When I’m writing, I can escape. I’m not worried about college applications, or tests, or grades. When I’m writing, I am creating life. I’m putting words onto a paper, that should any one read them, someone can see the world in my head. The one that has brave little girls taking on more than they should, but being proud of how much they’re carrying. The one that has teen girls finding comfort in their bodies and their place in the world. But it is also the one that has anxious thoughts tucked behind shadows of doubt. The one that I can’t share out loud. I started writing when I was a small girl. It was suggested to me by my therapist, who told me that journaling was good for the mind. He couldn’t have been more right. Maybe I didn’t know at the time why something made me so upset, or excited, or nervous, but when I look back on the pages, I can see where I was coming from, and now, with a clearer head, understand the emotions behind my words. When reading a good book, you can feel the author within the pages. You can see their struggles reflected within the characters and feel their triumphs with the resolution. When reading something a friend wrote, you can hear their voice in your head and you can get sucked into their world and their thoughts. But underneath all that wonder, there is still relaxation within writing. After a hard day, when it feels like the world is against me, I write. I get out all my anger and hurt within the words. By the time I go to sleep, all my tension is released from my body. My tears flow a little easier and my heart is a little lighter. On the other side of the coin, I love to write about my exciting moments. I try to share as much detail as I can, so that later, when I have the hard day, I can read about that exciting moment and feel a little happier. While I’m in college, I plan on continuing to journal. I plan on writing my own book that I can – hopefully – one day publish and share with the world. And after college, when I’ve gotten my Masters in Psychology, and am a therapist, I plan on passing along the beauty of the written word to my clients, encouraging them to write and share themselves with the paper and ink. Because for someone, like it was for me, it will be life changing.

My parents divorced when I was five-years-old. My younger brother and I were raised in two homes our entire lives. My mother met someone fairly quickly and my stepfather brought an older sister into the family. My father met someone later, but brought two younger brothers and a younger sister into the family as well. My family went from the four of us to ten total. But the environments were entirely different. My mother’s home was unified. My sister was my sister and my stepfather was just as much of a parent as my mother. But at my dad’s house, it was divided. My step siblings weren’t my siblings. They were my stepmother’s children. And my stepmother didn’t not parent us, nor did my father parent her children. Being five and still developing, I struggled with the constant switching of households. I lashed out at both homes and had to be placed in therapy fairly young to help combat the change in my life. As I’ve gotten older, the switching isn’t as hard, but it is still a difficult dynamic. Because my parents divorced when I was young, I don’t remember much before the split, but I cannot imagine how difficult it might be for children that were older when their parents divorced. I’ve decided to move almost ten hours from home to attend Utah State University and get my masters in Psychology with a minor in Human Development. I want to become a Marriage and Family therapist, so that I can help with blended families or couples fighting against a divorce. Obviously, my desire to assist with the family dynamic stems from my experiences as a child, but I also find it extremely inspiring that one day, I could be that therapist that helps a small girl learn that her reactions aren’t wrong or make her a bad child, but also help her develop her understanding of the situation so she doesn’t struggle for the rest of her life. I also want to donate to charities across the world to help with youth who maybe never got that assistance when they were young and are struggling. I want to know that my career and donations are helping someone else in the world who might need that shoulder to lean on until they get to their feet. And I want to be able to cheer on those who are able to leave therapy because they feel like they have got their lives under control and can stand on their own.

