A time that I made my mental, emotional, and physical health a priority was when I decided to press charges on my father for physically assaulting me. My father physically assaulted me on January 28, 2022, in my maternal grandmother’s house following a verbal altercation. He had pushed my mother to the floor, though he was angry with me at that moment, and in response, I told him that if he were going to hit anyone, it would be me. My father, Marc Curtis, was charged with battery, assault of a family member, and assault of a minor. Though he was only jailed for eleven days for these crimes, I pressed additional charges against him on behalf of myself and my sister for his sexual abuse in our early childhoods. My father would show me sexually explicit material from as young as three years old and would berate me if I did not agree that the nude women were attractive. Once, he asked me if he could sleep with some of my fourteen-year-old friends after picking me up from one of their birthday parties. Following this traumatic experience, I began therapy and was prescribed psychotropic medications for my complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), bipolar type I, and general anxiety disorder. This experience furthered my passion for pursuing a career in the field of psychology. I wish to utilize my personal experiences and academia to help others maintain their mental wellness in my home state of Arkansas. The lesson that I learned from my assault was that blood relation does not equate to family, and that you get to choose who you get to keep around you and love. I aspire to help others in my community, and my future career will allow me to do that, much like my current job at a nursing home as a dietary aid. The primary reason my family ostracized our father was to protect my two younger sisters. My fifteen-year-old sister was also a victim in the sexual abuse case that we opened against our father. He had once told my sister when she was eight that when she had friends over, he would watch them from outside the windows in a mask at night. My youngest sister, nine years old, now has the privilege of growing up without the chaotic, violent, and traumatic influence of our father. My sisters are glad that our father is no longer a part of our lives, and I will always be there to protect them if he were to ever resurface. As a family, we are choosing to prioritize our physical, emotional, and mental wellness every day through the difficult decision we collectively made.

My mental and physical wellness is important to me because if they are poor, anyone would struggle. Someone with poor mental and physical wellness will struggle in multiple aspects of their life. This causes more stress for both you and those around you, and as these issues pile up, you will continue spiraling until you hit rock bottom. Personal relationships, work, school, home life, and everyday responsibilities will all be affected by poor overall wellness, which can easily lead someone down a downward path. Overall health would decline, and life would become increasingly difficult, and this is why it is important to maintain both your mental and physical wellness. I have always faced challenges with maintaining good mental and physical health, but this is primarily due to my psychological diagnoses. I am diagnosed with bipolar type I, general anxiety disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), which I treat through prescribed psychotropics and weekly therapy sessions. The main challenges that I face with my mental wellness are panic attacks, manic episodes, night terrors, and constant negative thoughts. These challenges make it difficult to go through school and work because they affect both my mood and my mindset. Subsequently, if my mental wellness declines, so will my physical wellness. The main challenges I face with my physical health are motivation to exercise and diet, portion control with food, my abnormal sleep schedules and patterns, and maintaining my mental health. If I am facing mental adversities, then I will not be able to prioritize my physical wellness as well. However, I indeed need to exercise more and eat healthier, including smaller serving portions. The ways I can implement this change in my life are to start exercising routinely at a gym and eat more home-cooked meals, and make sure I plate smaller portions than I normally do. Pursuing post-secondary education allows for more opportunities to become stressed and fewer opportunities to prioritize my physical health. Maintaining good mental and physical wellness will greatly benefit a student’s performance in their classes. It will benefit your relationships, both personal and professional, because you will have an inviting presence. Your frame of mind and thoughts will become more positive, and it will greatly improve your self-esteem. By maintaining my overall wellness, I hope to succeed and excel in my classes this upcoming fall semester. Overall, maintaining good mental and physical health will benefit every aspect of a person’s life.

As a first-generation college student, my career goals are extremely important to me, both personally and for my family. I wish to serve as a role model for my younger sisters to show them that you can achieve your goals if you dedicate yourself to the task, and that our past does not have to determine our future. I want to show them that you have control of your destiny. Just because we came from a low-income background does not mean we have to be subject to a low-income future. I wish to be the figure in their life that is the breathing example of how to live a nice life and manage a career, something we did not have growing up. Being a first-generation college student influences my motivation to achieve my career goals greatly because I have the incentive to be the first member of my immediate family to earn a college degree. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychologist in my home state of Arkansas. I wish to utilize my traumatic and tumultuous childhood, alongside my education, to aid others in maintaining their mental wellness. My experience will allow me to build better professional relationships with my future clients.

As the oldest sibling and brother to two sisters, I must serve as a role model and support system for them. Our father has not been in our lives since he physically assaulted me over three years ago, so I had to step up as their masculine role model. My sisters can come to me for support on anything, and I will always be a shoulder for them to lean on and cry on. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychologist in my home state of Arkansas. I will utilize my personal experiences and education to emotionally support my future clients, improving the overall well-being of our community. I could also utilize these skills to assist others around me, such as my sisters, with maintaining their emotional well-being and provide them with advice to help them.

Pursuing a career in psychology to make a positive impact in my home state is my primary career aspiration. I am currently a junior undergraduate attending National Park College in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for the fall semester of 2025. I aspire to become a licensed psychologist in my home state of Arkansas and practice in central Arkansas. I am diagnosed with bipolar type I, general anxiety disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), and I cope with my disorders daily through prescribed psychotropics and weekly therapy sessions. I wish to utilize my personal experiences to assist others with similar struggles by being able to relate to my clients, allowing me to be better equipped to both help them and build a professional bond. I will make a positive impact on the world by providing psychological services throughout Arkansas. I have personal experience with various types of abuse, witnessing various addictions, gun violence, domestic violence, and going to therapy to cope with various psychological disorders and trauma. I will utilize these experiences to allow clearer perspectives of my future clients’ experiences, offer advice on how to cope with or overcome adversities, and being able to form better relationships with my clients through empathy and shared experiences. I have always wanted to help others, especially the less fortunate, and this shows through my past job as a nurse’s assistant and my current job as a kitchen assistant in the same nursing home. Through my work as a psychologist, I will advocate for the improvement of psychological services and facilities throughout Arkansas, and this is because I have had experiences that presented various flaws with these services within central Arkansas. My childhood shaped both who I am and my aspiration to pursue a career in the field of psychology. Both of my parents were bipolar drug addicts, my grandmother and aunt were alcoholics, and I had to often care for my younger siblings, all while battling with my mental health and sexuality. I had not seen stability in my life until leaving for college, for I had the opportunity to remove myself from broken environments and learn to be on my own. As I become more independent, I can shift more of my attention toward my career aspirations. I wish to do good in the world and make an impact on my community, and this is because I am an example of how psychological services can greatly benefit someone’s life. My career in mental health will allow me to serve both my state and community, subsequently making a positive impact on the world.

I plan to create a legacy in the future through my future contributions to the mental health field, specifically within my aspired career field of psychiatry. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas, and after a few years in the field, I hope to open a private practice business one day. Given that my aspired future business is a private practice, I will need to gain notoriety through working for public companies and advertising my services online, as well as physically within my future community. I possess a passion for assisting others and I can do this through the psychology field because of my personal experiences with mental illness, witnessing drug abuse, and trauma. I shine my light through my commitment to helping others and my passion for academic exploration and expansion. I love learning and being a good Samaritan, qualities that will especially be handy when pursuing a career. I also plan to create a legacy within my college, the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), much like I did in high school. While in the Bauxite School District, I was the first and only student to graduate with a certified teaching assistant (CTA) certification and I became the alumni to graduate with the most college credits in Bauxite history. I was the first vice president of my local Family Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) chapter for three consecutive school years since its establishment. Through my private practice of psychiatry, I will be able to provide mental health services to my clients that include, but are not limited to, the following: diagnose psychological disorders, refer clients to outpatient care facilities, prescribe psychotropic medications, and assess my patients’ mental well-being through interpersonal sessions of various forms of therapy (i.e. clinical, behavioral, medicinal, etc.). Following medical school, I will have acquired these necessary qualifications through my psychiatric residency program. I will work for the public for a few years before developing my business, a private psychiatric practice. In the meantime, following graduation from university with a bachelor’s degree I will pursue professions such as therapy, counseling, social work, and working at organizations that assist those pursuing rehabilitation programs from substance use and other addictions. I hope to one day further shine my light through my work and contributions to the mental health field, as well as my advocation for much needed reforms in both policy and regulation of psychiatric institutions and facilities nationwide, but specifically within my home state of Arkansas.

My father, Marc Anthony Curtis, was first incarcerated in 2017 and has since been in and out of prison. I have had to press two separate charges on my father since he physically assaulted me in January of 2022, an assault charge and a sexual abuse charge. My father has not financially supported my immediate family since his divorce from my mother in 2016, which was long overdue because of their extensive history of domestic violence. Following my assault we have disowned each other as father and son, and we have not been in contact ever since. My father’s actions and involvement in my life have been a direct contribution to my development of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, for which I am clinically diagnosed alongside generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder. Incarceration has impacted my life in both negative and positive ways; negative regarding what I was exposed to, and positive in the regard that my father could not further traumatize me while behind bars. Through my personal experiences with incarceration, I have learned that I ultimately must rely upon myself and that I do not wish to follow the same path in life. Instead, I decided to focus on my education, unlike my father who rejected his opportunity to do so in his younger years. My passion for pursuing a post-secondary education was forged through wanting to create a better life for myself and my future family, the life my parents could not provide for me growing up. My experience with my father’s incarceration has directly impacted my academic and career ambitions. My passion for pursuing a post-secondary education in psychology stems from wanting to assist others who suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, and trauma; the exact factors that led my father to become a drug-addicted felon. I can prevent such degenerative developments in my future clients, slowly but surely making my future community safer and more harmonious. Through my aspired career in psychiatry, I can also work with clients currently in or released from incarceration, serving as a supportive guide for their reintegration into society.

My primary goals include becoming the first member of my family to receive a post-secondary degree, becoming a first-generation student a second time by enrolling in medical school after college, and to become a mental health professional. My career aspiration is to become a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas, for which I am currently enrolled at the University of Central Arkansas as a psychology major with a focus in medical studies. I am an underrepresented minority due to my sexual orientation as a homosexual, making me a sexual minority as well as disadvantaged. I have completed over 125 hours of volunteer service during my time in high school, for which I was an active member of the following non-profit organizations: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), National Honors Society (NHS), Thespian Society, Educators Rising, and Family Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I decided that I would pursue a field related to mental health services from my early teenage years, and ultimately decided on psychology as my major at the age of fifteen years old. My passion for pursuing mental healthcare blossomed as I transitioned into, and gained the experience of being, an underrepresented minority. I made the self-discovery of my nonconventional sexual orientation, I was gay, and that label would follow me forever through either the perception of others or my own self-criticization. However, I do not let this define my identity and I have proved this through my work ethic, passions, and active participation in my community. I actively participated in both FBLA and FCCLA from 2021-2024 in the Bauxite School District local chapters. I was the first vice president of my FCCLA chapter since its initial establishment for three consecutive school years. I was a member of both NHS and Educators Rising for the 2022-2024 school years. I also participated in my high school’s local Thespian Society for the 2021-2022 school year when I served as the stage and backstage manager of both the Bauxite School District theater productions that year, “A Seussified Christmas Carol” and “High School Musical”. My volunteer participation include cleaning the Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) cooking lab, fundraisers, concession stand duty for various sports games, creating a food pantry for a local business (Another Man’s Treasure flea market in Bauxite, Arkansas), walking dogs at a local humane society, and knitting over a dozen baby hats for Arkansas Children’s Hospital.

I came to the realization that I was homosexual at the age of twelve years old, amidst the darkest time in my life thus far. Though my homosexuality did not cause the existential dread I faced daily, but it did momentarily amplify my problems until I came out in desperation only months following my self-discovery. Much like many other gay men who are about their sexuality, my father has disowned me, and we have been without contact for over two years now. However, despite his absence I still have a strong family support system that supports me for who I am and validates the personal choices that I make on behalf of myself. My anxiety and depression symptoms can be amplified when hyper focused on my sexual orientation, especially in conversation, for which I am clinically diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder; as well as complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I do have aspects of my PTSD ad trauma that surround events involving my sexuality, most notably when my father told me at the age of three years old that if I ever “became” gay that he would kill me. I also have an entrenched loneliness due to being a social outcast within my small town, both due to being gay and being a loner to avoid triggering any of my mental stressors. Unlike my peers I do not get invited to hang out with others and I have the unique experience of learning how to act “normal” in public to mask both any signs of my sexual orientation or mental illness. My primary goal and career aspiration is to become a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas. I have aspired to work in the mental health field since a young age due to my personal experiences with both trauma and psychological disorder. I have always had a keen interest in the human mind due to being raised by mentally ill parents and coming to terms with being a mentally ill individual myself. I have had many first-hand experiences of receiving mental health treatments and I now wish to advocate for the accessibility of these services because I know the benefit that they can serve. Mental illness is a prevalent issue in the United States currently and there are also still various forms of corruption within the psychiatric institutions established nationwide, both due to their malpractice and inefficient policy. Another reason for wanting to pursue this career path is because a majority of LGBT+ identifying individuals have traumatic experiences and diagnosed psychological disorders. There is a still a stigmatization surrounding mental health services that must be tackled, much like how the stigmatization of being gay had to be dismantled decades before I was even born; though it can still be a reoccurring issue today just less prevalent.

I developed my skills in assisting others through my personal experiences, the obstacles I have triumphed in life and have endured opposite treatments; i.e. various forms of abuse. I am enrolled at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) as a major in psychology, with a focus on medical studies. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas, as well as giving back to my future community through the mental health services I will be able to provide. My passion for helping others was only amplified when I began volunteering while in high school, and I now have currently completed over 125 hours of community service both for my school district and the non-profit organizations for which I was a member: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Thespian Society, National Honors Society (NHS), Educators Rising, and Family Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). My volunteer experiences include, but is not limited to, the following activities and services: weaving over a dozen baby hats for Arkansas Children’s Hospital, cleaning the Family and Consumer Science cooking lab, feeding/walking the fogs at a local human society, participating in fundraisers, and concession stand duty for various sports games. I was the first vice president of my local FCCLA chapter from 10th grade to 12th grade. I repurposed an old newspaper box into a food pantry, and I established it at a local business, Another Man’s Treasure flea market in Bauxite, Arkansas. I then was eligible for FBLA National Leadership Conference (NLC) through being awarded the BAA Capstone Award for creating my food pantry, the Miner Food Pantry. I made it my life’s purpose, and my primary passion, to help others and my motivation to do so was shaped through my personal experiences of having no one to turn to. I grew up in an abusive household by parents who were active in drug addiction throughout my adolescence. To later be abandoned by both guardians by the age of twelve years old. I am also a child of mentally ill parents, for which I now have the unique experience of growing up without implementing mental health treatments until I was sixteen years old. I know what it is like to grow up being self-reliant and having limited outlets of support, but I can now provide assistance to others who are, or was in the same shoes I once was.

