As a student-athlete, my experience with mental health has profoundly shaped my goals, relationships, and understanding of the world. Balancing academics and athletics presents unique challenges, and navigating these pressures has given me valuable insights into my personal and professional life. Mental health struggles have significantly influenced how I set and pursue my goals. Initially, my objectives were purely performance-driven: achieving the highest grades and excelling in my sport. However, facing mental health challenges made me realize the importance of balance. My priorities shifted from solely focusing on external achievements to valuing well-being and personal growth. Now, my priorities lie in well-being and nourishing long-lasting, healthy relationships. I have seen that when I prioritize my mental health, my academic and sports performance improves. Navigating mental health challenges has also profoundly affected my relationships. Initially, I struggled with understanding and communicating my feelings, leading to strained relationships with teammates, coaches, and family members. Over time, I learned the importance of open communication and vulnerability. Experiencing mental health issues firsthand has increased my empathy and compassion for others. I have become more attentive to the struggles of my peers, both on and off the field. This empathy has fostered deeper connections and stronger bonds with my teammates. I now prioritize building supportive and understanding relationships, recognizing that a strong support network is crucial for mental well-being. Moreover, I have learned the importance of setting boundaries. As a student-athlete, I quickly become overwhelmed with demands from various areas of life. I have cultivated healthier and more respectful relationships by setting clear boundaries and learning to say no. This practice has allowed me to manage my time and energy more effectively, reducing stress and improving my mental health. My mental health journey has given me a broader and more nuanced understanding of the world. Initially, I saw mental health as a personal issue to be overcome individually. However, my experiences have highlighted the systemic nature of mental health challenges and the importance of addressing them collectively. Furthermore, I now appreciate mental, physical, and emotional health interconnectedness. This holistic view has influenced my approach to training and academics, emphasizing the need for balance and self-care. I recognize that taking care of my mental health is not a sign of weakness but a crucial component of overall health and success.

I am a student-athlete in the US working towards becoming a professional basketball player. My academic focus is biomedical engineering, as I aspire to work in prosthetics someday. I was born in Catalunya, Spain, and was raised there during childhood. My dad is English, so I grew up knowing three languages: English from my dad, Catalan from my mom, and Spanish from school. Growing up, I also learned a bit of Portuguese because my grandpa is Portuguese, so he speaks a mix of Catalan and Portuguese. I am studying in Indiana and playing for the women's basketball team in the NAIA league. I am a point guard, which means I mostly lead the team throughout the game and decide what plays to make. Those skills take years to learn and perfect. Hard work and teamwork are the characteristics that most define me in my game and personal life. One single person can't beat a team, even if that one person is the best in the world. On a different note, I chose a science-specific high school to be able to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering. During high school, the specific subjects were math, physics, biology, and chemistry; in those classes, as women in STEM, we were the minority. Sometimes, connecting with our classmates to solve problems took time, or they would ignore our opinions and ideas in group projects. For my senior project, I researched prosthetics and built and programmed a robotic hand. I chose such a challenging project to see if biomedical engineering was the way for me to go. Indeed, it was. During the project, I researched prosthetic users and their opinions on the different types of prosthetics available. I then analyzed and suggested how different prosthetics could be modified to fit the user's needs. I realized that sometimes researchers focus on innovating and launching the latest technology, but sometimes we need to think about what is best for the user, in this case, the amputees. My post-graduation plans are to pursue further studies to research the nervous system and how to connect it to the human body. As a biomedical engineering student, I find it fascinating how the human body works, and I would like to replicate some parts of it to help increase the quality of life of amputees. Currently, an amputee can buy a prosthetic device that has motion, but he will never be able to regain the sense of touch. To know if a surface is hot or cold, he will have to rely on his other senses, but with my research, I could change that.

I do not believe that humans have a creator. It is understandable why people would think that, and it is a possible situation given how scientists can manipulate life nowadays. Still, the theory of evolution is more plausible. Charles Darwin described the theory of evolution and said that the best, most adaptable individual would survive. There is a misconception that the theory of evolution states that the one who survives is the strongest, but that is not the case. Humans were created according to the theory of evolution because it is something we can see in our everyday lives. For example, in a football team, each player is selected with different criteria, and only sometimes the most muscular person gets the position. Who gets the position is the one who is most suitable for it and can adapt to change the best. If we translate that into the wild, the bird who performs the best dance will pass on his DNA and survive (not necessarily the most robust bird). That is why I believe in the theory of evolution. On the other hand, as mentioned in the prompt, everything has a design, and all life structures go from small to large. For example, neutrons, protons, and electrons combine to form an atom, and then a bunch of atoms combine to create a molecule, a tissue, an organ, a system, and then humans. If we observe other structures, we can see that houses combine to form a neighborhood, then a town, then a city, then a state, then a county, then a planet, then the solar system, then a galaxy, and then the universe. Following this logic, assuming that the first chain stops at human beings would be obnoxious. Therefore, there must be something else we don’t know about. I don’t think that god (as described in the bible) exists. There is no proof of a creator of the world, and there is no proof of many stories in the bible. Of course, the bible should be interpreted and not taken literally, but God told us to love each other unconditionally. However, still, there are homophobic hate crimes in the name of god or the bible. I don’t think that the god described in the bible exists because I don’t think he would allow that. In conclusion, I don’t believe there was a creator of the world because I believe in the theory of evolution. However, I believe there is something else we don’t know about. And I think that something else out there has a close relationship with spirituality.