I have always been a dedicated and hardworking student. My grades have always been A’s or B’s at the lowest, and I have always pushed myself to be better and do better. I have taken honors, AP, and Dual Enrollment classes throughout High School to escalate my GPA and challenge myself. I balance my schoolwork with cheerleading that takes up most of my afternoons in the fall, and community service work around my city or with Walden Family Services – a non-profit foster care organization that my mother works for. I am busy most weeks and if I’m not busy, I’m reading books or writing or watching movies with my family. I enjoy being a helping hand on my cheer team or to my teachers or acquaintances. It makes me feel better knowing that I might have made someone else’s day a little easier. We never know what someone is going through, after all. That is why after I graduate High School, I will be attending Utah State University with the goal of getting my master’s in psychology with a minor in Human Development, eventually becoming a marriage and family therapist, with an alternative route into children’s therapy. I have always had a desire to work with families and children and assist in the developmental stages, where some people might not know what the best course of action is when it comes to their children. But I also want to be able to help couples that are willing to work together to fix whatever brought them into my office in the first place. If someone is willing to come in and spend the money and time to seek assistance, then I want to be able to return that trust and security. I want to be able to go home at night knowing that I am helping someone else find their best self. If I could start my own charity, it would be dedicated to the youth struggling with mental health. Too many youths struggle in silence, unsure of who they can turn to or what they can do for themselves to find help. And as someone who can relate, having struggled with mental health in my life, my charity would aim to make these resources more available, with volunteers holding community events that youth can come to if they truly desire the help and resources. I would also require that there be some sort of therapist at the events to speak with anyone who needed to talk, without the cost. Just someone to hear these youth out and provide insight into their conflicts. My mission would be to raise awareness and bring a safe environment to several different areas across the United States. But I also want to make sure that any donations my charity receives would be going straight to therapist clinics who focus on the youth to make sure that those therapists are more available for those who need the help.

Mental health is a huge problem amongst today’s young. It often is a joke among teens, or underexaggerated because it seems that everyone has it. This can result in a lot of undiagnosed individuals suffering in silence because they don’t think they are going through something as serious as it actually is. It makes it hard to focus and hard for students to stay motivated. Grades drop and students start to burn out. They stop talking to their friends and family. They often have attitudes and don’t understand their reactions to things. Students that are involved in more than one extra curricular activity often are perfect targets because of the load they carry on their shoulders. Student athletes, for example, often struggle with anxiety and burn-out. They balance schoolwork on top of practice and social life. None of that is easy for anyone. But if they feel like they have little support from their family, then they are not going to be able to overcome these struggles. However, they are not the only students to struggle with anxiety. Any teenager and student is open to these terrible diseases due to their developmental stage. I always push people to go to therapy. I talk about its benefits and how much it can help people understand what is going on with their emotions and get a hold on their lives. Often people don’t know what is going on with their emotions or hormones and either lash out or do things that they shouldn’t be involved in that result in permanent consequences. Talking to someone who understands and can provide proper resources is very helpful. Except some people can’t find a therapist for them. So I plan on becoming a marriage and family therapist in order to provide therapy for people who don’t know who to go to. I also want to help parents understand their children and their struggles with mental health so that these future teenagers have a better understanding of their emotions and the reason why they react the way they do to certain events. If we raise a generation of emotionally intelligent and supported children, then we can lead to a better future of a united people who care deeply about one another. Mental health will never disappear, but if we have a generation of people who are able to support one another, then hopefully no one suffers in silence and feels like they have no one to talk to.

I have been raised in a world surrounded by women. My family is primarily strong, independent women, and I have been a cheerleader since I was young – and cheerleading is a female dominated sport. I have watched as my mother became a supervisor at her job and seen my sister chase her dreams to become a hair cutter and I, personally, have managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA throughout high school and get accepted into my dream school where I plan on getting my degree in Psychology with a minor in Human Development. I have always been raised to believe that I can do anything I want to do, despite my gender, and never just give in to other people’s demands. However, some people are not as lucky as I am with their families and life’s advantages. Some people grow up being taught they are the less superior gender – on both sides – and put down simply because they are not the ‘’ideal gender’’. Eventually, they fall into abusive and toxic relationships because they believe they are supposed to be treated that way and never question the behavior. Through couples therapy, someone might be able to realize they are able to stand up for themselves and leave their abusive relationship for themselves. But if they can’t leave their relationship, and they start having children, they can pass down these negative viewpoints on the world onto their children. And these can slow advancements in society and changing viewpoints, meaning there is a delay in unity between all genders and people. But one resource to prevent these ideologies, is therapy. Marriage and family therapy can help with many different family dynamics and conflicts, but it can also help people escape these terrible gender stereotypes. By becoming a marriage and family therapist, I can help more people find the confidence to escape toxic ideas and find the confidence to reclaim their gender and continue leading society to become a better, more unified place to raise future generations, along with bettering themselves. I want to be able to specifically help raise up women who might be uncertain about their ability to lead a life without a man, as well as young girls who are raised by parents who are stuck in their ideas. Helping families reconstruct their ideas is as helpful as encouraging women to leave their abusive partners and find the confidence in themselves.

