classes, I realized the ways that it underpins the entire universe, including governing many principles of neuroscience. For example, one of the most critical topics to understand in neuroscience is the action potential, and yet the action potential is very much described by the physics surrounding it. The opening of ion channels at various points in the action potential cycle allows, via membrane potential, ions to flow into or out of the cell and generate the action potential. For example, when the membrane is at resting potential (~-70mV), sodium channels are opened, and because sodium has a positive charge, it will rush into the cell to balance the charge. Similarly, at the peak of the action potential (~40mV), the sodium ion channels close and the potassium channels open. Because potassium has a positive charge, it will rush out of the cell, taking the membrane potential below rest and allowing for a reset of all channels, restoring the membrane to resting potential. Additionally, as the action potential is propagated it passes along the axon, which is myelinated for most of the length, except where there are unmyelinated portions called the Nodes of Ranvier. In the myelinated regions, the action potential is propagated because the membrane resistance is high, meaning that it would be difficult for ions to cross the membrane and allow the charge to diffuse. Therefore, the action potential is shunted down the axon. At the nodes, there is an opportunity for the action potential to regenerate, as it can "lose steam" as it runs down the highly resistant membrane. At an unmyelinated region, there is less resistance and some ions can cross and regenerate the action potential. Having a basic understanding of calculus from my high school class and my college physics class helped me greatly and understanding these principles that govern action potentials. While it can be easy to overlook the physical implications of biological processes, a thorough biological understanding of the world requires a chemical understanding, which in turn requires a physical understanding. This physical understanding is inextricably linked to and explained by math, and by calculus especially. While calculus is a much feared course, understanding the ways in which the equations describe biological events creates a new level of learning wherein there is understanding, not simply memorization. Importantly, calculus is rigid in its rules, unlike biology and chemistry which have many exceptions their 'rules.' When an event is not aligning with an understood biological or chemical pattern, calculus remains able to explain what is happening. Calculus is an incredibly powerful tool in the field of STEM, and especially in my experience in neuroscience. It has been and will surely continue to be used for centuries as humans explore the universe because everything principle at its core returns to these reliable calculations.

To me, math is important because it is the language of the universe. It is an amazing mechanism by which we can explore and explain the world around us. Additionally, a majority of natural science topics have math at their core, and it is essential to have some understanding of the math in order to understand the greater meanings of these topics. For example, as a neuroscience major, I have been required to take biology classes, but to understand those biology classes, I required a basic understanding of chemistry. To understand that chemistry, I required a basic understanding of physics, and in taking that physics class, I performed many calculations to answer questions about properties of our world. While I was initially uncertain as to why a neuroscience major would need physics, I quickly realized that all of the equations that neuroscientists use to describe membrane potential and the properties of an action potential are derived from physics. In an action potential, there is an influx of sodium at unmyelinated locations along an axon that allows for the regeneration of the membrane potential difference and the action potential. As that action potential moves down the myelinated portions of the axon, those sodium ions cannot get into the axon, meaning that the action potential can lose some momentum. While I had a neuroscience understanding of the action potential and its consequences, taking physics gave me a more practical, physical understanding. Realizing that the presence of the myelin decreases the capacitance and increase membrane resistance lead to my understanding that the action potential can more easily flow down the axon, without the influence of extracellular contents. However, being so insulated, the action potential can begin to slow down, as our understanding of velocity=distance/time explains. This is why there are unmyelinated regions where it can be regenerated. Equally important to neuroscientific understanding are computer scientists who use mathematical modeling to create possible neural networks and further explain how the brain works on a grand scale. Utilization of statistics is also important in predicting possibilities for connections in the brain and for modeling how one change to the brain might add with other variables and compound the situation. These forms of modeling make it possible to see impacts of brain damage or treatments for conditions where it is less possible in humans. Human testing in neuroscience requires informed consent and makes use of individuals who have already experienced certain injuries or diseases. Therefore, the circumstances of these patients is not standardized and scientists cannot make statements that can be reliably generalized to a population. Additionally, because they are relying on case studies, they generally have a small sample size, further decreasing generalizability. Computational neuroscience is breaking new ground for modelling these conditions in humans. Finally, as someone looking to become a physician assistant, I am extremely invested in public health. I feel that it is of the utmost importance to support efforts to improve public health by creating access to healthcare, furthering research all disease types, and disseminating valuable information to the public so that they might make themselves safer. To do these things, epidemiologists and public health officials use math to determine the prevalence of conditions. In watching how and when diseases spread, they can both understand the disease and prevent more people from getting it. Additionally, they can predict where it may spread next and how it might mutate to get ahead of the wave. We have seen how important this is through the COVID19 pandemic, where scientists have used many statistical models to inform their recommendations.