My financial situation has affected my education by establishing obstacles that I will have to triumph over alone. I am a first-generation college student from a low-income background, and a single-parent household. My father does not financially support my immediate family and my mother cannot fund my post-secondary education because she still must support my two younger sisters. I will be solely responsible for funding my college education with only support from the financial assistance that I receive, for which I will have to work during my studies to establish a steady flow of income. My financial situation has also been straining my mental health by causing me excessive stress and worry, making it more difficult to fully focus on my academics. My dream and career aspirations are to become a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas. Receiving the Outstanding Indians at Orchards at Monroe Scholarship would assist me in achieving my dream through providing me with some of the much-needed funds that I must direct towards my tuition. Currently I will only have $4500 annual financial aid received through my university, the University of Central Arkansas, and being a disadvantaged student has barred many financial assistance opportunities from me. My aspired career requires a minimum of twelve years pursuing post-secondary education, therefore any support I get now gets me closer to beginning saving for my medical school tuition. Receiving additional assistance will also allow me to better focus on my academics instead of excessively working with what little time I have left over. My dream of becoming a psychiatrist will have a positive effect on society through my passion for helping others, being a voice of reason, and by being an advocate for my future patients. Mental illness is a prevalent issue within our nation and psychiatrist institutions are still in need of many constructive reforms and improvements on policy. By providing mental health services to my local community, I can slowly but surely simultaneously benefit the lives of my patients while knitting the community into a stronger bond. There is still a lot of negative stigmatizations surrounding mental illness and mental health services within my state of Arkansas, but through my career I can validate those who benefit from these services. If mental illness and trauma go unchecked for too long it may bring an individual to commit crime or acts of violence, but through implementing treatment I can help prevent these types of situations from occurring within my community.

Being the first in my family to obtain a college degree means the world to me. Through my work ethic and determination, I have been able to break generational barriers and forge a new route towards success. My father was a high school graduate, and my mother only partially received a high school education. I do not wish to fall down the negative paths my parents took in life, and I want to be able to establish a living that I am stable with. Through obtaining a college education I can open the doors for more occupational and business opportunities that my family was not fortunate enough to receive in the past. I am pursuing a major in psychology, with a focus in medical studies, at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) beginning this upcoming fall semester of 2024. At UCA I will receive my bachelor’s degree in psychology in May of 2028, for which then I will decide on either going for my master’s degree or go into medical school. This is because I currently have career aspirations of going into psychiatry and becoming a psychiatrist. I also have aspirations of working as a CTA (certified teaching assistant) at my university throughout my time of enrollment. My primary long-term goal is to pursue a career in mental health services because of my passion for helping others, as well as my support of mental health treatment. I personally wish to pursue a career in psychiatry, hopefully becoming a psychiatrist, because of the extensive responsibility for a psychiatric professional’s patients. Following graduating with my bachelor’s degree, I wish to enroll in medical school, for which I would graduate om 2032, then followed by enrolling in a four-year psychiatric residency program. I wish to pursue my career aspirations here in my home state of Arkansas because my state’s mental health services are lacking and do not get enough support from the public. I hold such a high respect for mental health professionals and services because without their assistance I would not be stable enough to pursue a post-secondary education. Through therapy, psychiatry, and prescribed psychotropic medications I have been able to successfully treat and stabilize my diagnosed psychiatric disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. My parents did not treat their mental disorders or assess their trauma in their youth, leading them towards a life of incarceration, substance abuse, and rehabilitation.

I have been experiencing the struggles of mental health since as long as I can remember, and this is because psychological disorders and trauma have been passed down in my lineage for decades. I am currently diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder for which I am currently going through the process of being assessed for bipolar disorder. Both of my parents have similar diagnoses as mine, and as a result this experience has always been my normal. I have been treating my mental health since the summer of 2022 because prior to my assault I was wary of the practices of various mental health professionals. My experience with mental health has influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations greatly because there is both positive and negative influence. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychiatrist and influencing beneficial reforms and inspections of psychiatric institutions throughout my home state of Arkansas. My relationship with my father is near non-existent now for the very reason of preserving my mental wellness and safety. My father is also mentally ill, though he does not seek treatment for his struggles, and rather numbs his issues with substances that turn him into that heartless criminal. My relationship with my mother on the other hand has improved tremendously because we both sought out treatment for our psychological struggles, and are now better able to understand each other through our own hurdles. I have experience being admitted into a psychiatric facility for a week hold in April of 2023 following a breakdown I had from the combined stress of work and school. I left that institution more traumatized and I had poor experiences with both the staff and physical conditions of the facility. My personal experiences in this regard has influenced my advocacy goals of influencing reforms and inspections of these facilities, specifically within my home state of Arkansas. I plan on advocating for these types of changes following the establishment of my career in the mental health field. My experience with mental health has led me to believe that my disorders were genetically inherited and that my family’s history of failure is due to them not treating it. I believe that I am breaking generational curses by both treating my mental health and by becoming a first-generation college student. I believe that I can successfully utilize my personal experience with mental health to pursue a career in psychology. Treating one’s mental health is like attempting to stop an addict from consuming substances, you cannot help someone who does not want the help for themselves first.

I am an incoming freshman undergraduate enrolled at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) as a psychology major, with a concentration in medical studies. I have career aspirations of becoming a licensed psychiatrist, for which my aspirations were formed through my personal experiences with psychological disorders and trauma. I have over 125 hours of documented volunteer service experience that I gained throughout my time in high school, mainly through the non-profit organizations for which I was an active member of. In high school I was an active member of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), National Honors Society (NHS), Educators Rising, and Family Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA); and I had past experience in Thespian Society, drama club, and E-sports. My volunteer experiences range from fundraising, chapter service projects, to cleaning classrooms. For FBLA, FCCLA, E-sports, and NHS I have worked concession stand duty for various home sports games. For FCCLA I have cleaned the Family & Consumer Science cooking lab, participated in a Valentine’s Day bake sale, and walked the dogs at a local humane society. For FBLA I have weaved over a dozen baby hats for the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. For Thespian Society and drama club I had participated in set builds for the seasonal productions. The Schmid Memorial Scholarship would support my education goals through providing me with much needed aid towards my tuition and housing fees. I will be solely funding my education because I come from a low-income, single-parent household that roofs my two younger sisters. I am a first-generation college student so alleviating some of the financial burden of pursuing my post-secondary education will allow me to focus on my navigation through academic success and career preparation. My desired career requires at least twelve years responsible for the funding through my earned income, received scholarships, and any other forms of financial assistance that is awarded to me.

Earlier this month, Thursday the 2nd of May, I defended a first-grade girl on my bus from a sixth-grade boy who is troubled, for which I have had multiple incidents of reprimanding the boy for his actions. The boy had punched the small child in the eye, causing it to swell instantly, and I both yelled at him and reported him to the middle school office before discharging off of the bus on the ride home. I am passionate about advocating for the progress and social change regarding bullying and harassment in K-12 because I was a student in the victim demographic of this current epidemic on the youth. I am also passionate about this because I have completed a pre-educator program of study, I am a certified teaching assistant, and I am majoring in psychology with the career aspiration of becoming a licensed psychiatrist. I intend to streamline the now convoluted process of obtaining the appropriate treatment options for children adolescents struggling with mental health and bullying through public advocation through both social media and public events where I can hold informative seminars. Such appearances would be exceptionally effective if I were able to arrange visits to schools, especially districts with high bullying rates, and inform the youth of the consequences of these abusive actions on both the victim and the aggressors mental health. I could share my personal experiences with managing psychological disorders and trauma throughout my adolescence, specifically representing how bullying can be detrimental to one’s cognitive stability, and/or halt one’s progression in treating their mental health. I have public speaking experience, as well as volunteer experience that I am able to utilize when conducting such appearances, further tackling the issue of bullying at a local level. I have always been the black sheep no matter what setting I am in because of my unique upbringing consisting of surviving abuse, neglect, and abandonment all before I even gained consciousness in this life. These circumstances have affected my social interaction and presence greatly because of my triggers, habits, scattered thought process, and emotional detachment. This of course led to issues, and ultimately developed into bullying when it became apparent to others that I was both mentally ill and a sexual minority. I also have experience being admitted into a children’s psychiatric residency following an episode of mania prompted by work and school stressors, and I have been treating my psychological disorders with psychotropic medications. I can serve as an example that the stigmatization of mental health and being different does not have to hinder one’s success, and that is ultimately working your way towards solace.

As an aspiring psychiatrist I will be directly emotionally supporting my clients, members of my future community. I am majoring in psychology with a concentration in medical studies, and gaining more knowledge about the human mind will allow me to better navigate the emotions of others. This would exponentially help me in my future craft of treating psychological disorders and I would be able to serve as an emotional support for others I hold dear to a much greater capacity. I have been helping my family with their mental health because we have a lot of shared and similar experiences amongst each other. I especially have helped my fourteen-year-old sister, Lauren, navigate through her mental health journey because we both have suffered abuse by the hands of our father, being exposed to drug use and criminal activity, and the shared genetic disorders that we possessed from our parents. We have the same therapist, so our situations and circumstances are better understood by mental health professionals, resulting in a clearer path being made towards our road to recovery from trauma.

My chosen course of study is psychology and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist; a psychologist if I do not attend medical school. I have always worked to pursue a career in the mental health field because I have extensive first-hand experience of psychology. Everyone in my family is mentally ill and are diagnosed with psychological disorders and deal with trauma. I am diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder and I am treating them through prescribed psychotropic medication as well as therapeutic and psychiatric services. I aspire to assist others in maintaining their mental well-being, working through their trauma, and progress towards no longer needing treatment. I am an active member of the following non-profit organizations: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Educators Rising, National Honors Society (NHS), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I am heavily community-oriented and I wish to provide a light to my future community through my contributions to public health, especially in regard to maintaining mental wellness. I can also transfer my leadership skills from school into being a leader for my future community; for I have been the first vice president of my local FCCLA chapter for three consecutive school years and I was the stage/backstage manager for my school district’s 2021-2022 school year theater productions. I was able to do this during the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program through having my assigned county open up to each other emotionally and cry together accompanied by our great sense of brotherhood that we developed the night before leaving. I want to help others who share similar struggles to me and I believe that utilizing my first-hand experiences will greatly benefit me in the mental health field. I wish to help individuals who are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, are survivors of abuse, and who identify within the LGBTQ+ community. Arkansas is a rather close-minded state and these are demographics of individuals who are underrepresented and never are first thought; with similar struggles I wish to be the one to provide positive change for my community. An example of positive change I want to bring about is the advocacy for the improvement of conditions and policies present within psychiatric institutions across the state of Arkansas. I want this to improve for I have first-hand experience being admitted into a psychiatric institution where I was exposed to unsanitary living conditions, unruly staff, and discrimination for my sexual orientation. I was admitted following the burnout that resulted from the combination of school and work overload in April of 2023 where I had my anti-depressant dosage increased by seventy-five milligrams to maintain my mental wellness.

My future goals consist of pursuing a career in the mental health field and beginning my own family. I have career aspirations of becoming either a psychiatrist or a psychologist, depending on if I attend medical school or not. I have faced various forms of adversity during my upbringing, some of which include poverty, abuse, and discrimination for my sexual orientation; all of which I have been able to overcome and conquer. I have overcome my adversity through practicing self-preservation, pursuing post-secondary education, and persistence. I have also faced adversity in regard to my psychological well-being. I have been pre-exposed to trauma since I gained consciousness and I am diagnosed with and treating the following psychological disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I have overcome this adversity since assuming responsibility for my mental health and actively fix the negative hard-wiring of my brain. I now treat my mental health through therapeutic and psychiatric services and prescribed psychotropic medication; once even being admitted to a psychiatric facility for a week following a breakdown due to the combined overload of work and school. This sparked my aspiration of wanting to advocate for the improvement of conditions and policies present within psychiatric institutions across my home state of Arkansas, for during my week admission I was exposed to unruly staff, unsanitary living conditions, and discrimination for my sexual orientation. I wish to dilute the misconceptions surrounding mental health and its treatment within the state of Arkansas for it is not taken seriously here; with many residents flat out stating that mental health does not exist. I have been discriminated against in both work and school settings for my psychological disorders, and my mother has been accused of “brainwashing” me by allowing medicinal psychotropic treatments for my depression and anxiety. I also wish to help survivors of abuse overcome their trauma through treating their psychological health, and I have first-hand experience of abuse that I can utilize to better comfort my clients through our session opposed to a professional without that personal experience. My father physically assaulted me in January of 2022, and I pressed legal charges on him for that incident, and later another charge for sexual abuse. I overcame this adversity by having my father charged with the assault of a minor, assault of a family member, and battery, and he has been cast out from my life for being an absent parent and a drug addict.

I am a senior from Bauxite School District in Arkansas and I am enrolled to major in psychology at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) for the fall semester of 2024. I am expected to graduate with an approximate grade point average of 3.89 on a 4.0 scale and approximately thirty-six college hours received virtually through Arkansas Tech University (ATU). I am an active member of the following non-profit organizations: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Educators Rising, National Honors Society (NHS), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I have more than one hundred certified hours of volunteer experience that I completed throughout high school for community involvement, as well as establishing a food pantry at a local business within my small town. I will be graduating within the top twenty student ranking of my graduating class and I will officially be a first-generation college student this upcoming autumn season. I am involved in my community through my membership with my respective non-profit organizations, and some of my various methods of volunteering include concession stand duty for sports games, cleaning classrooms, knitting hats for the babies at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and fundraisers. My plans post-high school include becoming either a psychologist or psychiatrist, possibly attending medical school if I pursue psychiatry, and advocating for the improvement of psychiatric institutions throughout my home state of Arkansas. I also plan on working as a teaching assistant at UCA while simultaneously attending for I will have teaching credentials by the time I graduate from high school. If I could start my own charity it would be for the benefit of local psychiatric institutions, and it would be accepting of both financial and supply donations. The supplies that psychiatric institutions are in need of include all-purpose soaps, non-perishable food items, deodorant for both sexes, toothbrushes and toothpaste, non-allergen detergent, and vaseline. These institutions across the nation are not receiving enough state funding to produce the highest quality facilities possible, and this is negatively impacting both the staff and patients, in the aspects of poor living conditions and limited resources. The services that volunteers would perform for my charity include transferring supplies to the institutions, cards will be given to patients, and seeing if there are additional accommodations they could use upon discussing donations with the staff. I want to ensure that children under the age of eighteen years admitted into psychiatric institutions receive proper and ethical care during their involuntary stays at the various facilities throughout the state of Arkansas. I have first-hand experience with institution conditions and policies for I was admitted into a facility in early April of 2023, I was exposed to various poor living conditions and endured occasional unwarranted disrespect from staff members. In addition to majoring in psychology, this influences me to make a beneficial impact on the mental health field within my home state of Arkansas for mental health is heavily stigmatized here, especially within central Arkansas. I plan to use my occupational and charity goals for the benefit of psychiatric institutions and their many patients receiving treatment.