Mental Health is often called the invisible disease. It is something people struggle with all over the world and often times, alone, because they don’t know who to talk to or who to approach for help. And some people seem to ‘’not qualify’’ for having a mental health disorder. If they come from a presumed stable family, presumed happy appearance, and have never faced any difficulties in their lives, then there is no reason they should be struggling, right? If they have friends and good grades and life seems to be handed to them on a silver platter, why should they know anything about mental health? I came from a relatively happy family. My mom and dad divorced when I was young, but I still had a stable life. A relatively happy life. I get straight A’s, have friends, and have already began painting out my future. I have never had to struggle financially. I’ve never been bullied or harassed. And yet, I struggle with anxiety and – at times – depression. There should be no reason I struggle with my mental health, according to those societal rules about mental health. But mental health is not a qualification type of thing. And I hope that by heading into a counselling career, I can help others that are struggling to understand that sometimes, there is no logical reason we face these challenges. I want to ensure that they have someone to talk to when they reach these lows. Someone that understands and is willing to listen. Sometimes, all someone needs is someone to listen. I want to be that listening ear. That shoulder to cry on. That support when things go well, and when they crash and burn. I plan on getting my master’s degree in psychology with a minor in human development, or vice versa. I want to become a Marriage and Family therapist and hopefully open my own clinic one day to provide more support for even more clients. I want to have a stable career so that I may also donate to the community and help more people who are struggling. At the end of the day, mental health is not something that only a certain demographic gets. It’s something that doesn’t care who it claims victim of. Something that can wreak lives if they aren’t properly supported and treated. I want to be able to catch signs early and be able to point clients towards the appropriate resources that can help them. No one should struggle in silence or alone.

My parents divorced when I was five and I grew up struggling to understand and regulate my emotions. I lashed out often at the people I loved because I was mad at my dad, and I often had a lot of self-loathing. And that is still something I struggle with today. So, it probably comes at no surprise when I found my love of psychology. During a child development course that I took for dual enrollment, I found myself understanding that I went through something that people wouldn’t normally consider trauma but is trauma when you look at it through a developmental lens. But through my journey of trying to find patience with myself, I found that I wanted to help others. I wanted to help parents understand that their child wasn’t a bad child and help children to understand that they weren’t bad children. They were just a little lost and needed a little bit of help. One of the things my mother did to help me with my development and emotions was putting me in cheerleading, per my request – meaning she asked me what sport I wanted to do, and I had to pick one – and I quickly fell in love with the sport. I push myself through countless barriers and learn that sometimes, it’s not just all on one person. Sometimes it is on a group as a whole. And that sometimes, you need to rely on other people and trust that they will hold up their end of the agreement. It helped me learn to be okay with letting go of control, something I struggled with a lot when I was younger and still struggle with to this day. Another thing my mother directed me towards that I found beneficial and still use to this day, is journaling. Getting all those emotions out there and not bottling them all up so that you’re lashing out at someone who doesn’t deserve it. Words are powerful, and reading back on my past entries, I could feel the emotions that younger me was feeling and I often pity her. She was so lost, and I feel like she would be proud of me and how far we came. I like to think she’d be proud of our 4.0 GPA, of our 1050 SAT score, and of our commitment to our grades and hobbies. I believe that had I not gone through everything I went through as a kid, and had I not found my coping habits, I would not be planning on attending a four-year university to get my master’s degree in psychology with a minor in human development (or vice versa. I never know where the future will take me) and feeling so passionate about my future and placement in this world.