To me, the best way to live a long, healthy life is to spend as much time as possible with your loved ones. Having worked with seniors for the past year and a half, it seems that those with the best longevity are those with the greatest support systems surrounding them. These support systems are best headed up by family members, like sibling, children, and grandchildren. They have the highest quality of life and get the most enjoyment out of life. I believe that eating well and staying active are important factors as well; however, it is important to also remember to do that things that you love with the people that you love.

I am excited about CRISPR-Cas9 technology in the field of biological and medical research. This technology involves a family of palindromic repeats of DNA found within prokaryotes, like bacteria. When bacteria infect a cell, they leave some of their DNA behind in the genome of the cell, meaning that this technology can help identify sequences of DNA that the has been seen before by the cell, which helps it to develop a defense system against infection. Meanwhile, the Cas9 sequence can identify sequences within another cell's DNA that are complementary to the CRISPR DNA sequences. Importantly, the Cas9 sequence is an enzyme that allows for cleavage of these sequences. When Cas9 cuts out a sequence of DNA, it opens the possibility that a virus, which has been engineered to contain not an infectious agent, but a new, helpful DNA or RNA sequence, can come in and introduce that sequence into the genome. From there, this new sequence will be read, leading to the production of those proteins which will perform their specific functions within the cell or body. This technology has become important to a number of fields in biology. Firstly, some agriculture researchers have used it to engineer crops that are more resistant to certain viruses and other factors that can impact crop production. This ensures that there is more consistent food availability. CRISPR has been suggested for use in mosquitoes, to change the DNA sequences to reduce their ability to spread malaria. Of major importance, is the hypothesized ability of CRISPR to complete gene editing in humans. Successful use of this technology could mean that would be new ways to make diagnoses of conditions. Additionally, DNA sequences could potentially be edited to reduce symptomology of certain conditions, including major threats to human health like cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, and HIV, among others. CRISPR has a place among climate scientists, as well, providing an opportunity to move toward a carbon-neutral future. Plants involved in producing biofuels can be genetically modified using this technology such that they produce more of the materials that are needed for these biofuels. CRISPR is arguably one of the most important discoveries of the 21st century, earning its discoverers a Nobel Prize. Scientists will continue to study and refine this technology which has evolved as we have and provided such an effective mechanism for gene editing. It is hard to imagine even the best scientists replicating this technology in a lab. I am excited to see the proposed uses further explored and to have them take hold of the scientific world, creating a world that uses more renewable energy, protects crops and other food sources, and prevents some of the world's deadliest conditions.

I have a great passion for healthcare and have long stood by my belief that healthcare should be affordable and accessible for everyone. Because of that, I will be pursuing a career as a physician assistant. Upon completion of my master's degree, I want to give back to underprivileged communities by providing high-quality healthcare. Through my direct interactions with patients and advocacy as a member of the Pennsylvania Society of Physician Assistants, I am excited to see the flaws in the healthcare system and promote necessary changes to make it the best it can be. In my career, I also want to deeply connect with my patients so that they can trust me with their health. I want to understand the various backgrounds that patients come from so that my practice can be individualized, rather than assuming that everyone has the same health behaviors or needs. I want to create a comfortable, inclusive, trauma-informed environment within my examination rooms and within the healthcare system as a whole. Above all, I want to cultivate and promote empathy. When you can put yourself in another person's shoes you can give them the compassion that you might otherwise have withheld. I am excited to work toward a world where everyone works with one another, rather than competing with one another. I want to see a healthier future, physically, mentally, and emotionally, for everyone, regardless of background.