The field of study that I will be majoring in starting in the fall semester of 2024 is psychology and I have been accepted into the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) as an undergraduate.. I have personally experienced challenges with my mental health throughout my life, and I am still treating these challenges daily. I have people close to me, both family and friends, who have experienced their mental health challenges. My mother, teenage sister, and myself all have been admitted into a psychiatric institution for a week, though all were separate occasions, within the last two years. I am currently diagnosed with and treating the following psychological disorders: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). My experience with personal and surrounding mental health struggles has affected every aspect of my life, whether good or bad and provides me with knowledge of not just myself but every person around me as well. I wish to further utilize this knowledge by shaping a career out of it that is beneficial to the lives of individuals within my community. In late August of 2023, my mother took an attempt at her own life via overdose on the narcotic she was prescribed for via pharmaceutical treatment of her diagnosed psychological disorders; MDD, GAD, CPTSD, and Bipolar type II. Mental health has influenced my career aspirations greatly for I have first-hand experience with being diagnosed with and treating psychological disorders and trauma. I aspire to become either a psychologist or psychiatrist depending on whether I enroll in medical school post-undergraduate study or not. I have been able to personally relate and create bonds with others with similar mental health struggles as I, and aid my immediate family in better understanding each other. As a child, I was blinded by the stigma that surrounds mental health struggles, and it was not until I had experienced those struggles for myself that I shifted my perspective on those individuals from “crazy” to simply misunderstood by the masses. This has further influenced my career aspirations for I wish to assist in the destigmatization of mental health and psychological disorders throughout my home state of Arkansas, which is not very inclusive of such individuals for it is located within the bible-belt of the United States. My experience with mental health influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations positively in the aspects of becoming more inclusive of others and wanting to establish a career that benefits others as well. I wish to also inspire my family to continue pursuing the treatment of their mental health through my accomplishments in the psychological and mental health field, for I will serve as an example that our mental health struggles do not have to restrict us in life. I want to utilize my personal experiences, knowledge, and education to make a beneficial impact on the lives of others and to assist in the destigmatization of mental health struggles. Struggling with mental health and psychological disorders is the same concept as someone who is diabetic and needs insulin, the psychological struggles are caused by a combination of chemical deficiencies in the brain and the effect of enduring traumatic experiences.

I am currently a senior in high school enrolled in the University of Central Arkansas for the fall semester of 2024. I am a first-generation college student from a low-income background who is in financial need to pursue my education. I have overcome adversity such as growing up poor, queer-identifying, and facing mental health struggles due to the trauma of various childhood abuse. I also face the stigma of both being diagnosed with and treating psychological disorders, which I am currently diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I will be graduating with approximately thirty-six college hours that I accumulated virtually through Arkansas Tech University dual-enrollment courses, and I will be majoring in psychology in college. I have overcome the adversity in my life through the process of letting time pass, pressing legal charges, and mental health treatments; both medicinal and therapeutic. The adversity that I have faced throughout my life has altered my perspectives on both life and my personal desires, and it played a major role in the influence of my current field of study. I wish to pursue a career in mental health for psychology has always been an interest of mine, and treating my mental health further influenced me to pursue an occupation in my chosen field. I wish to also assist others with the destigmatization of psychological disorders and mental health treatments. I wish to help those who are less fortunate and those of marginalized communities for I can assist them without bias as my experiences will reflect those of my future patients; such as coming from a low-income background or being queer identifying. Through my occupation in psychology, I wish to assist those who have also faced adversity throughout their life. I first began experiencing adversity throughout my early childhood for I was predisposed to trauma since the approximate age of four years old, as well as falling under poverty status. I then became part of a marginalized community of people upon discovering my sexual orientation upon puberty beginning, and then I was diagnosed with my psychological disorders upon starting mental health treatment following my physical assault. In late January of 2022, I was physically assaulted by my drug-induced father during a confrontation for which I pressed legal charges against him for a misdemeanor assault of a minor, assault of a family member, and battery. This event progressed the development of my CPTSD diagnosis, which further influenced the adversity that I had to overcome both socially and mentally.

We as a human race have spent millennia attempting to better understand the nature of our universe, and we have acquired a lot of knowledge to aid our understanding in the modern era, yet we still have so little knowledge of our world and its surroundings. The concepts of evolution, religion, and Scientology are a few examples of the implication of human speculation on the creation and existence of our universe into popular belief, with assumptions such as the Big Bang theory being relevant to this day. I believe the ideas and concepts that need to be employed to achieve human enlightenment of the universe include the focus being shifted to branches of study such as environmental/biological sciences, history, geology, and astronomy. If we as a race take less of a theoretical approach to the development and understanding of the universe, I believe that we will have better success in this feat through scientific and logical approaches. I think it is important that we work to better understand the nature of our universe for we could advance our societies with this information, as well as answer some of life’s most notorious mysteries. Having an accurate portrayal of the big picture of our universe is crucial for both intellectual and technological advancement. Having a stronger grasp on the nature of our universe would ultimately translate into also having a stronger grasp on the nature of the human race and our biology. I believe that science would be the best field to search for the answers to these great mysteries, for it is advancing daily and has given us the most accurate, but still loose, speculations surrounding the nature of the universe. If we already have the technology to show simulations of the formation of the planet and celestial bodies within the Milky Way, then further advancements in various scientific fields should allow a more accurate explanation of the universe’s formation, processes, and purposes. I believe that if we had an improved grasp on the concept of the universe and life we would have less confrontation and war throughout the world, for there would be fewer things to dispute or disagree about. The belief and implementation of different religions showcase different apparent events throughout history, yet these stories and world-building are not the same across every religious tale for less was known about our world when those texts were produced. With some of life and religion's biggest mysteries answered, there would be less dispute about the rights and wrongs of decisions for we would have a better idea of the proper way life is meant to be lived and presented across all societies.

I am a low-income high school senior enrolled in a field of study within the STEM field, of psychology. I am enrolled at the University of Central Arkansas for the upcoming fall semester of 2024. I am a student from a single-parent household and I will be a first-generation college student within my family. I have always had a keen interest in the STEM-specific field since a young age and grew a further fascination with the subjects of mental disorders once I began treating my psychological disorders and trauma. I believe that my selected field of study, psychology, will help turn the progressive treatment of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from science fiction into science fact. Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, for it is a degenerative brain disease. However, dementia is not always caused by that specific disease. Though a cure has yet to be discovered there are several treatments to slow the progression of the disease and alleviate the symptoms, both medicinal and management treatment. On the downside, these current treatments may only temporarily improve and/or alleviate a patient’s symptoms. I believe future developments in psychology will eventually lead to better treatments and possibly a cure, for many professionals within the field who study patients with both dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This is because many of the traits presented in the disease are similar to traits identified in mental illnesses. No one in my immediate family is dealing with these specific illnesses as of right now, though it has occurred in the past, and it is a disease that a large portion of my family is prone to. An instance of dementia developing within my family tree was with my paternal grandfather who developed gangrene on his foot, and during his last days in the hospital, the degenerative diseases made him lose touch with reality. That would be the last state that I would ever witness my last grandfather in at only the age of three years old. I am currently diagnosed with the following psychological disorders: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is relevant to the following topic individuals diagnosed with PTSD are almost twice as susceptible to developing dementia symptoms later in life than individuals who are not. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease need more public recognition and respective specialists for they are degenerative diseases that we still know little about, in both the aspects of their causes and treatment.

My motivation for pursuing a higher education stemmed from the idea of becoming a first-generation college student as well as coming from a low-income background. I am beginning the pursuit of a degree in psychology in the Fall of 2024 at the University of Central Arkansas. Going into my chosen field of science is exciting in the aspects of my aspirations for becoming either a psychologist or psychiatrist and my keen interest in both mental health and psychological disorders. I am a senior in high school with over 89 certified volunteer service hours due to the National Honors Society (NHS) yearly membership requirements and my non-profit volunteer experience through both the local Bauxite School District chapters of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). My volunteer experience ranges between knitting over a dozen baby hats for Arkansas Children's Hospital located in the state capital of Little Rock, working concession stand duty for various home sports games for Bauxite High School and Middle School, and volunteering my time at the local Humane Society in Benton, Arkansas. I am also excited about meeting others with the same passion as mine (future colleagues) and others who share similar experiences and/or struggles as I (future clients). Living the reality of working at a minimum wage job, with my mother at a Big Red before the company switch, has further motivated me to pursue higher education to establish a career for myself that is financially favorable. So much so that I will be graduating high school with approximately 36 college hours because of this decision. I am excited to use my extensive knowledge of personal struggle in therapeutic settings for I can gift those around me with the ability to release their emotions and have their need of being listened to fulfilled as I pursue a career in the psychology field. Another motivation I have for pursuing higher education is to provide my future children with a financially stable home by establishing a career for myself. I am motivated to ensure that my future children will never have to endure hunger, poverty, and neglect as they develop into functional adults. I will also be able to better analyze my trauma, my abusers, and others around me with extensive knowledge in psychology that I will have gained upon college graduation. I wish to finally experience living with an adequate amount of wealth throughout my lifetime and never struggle the way that I had to while growing up.

I have endured mental health struggles throughout my life due to the combination of my psychological disorders and trauma. I just so happen to also have a keen passion for treating mental health, so much so that I have been enrolled in the University of Central Arkansas for the Fall of 2024 as a psychology major. Everyone within my immediate family also has struggles with their mental health as well, and I even inherited a few of the same psychological disorders from my parents. I am diagnosed with the following psychological disorders: Major Depressive Disorder, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder; and I am treating these through both therapy and my prescribed psychotropic medications. I have aspirations to become either a psychologist or psychiatrist with a doctoral degree in psychology. Mental health is important to me as a student for I have struggles with my mental health, my family has struggles with theirs as well, and because I am pursuing a degree in psychology. I have been actively treating my mental health since the summer of 2022; halfway through my high school experience. An aspect of a student’s academic success is the maintenance of their mental health, for poor personal wellness often reflects through a student’s course grades. I experienced this exact scenario this last school year following a period of burnout due to both school and work, ultimately resulting in my admission into a psychiatric institution for a week during April of 2023. I advocate for mental health in my community both at home and within my school community of the Bauxite district. I advocated for myself to begin medication-based treatment for my psychological health in addition to the therapy I was already utilizing. My mother, teenage sister, and myself are all prescribed the same psychotropic medications so we are always reminding each other to take our doses, as well as sharing them if necessary for we have different dose sizes as well. I also surround myself with peers at school who are also in therapy and treating their mental health disorders with psychotropic medications, and this allows us to help destigmatize mental health disorders and treatment within our school community of Bauxite High School. We are a representation of the positive change that can come from a person effectively treating their mental health struggles and/or trauma. Mental health within the bible-belt South has various stigmas surrounding it, especially within my home state of Arkansas.

I am a high school senior with an extensive background in music/musical arts, and I have participated in both band and musical theater during my time in grade school. Music has shaped the way that I view the world in the sense that everything can be used artistically, both physically and verbally, and that everyone has the capability for artistic expression in the form of music regardless of conventional ‘talent’ or taste. I have always had a passion for creating since a young age, I have written books, short stories, and songs with my down time during grade school; and I have always egged on that I would someday even create an album for the fun of the journey completing a personal artistic project. Throughout middle school and some of high school I was a member of my school district’s band for I played the tuba and sousaphone, and I was the stage/backstage manager for my high school’s ”High School Musical” theater production during the late spring of 2022. I spend my free time discovering new music artists and listening through entire albums just to enjoy the ride they take you on, and music has been involved in my daily life since a young age. I have made intimate and meaningful connections through music: dancing, listening, singing, discussing; and one of my favorite discussion topics is music genres and how more are created everyday through like-minded artistic individuals and souls. Music has also served as a method to create extreme memories through songs and lyrics, and whether good or bad it creates a crucial bond between music and the other people/places that one surrounds themselves with. I wish to create art and music that resonates with others and hopefully serve as tunes that people can develop important memories and connections. Music has shaped the way that I view the world in the sense that everything can be used artistically, both physically and verbally, and that everyone has the capability for artistic expression in the form of music regardless of conventional ‘talent’ or taste. Music has helped me through my hardest times and served as the one thing that would not change while I grow older. Music artists have served as people I can relate to and seek validation from through their art, but also reminding me that I am a human with emotions and a voice as well. Music creates a generational bond between parents and their kin, and our music taste is partly to blame for what our guardians listen to during our childhood, and the music that they listened to growing up too.

I am a high school senior with over 124 hours of volunteer experience that I have earned for the/through the following non-profit organizations: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), National Honors Society (NHS), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my dream career path of being a mental health professional and I will accomplish making a positive impact on the world after receiving my Bachelor’s Degree of Psychology. The volunteer work that I have completed without any form of compensation consists of cleaning classrooms, concession stand duty for various home sport games for my school, knitting hats for premature babies residing at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and making cake pops for a FCCLA Valentine’s Day fundraiser. I have future aspirations of majoring in psychology at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), where I was a delegate for the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by the American Legion, and I have career aspirations of being a psychiatrist in my home state of Arkansas. I plan to make a positive impact on the world by contributing back to society through my psychiatric and volunteer service for my future community, and I wish to provide a safe space for all walks of life to receive the mental health/psychological treatment that they deserve and need. I wish to start my own family and provide my children with the life I was not fortunate enough to have, and make sure that everyone in my immediate family is financially cared for in the future. I also wish to advocate for environmental conservation, climate change control, and LGBTQIA+ equality and hopefully be able to donate for charities regarding these causes if my career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist becomes true. I plan to make a positive impact on the world by being a good person and a functioning member of society, and always put others first in social situations so good karma can be spread throughout the community. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my dream career path of being a mental health professional and I will accomplish making a positive impact on the world after receiving my Bachelor’s Degree of Psychology. As someone who identifies within the LGBTQIA+ community I aspire to create a safe space within my future community for other LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals to receive the mental health services that they have a right to. My clients will be safe to be open and honest without the fear of bias because I am someone who is oppressed in the system and discriminated against for my identity. I aspire to make a positive impact on the world for my hard work and efforts in contributing back to society through my career, success, and character. Throughout my career I will continue volunteering my time and services for non-profit organizations and advocate for the destigmatization of mental health services, psychological disorders, and the LGBTQIA+ community.