I’ve always known I wanted to go to college. I always wanted to get the best grades so that I would just be a shoo-in to whatever school I decided I wanted to go to. I never wanted to go to an Ivy League, nor did I ever think of myself as the smartest person in the room. I just wanted to know that when I picked a school, I would feel secure in my placement. So, throughout high school, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA, taking honors classes, AP classes, and dual enrollment courses through a partnership between my high school and the local community college. I also find that volunteer work helps me feel better about my contribution to my community. Because of my desire to become a Marriage and Family therapist, I enjoy working with kids or with family dynamics to feel more involved. To feel like I’m helping a family feel like someone is supporting them. I volunteer with my mother’s office to help sort the donated items for the foster families my mom works with, and I help set up and manage the holiday parties. I also volunteer at the thrift store we have on my high school campus that is specifically for students. But I also do a lot of community work with my cheerleading team. The spirit leader program at any school is typically the face of the school. We represent the school at several community events, such as the breast cancer awareness walk that my city holds every October, along with the culture fairs and fundraisers for the schools. As part of the team, my responsibilities go farther than just being a community representative. I also must be committed to my team. I spend countless hours practicing or at the gym, improving my talents to ensure that I am giving 110% of my abilities to my team. As a person, I am always wanting to better myself for my community, my team, my loved ones, and for myself. One of the things that I want to do to give back to my community is to become a marriage and family therapist, and maybe opening my own clinic one day to provide even more help for those that are struggling and need someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, or someone to hype them up when they are making a decision for themselves or their families. This scholarship would help me afford to go to college and get my master’s degree in psychology with a minor in Human Development, or vise versa. But it would also help me become someone that my younger self would have looked up to. Someone my younger sister would be proud of and inspire to be. Someone that feels like she is giving her 110% to her community and her support system.

Imagine you’re between the ages of fourteen to eighteen. Your body and brain are changing, and it is a crucial time for your development. At fourteen, you’re trying to find where you fit in socially. At eighteen, you’re applying for college and scholarships and trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. You need way more sleep than you’re getting and you are stressed because there is this threatening presence called ‘’Secondary education’’ that it feels is present everywhere you look. Now add a sport to that mix. You have this feeling that you must be at your best performance because the others are counting on you and you can’t let them down, right? Being a student-athlete is not easy for any sport. It’s a full-time job on top of being in school. But where football and basketball and soccer have their off-seasons, cheerleading is a year-round sport. Between sideline, our own competition season, and the different rallies, we only get a couple weeks here and there where we are only students. And the spirit leader program in any high school is the face of the school. We represent the school in community events and in public and in our grades and our uniforms are crucial parts of our appearances. I have a 4.0 GPA, a 1050 SAT score, and am one of 12th grade class representative for my AVID – a college readiness course – class. I have taken honors classes, AP classes, and Dual Enrollment courses. I have also been on Varsity for the past three years, an incredible feat given that I was one of four Sophomores to make the Varsity team that year. We have practice three days a week and our own competition season during the winter that takes a lot of time out of our schedules. Anyone would be stressed out and on the verge of a burn-out. Yet, it is not impossible to still do well academically and in my sport. I take the time between the end of the school day and the start of practice to switch modes. I don’t think about schoolwork while at practice, and I don’t think about practice while in school. Those are two different forms of myself and to keep my sanity, I find it better to separate them. It is also important to find little moments of quietness in the day, often before bed or driving to school or driving home from practice. It can be hard to separate yourself from the stress of all of it. Practice can be frustrating. Homework can be stressful. Classes can be challenging. Forcing myself to be patient with myself is even harder. Like every student-athlete, I get burnout a lot easier than my peers that aren’t involved in sports. I have to work twice as hard to make sure I get my homework completed on time and still keep my GPA average consistent to make sure that when I move onto my secondary education, I have some financial help. I don’t get as much sleep as I should be getting, desperate for a hint of ‘’me-time’’. But it’s worth it. It’s worth it, knowing that I’m balancing two jobs and responsibilities at once, and I’m still moving. Competing and knowing that I gave my best performance, and testing and knowing that I am doing my absolute best. I may have my cheer personality and my academic personality, but they still make up the whole me.