Currently, I work with an organization called Home Instead Senior Care. I have a regular client couple that lives in my community that I work with on Saturday morning. I help the gentleman get dressed and perform other activities of daily living while his wife makes breakfast in their kitchen. Then, if she is not finished when he comes to the table, I help her finish up. After that, I spend the rest of the shift with the gentleman while the wife runs to the store for their weekly groceries. The gentleman and I work on physical therapy exercises and going for short walks in the hallway of their building. Upon his wife's return, I help to bring the groceries in and put them away. Additionally, Home Instead has a program in a local retirement community called Traditions of Hershey. Here, I do very similar activities to support these elderly clients in maintaining their independence in their daily lives. I do medication reminders, shower and dress assists, and spend time chatting and keeping up with the events that are important to them. In 2021, I helped two clients celebrate their 90th birthdays, one client celebrate her 100th birthday, and another client celebrate his 104th birthday. It is so satisfying to help these clients and see their successes on a day-to-day basis. It has also been incredible to learn from them and hear about their experiences in their long, diverse lives. I have also spent time shadowing a physician assistant who works in a nursing and rehabilitation facility, which further sparked my desire to work in geriatrics when I become a physician assistant myself.

Lately, my favorite form of self-care has been exercise. In high school, I was an athlete, but I did not thrive in the hyper-competitive environment. While I enjoyed my sport, I did not enjoy the high stakes and the stress that was imposed by coaches and some teammates. Therefore, I did not have the most healthy relationship with exercise. Moving into college, I did not practice a sport anymore, but I went to the gym instead. Learning more about muscle groups, various exercises, and ways of making exercise fun helped me to take back the enjoyment of movement. I found that I loved to move for the sake of movement. Running did not have to feel like torture if the focus was on the stretch in my legs, the environment around me, the wind in my hair, instead of on how quickly I could complete four laps around the high school track. Currently, I enjoy going to the gym in the evenings after I have completed my school work or job for the day. Kickboxing has been my favorite form of exercise lately, but I have also enjoyed pushing my body through weightlifting. Both of these activities are a good form of stress relief, allowing me to take my mind off of the major events happening in life or my long to-do list. They also allow me to take out my anger and frustration in a healthy manner, rather than sitting with it at home. Additionally, it makes my body feel better. I feel like a stronger, healthier person when I take the time to be active, which strengthens my self-image, self-esteem, and mental health.

They say that nothing worth having comes easy, and I think that is very true. I am currently a senior neuroscience major at Lebanon Valley College with plans to go on to a physician assistant program following graduation. Getting through both the undergraduate experience and the graduate school application process have taken much energy and patience. Spending hours completing homework and projects, studying for exams, and attending review sessions and office hours requires a lot of patience. Additionally, sitting down to complete the application process, waiting for interview invitations, and, finally, waiting for the day that an admission decision comes forces you to be patient. Being patient has become incredibly important to me because it gives me the peace of mind that I have done everything that I can do and that I will receive a grade, an understanding, an acceptance, in enough time to make the choices I need to make. I also appreciate the importance of extending patience to other people. I know that, at any given moment, I am giving my best, even if I may not be as fast or efficient as others are at the same activity. Therefore, when I am the faster or more efficient member of the group, I practice patience with those around me and do not make them feel rushed as they ask questions, process the information, and practice their skills. Here, patience builds stronger relationships and makes the world more navigable by creating a teamwork mindset and encouraging us to learn from one another.

Each person has a different background, which contributes to their unique views and opinions. One way that I keep a growth mindset is by reminding myself that everyone has something to teach me. Being open to conversations with others and receptive to what they say is an important part of growth. It is also important to me that I stay open to new opportunities, including ones that push me out of my comfort zone. I remind myself that I cannot strengthen and add to my skill set by only doing what is comfortable. When I find myself in environments where I am less sure of myself, I reach out to other people and ask them the best strategies for success. In that same vein, I keep myself open to constructive criticism. Above all, I maintain a positive attitude, even when things become challenging or frightening because I know that working through those tough moments will make me more qualified to handle similar situations in the future. I believe that I can improve my skills and make valuable accomplishments in my educational and professional careers and my life at large simply by doing my best at every opportunity and reflecting on the outcomes of those opportunities.