The ideal location for my own Barbie Dreamhouse would be near the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen in person, the Buffalo River, located within Jasper, Arkansas; and my home state. I participated in the Barbie-Oppenheimer movie premier joke that has been spread across the internet, but I genuinely enjoyed Barbie much more. Pink just so happens to be one of my favorite colors so my dream house will have a similar color scheme to Barbie’s Dream House that was depicted in the 2023 film. At all times a mix of rock and pop hits will be blaring throughout the house, accompanied by LED and strobe lights to ensure that the party is ongoing at times. My dream house would be open to my community, family, and friends and it will be open to the guests at all times day or night. The landscape of the Buffalo River behind the dream house enhances the giant and lush garden that will surround and wrap around the dream house; flowers, elephant ears, and lavender will provide a welcoming abeyance and scent for all of the guests. In the center of the dream house there will be a giant sun roof that can be covered with a blind, it will be made of multicolored stained glass to make a sparkle effect within the interior; and it also provides a mystical view of the moon and lets the moonlight provide a calming aura and glow within the dream house.

I am a high school senior with over 124 hours of non-profit volunteer experience and I aspire to major in psychology, specifically career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist; and I am a minority for I identify within the LGBTQIA+ community as a gay man. A significant challenge that I have faced and overcame was being able to muster the courage to pursue legal assault and abuse charges on my addict father. My father physically attacked me on January 28, 2022 following him pushing my mother to the floor following a verbal altercation, I defended my family and ran him out of the house that life-altering evening. This traumatic experience opened my eyes to the consequences of substance abuse and not treating psychological disorders, and my father became the mold of the type of people that I wish to help through psychiatry in the future. I do not shame my father for his actions because I know he is a lost man, but I will hold him accountable for his negative actions and character traits. The personal growth that occurred from this experience was that pressing charges was the final nail in the coffin for our relationship as father and son, because I disowned him as my father the second he laid his hands on me the night of January 28, 2022. I displayed resilience through doubling down and pressing second charges, abuse charges to be specific, towards both me and my thirteen year old sister, after the state dropped the assault charges I was pressing on my father, Marc Anthony Curtis, for brutally beating me like a grown man at barely sixteen years old. The determination I have displayed since this experience is to be a better man than my father and not follow my parent’s path of addiction, and I will break the generational curse while simultaneously becoming a first-generation college student within my immediate family. A significant challenge that I have faced and overcame was being able to muster the courage to pursue legal assault and abuse charges on my addict father. I have a personal passion to pursue a science degree and aspire for a career that involves pharmaceutical practice and prescription medications because I know the benefits of psychotropic medications firsthand for I am prescribed antidepressants and anxiolytics for my depression and anxiety disorders. I also aspire to do non-profit volunteer work during college, medical school, and other secondary education; as well as while pursuing my career in psychiatry. Through my career as a psychiatrist I will make a positive impact on my future community and the world through my beneficial medical contributions to society.

I am expected to graduate with thirteen college credits, as my school’s Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) president, and with an honor cord I received for completing the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program hosted at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) and sponsored by the American Legion. I am a male high school senior from a low-income background who has been battling with both depression and anxiety for my entire life, and these diagnoses were due to both genetics, trauma, and childhood environments. The hurdles that I have had to overcome to prepare for higher education include, but are not limited to the following: dealing with mental disorders, being poor, coming from a family of addicts and dropouts, the oppression and discrimination that comes with being a queer minority, being admitted into a psychiatric facility for a week following burnout from both work and school, and my father’s abuse during my childhood (which has already been reported to the proper authorities and a case is currently active). I have future career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to contribute back to society and provide a safe space for LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals to receive the proper mental health services that they have a constitutional right for. The first time that my depression symptoms became aware to me was during sixth grade whenever my father was first arrested, my mother was in a period of psychological distress following being attacked, I was having a gay awakening all at the same time; and I began not caring about my health and my room was scattered with empty soda cans and garbage. However, despite these chaotic developments in my life I was able to hone my emotion and focus on nothing but education, and now that I am more mature oppossed to sixth grade me, I can personally say that I have found a stable position and mindset in recent. I have always dealt with anxiety since a young age and this is because I grew up in a household of domestic abuse, loud screaming, destructive behaviors, substance abuse, and with a narccistic father. I still battle with anxiety to this day, and I probably will for the rest of my life, but currently I am treating my anxiety disorder through taking prescribed anxiolytics and working through my trauma via therapy, psychiatry, and self-treatment/management. I am a male high school senior from a low-income background who has been battling with both depression and anxiety for my entire life, and these diagnoses were due to both genetics, trauma, and childhood environments. Both of my parents, and my younger thirteen year old sister, also suffer from depression and anxiety as well, and the genetic history for mental abnormalities goes further beyond just my parents. I have had a long line of therapists, but my current therapist has really helped me make progress on improving my mental health and treating my psychological disorders. I plan on receiving a Bachelor’s Degree of Psychology from UCA, located in Conway, Arkansas, after I graduate high school next spring in May of 2024.

I am a senior in high school, with a 3.97 grade point average, who is from a low-income background, and I have both volunteer and sport experience. Volunteering has changed my mindset on the purpose of serving others and I need this scholarship financially because I am from a low-income, single-parent that my father no longer financially supports. I have sport experience through participating in my high school’s first year of esports competitions, for which I was a member of the first Mario Kart 8 team, and for designing a kickball tournament for a Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Star Event competition for my team’s chose Event Management Level III competition, for which we placed bronze in district competition and silver in state competition. My father is an abandoned parent with substance abuse struggles, and he no longer financially supports my immediate family because of the assault and abuse charges I pressed on him recently, and for my identity within the LGBTQIA+ community as a gay man. Before I gained volunteer experience I had never seen myself ever being in a customer service position and believed that there was no point in being of service to strangers; however, after gaining volunteer service I realized that the importance of being of service to others is that in order to be a functioning member of society you have to contribute back to society, which is full of strangers, only then will you get your flowers in return for you contributions. This mindset was later solidified whenever I became employed for my first job at a Baskin Robbins inside of a Big Red gas station, in which I found pride in being of service to others and gaining income brought me joy because it was the fruit of my labor. Currently I am unemployed to work on improving my mental health following being admitted into a psychiatric residency for a week in early April of 2023, the day before my FCCLA Star Event state competition finals and the following day that I had quit my job. I need this scholarship financially because I do not plan on finding employment until I graduate high school so that I can focus on my health and online conurrent-credit courses during my final year of grade school. Volunteering has changed my mindset on the purpose of serving others and I need this scholarship financially because I am from a low-income, single-parent that my father no longer financially supports. I will be graduating high school with thirteen college credits that I earned through online concurrent-credit courses provided by Arkansas Tech University (ATU), and I earned all of the funds to pay for the courses myself. I currently maintain 124 certified hours of volunteer service completed for National Honors Society (NHS), for which I am a member, and my volunteer work has ranged from concession stand duty for various sport games, cleaning classrooms, and knitting hats for babies residing at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. I currently do not have any income because I chose to put my full focus on my online college courses.

I am a senior who has been open with being gay to the public since the age of twelve years old, and being queer only further inspired me to go into a mental health profession because I have personally lived with the oppression and discrimination, so I can also treat my patients using my related experiences. I plan to use my education to make a positive impact on society by becoming a psychiatrist to provide a safe space for all walks of life, and to personally help LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals through both my education and personal experiences of being a queer man. I also have aspirations beyond achieving my dream of becoming a psychiatrist, I aspire to improve the existing mental health, therapeutic, and psychiatric facilities within my home state of Arkansas, as well as spread the access of mental health services throughout the Southern United States. In the future I will do more advocation work for the LGBTQIA+ community and help destigmatize the false disorders and trauma that others try and force onto queer individuals like they are sell or mentally unwell to fit their own agenda and ideologies in their opinions. I want to be able to spread the access of mental health services to children and LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals because they are two groups of people that will be dramatically dispositioned because of untreated mental health abnormalities, disorders, and traumas. Both of these groups are likely to have the status of their mental health undermined by peers because we are so isolated when it comes to the total world population, and the power we possess in society. I have dealt with the repercussions of not treating my mental health during early childhood, and now it is a thousand times harder to just be starting to work on my psyche now that I am nearly an adult. I want to help as many people as I can during my lifetime because I personally understand how difficult juggling your educational goals as well as maintaining your mental wellness and a positive psyche. I plan to use my education to make a positive impact on society by becoming a psychiatrist to provide a safe space for all walks of life, and to personally help LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals through both my education and personal experiences of being a queer man. I hope I am able to shine an encouraging light on my future patients by giving them the proper psychological care that they need; and be a guide and inspiration for my patients to reciprocate their work in improving their mental health as well. From a young age I have always had a strong empathetic and emotional personality; therefore, resulting in me feeling like a good person because I deeply care for others’ wellbeing. I wish to broadcast this trait through my career because I will always have my patients’ wellbeing and health as my main priority because they are the people that I will have worked so hard to be able to treat them at a life-changing level.

I am a senior who has been open about my sexual orientation since the age of twelve years old, and growing up in Arkansas highlighted the amount of hate the community faces within the Southern United States. I have been impacted by both mental health and LGBTQIA+ experiences for I am a queer man who is diagnosed with, and taking prescribed psychotropic medication for, depression and anxiety. Both of my parents have mental disorders and neither of them sought out treatments for their mental health, and as a result I was exposed to mental health expressions since I was a small child. I am surrounded by queer people on a daily basis, the majority of my close friends, and even some members of my family, identify within the LGBTQIA+ community and have faced the same oppression and discrimination as I as a result. I have been exposed to a lot of individuals, and multiple being in my own family, who have substance use disorders due to various narcotics and alcohol. I am reminded of my psychological struggles that I face on a daily basis because I am prescribed psychotropic medications, specifically antidepressants and anxiolytics, to treat my diagnosed mental disorders. My father has disowned me as his son after my pursuit of assault charges on him through the local court after he attacked me in January of 2022, and because of my sexual orientation; even threatening my life as early as the age of three years old if I were to ever tell him that I was gay. I have been seeing different therapists since the age of eleven years old, and in April of 2023 I was admitted into a psychiatric residency facility for a week following an episode/breakdown that I had had due to burnout from work and school combined. I have been impacted by both mental health and LGBTQIA+ experiences for I am a queer man who is diagnosed with, and taking prescribed psychotropic medication for, depression and anxiety. I have future aspirations of helping expand the access of mental health services throughout the Southern United States, and especially within my home state of Arkansas because mental health and psychotropic medications have a negative stigmatization in the eyes of the majority of the state population. I have aspirations of establishing a mental health awareness club for my high school as my final exit-ticket accomplishment before I graduate. I wish to advocate for LGBTQIA+ equality, as well as advocate for the destigmatization of mental health treatments throughout my home state and the rest of the south. I specifically want to use my career to open up a safe space for the queer individuals in my community to receive the proper treatment they deserve without bias, discrimination, or microaggressions.

I identify my personal faith as agnostic atheism, meaning that I do not follow a religion nor believe in a god/being that is the human race’s supreme ruler, but I would find faith if a god’s existence happened to be proven. Though I am not religious I have the personal faith that there may be some form of higher power and that if you are actively a good person, then the world will give you your flowers in return. I am also a follower of humanitarianism and rationalism ideologies, and this is heavily due to my knowledge of psychology and aspirations of wanting to become a psychiatrist. Currently I am a senior in high school, but I formed my religious beliefs and ideologies at the ripe age of ten years old, and it is taboo to stem off from the Christian faith in America, especially in Arkansas, at such a young age. I also believe in Wicca, witchcraft, and the metaphysical properties of crystals/stones that the Earth produces naturally; though those beliefs will be specifically off limits and unrelated to my work/ideologies as a psychiatric professional. I believe my personal faith will allow me to not be clouded by the bias of religion when working with my future patients, and my personal beliefs allow me to care about my patients’ well-being on a more empathetic and humanistic level. My faith will assist my career because in giving assistance to others through psychiatry will help my patients on a daily basis, and in helping others I receive a sense of satisfaction and pride in both my work and as a human. Being spiritual allows me to view the world without the lens of religious construct, and unlike a large portion of my family, I understand that neurological disorders are not demons and cannot be treated with the power of religious belief. My personal faith has helped me in life by testing me with a chaotic upbringing, the universe recognized my hard work and determination towards having a good life, and the path towards my aspirations and future was revealed to me. I will now be a first-generation college student with a current grade point average slightly above 3.97, and I am expected to graduate within the top-ten student-ranking of my graduating class with at least fourteen college credits. Though I am not religious I have the personal faith that there may be some form of higher power and that if you are actively a good person, then the world will give you your flowers in return. Being from the south I know that people will dismiss the existence of mental health and neurological disorders, and sometimes even simply point the blame of the psychological abnormalities on Satan and/or bad karma. However, I can destigmatize those perceptions slowly within my community by working as a psychiatrist in the south and help my patients work through their religious traumas. As long as I have my intentions set on treating my future patients for the improvement of their psychological health, then I will live a comfortable and fruitful life in return for the good karma I will receive through my work.

I am a senior who currently possesses a grade point average of slightly above 3.97 and over 124 volunteer service hours completed through National Honors Society (NHS). My volunteer experience has influenced my core values and goals in a positive aspect allowing me to find fulfillment by being of service to others, especially individuals who are in need. All of my completed volunteer service has been for my high school community and the work has consisted of the following: knitting baby hats for premature babies at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, concession stand duty for multiple different sports, cleaning classrooms, and participating in theater set builds. I complete all of my volunteer service through the following school organizations and clubs for which I am a member: NHS, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), e-sports, drama club, Thespian Society, Educators Rising, and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist in my home state of Arkansas, and my life goals consist of building a family and providing a good life for my future children, a life that I was not fortunate enough to have throughout my childhood. My volunteer experience has influenced me to assume a leadership role and mentality; and this mindset was caused because of my status as president for my school’s FCCLA organization. The majority of my volunteer service involved customer service and culinary, and this experience later assisted me during my first job at a Baskin Robbins within a Big Red gas station before the company switched to Circle K. I have the core value that as a member of society we have to be a contributing citizen and be of service to others in some way, shape, or form. I also have the core value that I should use my personal story and experience in a way that is beneficial to others, and the means I have chosen is through my future career path of psychology/psychiatry. My volunteer service has influenced my core values by proving to myself that I have a knack for working for and pleasing others; and it has solidified my core value that as a member of society it is our responsibility to contribute back by being of service to others in some capacity. My volunteer experience has influenced my core values and goals in a positive aspect allowing me to find fulfillment by being of service to others, especially individuals who are in need. I want a son in the future and building my own family is my main life goal; as well as building healthy boundaries and communication with both my future partner and my future children. I also have aspirations of starting a mental health awareness club at my high school as my final major accomplishment to end my senior year on. Just like I used to knit hats for babies at Arkansas Children’s Hospital as volunteer work, I will eventually be knitting hats for my own future children.