I took ASL for two years - my Sophomore and Junior years - and we only have one ASL teacher at my school. Because of this, ASL 1 is taught in the first three periods, and ASL 2 is taught in the last three periods. My ASL teacher made an effort to personally involve herself in our academic lives. Personally, I always get high scores in her class. She rewarded this by acknowledging how far I had come with my signing. Additionally, the athletes in her class always knew to keep an eye out for her at home games - and even some away games if we asked nicely enough - and make sure to give her a wave. She would always show up in school colors and sit in the same spot. As a cheerleader, staring up at a sea of people, it's hard to identify any in the crowd. But we could always spot her. If she knew a student was struggling, she'd check in with them to make sure they were okay. She always had her room open at lunch, making sure students had a safe space to go, even if they weren't her student. I sat in there every day Junior year with my friends, because I knew that it would be quiet and if I had questions on anything, she'd try her hardest to help me. Junior year was the hardest. More work, AP classes, state testing, stress on SAT's, etc. meant that I was stressed all the time about one thing or another. But, my ASL teacher made sure she gave students work days, just to make sure they were able to stay on top of their work, meaning that I could catch up on assignments in other classes and not be overwhelmed after cheer practice. Work she did assign was always due a week after the day it was given. But if you needed more time, she was always willing to work with us. She helped us write resumes, try and find out what we wanted to do with our lives, and made sure we were ready for any interview to come our way. I learned different techniques to help myself appear more confident and not as nervous. She taught us sign language, but she also taught us how to be better people in general. She would talk to us about our lives outside of school. One girl was struggling with her home life, and she made sure to check in every day. But she also made an effort to keep track of different events. She made sure to ask us cheerleaders how our competitions went, since she couldn't go. She was like a second mother to us all, and we were her second family. If we needed something, everyone knew she would fight and just be there for us in general.

My name is Emma Bothman. After graduating high school, I plan on attending a four-year university straight out of high school. I want to get my masters in Human Development with a minor in Psychology. I want to be able to become a marriage and family therapist, focusing on bettering home environments in order to ensure that no child has to go through trauma that could otherwise be avoided, and help children cope with the trauma that separation causes. My parents divorced when I was five. They went to counseling, but it didn't help. I was quickly placed in therapy because my younger self struggled to understand and control my emotions. I would lash out at my siblings because I was angry at my father, or I would throw a tantrum because I was stressed about my father's reactions to something I wanted to do. In freshman year, I went back into therapy because I was struggling emotionally and mentally. The stress of having to balance school, cheerleading, and a social life was too much. I learned to re-balance my life while making sure I didn't try to isolate myself all the time. As a therapist, I want to be able to help balance home environments. I believe that an unbalanced home life results in unbalanced emotions in children when they are going through crucial developmental stages in their lives. But I also want to make sure that parents are stable themselves. Separation is not difficult for just the children in the situation. I know that I will not be able to save every relationship, and that some families are better off separated, but I want to ensure that the parents are not using their children as sound boards, as my friends' parents did to them when they were young. Watching them struggle to understand and cope with their parents dislike of each other making them develop eating disorders and serious mental issues, was hard to watch as their friend. Females all over the world are still being faced with inequality, though it is getting better slowly as we continue to grow as a society. Personally, I want to give to charities, but I also want to work with the young generation I'll see in my office. I want them to know that while they might not have complete control over the entire issue at hand, they still will be able to know that they can keep their chins up and provide a stoic face when things get challenging.