Playlist: Whiplash Songs: 1) Stronger - Kelly Clarkson 2) Jackboot Jump - Hozier 3) The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars 4) Minefields - Faouzia and John Legend 5) Fight Song - Rachel Platten 6) We Are the Champions - Queen

Connecting with nature is an essential part of life, and I believe that it makes us stronger people when we do so. Nature has inherently health-giving properties, such as the Vitamin D provided by the sun, the benefits of clean air and water, and the cognitive and mental health benefits of experiencing nature. Therefore, humans are healthier just from participating in all that nature has to offer. I always feel at my best when I have unplugged from my electronics and found a nature trail or lake. I try to appreciate nature by being fully present in the moment, including focusing on all the things I can hear, smell, and see. Additionally, I appreciate nature by doing my best to leave it as I found it and to help clean it up as needed. I enjoy running through local nature parks and occasionally going on hikes. My 14-year-old dog and I like to take short walks at a local lake and then sit and watch the kayakers. I also like to bring friends along so that we can share the experience, and I can introduce them to new places. They do the same for me. Nature is truly a place that can bring people together and foster long-lasting relationships with great memories.

All my life, I have lived in the small town of Annville, PA, and it has been my entire world. After high school, I attended Dickinson College in Carlisle and have since returned to Lebanon Valley College in Annville, where I will finish my Bachelor's degree. I have always attended small schools and have thrived on having a small, tightly-knit cohort around me. However, I am ready explore the world around me, meet new people, and experience new ways of life. Additionally, my experiences in community service in the realm of public health and shadowing a physician assistant in a state-funded facility have shown me the great inequalities that exist in our society today. In addition to learning more about the world, I would like to give back in whatever way possible. I have been accepted to Salus University's physician assistant program, and I hope to use that education in my own career as a physician assistant, where I can do all of the things I have mentioned: meet new people, connect with them about their beliefs and ways of life, and provide them with affordable, high-quality healthcare. Though I have thrived in my small town, I know that experiencing the world will make me a well-rounded provider who can understand and relate to anyone who enters my office. I also hope that it will challenge my current ways of thinking and allow me to more fully understand my own beliefs and values. My background has led me to the place I am in today, and I am excited to move into the future with the knowledge that it has given me and add to it with more experiences.

All my life, I have been a shy, quiet person, and it can require significant amounts of my energy to reach out to people and take advantage of opportunities. However, I have also found that the more I practice these things, the easier they become. As I have grown up, I have become a stronger person, who has accomplished greater and greater goals. In my day-to-day life, I practice bravery by reaching out to those around me. It can be greatly intimidating to meet new people, but I push myself to do it anyway. I have done this most through my job as a caregiver for seniors and my volunteerism. I am currently interning at the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center near my hometown, where I answer the crisis hotline, help with prevention education events, and do clerical work in the office as needed. With seniors, I have learned to open up but also to be open to the experiences and stories they want to share. They have also shown me to take advantage of every day and to live without regrets. SARCC has given me the resources and the strength to help others through some of their most difficult moments. In my personal life, I practice speaking up for myself and for the things I believe in. It is incredibly important to be true to yourself and to advocate for the things you want and need, and this has always been a struggle for me. However, I have found that life is better when you let others know your needs. Life is also more fulfilling when you confront the things you feel are wrong and do your best to make a positive impact to fix them. I have come a long way in practicing bravery and boldness.

For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about human rights. Additionally, I have always felt a passion and a natural talent for the biological sciences; therefore, I feel more passionate about the intersection of these topics - healthcare. I firmly believe that healthcare is a human right. Every human deserves access to healthcare, but even that is not enough. Every person deserves accessible, high-quality, and affordable, if not free, healthcare. No one should have to choose between treatment that improves the quality of life, or is life-saving, because they cannot afford it. No one deserves to struggle between feeding their children and taking them to the doctor. Having said that, I have applied to and been accepted into physician assistant programs, and I will pursue this career at Salus University's Master's of Medical Science - Physician Assistant program beginning fall 2022. Upon receipt of my degree, I hope to move into providing care for underserved populations and ensuring that I do all that I can to advocate for each of my patients and provide them with the highest quality healthcare. I also dream of continuing to explore the impacts of social determinants of health so that I can treat my patient holistically. Most importantly, I plan to continue educating myself on the impacts of trauma and ways to be a trauma-informed provider. Too often, medical facilities and procedures can be retraumatizing for individuals who have had traumatic experiences. This barrier can be lifted by increasing the number of trauma-informed providers and by creating spaces of understanding and compassion. My dreams for my future career are to create the best possible environment to meet the needs of each and every patient, which means providing high-quality, affordable healthcare and treating my patients holistically to reach the best outcomes.