I am a senior in high school who is expected to graduate with fourteen college credits, and I am from a low-income single-parent household that is financially supported solely by my mother. The person who has supported me the most in reaching my educational goals is my best friend TJ, and they have supported me by being the person I can turn to for help without feeling judgment. I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and spreading the access of mental health treatment/organizations through the Southern United States. I have known and have been friends with TJ for almost five years now, and I hold a deep respect for them for how smart, understanding, and emotionally intelligent they are; an example being that their current ACT score is a 32 opposed to my score of 24. The main educational aspect that TJ has supported me with is algebra and geometry, though I could handle myself for the most part; they were always there to explain problems I have in a way the teacher could not if I ever got stuck or needed assistance understanding a certain concept. TJ and I made our high school schedule, since grade nine, so that we took all of the important classes together; and we have even taken and are going to be taking some of the same college courses for our senior year. TJ has also emotionally supported me, and is so willing to help me academically, because they know about my past home situations and the legal cases I have against my father for assaulting and abusing me on multiple occasions throughout my childhood. My father no longer financially supported my family since his divorce with my mother in 2016, and has since disowned me for my identity within the LGBTQIA+ community. I have also reciprocated the support back to TJ through their trials and tribulations that they face in their everyday life, some even similar to mine. The person who has supported me the most in reaching my educational goals is my best friend TJ, and they have supported me by being the person I can turn to for help without feeling judgment. TJ has not only supported me academically, but they have also emotionally supported me during our time as friends. TJ is the closest friend that I have and we are planning on going to the same college, where we will continue supporting each other academically as we are pursuing similar majors that require many of the same courses. I will do whatever I can to support my best friend’s success, and I know TJ will do the same because we have very similar intentions on the overall outcomes of our future lives.

I am a male high school senior expected to graduate with fourteen college credits, and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. I have overcome adversity in my life in the aspects of my mental health, my legal cases against my father, and being a first-generation college student from a low-income household. I have also overcome adversity, specifically discrimination and oppression, upon discovering that I identified within the LGBTQIA+ community at the age of twelve years old. My father has mentally abused me since a young age, and since January of 2022 I have had two legal cases opened against him for domestic assault of a minor and other types of abuse, and I will continue to keep my family safe from him. My father has not financially supported our family since my parent’s divorce in 2016, and has since disowned me for pressing charges against him and for my sexual orientation. I had a disposition to developing mental disorders through the genetics received from both sides of my family and I now treat my diagnosed anxiety and depression with psychotropic medications, therapy, and psychiatric residency programs. The state eventually dropped the domestic assault charges I was pursuing on my father for whatever reason even though I was beaten like a grown man at sixteen years old, but instead settled on the order of protection that we already had placed on my father. I used to believe that mental health professionals were untrustworthy and psychotropic medications “zombify” you, this was caused by the stigmatizations surrounding mental health in my home state, but I now believe the complete opposite since beginning to treat my mental health. I will use my career to help heal and bring justice to others for their wrongs and trauma brought onto them by other people, especially loved ones, because it will take a negative toll on one’s mental, physical, and emotional health and overall wellbeing. I decided to prove everyone who had a bas conception of my character wrong by pursuing college courses while simultaneously working towards my General Education Diploma, and I will make a name for myself in this world through my hard work, passion, and accomplishments. I have overcome adversity in my life in the aspects of my mental health, my legal cases against my father, and being a first-generation college student from a low-income household. The odds were stacked against me and my future because I was born into a family of addicts and dropouts; however, I have proved everyone wrong because I am the first member of my immediate family to receive college credit and have as many accomplishments as I do at such a young age. I am currently tenth place in my graduating class student-ranking with a cumulative grade point average slightly above 3.97, and a 4.0 for college credit that I earned through concurrent-credit courses that I have taken and am going to take virtually through Arkansas Tech University (ATU). I currently have over 124 hours of volunteer service hours completed through the following clubs/organizations for which I am a member: Thespian Society, drama club, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), e-sports, National Honors Society (NHS), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA).

I currently maintain a cumulative grade point average of above 3.97 and a placement within the top-ten student-ranking of my graduating class, and I am expected to graduate high school with fourteen college credits. I am a low-income senior who will be a first-generation college student in the fall of 2024, the LGBTQIA+ community has impacted me because I have been out of the closet as a gay man since the age of twelve, and I chose to major in psychology because I have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to provide positive services back to society. I have currently reached over 124 volunteer service hours by volunteering for the school through the following organizations/clubs for which I am a member: National Honors Society (NHS), drama club, Thespian Society, e-sports, Educators Rising, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA; for which I am the president of the organization at my school). I was a delegate for the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by the American Legion hosted at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), the college that is currently my top choice because of their great psychology program. The LGBTQIA+ community has an impact on my daily life because the majority of the ones I hold dear also identify within the community and have experienced similar oppression/discrimination as a result. My identity within the community has caused me to become a minority, and the negative side effects of being open about my identity reshaped the way that I view the world and other people. Within finding my true identity I also found the importance of advocating for gay and trans folk because of the oppression and discrimination that is aimed at the queer community on a daily basis; and because the United States government is slowly attempting to strip away our basic human rights just for identifying within the LGBTQIA+ community. The LGBTQIA+ community opened up a space for me to feel safe, supported, and free; the space I was never given as a young child who felt alone in the world. Identifying within the LGBTQIA+ community inspires me to use my career in psychiatry to help queer individuals treat their mental health, or be medically classified as transgender to proceed with gender-affirming care, treatments, and surgeries. I am a low-income senior who will be a first-generation college student in the fall of 2024, the LGBTQIA+ community has impacted me because I have been out of the closet as a gay man since the age of twelve, and I chose to major in psychology because I have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to provide positive services back to society. I have always had a keen interest in psychology and the human brain since a very young age, and I have always had a passion for helping others and being the positive light that shines on the lives of those around me. I have also decided to major in psychology because of my own experiences battling mental health disorders and trauma, and because I have enlightened of the good that psychotropic medications can bring to one’s life. I want to leave a positive change in the world and help as many people as possible with their health so they can optimize their time left in this world.

My mother is diagnosed with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar disorder; and my father is speculated to have depression, anxiety, substance-use disorder, bipolar disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder. I am a low-income senior who will be graduating high school with fourteen college credits and I will be a first-generation college student in my family; and I came from a lineage of mental health abnormalities and disorders resulting in me inheriting my depression and anxiety disorders. I have been treating my mental illness since the age of eleven years old, and I am currently prescribed psychotropic medications (specifically antidepressants and anxiolytics). I have also been admitted into a psychiatric residency for a week after having an episode of following burnout over work and school combined in April of 2023. My experience with mental illness, both directly and indirectly, has influenced my career aspirations of wanting to become a psychiatrist. I also have aspirations of establishing a mental health awareness club at my high school as my final major accomplishment before graduating. Both of my grandmothers have mental illness struggles and I have been exposed to episodes from both of them, and their disorders were inherited by their kin as well, it is likely that I also inherited a lot of mental traits from them as well. Growing up with mental illness while living in the Southern United States, specifically my home state of Arkansas, has been particularly challenging because of the heavy stigmatization surrounding mental health and psychological treatments due to lack of education and religious bias. My battles with mental health and trauma have led me to stray from my Christian roots and discover myself from the unbiased lense of reality by identifying my faith as agnostic atheism as early as eleven years old. I am a low-income senior who will be graduating high school with fourteen college credits and I will be a first-generation college student in my family; and I came from a lineage of mental health abnormalities and disorders resulting in me inheriting my depression and anxiety disorders. Therapy and rehabilitation can go a long way for addicts, specifically those with substance abuse tendencies, and I have personally seen this by witnessing my mother beat her drug addiction by graduating from her faith-based rehabilitation program; as well as following up with treating her mental health disorders through psychiatry and psychotropic medications. On the contrary, my father inspires me to go into a mental health field because I have witnessed his untreated mental disorders and addiction deteriorate him physically, his character, and as a father. Since I have first-hand witness of the benefits of treating one’s mental health, as well as the consequences of ignoring one’s mental health, and it has further solidified my future career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to help those within my community.

I am a senior who has been openly gay since the age of twelve years old, and I will become a first-generation college student in my family during the fall 2024 school year; I have future career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. I feel as though I should be a recipient of a scholarship because of my merit, integrity and pride; and for having the qualifications necessary for this specific scholarship application. My proudest accomplishment so far has simply been being able to be successful and have hope for my future despite the cards that I was dealt in life, and being able to learn from my parent’s mistakes rather than indulging in them and becoming my parents instead. Being queer has allowed me to view life from a different lens, one without the same bias and hate as my parents once or still have, and realize that I have to stray away onwards toward my own unique path rather than repeating generational curses. An accomplishment that I wish to achieve by the end of the school year is establishing a mental health awareness club for my high school and all of its future attending, and currently enrolled, students. Being an underrepresented minority has posed challenges in my life, the main one being my father disowning me as his son for my queer identity, but I gain further inspiration to reach my goals because oppression would just be another feat that I have had to overcome to get where I am today. Other feats that I have overcome is being a survivor of physical and sexual abuse, pressing legal charges on my father for his assault against me, being from a low-income background, and becoming the first member of my family to obtain college credit. My proudest academic accomplishments include competition wins for Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), theater production (as the stage manager), and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) (as the president for my school); and currently maintain a 4.0 grade point average for my college credit and 124 total volunteer service hours completed for National Honors Society (NHS). My main personal goal is to ensure my sisters’ safety from our father, much like I first did when he attacked me after pushing my mother to the ground and attempting to kidnap my sisters from the safety of our own home, a home in which he has never resided. I feel as though I should be a recipient of a scholarship because of my merit, integrity and pride; and for having the qualifications necessary for this specific scholarship application. I wish to provide a safe space for LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals through my future career of psychiatry and this prevents possible bias that may be faced with heterosexual mental health professionals. I also want to provide a safe space for survivors of abuse through my profession, as well as specifically help my patients through their traumas so they can focus on building up their lives. I believe that I would be a good candidate for this scholarship because despite the actual weight of the world being against my shoulders, especially as a gay man, I have been able to set myself up for future success through allowing academics to be my outlet for working through my hardships.

I am a senior from a low-income background, who openly identifies as a gay man within the LGBTQIA+ community, and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to contribute back to society. My experience with mental health has shaped my goals, relationships, and understanding of the world in a positive light because I will be better at separating what is logical and what is emotional actions. I have a long family history of mental illness and I am diagnosed with, and prescribed psychotropic medications for (antidepressants and anxiolytics), depression and anxiety. I have been able to strengthen my relationships by being able to provide emotional and moral support to others through my knowledge of how the mind and emotion works, and how disorders can affect one’s reactions, thoughts, and beliefs. Growing up in the south, especially in my home state of Arkansas, I was made aware of the heavy stigmatizations that surround mental health, psychotropic medications, and therapeutic/psychiatric treatment mainly due to the bias of Christian and political ideologies/beliefs. This was one of the several major factors that took a play in my journey of self discovery when I branched off from the Christian faith at eleven years old, and have since identified my personal faith as agnostic atheism. Learning about psychology and mental health has allowed me to hold less resentment towards my father for his actions because I know his untreated psychological disorders and substance abuse played a major role in his psychological episodes, mindsets, and manipulation. As an oppressed minority for my sexual orientation, I wish to provide a safe space for LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals within my community through my future career path in psychiatry. I have also grown to learn that different cultures and religions have stigmas that surround mental health and mental illness, and some people, especially within Arkansas, believe that mental health does not even exist at all. My experience with mental health has shaped my goals, relationships, and understanding of the world in a positive light because I will be better at separating what is logical and what is emotional actions. After beginning to regulate my mental health I have come to understand that the world is populated with vastly different groups of people with different mental health struggles, and everyone just needs a loving hand sometimes. As well as my career goal of becoming a psychiatrist, I also have aspirations of establishing a mental health awareness club for my high school as my final major feat before graduating. Mental health plays a major role in my everyday life, hence the aspiration to major in psychology, and I personally want to help those in my community with their mental health struggles because I know the benefits of psychotropic medications and therapy/psychiatric services.

I am a senior with career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist, and I have both direct and indirect experiences with mental illness, as a result of my family’s disorder history and my own diagnosis of depression and anxiety. My experience with mental health has influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations in a positive manner because it has allowed me to be more empathetic and understanding of other people. My family on both sides have a long history of mental disorders and substance use, and both of my parents battle with psychological disorders (Father: narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety; Mother: anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder); and my thirteen year old sister is also diagnosed with depression and anxiety as well. I have had both positive and negative experiences with the mental health industry, both in therapeutic and psychiatric aspects, and I want to be a psychiatrist who embodies all of the positive attributes of the mental health industry. I have an extensive history of treating my mental health as early as the age eleven, and I have gone through a long cycle of therapists I did not connect with before being assigned my current one. I have also been admitted to a psychiatric facility for a week as a result of a mental break I had that was fueled by burnout from both work and school combined. I have had negative experiences with therapists due to them giving up on me, moving companies suddenly, and blowing things out of proportion by wrongfully sending my sister, who was twelve years old at the time, to the sister-company psychiatric residency for a week. Learning about mental health and psychological disorders allowed me to identify the flaws in my father’s action as I grew up, and the knowledge of psychology allowed me to accurately report him for his wrong-doings, misconduct, recklessness, crimes, and sick ideologies to the proper authorities; resulting in the pursuit of two separate cases being opened for his disgraceful abuse against me. The only negative experience I had while admitted at the psychiatric institution was that some of the staff were extremely rude to me even though I had followed all of the rules and kept to myself. My experience with mental health has influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations in a positive manner because it has allowed me to be more empathetic and understanding of other people. The most impactful positive experience I have had with the mental health industry was being assigned my current therapist, and that is because I am extremely comfortable with her and I can tell that she personally cares and worries about me. Another positive experience I have with the industry was being properly treated for my psychological disorders and trauma through prescribed psychotropic medications and therapy. Mental health has influenced my belief and perception on individuals with various unique or rare psychological disorders, and it took me from being an ignorant small child to a young man who accepts and cares for all walks of life and their wellbeing.

