My passion to study biology, and eventually medicine, comes from an accumulation of experiences throughout my fifteen years in gymnastics. From injuries and recovery, to conditioning and stretching, learning about proper nutrition and the importance of rest, and visiting a multitude of medical professionals, these collective experiences have brought forth a deeply rooted interest in studying and understanding the complexities of the human body. These experiences, coupled with my innate calling to help people in their time of need and deep sense of empathy towards others, have led me to want to pursue a career in medicine. The substantial amount of knowledge that I have gained about the human body through my years in gymnastics has been fascinating and leaves me with a yearning to learn more. As gymnasts, we are taught the importance of stretching and warming up our muscles prior to throwing skills so we do not injure ourselves. We learn about conditioning to grow our muscles and lay the foundation of what our bodies will be capable of doing. We gain a basic understanding of proper nutrition so our bodies can function at a high level and to help build up our muscles we are working so hard to create. We also learn the importance of rest so that we do not cause our bodies to break down through such strenuous activity levels. All of these things have led me to want to study the intricate mechanics of the human body on a much more detailed level and I am excited by the opportunity to dive even deeper into the inner workings of the human body through my future studies in Biology. Although, as gymnasts, we had been taught proper techniques to prevent injuries, getting injured is still a very large part of participating in gymnastics. My plentitude of injuries from the sport led me to be seen by countless medical professionals over the years. As I was seen by these professionals for my ailments and injuries, I realized that one of the biggest qualities that all these medical professionals possessed were a direct desire to help those in need and to make a difference in the lives of their patients. I know that I too have that innate desire to help others, to be there in their time of need, and heal their ailments. Knowing that I could someday play a pivotal role in helping someone, just like these medical professions had helped me so many times in my life, on the road to recovery strikes me as a profoundly rewarding career and one that I would be honored and grateful to be a part of.

Bullying. I knew I would not be lucky enough to escape my high school years without it happening to me as I firmly believe every adolescent goes through it at some point and why would I escape that right of passage? There will always be someone who believes that making someone else’s life difficult is fun, fulfilling, and/or rewarding. I personally do not understand the pleasure bullies get from bullying someone else, but there are enough of them out there that they must get something from it. For me, my bully was another girl on my gymnastics team and it started almost as soon as I joined the high school team my freshman year. The timing could not have been better with the pandemic in full swing, my life completely changed from a mere five months before, and isolation the new norm. Anxieties were running high about all the change and not knowing when or if there would ever be an end in sight. I was also getting ready to start at a new school, one that I could not even tour prior to my first day due to Covid precautions. The phrase “when it rains, it pours” comes to mind when I think of this time in my life, everything changing, but none of it in a good way. It was like a perfect, disastrous storm. During this crazy time in my life, gymnastics served as my one constant. The one thing that remained relatively unchanged when everything else around me had been flipped on its head. I love the sport and had been pouring my heart and soul into it for ten years at that poing. Going to practice in the gym was my happy place, until it wasn’t. This particular girl decided that I would be her target. The one to make her feel stronger, better about herself, or whatever other feelings of self-worth she got from bullying. She started by pointing out to everyone in the gym if my legs weren’t straight when I was tumbling, when I did not have correct form, and even when my underwear were showing under my leotard. You name it, she critiqued it, and made sure everyone else on the team heard her. I would ignore her comments and she of course did not like that because she didn’t get the reaction she had hoped from me so she moved on to trying to turn the other girls against me by telling them I was rude to her and stuck up. It worked on a few of the other girls, but at least the majority of the team saw what was really going on. The bullying went on for about a year and a half. I would ignore it the best that I could, put my best foot forward, and just take it in stride. I refused to let her get me down so I held my head up high and did the gymnastics I was there to do. In all honesty, her bullying probably motivated me to work even harder than I would have otherwise so in a small way I thank her for that. The bullying finally stopped at the end of my sophomore year when we were both eligible for Team Captain due to our year in school. After the team voted, I ended up getting the Captain position and not her with one of my coaches complimenting me on my steadfast determination, focus, and maturity that I had displayed the past two years and noted that I was the perfect choice to lead the team.

My desire to pursue a higher education comes from an accumulation of experiences throughout my fifteen years in the sport of gymnastics. From injuries and recovery, to conditioning and stretching, learning about proper nutrition and the importance of rest, and visiting a multitude of medical professionals, the cumulation of these experiences has brought forth a deeply rooted interest in studying and understanding the complexities of the human body. These experiences, coupled with my innate calling to help people in their time of need and deep sense of empathy towards others, have led me to want to pursue a career in medicine. The substantial amount of knowledge that I have gained about the human body through my years in gymnastics has been fascinating and leaves me with a yearning to learn more. As gymnasts, we are taught the importance of stretching and warming up our muscles prior to throwing skills so we do not injure ourselves. We learn about conditioning to grow our muscles and lay the foundation of what our bodies will be capable of doing. We gain a basic understanding of proper nutrition so our bodies can function at a high level and to help build up our muscles we are working so hard to create. We also learn the importance of rest so that we do not cause our bodies to break down through such strenuous activity levels. All of these things have led me to want to study the intricate mechanics of the human body on a much more detailed level and I am excited by the opportunity to dive even deeper into the inner workings of the human body through my future studies in Biology. Although, as gymnasts, we had been taught proper techniques to prevent injuries, getting injured is still a very large part of participating in gymnastics. My plentitude of injuries from the sport led me to be seen by countless medical professionals over the years. As I was seen by these professionals for my ailments and injuries, I realized that one of the biggest qualities that all these medical professionals possessed were a direct desire to help those in need and to make a difference in the lives of their patients. I knew that I too had that innate desire to help others and heal their ailments. Knowing that I could play a pivotal role in helping someone, just like these medical professions had helped me so many times in my life, on the road to recovery strikes me as a profoundly rewarding career and one that I would be honored and grateful to be a part of. Gymnastics has been a monumental part of my life and although I am currently in my final season of the sport, I cannot wait to start my pursuit of a degree in Biology and a future career in medicine. The life-long lessons learned from gymnastics will be carried with me throughout the rest of my life. Perseverance, determination, dedication, and leadership are all terms used to describe what gymnastics has taught me and words I now use to describe myself. Gymnastics is not for the weak and it takes as much physical strength as it does mental strength to do the skills we do knowing that there is a good chance we will not complete the skill or get injured from trying. Knowing that there is a good chance of failure does not stop us, it gives us motivation to keep going. Keep going, that is what I plan to do.