Imagining a life wherein I can fully provide for myself and my family, including having the ability to support all of our goals, creating a picture of relief. Not having to worry about my own family's well-being also means that I can fully direct my attention to giving back to my community. Having said that, financial freedom means the freedom to take risks, both in my own life and in my community. It means that I can more fully invest in my education, in the futures of any children I might have, and that I can support the great organizations that give so much already. Community service is greatly important to me, and I have been an active participant in service organizations and programs throughout my time at college. At Dickinson, I served as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships for the Alpha Lambda Delta First-Year Honor Society. Through that position, I connected with the Dickinson College Farm and a local animal shelter to establish service opportunities for the other members of Dickinson's chapter of ALD. In January 2020, I traveled with peers to Nashville as a member of a public health service trip team. I have since transferred to Lebanon Valley College, but I have not stopped serving. I was also a member of a public health service trip at LVC in the spring of 2021. In Lebanon, I have served with Volunteers in Medicine and am currently serving with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, as well as tutoring at Annville-Cleona Middle School. Each of these institutions and organizations does amazing work within the community, and each of them needs resources - both time and money - to continue to support the community. Financial security for myself would mean that I would have more free time and money to do exactly that. Not only could I donate and be present to complete anything these groups may need, but I could also use my physician assistant career as well. For example, Volunteers in Medicine regularly needs practitioners, and financial security would allow me to take some patients pro bono. Beginning next fall, I will be attending Salus University's physician assistant program, for which I will need loans. While I am excited and passionate about my future career as a PA, I know it will be easier for me to meet my career goals of serving underserved populations if I, myself, am secure. I hope to earn scholarships that will help me through my graduate program and to exercise fiscal responsibility while in school to ensure that I finish with as little debt as possible. Additionally, I plan to pay off any debt as quickly as possible and maintain strong credit. Additionally, I have been looking into programs that provide scholarships and stipends for physician assistant programs, under the agreement that I will work for them as a physician assistant upon completion of my program. Hopefully, with the help of these resources and others, I will be able to complete my program and quickly get to a point of financial freedom so that I can more fully participate in my own life goals and give back to the community organizations that have given to much to myself and others. Having financial freedom will allow my to enjoy my career and pursue other things that I love, allowing me to have a more fulfilled, low-stress lifestyle and to raise children under the best possible circumstances.

One of the most daunting classes for college students is physics, and this was true for myself as well. I had not taken physics in high school, and I am a neuroscience major, so it was a unexplored subject for me when I entered class in the fall of 2019. Additionally, I knew that I would need to complete two semesters, making it a year-long commitment. Things were going smoothly until early October, when I suddenly lost my grandmother. I had a physics exam the same week as a funeral - an exam that the class would average a D- on. After these emotional and academic blows, I knew that I needed to regroup, and, thankfully, I had an academic advisor and a physics professor that supported me and helped me catch up on the material. I spent many late nights starting at equations and many labs recording data. Ultimately, I completed the fall semester of physics with a B. Moving into the spring, I was hopeful that I would be more familiar with the concepts and, barring any emergencies, I could outperform my first semester self. Unfortunately, this spring 2020 saw the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States, which led myself and the rest of my cohort to a sudden move off campus and online learning for the remainder of the semester. However, after attending many Zoom office hours and consulting with the lab instructor about at-home lab packets, I successfully finished that semester as well. Though the 2019-2020 academic year had its rough moments, and one of my more difficult classes, I persisted by studying harder, reaching out more, and leaning on the supports provided by my school. I am proud of my physics grades because I know what it took to get there.