Some of the challenges and obstacles that I face, have faced, and overcame includes the oppression that I face for my sexual orientation and pressing physical and sexual abuse charges on my father to protect my sisters while I am away for college. I am a senior from a low-income background who is an underrepresented minority for my LGBTQIA+ identity, and I am expected to be a first-generation college student in my family with career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. I am expected to graduate high school with fourteen college credits and I plan on majoring in psychology at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), the same university that I resided for a week as a delegate of the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by the American Legion. Personal future aspirations that I have post-college is to build my own family and provide my future children with the life that I was never fortunate enough to have growing up. The main challenge that I face everyday is maintaining and improving my mental health, and I now take psychotropic medications for depression and anxiety as opposed to my early childhood. Earlier this year, in April of 2023, I was admitted into a psychiatric facility for a week following an I episode I had due to burnout from both school and work combined, but I had my medications altered and have been extremely better since. I am also a survivor of gun violence, I had a gun pointed to my head by a drug addict at a trap house that my father recklessly took me to; this has been addressed in a court hearing already. The biggest obstacle that I have had to face when it comes legally is the state dropping the physical assault charges that I was attempting to press on my father, for whatever reason I am not sure. The envisioned process that I will take to reach my career goal of becoming a psychiatrist is to receive a Bachelor’s Degree of Psychology, followed by becoming a licensed physician through medical school, and lastly followed by working/learning at a psychiatric residency program for about four years in total. I am a senior from a low-income background who is an underrepresented minority for my LGBTQIA+ identity, and I am expected to be a first-generation college student in my family with career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. I am also on the fence about minoring in education because I will be graduating high school with three total education college credits, and this is because I do enjoy teaching and may pursue a career as a psychology professor once I am older and cannot keep up with my psychiatry career, if that were to even happen. I also have aspirations of establishing a mental health awareness club at my high school as my final major accomplishment before I graduate in May of 2024. The future that I envision for myself is having a successful psychiatry career, finding a loving and trusting partner that I can hopefully start a family with, and leaving a positive impact within the future community that I solidify myself in.

I have always had a inherent interest of how the brain operates and mental disorders since a young age, and since being diagnosed with my mental health disorders I have been enlightened of the good that psychotropic medications and therapy can bring to one’s life, especially those also battling their mental health disorders and trying to better their lives. I am pursuing a degree in the mental health field because I have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to attempt to make a difference in other’s lives because I personally know what it is truly like to endure the combined stress of maintaining mental wellness, mental disorders, and trauma all on a daily basis. I hold aspirations beyond my future career goals, I am also wanting to help improve the mental health institutions and programs throughout my home state of Arkansas, as well as the Southern United States as a whole. As for my final year in high school, since I will maintain more free time by having an all-virtual concurrent-credit course line-up, I am wanting to attempt the establishment of a mental health awareness club for my high school before I graduate. My personal journey with dealing with my trauma and mental health stressors began at an extremely young age and has served as a daily challenge I face in my everyday life. My interest in psychology sparked at a very young age for me because I have always been hyper-aware of the world around me, and I began learning about mental health disorders and how psychotropic medications can alter the brain in a beneficial method. My career aspirations were further solidified whenever I was a delegate for the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program that was hosted at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), and this was through being the sole reason the group was able to open up to each other emotionally during a sentimental late night discussion. I broke the ice with my personal story and was the only one to receive a standing ovation for my speech that night, and everyone followed suit the next night and broke down crying in front of each other; and I cried for about forty-five minutes straight because of the emotional vulnerability that I had witnessed that night. I wish to battle the stigmas that surround acknowledging and treating one’s mental health throughout my home state of Arkansas, a state where many residents will flat out tell you that mental health does not exist. I also want to be an inspiration for my younger sisters by being a real life example that even though I am the first family member going to college, that we can succeed in life through hard work, dedication, and great patience. I hope to be an inspiring light of guidance for others on their own personal journeys throughout life, a light that I wish was shone on me when the telltale signs of mental health abnormalities first appeared in my behavioral and cognitive patterns. Another factor that encouraged me to become a psychiatrist because of the negative experiences that I have had with previous therapists, and I want to be a good role model for mental wellness and the mental health field in general. My current therapist has been very helpful for me and she agrees that I am going in the right direction in life by striving to achieve my future career goal of becoming a licensed psychiatrist within my home state of Arkansas.

I am a senior at Bauxite High School located in central Arkansas, I was born in this state and have yet to leave once, and I currently maintain a grade point average slightly above 3.97 as well as aspirations to major in psychology to become a psychiatrist. My personal experience with mental health has influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations positively, allowing myself to become more knowledgeable on psychology and disorders through my own experiences (direct and indirect), psychological treatments, and psychology-based education. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my career choice of psychiatry by advocating for the destigmatization of mental health, psychological disorders, and medicinal psychotropics. I also have future aspirations of advocating for the improvement of existing mental health facilities and treatments, as well as spread the access of these treatments, throughout my home state of Arkansas; a state where mental health is usually undermined and dismissed by a large quantity of the population that unfortunately happens to be sheltered and ignorant of the benefits of this type of care. I have a long family history of mental illness, trauma, and substance abuse, so it came as no surprise when I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and my treatment and history of mental health has led me to pursue a career in the mental health field. I feel as though my rocky past combined with my mental health struggles had formed my belief of abandoning faith to pursue a care-free life as an agnostic atheist. Once I had decided that I wanted to be a mental health professional it allowed me to be more open and trusting towards therapists, a group of professionals that I used to have a deep-rooted mistrust for. I have since been able to build a strong relationship with my current therapist and she encourages me to shoot for both my career and life aspirations with pride. I currently have completed over 124 hours of volunteer service within my school community, I am also willing to volunteer my time during college, and as a psychiatrist as well by assisting my community. At the end of the day I just want to spend my time here on Earth improving myself and help others in order for my community to grow and come a step closer to harmony. My personal experience with mental health has influenced my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations positively, allowing myself to become more knowledgeable on psychology and disorders through my own experiences (direct and indirect), psychological treatments, and psychology-based education. Despite the financial struggles that I face coming from a low-income household that is no longer financially supported by my father, I raised the money to take concurrent-credit college courses virtually through Arkansas Tech University (ATU); as a result I am expected to graduate high school with at least fourteen college credits in total. I was a delegate for the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by American Legion, hosted at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) located in Conway. I also have aspirations of starting a mental health awareness club at my school as my final accomplishment for my final year of grade school.

Disney has always held a close bond with my inner child, serving as a reliable means of entertainment that serve both nostalgic and memorable purposes; and influencing me into watching an animation for comfort much like I did as a small child. My favorite thing about Disney is the way the writers are able to turn old tales into nostalgic films by incorporating memorable female leads through the stories of princesses and warriors. My personal favorite Disney princess movies are “Brave” and “The Princess & the Frog” because the storytelling was immersive and captivating, and the princesses presented in the films worked hard and could solely take the credit for all they had accomplished. I also believe that these two specific princesses are not given the media and appreciation as the rest of the majority of the princesses receive, and because these princesses were introduced later down the Disney princess pipeline their stories and the creators behind it are not given their proper respect or praise. I like how Disney is able to portray strong female role models through their princess characters, and allowed my young mind to see what great qualities women can possess despite my father’s misogynistic and sexist teaching and ideologies that he implemented onto me during my early childhood. The Disney princesses are also diverse and allow different cultures, heritages, and beliefs to be represented to wider audiences of people who may not be familiar with these foreign characteristics and practices. The main lesson that I learned from “The Princess & the Frog” is that through hard work, patience, and determination that you can achieve your life goals, and Tiana did exactly this by doing everything possible to open her own restaurant by the end of the film. The main lesson that I learned from “Brave” is to appreciate your family with their time here on Earth; and this was portrayed through Merida cursing her family resulting in her barely being able to save her mother and brothers from permanently transforming into bears without humanity at the end of the movie. I am grateful that the legacy will continue, Disney princesses raised both of my parents and myself, and they will continue to raise my future kin as well. My favorite thing about Disney is the way the writers are able to turn old tales into nostalgic films by incorporating memorable female leads through the stories of princesses and warriors. I am currently a low-income senior who will be a first-generation college student graduating high school with at least fourteen college credits, and Disney’s work has played a prominent role in my life even before becoming a fully conscious child. Disney was one of the many animation/film franchises that helped raise me and teach me important life values, and through their character development and storytelling I have been able to embrace the lessons I learned to become a leader. I have exemplified my leadership by being the stage manager for my school’s theater, my school’s Future, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) student-led organization president, and by being a delegate for the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by American Legion.

I am going to be a first-generation college student pursuing a doctoral degree who comes from a low-income household that is not financially assisted by my father, and I am expected to graduate high school with at least fourteen college credits. I am high school senior in need of financial assistance to support my career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist, and I am an underrepresented minority for I identify within the LGBTQIA+ community as a gay man; however, despite the adversities I face I still exemplify drive to achieve my goals in life and be successful on a daily basis. The major obstacles that I have overcome consist of the following: oppression and discrimination for my sexual orientation, being a survivor of domestic and psychological abuse, being held at gunpoint at a trap house that my father recklessly brought me to, and striving to improve my mental health and healthily cope with my psychological disorders, flaws, and traumas. I exemplify determination, respect, innovation, versatility, equality, and nurturement on a daily basis because these are the key qualities that need to be embraced in order to become successful. My father no longer financially supports me, nor considers me his son anymore, because of my sexual orientation and for reporting his sick crimes to legal authorities for my family’s safety. I have exemplified determination by striving to go to college and build an excellent resume despite the world being against me by being born into a family that is both low-income and hold no education above a General Education Degree; and both of my parents being in active addiction during the most crucial time periods of my mental and academic growth. I have showcased equality and respect to others throughout my life and this is also the most effective method of treating others who have distaste or negative perception of you. I have overcome academic obstacles for I exemplify versatility through winning district and state competitions for Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), theater competitions for which I was the stage manager for, and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA); and I am the president of my school’s student-led FCCLA organization. I have overcome the obstacles of my assault by fending off my father from harming my mother and attempting to kidnap my sisters, and this action demonstrated the nurturement and care I showcase towards my loved ones. Lastly, I have demonstrated innovation by creating a kickball event for my FCCLA Star Event; my team placed bronze in district competition and silver in state competition respectfully. I am high school senior in need of financial assistance to support my career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist, and I am an underrepresented minority for I identify within the LGBTQIA+ community as a gay man; however, despite the adversities I face I still exemplify drive to achieve my goals in life and be successful on a daily basis. I also wish to showcase DRIVE through my career and always strive to better my practice, methods, and education. I will also continue to demonstrate drive as more obstacles are destined to be faced during my college life, and even throughout my career as a mental health professional. I will continue to face the challenges that arise from being an underrepresented minority by advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights and equality, as well as provide a safe space within the mental health field for queer individuals within my future communities.

My parent’s substance habits during my early childhood introduced custody issues, and I have been under the household of a separate guardian (grandmother) alone for a couple of years as well. Since 2016 my mother has been a single mom following my parent’s divorce, and she arrived home from her faith-based rehabilitation program during my freshman high school year. My father is a sorry excuse of a dad, and has not even provided a cent in financial support for our immediate family following the separation. My father has been imprisoned for physically assaulting me back in January of 2022, and this was caused by me jumping to my mother’s defense after he shoved her into the ground in our own home, one in which he has never resided. I have always taken towards a feminine hand for guidance, nurture, and character developments; as for I never had any strong male role model in my life. Being raised by a single mother has allowed me to be more in-tune with my emotions as a man, and has taught me the importance of articulation and rationality over rambunctiousness and reactivity. Witnessing my mother survive domestic abuse and assault during early childhood, and being a survivor of assault as well, has gifted me with the ability of controlling my hostility and anger much better than other male peers and acquaintances I met throughout my life. My mother also supports my indifferences and unique characteristic of expression; such as supporting me as someone who identifies within the LGBTQIA+ community, unlike my father who has claimed to disown me and belittle me for my queer identity. Since 2016 my mother has been a single mom following my parent’s divorce, and she arrived home from her faith-based rehabilitation program during my freshman high school year. My mother has also now gifted me the freedom of treating my mental disorders and trauma since returning home from rehab. Now that I am dedicated to becoming the best version of myself, take psychotropic medications, and participate in therapeutic and/or psychiatric treatments and/or programs. My personal experiences and journey with my mental health and psychological treatments have shaped my career aspirations of wanting to become a psychiatrist and spread the access to mental health treatments to low-income families, and especially children, throughout the Southern United States. My aspirations and life goals would not be shaped how they are today without my mother’s influence on my life as a single mother raising three children independently.

I am a senior expected to graduate within the top-ten student ranking of my graduating class, as well as with at least fourteen college credits and an honor cord for completing the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program, and with a cumulative grade average slightly above a 3.97; I am also a first-generation college student with aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. I have the following qualifications for a disability: clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and an unspecified seizure abnormality; and I have overcome the obstacles that I have faced because of my disabilities by delving into academics and wanting to better my life as a doctoral degree earning psychology major. Currently the only fields that I am exploring are psychology and education because I have a keen interest and personal experience with psychology as well as a natural gift for guiding, teaching, and leading others. The unspecified seizure abnormality has only had rare occurrences (a total of twice), but the unfortunate timing for a seizure during a time of emotional turmoil could have made the effects of my mental disorders worsen or add to my already existing daily stress. After pursuing higher education I have aspirations of improving the current mental health institutions, as well as spread the access of their respected treatments, within my home state of Arkansas and the rest of the Southern United States. This is my main goal after solidifying a dream career because of the stigmatizations surrounding mental health and psychological treatments within the south, and specifically central Arkansas where I have lived for the entirety of my life. I plan to further my education by going to a four-year college for a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, proceeded by attending medical school to become a licensed physician, and finally followed by working for/learning at a four psychiatric residency program to become a licensed psychiatrist. The college that I am currently leaning towards is the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) in Conway; and the college courses that I have completed/am taking in high school are provided virtually through Arkansas Tech University (ATU) in Russellville. However, I do tease the idea of becoming an educator (including graduating high school with three college education credits) and possibly teaching psychology as a professor/teacher in my later future, but the topic is less enjoyable than psychology for me personally. I have the following qualifications for a disability: clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and an unspecified seizure abnormality; and I have overcome the obstacles that I have faced because of my disabilities by delving into academics and wanting to better my life as a doctoral degree earning psychology major. I have faced social issues at school and with friends because of my friends because of my disabilities, and I have had negative comments about my disorders directed towards me by loved ones, and it has further inspired me to pursue learning about the human mind and treating mental illness/trauma for others. I hope to accomplish establishing a life for myself that I was not fortunate enough to have growing up, and provide my future children with the financial stability I was never fortunate enough to receive. I wish to make a life-long impact on others and make a positive impact on all of the lives that I will provide a guidance/supportive role for through psychiatry/education; the enlightenment of others is my main aspiration post-college goals.