Every October, my spirit leader program at my high school volunteers to cheer on the participants in a "Believe Walk" in which participants are running or walking to raise money for breast cancer treatments. It is one of the greatest community involvements my city has. My cheerleader programs stand on both sides of the road and continues to cheer them on until the last participant has passed. It always brings excitement when the younger children get to interact with not only the spirit leaders, but with our mascot and get to feel like they're important. It also makes everyone smile when people who have beat breast cancer get to share our stories. One year, a survivor burst into tears upon seeing us and we got to take a group photo with her. But I don't just volunteer for that. I recently volunteered to cheer at a community basketball game with the Harlem Wizards in order to raise money for our school district, and I also volunteered to help set up our "Possibilities Prom" - which is the prom my high school holds for the special education kids who cannot attend the regular prom. I also volunteer with Walden Family Services - a non-profit foster care organization - to help prepare Holiday parties, organize and sort donations, and do the general things. I have always loved volunteering and I volunteer a lot, though I do not document it because it feels less like giving back to my community if I get credit. If there is something going on and I can participate, I try to volunteer. Being in cheerleading and High School means I'm busy a lot of the time, but in between homework, practice, and the eight hours a day I'm at school, I'll find something to do. Personally, my volunteering has made me feel better about myself. I feel better about giving back to a community that supports me. I plan to attend a four year university straight out of high school and get my Masters in Human Development with a minor in Psychology. I plan to use my degree to go into Marriage and Family Therapy, where I will help people get on the right track in their lives. Because I believe that if people feel like they have a strong foundation beneath them, they are much more willing to give back to that support. I also plan on coaching cheerleading at a local high school in order to help train a future generation of leaders to chase their dreams and be better humans overall.

My mother works for a non-profit company that works with fostered children and their parents. I grew up volunteering for her company, helping set up Halloween parties, winter holiday celebrations, and helping to sort the food. Then, as I got older, I started branching out. Through the AVID program at my a school - a program to help students learn more about college readiness and proper studying habits - I make holiday cards for children in our local children's hospital, and I make cards for people in the army who are serving for our country. As a spirit leader, every October, I cheer on participants of our Breast Cancer Awarness marathon. I believe that a community should support each other and their people. Whether that is a town, a class, a school, or a community online. I try very hard to stay off of the side of social media with negative comments. When I am scrolling, if it doesn't have something motivational, about colleges, or about movies or books that are being released soon, then I don't watch them. I only comment on my friend's posts, hyping them up, and being positive. My account is private and I only post for my friends and family. But my younger stepsister does lean towards body image and negative posts online. We both have a half-sister, who is four, and obviously not on social media just yet. But as an older sister, the idea of either of them getting bullied for the things they post online is terrible. Or just getting bullied in general. Community needs to step up and prevent the bullying going on. But there is a unspoken acknowledgement that if it happens anonymously, then it doesn't mean anything. I want to help prevent bullying by helping others in my community through therapy. I want to help families work through their issues so that their children do not grow up with the idea that bullying others is okay. That is supported if you don't do it to their face. But I can't do that without a masters in Human Development with a minor in Psychology. After I graduate in June of 2026, I plan on attending a four year university, at least two hours from home, that upcoming fall. I plan to attend at least six years of further education to get that education to help my community. Tuition is about $50,000 for each school I am looking at, and I hope that with this scholarship, I'll be able to meet my goal of going to school with limited loans, so I can start out my adult life with very little debt, so I can use the money paying off loans to give back to community and help change bullying and cyber bullying.