Maintaining one's mental health is just as important as maintaining one's physical health, and often they can go hand-in-hand. For some, it is incredibly difficult to maintain either mental or physical health while struggling with the other. Unfortunately, mental health has become highly stigmatized in today's society, making it more challenging for people to talk about their struggles and to find help for them. This stigmatization also contributes to large portions of the population feeling alone, despite the fact that one in five American adults has a mental health condition. As history has shown, this ostracization of people with mental health conditions contributes to their dehumanization and the furthering of ableist beliefs. A number of people in my life struggle with their mental health on an ongoing basis, and nearly everyone I know deals with it at least once. For as much of my life as I remember, I, too, have dealt with anxiety, and this experience has impacted my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations immensely. Another important factor in my life is my college major, neuroscience. Through my educational career, I have gained immense knowledge on the neurobiology and psychology, which has helped me to understand many of the most common mental illnesses. Because of this knowledge, I firmly believe that everyone deserves access to mental health care that is high-quality and affordable. I also believe in the power of community care, as opposed to institutionalization. The practice of institutionalization involves placing an individual in a facility in which they have very little control over their lives. Though it has been done to individuals with mental illness throughout history, the neuroscience, psychological, and sociological research has all indicated the institutionalization and removal from the general populace does more harm than good. Everyone deserves to live their lives in a way of their choosing, no matter the state of their mental health. In my workplace relationships, I often remind myself, with coworkers and clients alike, that I am not with them all the time. I only know the things about their lives that they share with me and not all that goes on behind the scenes. This is especially important to me while working out a disagreement with a coworker. If I understand that I may not know everything that is happening in their lives, what has brought them to the position they are currently in, and the many possible underlying reasons they might be mad at me, it makes it easier for me to react appropriately and productively, rather than out of frustration. When my coworkers share this understanding, working together becomes much easier. Similarly, I work with elderly clients, and I only seem them for a brief period when I help them dress for the day or perform other ADLs. Thus, I do not know how their visit with the child, their doctor's appointment, or their important phone call went. Without the entire picture, I know that I should take everything in stride and work with my client to accomplish all that they would like to do, rather than against them to do what "needs" to be done. Relationships with friends are much the same. Though we are friends because we are similar in many ways, there are a number of things that we differ on. While this can be frustrating, I recognize that even with my closest friends, there are things that they may not be sharing with me. Therefore, I should listen more than I speak and support them however possible, even when I may not understand. Finally, this perspective on mental health truly has influenced the way that I intend to pursue my dream job. Next fall, I will be attending Salus University's Physician Assistant program, and I am incredibly excited for this new opportunity and for the new experiences. While I have known since sophomore year of college that this is the path I would like to take, my understanding of how mental health plays into physical health and the importance of paying attention to both has grown considerably. Through volunteerism with my local sexual assault resource center, I have received training on the impact of trauma on the brain and ways to be trauma-informed when interacting with other people. Implementing this knowledge and these practices is essential in my field because, once again, I do not have complete knowledge of what is happening in my patient's life outside of what they might tell me or I might see in an exam room. Using trauma-informed practice means ensuring that I am looking after patient mental health as much as patient physical health. It also being behaving in a fashion that minimizes the risk of retraumatization of a patient. In my shadowing experiences with a physician assistant, I noticed that while medications can be prescribed for many mental health conditions, like anxiety and depression, the PA always suggests that the patient explore therapy as well. Medication and therapy independently can be effective, but it has been shown in research studies that patients have the best outcomes when they pursue both because the medication can help with symptoms of the condition and therapy can promote self-efficacy regarding symptom management, breaking negative thought patterns and creating healthy ones, and anything else that the patient may need from a behavioral standpoint. Being familiar with anxiety myself made me more sympathetic to other individuals who are working on their mental health. When I started college for neuroscience, I began to learn the biological basis for many mental health conditions, and my relationships in my workplace and my personal life have helped me develop and practice communication skills that support mental health, rather than break it down. I plan to take this knowledge with me into my career as a physician assistant, where I will be a trauma-informed, well-rounded care provider who can more fully understand what a patient might be experiencing.

Actively listening goes beyond hearing what another person is telling you. It involves being present in the moment, allowing the other person to complete their thoughts, understand their perspective from factual and emotional standpoints, and ensuring that you fully understand what they are sharing with you before you formulate your response. It can also involve asking clarifying questions and asking the conversational partner to further explain what they are saying. To me, listening indicates caring. Someone actively listening to you indicates that they value your opinions, knowledge, and feelings. Listening also means that the person respects you by giving you their time and full attention, in addition to anything helpful they might respond with. Often, simply listening and hearing another person is all they need. I think that listening can also include using context clues to more support your understanding of the conversation. For example, background knowledge on the speaker, including their passions, career aspirations, and relationships, can tell a listener a lot about the what the speaker is saying. Similarly, being observant of body language is also incredibly helpful in these situations. Understanding that someone is tense because they are nervous and scared or relaxed because they are comfortable can provide a lot of depth to one's understanding. Taking note of these non-spoken qualities also indicates caring and respect because you are being fully attentive to the speaker. It is important to be an active listener, especially in today's polarizing world. It can be easy to hear only part of what someone says, or even nothing at all, and simply be plotting the next words that will leave your own mouth. However, this is not an effective way to make and maintain relationships and can often lead to unnecessary conflict.