I am a senior in high school who will be a first-generation college student pursuing a career in social work with career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist, and advocate for the destigmatization of mental health services. I am planning to use my doctoral degree in psychiatry to help those in my community who are in need by providing mental health services in those dealing with psychological disorders and trauma in hope that they can live their best possible life with their time spent on Earth. I know the personal struggle of not being from a financially stable home, it is difficult to treat you mental health alongside barely making it day by day, and I want to be able to spread the access of mental health services to help these less fortunate populations before they have a psychotic break, turn to substances, or commit crime. An example of an individual within the previous scenario would be my father, Marc Anthony Curtis, a man who left his mental health untreated all of his life and eventually turned towards a dark path of substance abuse and evil crime. I have future aspirations of helping improve the existing mental health facilities and organizations within my home state of Arkansas, and battle the stigmas that surround the mental health industry in the Southern United States. I wish to expand services to minority groups of people and concerning the different underrepresented populations: children, are a BI-POC, queer or transgender identifying, the disabled, veterans, and everyone else in between. I also wish to be a loyal and supportive friend for the people that I meet along the way during my college journey, and prove myself as an emotional support to them during this transitional period of our lives. I plan on doing volunteer, assistance, and local work for my college for I want a strong presence in the community and that is because I will likely not venture far from campus for work. I have aspirations of setting up fundraisers for local mental health charities, facilities, and organizations; and hopefully spread the positive message of the benefits of treating one’s mental health presentations and presence within local businesses and schools. I am planning to use my doctoral degree in psychiatry to help those in my community who are in need by providing mental health services in those dealing with psychological disorders and trauma in hope that they can live their best possible life with their time spent on Earth. I have already broadcast my past to the public eye while at Arkansas Boys State 2023, I was able to get my assigned county to emotionally open up and connect with each other throughout personal stories. I also wish to try and rehabilitate some of the homeless populations in local communities because a large percent of the overall homeless population are homeless because of extreme life-affecting psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder. At the end of the day I want to help others who have gone through similar experiences as my own for I will be able to take a more empathetic approach alongside my psychiatric education.

I am a low-income senior from Bauxite High School who currently maintains a cumulative grade point average slightly above 3.97, and I will be graduating with at least fourteen college credits earned virtually through Arkansas Tech University. I hold career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and helping spread access to mental health services throughout the Southern United States through advocating/campaigning. I think my greatest achievement to date is completing the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, and that experience taught me that I must not quit just because something is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me, and the number one thing I hope to achieve in the future is becoming a psychiatrist. My experience at Boys State also taught me a lot about manhood, and I learned that the manliest thing a man can do is cry and show vulnerability in his emotions to himself, both sexes equally, and his loved ones. Completing the American Legion program is my greatest achievement to date because it was difficult for me to reside there for a week straight surrounded by strangers, and my anxiety bested me several times leading to me crying and wanting to leave in the beginning; however, I was able to toughen it out and it now shares a special connection with me academically, socially, and spiritually. I look down on the concept of quitting because you will miss the lessons and memories that will come with the full experience of determined pursuit. The experience further solidified my career aspirations of wanting to become a psychiatrist whenever I opened up about who I was and my difficult past during a late-night group discussion, and I was the only person to go into full detail that Wednesday night. However, my action inspired everyone to emotionally open up to the group during the proceeding night’s discussion. I think my greatest achievement to date is completing the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, and that experience taught me that I must not quit just because something is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me, and the number one thing I hope to achieve in the future is becoming a psychiatrist. I have been low-income for my entire life and my father no longer financially supports our immediate family following my parent’s divorce, and my father declared that he disowned me as his son for pressing legal charges against him for physically assaulting me and my mother. I will be one of the overall two graduates of the Bauxite High School 2024 graduating class, and I will be one of the overall two graduates that will be walking to receive my diploma with an honor cord for completing the Arkansas Boys State 2023 program sponsored by American Legion.

I hold a high respect and love for math for it is the first subject to best me academically, and resulting in the only class that I have ever dropped was concurrent-credit college algebra offered through Arkansas Tech University virtually. Math is important because it engages the brain into a critical thinking mindset and challenges the brain in a way that cannot be done without math; and I love learning math because I struggle with math subjects but feel the most rewarded when I understand the course content compared to other courses I have passed. Math is important because it plays roles in modern innovation and a vital topic of knowledge that must be learned to work a large quantity of college-based careers. I usually never struggled with math topics as a child, but the one subject that later poised as a vital challenge for me was algebra because at my high school the order of math classes you are required to take the following in this order: algebra I, geometry, then algebra II. I completed both algebra I and honors algebra II with high grades of above 95% and that was with a one year break of not practicing any algebra between my two required algebra courses in order to graduate. I first grew a love for math in the third grade when learning my multiplication times-tables, and by the end of the fourth grade I was one of the best students in the class at short multiplication and division. I have since grown a love and understanding of geometry, trigonometry, statistics, and arithmetic; and I am taking AP Statistics as my final math course in high school. I love learning math because it is one of the only subjects to emotionally affect me as I was completing the coursework; it truly challenged me because I could not always grasp the concept of the topics being presented to me. Failure is the best pathway to success, and as long as I stick to trying my best in my future math classes it will be emotionally fulfilling to receive the diplomas for my hard work. Math is important because it engages the brain into a critical thinking mindset and challenges the brain in a way that cannot be done without math; and I love learning math because I struggle with math subjects but feel the most rewarded when I understand the course content compared to other courses I have passed. Math is an important subject because it is used in every career field in some way, shape, or form. We need knowledge of math to properly handle money, dieting, time management, and multiple other things we use it for in our everyday lives. I also believe that the main factor that makes math fun is the multiple different variations that are possible and how they all can be correct. Math is its own language, a universal one at that and everyone should insist on translating the problems/circumstances presented to them because it strengthens one’s mental fitness.

Every math class that I have ever taken, besides algebra classes, I have excelled in all while maintaining placement within the top-ten student ranking of my graduating class; including the multiple schools that I had attended during my pre-teen years. I love math because it is the only academic subject to ever best me, the specific instance being when I had to drop college algebra during my junior year of high school, and it truly challenges me, unlike most other subjects I have a natural gift for. My favorite aspects of math include geometry, geometry, and arithmetic because they have always come to my understanding rather quickly, and have always excelled in these areas of math. I especially love math because it intertwines with everyday life actions: spending, time management, your car’s speed when driving, and the list goes on. Without math and my understanding of the subject, I would not be able to properly manage my income and savings, and I would not have had the capability to pay for all of my past and current college classes. My love for math especially grew in the third grade whenever being taught about the multiplication times-tables and I was the quickest and most accurate student in my class because the majority of practice was presented to the class as a competition. I love math because it is the only academic subject to ever best me, the specific instance being when I had to drop college algebra during my junior year of high school, and it truly challenges me, unlike most other subjects I have a natural gift for. The only classes I am slightly fearing of in college are my future math courses because I am not comfortable with extreme difficulties in math and fear the stress of college life, finances, and other classes will pull me down. However, it also allows me an opportunity to prove to myself that no matter what challenging experiences/obstacles I will endure, I will always rise to the occasion and succeed like I have been doing since head start. I love math because I know that I can conquer my struggles within the subject as I have done with every other struggle I have faced in my life, and both my high Accuplacer score and moderate ACT score on the math portions prove that I am fully capable.

I just recently discovered that one of my uncles passed away a few years ago, but I had never met him, and I lost one of my aunts to a cancerous brain tumor in 2021. I have lost both an aunt and uncle on my father’s side of the family to cancer, and my personal experiences with cancer have affected my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations by shaping my mentality to cherish time in the future. Currently, I am a low-income senior within the top ten ranking of my graduating class with a cumulative grade point average slightly above 3.97, and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and putting forth meaningful assistance for others in need of help. Health issues and career developments are prevalent on my father’s side of the family, leaving me susceptible to possibly developing cancer in the later future as my body begins withering away. I hope to provide mental health services to those who have also been affected by cancer or those who are battling cancer during psychiatric treatment. I especially want to work with children with grieving counseling for those who have lost loved ones to cancer because I witnessed how my aunt’s death both emotionally and mentally impacted both of my younger sisters. There was about a four-year period that I did not see my aunt, and whenever I re-entered her life for the final time she had already entered the final stages of her cancer, and it was not until that moment of seeing her again that I realized that I am at an age that my loved ones about to start passing and I must appreciate their presence and moments in my life. Dala Reeves was my aunt who passed away due to brain cancer and tumor development and Doug Curtis was my uncle who died of some type of intestinal cancer. I have lost both an aunt and uncle on my father’s side of the family to cancer, and my personal experiences with cancer have affected my beliefs, relationships, and career aspirations by shaping my mentality to cherish time in the future. My losses due to cancer have further solidified my belief of death is around the corner at all times, and the same fate will eventually be met despite whether you were a good or bad person. My experience with cancer has also made me believe that those who have lost loved ones due to cancer should emotionally support each other because of the unbiased personal understanding of each other. Watching a loved one battle with cancer, and in some instances succumb to their illness, is a traumatic experience and can have detrimental effects on one’s mental health; therefore, further inspiring me to become a psychiatrist and assist others who have dealt with or are dealing with these difficult circumstances.

I was raised solely by my grandmother between 2018 and 2020 because both of my parents were in active addictions at the time and my mother did not return home from her faith-based rehabilitation institution in October of 2020. I am a high school senior from a low-income household and I am an underrepresented minority by identifying within the LGBTQIA+ community, and being raised by a grandparent for about three years affected my upbringing by providing me distance from me and my parent’s addictions and struggles. Being separated from my parents and siblings for several consecutive years after all of us were living under one roof, and took a mental toll on my psyche and health. This dive into emotional turmoil during my early teen years has further solidified my career aspirations of receiving a doctorate in psychology to help others with their mental health and trauma. I will be graduating high school with fourteen to fifteen college credits through Arkansas Tech University, and I currently place within the top ten students of my graduating class with a cumulative grade point average slightly above 3.97. I am involved in the following organizations and clubs: National Honors Society (NHS), Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Thespian Society, drama club, E-sports (Mario Kart 8), Educators Rising, and Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I was an Arkansas Boys State 2023 delegate and I currently possess over 124 completed hours of volunteer service work. Being raised by a grandparent allowed me to reset into a mindset of no strict parental guidance, allowing me the freedom to truly find myself and form my own opinions outside of my parent’s bubble of bias. My experience of my mother exiting my life and then re-entering to retake guardianship was when she became my inspiration because if she was able to beat addiction and graduate from rehab then I am fully capable of achieving my dreams and career goals. I am a high school senior from a low-income household and I am an underrepresented minority by identifying within the LGBTQIA+ community, and being raised by a grandparent for about three years affected my upbringing by providing me distance from me and my parent’s addictions and struggles. Being an underrepresented minority has inspired me to further strive to achieve my career aspirations of wanting to receive a doctorate in psychology and succeed as a first-generation college student in my family. The love of a grandparent truly goes undermined whenever one is not allowed personal time to learn about them and get to know them alone. I am grateful there was a period in my life when I was being raised by a grandparent because my grandmother did not have to go out of her way to take me under her wing the way she did for me.

I am currently a high school senior maintaining a cumulative grade point average of above 3.97; I am from a low-income household, which my father no longer provides for, and I am expected to be a first-generation college student in my family. A time in which I overcame adversity was when I decided to press charges on my father for physically assaulting me, and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to give back to others in my community/society. My father attacked me and my mother inside of our home, and attempted to kidnap my younger sisters, in early 2022; and he is a repeat offender but this was his first time assaulting a minor. The experience of the physical altercation and the pursuit of legal charges against my father taught me that just because someone shares your blood does not mean they necessarily relate. I want to help others with their mental health struggles, diagnoses, and trauma and being a survivor of assault inspires me to continue pursuing a doctoral degree in psychology. Another important lesson I learned when overcoming adversity in this instance is that I can only rely on myself and loved ones for protection, since the state and county courts eventually dropped the charges I was pursuing on my father. The adversity I overcame has shaped me into an individual who is more caring of the law, civil liberties, and democracy; and this was further established through being an Arkansas Boys State 2023 delegate. I learned that my father did not truly accept me for my queer identity after calling me derogatory slurs proceeding the assault, and he declared that he had disowned me as a son. My main dream for the future is to have my own son and provide him with the life I was not fortunate enough to be blessed with, and break the generational curse of toxic fatherhood and addiction in my bloodline from both sides of my family. A time in which I overcame adversity was when I decided to press charges on my father for physically assaulting me, and I have career aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist to give back to others in my community/society. Becoming a psychiatrist will allow me to contribute back to society by assisting those in my community with their mental health, therapies, psychotropic medications, mental health/cognitive disorders, trauma, etc. Another dream I have for the future is that I will be able to continue protecting my family from my father. I take my assault as a learning opportunity and it re-solidified the suspicious beliefs I was thinking my father possessed. Everything regarding legal matters in this essay has already been addressed and handled through the court of law.

I am a high school senior who will have to go to medical school for my desired degree, and I am expected to graduate high school with at least fourteen college credits. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my career choice and aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist by giving back to society through providing mental health services for my community. I also have aspirations of starting a mental health awareness club at my school for my last year in grade school. My future aspirations beyond my dream career choice consists of improving the existing mental health facilities and programs throughout my home state of Arkansas, as well as spread the access to those mental health health services throughout the Southern United States; a large portion of the country that holds strong stigmas surrounding mental health, disorders, and treatments. I wish to give back to the society and communities that assisted me to get where I am today, and I will do this through my avocation and social work as a psychiatrist who came from almost nothing to having a doctoral degree. I also believe it is my duty as a queer man to spread the access of mental health services to LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals because everyone deserves the same medicinal treatment in America regardless of the attributes and labels surrounding one’s character. I wish to also provide a safe space for domestic and child abuse victims, like myself, and help them take the medicinal, therapeutic, or legal action necessary for my patients yo feel comfortable and free. Just like I have needed assistance along my mental health journey, I wish to reciprocate the support by assisting others in my community who may be experimenting troubling or similar times in their life correspondent to my life growing up. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my career choice and aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist by giving back to society through providing mental health services for my community. I currently have completed over 124 hours of volunteer service for my community and I plan to also volunteer my time during college and as my time as a psychiatrist. Besides my career aspirations, I aspire to be a hope in my family and lead as an example that despite what challenges we face we are able to succeed in the end. I aspire to be the good role model for my sisters that they have always needed, and by being a first-generation college student aiming for a doctoral degree, I can show them that just because something has not been done in the family before does not mean that it is impossible. I would not be where I am today without the support of mental health services, and wish to exemplify the importance of psychological treatments to my patients so they may live as the best versions of themselves.