Hello, my name is Emma, and I am an international student-athlete from Spain. I am studying biomedical engineering at Indiana Tech and playing for the women's basketball team. I aim to become a professional basketball player but still have academic goals. When I get my Bachelor's Degree in biomedical engineering, I want a master's degree in neurology or nanotechnology. I study biomedical engineering because I want to help people, and the best way for me to do that is by building different contraptions. In high school, we had to do a research project (a requirement to graduate from the baccalaureate in Catalunya). I chose to build a robotic hand and explore the world of prosthetics for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to explore the subject to see if it would be a promising career fit for me, and secondly, most importantly, I wanted to build a functional prosthetic hand. During my research, I learned many things, some of which surprised me. I read a study that stated that amputees prefer a passive or a body-powered prosthetic device and not a myoelectric prosthetic device. The functionality of the passive or body-powered prosthetic is very limited, but they prefer it because it is more reliable (they prefer reliability over functionality). One of my goals is to make those myoelectric devices more reliable (and affordable) so amputees can regain the full functionality of their limbs. Another thing I noticed about the current prosthetic research is that they are trying to build or recreate the functionality of efferent nerves (the nerves that control the muscles and allow them to contract). However, people must consider the afferent nerves (the nerves responsible for sensation). When amputees receive a prosthetic device, they never recover their sense of touch, so they make up for it with their other senses. My plan to contribute to the field of science is to build or recreate the function that afferent nerves carry out. The idea would be to create a synthetic nerve system for the prosthetic device and then connect it somehow to the remains of the biological nervous system. To make this type of prosthetic, a great understanding of neurology and nanotechnology will be needed, and to apply the prosthetic to the patient would require surgery. None of those things are reason enough not to try. I aim to try because that would help substantially improve the quality of life of most amputees.

My name is Emma, and I am a lesbian (I think I might be bisexual). I am studying biomedical engineering at Indiana Tech while playing basketball for the women's team. I have been struggling with mental health ever since I accepted that I was a lesbian. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere. In my last year of high school, I was playing basketball at the highest level, and my teammates were a bit homophobic. One day, after a tough match, some of my teammates were talking about sex, and then the topic of lesbian sex came up. So, my teammates started to wonder how lesbians have sex. Instead of asking me, they began to say that lesbian sex could not be as enjoyable as hetero sex because there was no penetration, and then they proceeded to mock lesbian sex and reenact right in front of me. After that, when I got home, I felt terrible. I even considered self-harming, but given my history, I decided that I would spiral to worse.  My ultimate goal is to become a professional basketball player, and studying biomedical engineering is my backup plan. In basketball, I aim to become a role model to little young girls with the same goals, to show them it's possible. In biomedical engineering, I strive to build sensations in prosthetics by connecting a synthetic nerve to a biological nerve. My best and most painful (in a good way) LGBTQ+ experience is meeting my girlfriend in college as an international student. She is Italian, and I am Spanish, so whenever the college goes on break, we are separated and forced to be in a long-distance relationship. In the second semester, we moved in together and lived together for four months. In January, I had to have an appendectomy, so before going into surgery, I told her that I loved her for the first time. Today, I leave to go back to Spain to work for the summer, not knowing if I can afford to see her again. We are going to go long distances and call very often because we love each other and we are going to get through these three months of summer. We are going to work hard to see each other again in August, and if you've ever been in a long-distance relationship, you know that the best feeling in the whole world is seeing your loved one again after some time apart.

My name is Emma, and I am a lesbian (I think I might be bisexual). I am studying biomedical engineering at Indiana Tech while playing basketball for the women’s team. I have been struggling with mental health ever since I accepted that I was a lesbian. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere. In my last year of high school, I was playing basketball at the highest level, and my teammates were a bit homophobic. One day, after a tough match, some of my teammates were talking about sex, and then the topic of lesbian sex came up. So, my teammates started to wonder how lesbians have sex. Instead of asking me, they began to say that lesbian sex could not be as enjoyable as hetero sex because there was no penetration, and then they proceeded to mock lesbian sex and reenact right in front of me. After that, when I got home, I felt terrible. I even considered self-harming, but given my history, I decided that I would spiral to worse. I decided to pursue my degree at Indiana Tech ( I live in Spain) when I went to college. It was an attempt to find where I belonged and escape that feeling of discomfort. When I got to Indiana Tech, I was missing my family, but I looked forward to the new opportunity. The international people arrived one week earlier than the US, so we got to know each other better. One day, I was in my room and saw a person doing funny drills outside (little did I know that she was the love of my life). When we did international orientation, my engineering fellows and I were waiting to enter a room, and this girl arrived running and out of breath. She was stunningly pretty, she was wearing a long skirt and a beautiful T-shirt. We talked briefly and then parted ways because she was in the wrong room. I’m just going to fast-forward to the 9th of October, 2023; that’s when she asked me to be her girlfriend. It was amazing. Then, in December, I had to go home for Christmas, which was hard because I had to be away from the person I loved. During the second semester, we moved in together after I had surgery, and I told her I loved her. We have been living together for four months, and today, I have to return to Spain to work for the summer. I feel like a part of me is staying with her, and I hope to see her again in August when the fall semester starts. So, I am writing this essay hoping to spend another semester or year with her.