Though it can sometimes be hard to take a step back and just be thankful for everything that we have in our lives, it is am important practice to maintain because it helps us to be more at peace with the circumstances of our life, even when the world feels out of control. The two main ways I show gratitude in my life are to thank those around me for the things that they do for me. Whether it's a friend who has supported me through a tough time, a professor that has worked with me through a challenging semester, or my parents, who have provided me with everything that I have, I take time to say 'thank you.' I know that I may not be where I am today without each person who has been a part of my life, and the sacrifices that those individuals make on my behalf should not go unnoticed. Even when they make a small gesture, we can all be appreciative of other people in our lives. Additionally, in my volunteer work and in my career goals, I express my gratitude through giving back to my community. Many services near me, such as Volunteers in Medicine and the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, depend on volunteerism to make their missions possible. Serving in those environments and helping others not only feels good but also shows the ways that the community would rally behind me if I needed these services. I show my gratitude by giving back my time and energy to these amazing organizations. Additionally, I am going into healthcare so that I can give back in my day-to-day life. I recognize the blessings that I have in my access to healthcare and want to make that possible for everyone.

Though no one is a perfect person, I work toward being a more selfless person everyday. Throughout my college career, I have participated in many community service opportunities, including serving as the Director of Service and Community Partnerships in Dickinson College's chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta, a first-year honor society. Through this office, I organized service events such as Dickinson College Farm clean-up and a trip to a local humane society that, unfortunately, could not happen due to COVID-19. At Dickinson College, I also participated in a public health service trip to Nashville over winter break 2020. This service trip involved sorting and packing medical supplies for Project CURE and building accessibility ramps for United Cerebral Palsy of Nashville. On campus, I was a notetaker for my Neuroscience, Ancient Worlds on Film, and Sociology classes. After transferring to Lebanon Valley College, I quickly became involved in community service here as well. I have been a notetaker for my Introduction to Psychology class, and have participated in a public health service trip within the Lebanon County community. This service trip involved packing birthing kits for underprivileged women, building homes through Habitat for Humanity, visiting community resource centers like the Lebanon Free Clinic, and connecting with the international community through virtual service learning with a Brazilian partner. I am also involved with tutoring at Annville-Cleona Middle School, the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, and have served with Volunteers in medicine. I am committed to service because I feel that the purpose of life is to help others and improve the quality of life for as many as possible. I enjoy helping others meet their needs and connecting with a wide range of individuals of varying backgrounds. Service is something that has become important to me and I will always pursue it.

Personally, I feel happiest and most sustained when I am helping other people, no matter the environment. In my current job, I am as a caregiver for elderly clients, helping them to meet their daily needs and with ADLs. Through this job, I have met many amazing seniors who tell me about their lives, and I love connecting with them and improving their quality of life. Additionally, I enjoy interning with the sexual assault center near me, where I help with prevention education, crisis hotline calls, and filing paperwork in the office. Two public health-based service trips have also allowed me to explore the resources and needs in my own community and in the Nashville community. Whether it is something big, like building an accessibility ramp at a house, or something more behind-the-scenes like shredding paperwork, I enjoy taking some of the weight off another person's shoulders. That being said, I think that the meaning of life is to help other people and to improve quality of life. So far, I have tried to fulfill this meaning through my work and volunteerism, and I plan to continue that in my future. Next year, I will start my Master's Degree toward a career as a physician assistant at Salus University. I was drawn to this career because it provides me with the opportunity to interact with patients in a hands-on way and to foster a relationship with them that is comfortable and which will facilitate providing the best possible care. I am also excited to help patients make progress toward their health goals. I think that the training that the sexual assault resource center has given me will make me a trauma-informed provider who can connect strongly with her patients. Finally, I hope to continue my community service however possible.