Even though it is a Disney movie, "Tangled" is a movie that has impacted my life since the moment it came out. I grew up watching Tangled. It taught me to always go after your dreams and never back down. It taught me the value of love and how meeting someone can change how you see the world. Rapunzel was naive, but she was honest. She trusted Flynn and the world despite Mother Gothel telling her that the world was a cruel place since the moment she was born. She trusted and loved and didn't care what anyone else said. Flynn hated the world. He didn't trust anyone. He was used to be stabbed in the back. Yet, he changed for the better when he met Rapunzel. When I was little, my parents divorced and yet, because of "Tangled", I still have high standards for the person I will spend my forever with. "Tangled" also taught me the importance of goals, dreaming, and motivation. All she wants to do is see the floating lanterns. All she wanted to do was go outside. She had a goal, a dream, and through her dedication, she got to see the lights. I mean, yeah sure Flynn Rider broke into her tower and she probably wouldn't have left without his assistance, but after she left, she pushed for those dreams. And after, she broke through the image her "Mother" had painted and learned to break free from those ideas, which is another value that maybe needs to be learned for some children with abusive, terrible parents. She learned how to think for herself and not just willingly believe whatever Mother Gothel say. "Tangled" taught me that even if the world seems cruel, even if the world seems dark and scary, there is always - always - some good in the world, even if it is hard to find and identify. I believe that "Tangled" changed my life. I believe that without it, I would not value the importance of love and trust and dreams. "Tangled" may be a movie for kids. It may be an animated cartoon that probably doesn't go that deep. But art is always up to interpretation and that is the beauty of it. I may see independence and love and dreams, and someone may see the importance of stepping outside their comfort zone. Either way, it holds value. And changed my life.

I'm a Varsity Cheerleader who has been cheering since I was eight. Of course, before entering high school, balancing cheer and school and life was difficult. I would miss so much school for competitions and events I simply couldn't miss. In middle school, I ended up dropping all star cheerleading and took a break for two years. In eighth grade, I joined a small league that only did one competition and was mostly just side line cheering. It felt good to be back to doing something I loved, so when tryouts came around, I tried out for the high school team. I made JV the first year and learned how to balance football games, practice, homework, and just life in general. But it was worth it, and I made varsity my sophomore year. That was even harder to manage, but I managed through packed dinners, homework in our cafeteria, and little sleep. It was easier my junior year, since I got the rhythm down. Cheerleading is a year round sport. We only have about a month between each season which is hard when you want to try getting a job. But I learned how to balance my energy and time through the program. I learned the importance of asking for help and talking to teammates and teachers alike to balance what I need to do. Homework is often squeezed in between classes and between practice, but I get it all done and have maintained a 4.0 all three years of High School. I may go to bed completely exhausted each night but I go to bed feeling accomplished. I manage a very busy schedule which is more than other high school students could say. I have learned that sacrifice is a huge part of life. Being a student-athlete means that I don't have time for a job if I want to hang out with my friends. I have learned that people are all unique and have different qualities, which has helped me in group projects during school. It has taught me that I may not have control over certain situations and how I need to work around the obstacles that are included in being an athlete. It has taught me how to get up in the morning and how to push through when I just want to give up. Being a student-athlete means that when I'm tired, I have to get up in the mornings to learn and then somehow energize myself for practice that night. It means learning how to take your free days and fill them with productivity even when you don't want to. It means that you don't get to take naps after school like your other peers, but it also means feeling like you are a part of something important and feeling valued.

I have always dreamed of helping others. I thought about teaching for a while, but I realized pretty early that I wanted to help people one on one or in small groups. So after my own experiences in therapy, I decided I wanted to get a degree in Psycholgy and become a marriage and family therapist. I plan to use my amazing grades and my involvement in other things to get myself into a college with a wonderful psychology program. But first, I need to be able to afford to go to this college. I want to maintain a 4.0 by the end of high school to get financial aid from my college, and continue to apply for as many scholarships as I can to get my goal of $50,000+ by graduation. Along with getting scholarships and financial aid, I am also saving up money by myself. I don't want to go into my professional life with a bunch of loans, so I hope to only need a couple thousand dollars total to pay back. After I get into the College, I want to get a job on my campus and be able to work while in college to afford the other non-school necessities, such as car payments, groceries, and the occasional guilty pleasure burger from a fast food place. I plan on getting my masters degree in Psychology with a minor in child development. It will probably take at least six years, and a lot of money. Using scholarships, aids, and additional savings, I hope to successfully pay for all of my college education with little loans under my name. After I graduate, I want to head almost immediately into the work force. I want to spend at least a decade working in marriage and family therapy (MFT) - primarily focusing on families - before I open my own clinic. I will probably have to take some night classes to get a degree in buisness to open my clinic, but I prefer to open the clinic with a partner who could help me get my clinic successfully open. But this clinic is going to need a loan and savings to open, so I don't want to open the clinic immediately after getting my degree. I need experience, savings, and connections before I can doing anything. I want to get my degree by my mid twenties, work for another clinic for about fifteen years, and have my clinic open by the time I am fifty, at the latest. And in this clinic, I will still be a therapist and still do my job exactly as I would have done it at a clinic I wasn't running, but also run the clinic with my buisness partner. I want to be successful and help as many people I can before I can no longer help anyone.