My desire to pursue a higher education comes from an accumulation of experiences throughout my fifteen years in gymnastics. From injuries and recovery, to conditioning and stretching, learning about proper nutrition and the importance of rest, and visiting a multitude of medical professionals, the cumulation of these experiences has brought forth a deeply rooted interest in studying and understanding the complexities of the human body. These experiences, coupled with my innate calling to help people in their time of need and deep sense of empathy towards others, have led me to want to pursue a career in medicine. The substantial amount of knowledge that I have gained about the human body through my years in gymnastics has been fascinating and leaves me with a yearning to learn more. As gymnasts, we are taught the importance of stretching and warming up our muscles prior to throwing skills so we do not injure ourselves. We learn about conditioning to grow our muscles and lay the foundation of what our bodies will be capable of doing. We gain a basic understanding of proper nutrition so our bodies can function at a high level and to help build up our muscles we are working so hard to create. We also learn the importance of rest so that we do not cause our bodies to break down through such strenuous activity levels. All of these things have led me to want to study the intricate mechanics of the human body on a much more detailed level and I am excited by the opportunity to dive even deeper into the inner workings of the human body through my future studies in Biology. Although, as gymnasts, we had been taught proper techniques to prevent injuries, getting injured is still a very large part of participating in gymnastics. My plentitude of injuries from the sport led me to be seen by countless medical professionals over the years. As I was seen by these professionals for my ailments and injuries, I realized that one of the biggest qualities that all these medical professionals possessed were a direct desire to help those in need and to make a difference in the lives of their patients. I knew that I too had that innate desire to help others and heal their ailments. Knowing that I could play a pivotal role in helping someone, just like these medical professions had helped me so many times in my life, on the road to recovery strikes me as a profoundly rewarding career and one that I would be honored and grateful to be a part of. Gymnastics has been a monumental part of my life and although I am currently in my final season of the sport, I cannot wait to start my pursuit of a degree in Biology and a future career in medicine. My initial plan for college is to major in Biology along the pre-med track and begin learning the intricate details of the human body beginning at a cellular level. Biology is such a diverse field of science that it piques my interest and elicits my critical thinking skills and curiosity. The branch of Biology that I am most interested in learning more about is genetics. Every body is different and I am eager to learn more about how and why that is and how our genetic makeup shapes who we are, who we will become, and how we interact with the world and environment around us.

“It only takes a split second.” This is a sentence we have all heard many times in our lives, most likely from our parents, about the risks of drowning in a pool. My parents were no different and wanted to make sure both my brother and I knew how to swim and knew how to swim well. It wasn’t a choice for us, we were going to take swimming lessons until we could easily tread water and do several continuous laps back and forth along the length of the pool. We would take lessons until my parents felt safe enough to take their eyes off of us in the pool. With all the swimming lessons, I grew to enjoy being in the pool. As a year-round gymnast, I did not have a lot of time to try another sport so swimming sort of fit in "swimmingly" with my schedule if you will. Also, if I'm being completely honest, swimming just felt good on my aching body and joints from all the high-impact gymnastics I was doing. I wanted to take my learned love of swimming and share it with those in my community so I started to teach swimming lessons. Teaching swimming lessons was an amazing job and very rewarding. I enjoyed working with the kids and passing on my water safety knowledge to them so that their parents did not have to worry about that split second that they may not have eyes on their child while in the water. A short time after I decided to leave my position as a swimming instructor I was approached my by neighbor who had heard about my previous work experience. My neighbor had a little nephew who was six years old and diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Their family wanted to get him into swimming lessons, for safety reasons, but swimming lessons were not in the family's budget due to their needing private lessons because of his diagnosis. I jumped at the chance to help out! We set a schedule for every Friday during the summer for 30 minutes. I looked forward to our lesson all week and could not believe the progress we made over the three months of summer. He went from not wanting to let go of me when we first got in the pool to scooping his hands and kicking his feet as I barely held onto his waist. He got very comfortable going underwater and learned to not try and drink all of it. We worked on getting out of the pool and his grandmother told me that he showed her exactly how to get out of the water, and the song we sang, when she took him swimming. While our end goal of having him completely learn to swim on his own was not met by the end of summer, he grew with such strides in the pool. Seeing his comfort level increase in the pool, the new skills he learned, and the confidence on his face were priceless. I am so proud of everything he learned and that his family chose me to go on this journey with him. I cannot wait to pick up where we left off last year.