For as long as I can remember, I have believed in supporting and protecting human rights, and my added interest in healthcare led to a natural passion for universally accessible and affordable healthcare. Everyone deserves to live their lives in whatever way they desire, whether that's through the pursuit of a career, a family, community service, travel, or any combination of these and more. Unfortunately, having health concerns can limit each and every one of these activities and greatly hinders quality of life. Additionally, severe health conditions can also take lives if nothing is done. Our society has a great many resources and effective treatments for the management or cure of a wide range of conditions, but everyone does not have the same access to these resources. I firmly believe that healthcare is a human right and that no one should have to choose between seeking chemotherapy and feeding their family. Additionally, I believe that everyone should have access to high-quality healthcare when they need it, not just those who can pay the most for it. I have explored this passion through two public health service trips, an internship with the local sexual assault resource center, my job working with the elderly, and my shadowing experiences with a physician assistant. Each of these has shown me both the unfortunately reality of not having healthcare access as well as the amazing outcomes of providing care to underprivileged communities. From every perspective, biological, sociological, economical, etc., the benefits to providing accessible healthcare are undeniable. That is why I am excited to have confirmed my seat in Salus University's Physician Assistant Class of 2024 and to start this program next fall. I know that my undergraduate experiences and my time at Salus will help me to explore this passion.

As far back as I can remember, I have been passionate about human rights. Additionally, one of my academic strengths was always the biological sciences; therefore, my path toward my career as a physician assistant feels natural. Through my undergraduate experience, from which I will earn my Bachelor's of Science in Neuroscience, I have had many service, work, and shadowing experiences. These experiences have solidified in me a passion for affordable, accessible healthcare. Through my shadowing of a physician assistant in a nursing and rehabilitation facility, I have met many patients who come from underprivileged backgrounds, and the impacts of those factors on their health is undeniable. Many have had to ignore health concerns for years because of an inability to afford medical treatment or to take off of work. Similarly, I have been involved in the sociological side through public health service trips and some of my humanities classes, and these have shown my clearly that every deserves access to healthcare. Healthcare access supports not only the patients, but the society at large by developing a healthier, happier, more productive community. I am extremely excited to have been accepted to Master's of Medical Science Program - Physician Assistant program at Salus University and will start there in the fall of 2022. Through this career, I hope to provide high-quality, affordable healthcare and to advocate for increased access to these resources for all through professional societies, like the Pennsylvania Society of Physician Assistants, of which I am already a student member. I am incredibly excited for what the future holds and am ready to commit to a life of service to my community in a field about which I am incredibly passionate.

Though there are many changes to be made to most effectively support individuals in their struggle with mental health, a good place to start would be the addition of mental health days to employee's "Time Off" in a year. By adding more days that are specifically to be taken for the sake of one's mental health, a company shows that it cares holistically about the wellbeing of it's employees. Currently, many Americans are overworked and feel undervalued. Generally, they cannot afford to take off work, so they work through an illness, injury, or other condition. Additionally, when an individual has no choice but to take off of work, they may have to use vacation, personal, or unpaid days. For individuals who have children or are caregivers in another capacity, these days are eaten away even quicker because when those people dependent upon them need them at home, they have no choice but to be at home. This means that they do not even use these days off for rest and recovery. Therefore, employers who add more days, specifically mental health days, to the number that employees can take off in a year are supporting individuals with mental health conditions. Mental health days not only add more days in a year that a person can take off work but also make caring for one's mental health socially acceptable. There is an incredible amount of stigma attached to mental health, and a person might feel that they cannot take a "sick" day because they do not associate having poor mental health with being sick. Something as simple as having them available to everyone may encourage more employees to prioritize their mental health and view it as integral to their overall health, thereby supporting individuals who struggle with their mental health.

After rounds of applications, interviewing, and navigating the "new normal" of Zoom, I was hired as a medical scribe in the spring of 2020. Medically-relevant experiences are incredibly important when applying to Physician Assistant programs, so I was disappointed to learn that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I would not be taken on by any healthcare facilities in this fashion. While I understood that precautions needed to be taken, I was worried about getting the hours I needed, especially learning that I would need to start the job search over. Fortunately, in the fall of 2020, I was hired as a caregiver with Home Instead Senior Care. I have now been with this company for over a year, and it has truly been the most transformative year of my life. I had not imagined myself working with seniors prior to getting this job. In fact, I was not sure who I wanted to work with. However, I have met truly influential people through this job, and I have made deep relationships with my clients that I will take with me after graduate school. Though this virus has made times difficult, I learned much about myself and made essential connections.