Math is easy to love. It has rules and formulas. Unlike English, it doesn't change with culture. There are no new rules. Math is ever expanding. Unlike history and science, there isn't any moral dilemmas. I also love Math because it just makes sense. I can take a formula, input numbers and variables and just solve it without thinking too hard about it. And while I do well in all subjects, I rarely get lower than an A in math. It doesn't take long for me to grasp the concept, where I have to constantly practice and study with other subjects. When I took chemistry, I could balance equations, but not truly understand how and why they balanced. I just knew the formula and how to apply it. In English, I have to read and reread the sentence and then think deeply about how it applies to the prompt. In science, there is too much vocabulary. In history, too many dates and people and places. Language requires me to remember what the translation is, and correct my sentence structure. With Math, I can do twenty problems on ten minutes. And the only time it truly gets difficult is when I'm tired, but everything is difficult at that point.

In my every day life, I exemplify a spirit of excellence by the dedication to my commitments, such as cheerleading, which requires a lot of time and energy, and as a representative for a college readiness course. I take American Sign Language, which I can use in everyday life, and my future career. I give back to my community through volunteer work at Walden Family Services, a foster care agency that helps children find permanent homes. I've helped the company for seven years by helping them set up for Christmas and Halloween parties that the families are able to enjoy, organize the countless donations that are handed out every year, sort food that's been donated, etc. With the parties, my tasks include setting up the venue, blowing up ballons, setting up food, wrapping presents, handing out those presents, and greeting families. I enjoy helping Walden because I believe that everyone should have the chance to experience some sort of excitement around the holidays, and watching kids tell a volunteer Santa what they want for Christmas, and then have it magically show up, has always been a motivator in my life. But also, knowing that there is food and other basic necessities available for struggling families makes me feel confident in the future. Outside of Walden, I also volunteer in my college readiness program by making christmas cards for veterans, and creating christmas card kits for children in the local hospitals during the holidays, so that they may contribute to the community, but don't have to get the materials during a stressful moment in their lives. I get to cheer on participants in the Believe Walk our city holds every October as a fundraiser for breast cancer awarness, an activity that my entire high school volunteers in. As someone who wishes to go into psychology as her major in college and help people, community service means a lot to me, because mental health has always been important to me. I find the human mind and capability of kindness intriguing and I want to help people, specifically the younger generations that will shape our future, nurture that kindness and generosity. Community service can help me prepare how to talk to other individuals and people who need things from their communities. I enjoy getting to help people because humans are capable of so much and sometimes they just need the help of others around them.

My older sister first introduced me to Chappell Roan when "Hot To Go" became really popular on social media. After that first initial song, I started listening to her more and more. Her music is fun to listen to, and she is one of the few pop artists I really enjoy listening to. Her voice isn't super high pitched, which makes it easy to sing along to her songs, and the lyrics are catchy. My best friend and I are constantly humming the songs to ourselves and she is on a good majority of my Spotify playlists. For my birthday, my older sister got me her album, "The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess", as a CD so I can listen to her music while I drive around town. As part of the LGBTQ+ community, it is powerful to see a member doing so well for herself and being able to broadcast her music and her lyrics. All sorts of people like her music. I support her because I believe the world needs more talented individuals who know how to stand up for themselves and their beliefs. Chappell Roan is inspiring and even though I do not want to sing in the future, I do hope people are inspired by her.