Like anyone else, I started the first semester focusing on my new student-athlete life, balancing school and basketball. However, I quickly learned about my financial duty to my parents and the burden of paying for school. As planned, I headed into the second semester, applying for multiple on-campus jobs, and got selected to be a peer tutor. The first challenge was finding a job. As an international student, I am only allowed to apply for on-campus employment, so I had to wait for the school to post openings, which drastically diminished my pool of options. Furthermore, I initially did not have social security, and having talked to some managers of on-campus facilities, they made it clear that hiring internationals proved too complicated, as the wait time for receiving a social security number can take weeks. Nonetheless, I got a job as a peer tutor and then applied for social security. I can only apply for social security once it is confirmed that I have a job, and I can start to work once my social security number is assigned, so it was now a waiting game. The second challenge is my work hours. This job enables me to be more financially independent so that my parents can pay tuition while I make my own "pocket money" until I have saved enough to help with the burden. However, I can only work 20 hours a week because I am on a student visa. If I exceed that time, I am either working for free or threatened to be deported. The third challenge is in the type of work itself. As a tutor, I cannot foresee when students will book me. This means that even if I input my work hours, which are most afternoons, I won't know until the day of if I have any appointments, as people can book me up to 2 hours before their desired time for the appointment. Financially, my income is unstable and depends entirely on students. I try to have regular appointments with the same students to mend this. For example, if a student has a quiz every week and an exam every month, we will meet the day or a few days before to revise the material. Having regular appointments means I have a benchmark of income I know I will reach so that i can plan expenses more confidently. However, this doesn't change the fact that students can cancel appointments anytime, even just 2 minutes before our scheduled time. Socially, an irregular schedule makes it hard to plan my life: I have to plan around the schedule, almost as if my job came first, and practicing and studying came second. Very often, I have been booked at times where I had planned to go to the gym, and I'm faced with the dilemma of whether to cancel or simply go to the gym later. The problem is that canceling would mean I "lose" money, or at least the opportunity to make some. On the other hand, I don't always have the option to postpone my gym session, either because of other appointments or simply because the gym closes. Finally, balancing school and work is not just a skill but a necessity. These challenges help me prioritize and face real-world problems even while I'm in the bubble of studying at university. I still feel the burden and difficulty of maintaining a work-life balance, feeling like basketball, studying, and my social life have taken a hit, but in the end, I know it's all worth it, and I'll only get better at doing it all.

I am a student-athlete in the US working towards becoming a professional basketball player. My academic focus is biomedical engineering, as I aspire to work in prosthetics someday. I was born in Catalunya, Spain, and was raised there during childhood. My dad is English, so I grew up knowing three languages: English from my dad, Catalan from my mom, and Spanish from school. Growing up, I also learned a bit of Portuguese because my grandpa is Portuguese, so he speaks a mix of Catalan and Portuguese. I am studying in Indiana and playing for the women's basketball team in the NAIA league. I am a point guard, which means I mostly lead the team throughout the game and decide what plays to make. Those skills take years to learn and perfect. Hard work and teamwork are the characteristics that most define me in my game and personal life. One single person can't beat a team, even if that one person is the best in the world. My post-graduation plans are to pursue further studies to research the nervous system and how to connect it to the human body. As a biomedical engineering student, I find it fascinating how the human body works, and I would like to replicate some parts of it to help increase the quality of life of amputees. Currently, an amputee can buy a prosthetic device that has motion, but he will never be able to regain the sense of touch. To know if a surface is hot or cold, he will have to rely on his other senses, but with my research, I could change that. I grew up being multilingual, which has proved very beneficial. Studying in the US has been like studying at home for me, but my Spanish friends who study here have difficulties with all their classes because of the language barrier, and they often come to me for help. For me, being multilingual is not just about the different languages I can speak but also about the mix of cultures that come with the language. For example, Spanish people eat dinner at eight or nine pm, but English people usually have dinner around six pm. In the US, the dining schedule is more similar to the English one, so it has been easy for me to adapt to my new home. The only challenge for a multilingual person is that your friends and family are spread out worldwide. Growing up, I would only see my English grandma twice a year, but that also helped me realize that no matter how far away your family and friends are, they love and support you to the best of their ability, and that's a comfort that I carry with me during my student-athlete life in the US.