I personally do not watch a lot of movies, especially films produced before the 2000s, but only one movie has ever had a strong enough emotional impact to bring me to tears. The movie that has had the greatest impact on my life is “The Color Purple” produced by Steven Spielberg, and it was impactful on my life because it was my first extensive exposure to black history and culture. I first watched the film when I was around seven or eight years old and my mother introduced me to the movie and was also watching the film with me as well. The movie was also my first introduction to Whoopi Goldberg, and she has since become one of my favorite actors and celebrities, and now that I am older I can further interpret and appreciate her great work that I was not attentive to as a wee child. This was the first movie that has ever made me cry, and I shared a sentimental moment with my mother when we cried together during one of the final scenes of the film, and it is a precious memory that I will cherish with me for the rest of my life. The movie also taught me about women’s lack of rights in the past, especially black women, and the struggles women were forced to face to escape cycles of abuse and gain independence. I recall that for four consecutive years (third grade through sixth grade) I would always write “The Color Purple” under the ‘What is your favorite movie/tv show?’ question on the “All About Me” icebreaker worksheets that were passed out on the first or second day of each school year. I could personally relate to the main character of the movie, Celie, in the aspects of being from a low-income background, being separated from her siblings, and having her father abandon and abuse her without a second thought (this has been dealt with by DHS). The movie that has had the greatest impact on my life is “The Color Purple” produced by Steven Spielberg, and it was impactful on my life because it was my first extensive exposure to black history and culture. The emotionally significant moment I had with my mother while watching the film for the first time is the main reason “The Color Purple'' holds such an emotional and personal significance to me. This is because I had lost my mother for a while, not long after watching the film with her she delved deeper into her addiction and later separated herself from my life temporarily; however, she has since re-entered my life upon graduating from her Christian-based rehabilitation program for her drug addiction. The movie serves as a great source of nostalgia and comfort and I always seem to turn to it when I am going through a rough patch in my life. This movie also served as a great educational experience and source of entertainment that expanded my young mind’s perception of different cultures and allowed me to appreciate what they had to offer and what minorities had to endure to even get some sense of true independence and equality throughout United States history.

My father is the reason for putting me in harm's way by taking me to a trap house during my freshman year of high school (this event has already been reported and dealt with by the Department of Human Services). I have been held at gunpoint by drug addicts that I did not know when I was only fourteen years old; but through my career choice of psychiatry, I can bring awareness to gun violence to my clients and community through my own experiences with gun violence, both directly and indirectly. Despite my negative experiences with gun violence, I have excelled to the top ten students ranking of my graduating class with a cumulative grade point average of 3.97. I currently hold over 124 certified volunteer service hours in my list of accomplishments that I have made academically. I am a member of the following extracurricular school organizations and clubs: National Honors Society (NHS), Thespian Society, Drama Club, E-sports, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Educators Rising, Family Career & Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). I am the president of my high school’s student-led FCCLA organization. I was an Arkansas Boys State 2023 Delegate where I was also able to open up with and share experiences with other young men my age that have survived experiences with gun violence. I have won district competitions for drama club, FBLA (one for Human Resource Management and another for Networking Infrastructures), and FCCLA (bronze for Star Event Event Management: Level III); and I have placed silver for the same Star Event in the following state competition. I have been in a lead membership role of my school’s FCCLA organization since it was first established during my freshman year of 2020, and I have only since watched the organization gain yearly members and gather funds from a starting balance of zero dollars. Through my school organizations and clubs, I have been able to gather over 124 certified volunteer service hours, and I plan to continue community volunteer service post-high-school as well. I can use my personal experience of being on the wrong side of the barrel to raise awareness about gun violence through my community and organization involvement influences; and help victims and survivors of gun violence through my chosen career path of psychiatry. I have been held at gunpoint by drug addicts that I did not know when I was only fourteen years old; but through my career choice of psychiatry, I can bring awareness to gun violence to my clients and community through my own experiences with gun violence, both directly and indirectly. I also want to be a reminder that your loved ones can and are capable of putting you in harm's way, and that you need to know what to do if you ever happen to be on the receiving end of the barrel without anyone around to help you. Skills should be taught to children in schools for when/if you are put in these life-threatening situations, beyond school shooting drills and practice, and teach real-life skills for when you have only yourself to protect yourself and your choices depend on whether you wake up the next day or not. The world is not a safe place and people and traumatized and killed daily due to gun violence, and my father is at high risk of being another statistic because of his way of life, but this inspires me to make a difference and expand awareness of gun violence, as well as expand mental health services for people that have been affected by gun violence.

I am currently a senior at Bauxite High School with higher than a cumulative 3.97 grade point average, and I come from a low-income background but luckily I will be a first-generation college student in my family. Being a first-generation college student influences my career goals by making me shoot for the highest degree possible to show the rest of my family that our goals and dreams can be achieved as long as we apply the work and effort required. Being a first-generation college student from a low-income background inspires me to aim for the highest of degrees, and I aspire to become a psychiatrist. I plan to advocate for the expansion/improvement of mental health treatments and facilities throughout my home state of Arkansas; and the rest of the Southern United States where mental health and treatments are negatively stigmatized. I also plan to advocate for the establishment of a mental health awareness club in my final year in high school and leave my mark on the institution that helped shape me and my career aspirations. Being a first-generation college student has influenced me to pursue a career that allows me to support and give back to the community, families, and individuals who helped shape who I am; and that is because I am grateful for the assistance that I have received to get where I am today. Being a first-generation college student influences my career goals by making me shoot for the highest degree possible to show the rest of my family that our goals and dreams can be achieved as long as we apply the work and effort required. Despite wanting to become a psychiatrist and pursue a degree in the mental health field, the main influence that has driven me to succeed and prevail is my family. I will be the beacon of light for my younger sisters and show that we can still succeed in life and pursue college degrees in life despite no one around us growing up being able to do the same. I want to broadcast my love for people and use my experiences to help heal others, and being a first-generation college student has only influenced me to strive harder toward achieving my life goals and dreams.

I want to be an advocate for the expansion of mental health treatment accessibility to low-income individuals and families in my home state of Arkansas, and the rest of the Southern United States, and this is because of the stigmatizations that surround mental health disorders and treatments in the deep south. I have decided to pursue a degree in the psychology field because of my passion for helping others and my battles with mental health disorders and mental health experiences; therefore, I plan to become a psychiatrist and help assist others in their journey to becoming the best version of themselves through mental health treatments, medications, and therapy/psychiatric treatments. I also have plans of attempting to start a mental health awareness club at my school for my final year before graduating, I have depression and anxiety disorders, and I have to take antidepressant and anxiolytic medications as a result of my diagnoses, and I have been in and out of therapy programs since the age of twelve. I have also been sent to a psychiatric residency ward in the past and I want to help improve the institutions based on my personal experiences with similar institutions and programs. All of my psychological treatments and history have inspired me to want to become a psychiatrist above any other factor besides wanting to help others of course and use my personal experiences to advocate for positive change in psychiatric programs and institutions. I have also been inspired to pursue a career path in the psychology field because of my own experiences with the stigmatization that surrounds psychological disorders, treatments, and medications. Both sides of my family have a long history of mental disorders, psychological heredity, and substance abuse; yet no one in either my immediate family or distant family had treated their psychological issues up until my mother did after she had graduated from her Christian-based rehabilitation program for her drug addiction. I have had signs of psychological abnormalities since a young age, but it was not until 2022 that I started taking antidepressants and anxiolytics to treat my psychological disorders. I have decided to pursue a degree in the psychology field because of my passion for helping others and my battles with mental health disorders and mental health experiences; therefore, I plan to become a psychiatrist and help assist others in their journey to becoming the best version of themselves through mental health treatments, medications, and therapy/psychiatric treatments. I want to expand psychological treatments while simultaneously breaking the stigma that surrounds them to ensure that people, especially children, can begin to regulate their chemical imbalances when psychologically abnormal signs begin to appear. I have also aimed towards a doctoral degree in psychiatry, as both a low-income and first-generation college student, and to make the statement to my community and family that no matter what background or obstacles we have to conquer, we can make something of ourselves if we put the work in. I want to provide opportunities that I was not fortunate enough to receive to others who need them to further establish the importance of maintaining mental wellness and stability, especially throughout the regions of the Southern United States that have developed negative stigmatization surrounding psychology work, importance, and efforts.

I am currently a senior in high school, dual-enrolled with Arkansas Tech University, and I currently hold a total of 124 volunteer service hours. I have been the man of the house since the age of twelve years old and I am the president of Bauxite High School’s FCCLA (Family, Career, & Community Leaders of America) student-led organization. I have been a part of a low-income household for the entirety of my life and my father does not financially support me or the rest of our immediate family. I used to be both the stage and backstage manager for Bauxite High School’s 2021-2022 school year productions; including the theater competition, we placed second in 2022 in Russellville, Arkansas. I was my school’s first vice president for the consecutive 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. I was then the second vice president for my 2022-2023 school year. I have made it to state competitions both for FBLA, two-time district winner, and FCCLA, one-time district winner; and placed for silver in the 2023 FCCLA Arkansas State Star Event for Event Management: Level III. I was an Arkansas Boys State 2023 delegate and I helped my assigned county in opening up about their past, their struggles, and their identities out loud in front of the rest of the group and counselors. I was the first and only person to open up on that Wednesday night, and then everyone else did the following night, and a fellow delegate came up to me and told me that this had all happened because of me taking the initiative and being the first man in the group to show my vulnerability to multiple other men. This experience only further solidified my career path of wanting to become a psychiatrist. I have been dual-enrolled with Arkansas Tech University since 2022 and will continue to throughout my senior year which concludes in May 2024; my top college choice as of right now is also Arkansas Tech University because I know that I can trust their classes and be dependent on the staff whenever I need assistance. I am placed within the top ten students of my graduating class when it comes to our weighted grade point averages, mine currently being a little higher than a 3.97 cumulative grade point average in high school, and I also hold a 4.0 cumulative grade point average for college thanks to Arkansas Tech University. I have been the man of the house since the age of twelve years old and I am the president of Bauxite High School’s FCCLA student-led organization. I am also a leader within my family, especially as a role model to my younger sisters, by exemplifying that no matter what our family goes through, it is still possible to excel and succeed in life. I have over 124 volunteer service hours, and this was achieved through non-profit organizations and clubs within my school. I have knit almost a dozen toboggans for premature babies that were residing at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and this was completed through the Future Business Leaders of America organization at my school, within two consecutive years. I will continue to exemplify leadership within my community by continuing to volunteer for my school. I also have a passion to start a mental health awareness club with the remaining time left that I have at high school, and leaving my legacy at the school that raised me as I begin my college journey as a first-generation college student who faces adversity and who comes from a low-income background.

My life was changed for the better when my middle school physical education coach switched her profession to start teaching high school. A high school teacher that has deeply influenced me is Cindy Gautreax, and she has changed the way I approach life through her Family & Consumer Science class, Foods & Nutrition class, and my FCCLA (Family, Career, & Community Leaders of America) advisor. I am currently my high school’s FCCLA Vice President and am next in line to be the president starting my senior year in the fall. I channeled and found my passion for learning culinary and childhood development throughout her Family & Consumer Science and Foods & Nutritions courses that I took consecutively through my freshman and sophomore year. She is my main motivation and resource to gain volunteer service hours and volunteer experience. She has never made me feel judged; in fact, she usually praises me for my hard work and effort in her classes, FCCLA, and just helping her out of the kindness of my heart. Coach G. has helped me realize how much the other school staff admire me and consider me to be one of the most successful students in my graduating class. She reshaped the I view myself, assisting me in my journey from transitioning from a negative perspective on life to a positive one. She viewed me as kind, accepting, and non-violent, and before she told me this she was unaware of the case I had opened with my father. I attacked him in defense of my mother after he both pushed her to the ground and punched me first, within the walls of a home he does not reside. She always attends to my emotional and educational needs (providing praise when needed/appropriate) and provides me with the best possible guidance of her capability when it comes to FCCLA and Star Events for both district and state-level competitions. She assisted me and my group in receiving an award in both district and state competitions for the Event Management: Level 3 Star Event during my 2022-2023 school year. She has taught me to not judge my adult peers based on their personal beliefs and ideologies and to interpret people purely on their character as human beings. A high school teacher that has deeply influenced me is Cindy Gautreax, and she has changed the way I approach life through her Family & Consumer Science class, Foods & Nutrition class, and my FCCLA (Family, Career, & Community Leaders of America) advisor. She has influenced me to solidify my fundamental trait of being a family man. I was given further inspiration to provide for my immediate, future children and partner, and even future in-laws. She opened the gates for my passion for culinary and feeding my family with my home-cooked meals. Her family inspires me to strive for forming a similar, stable family with strong interpersonal connections between us. She encourages me to use my gifts and talents by going to college and making an influence on the world.

I have been impacted by both mental health and LGBTQIA+ experiences since a young age and even now in the present day; both experiences have formed my aspirations of wanting to become a psychiatrist. I have been openly a part of the queer community since the age of twelve upon self-discovery, and I have been battling both depression and anxiety for the entirety of my life. Growing up gay and growing up with mental health issues has been an extremely hard battle for me; one I will continue to fight for the rest of my life, but it inspires me to help others with their issues and shine the light of hope that was never shone on me when I needed it the most. I plan to destigmatize mental health disorders and mental health treatments, as well as expand access to mental health services throughout my home state of Arkansas, and the rest of the Southern United States. I am currently a senior in the state of Arkansas and I come from a low-income background, and I will be a first-generation college student in my family. I have always had an interest in mental disorders, how the brain operates and functions, and how medicines can alter the chemical regulations that are produced by our brains. I formed aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist because of my battle with my mental health and being surrounded by individuals with mental health struggles my entire life. Everyone in my immediate family, and a lot of my distant family as well, have mental disorders but many do not treat their problems at all because of the stigmas surrounding mental health and mental health treatments here in Arkansas, and many other states throughout the Southern United States. I have been openly a part of the queer community since the age of twelve upon self-discovery, and I have been battling both depression and anxiety for the entirety of my life. Realizing I was gay, and shifting towards the open doors of oppression and discrimination, has only been an added weight upon my back. On the contrary, being queer has inspired me to advocate for and advocate with other individuals within the queer community to help stop the stigmatization surrounding our community; and along the way help others within our community to prepare them for success and achieve their goals. My father had once told me that he would disown me and threatened my life if I ever was to “become” gay, that was stated when I was only at the early age of three years old. Fast forward to the future, he has since physically assaulted me and was sentenced to prison time for the assault. Since the assault my father has stated that he has disowned me as his son, followed by multiple derogatory slurs directed toward my sexual orientation and mannerisms. He has not financially supported me or our immediate family since my parent's divorce in 2016. I believe the topics of the LGBTQIA+ community and mental health are not mutually exclusive conversations, and that is not referring to being queer as being a mental health issue, but rather the anxiety, fear, and detrimental stressors that are added to our lives as a result of the hate that bigots, politicians, and community leaders cast upon our community and psyches by either ignoring our cries or simply oppressing our rights; resulting in mental health issues and disorders to arise within the community.

I have been a listener and fan of Taylor Swift for as long as I have been taking car rides with my parents that I can remember; and I first listened to the entirety of Taylor’s ‘1989’ album during my seventh grade school year (2018-2019). My favorite song on Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’ album is the track ‘Bad Blood’ because it serves as a great source of nostalgia from my early childhood, and it is also my favorite track because I can personally relate to the contents of the lyrics. The main reason that ‘Bad Blood’ is my favorite song from the ‘1989’ album is that my favorite Taylor Swift song in retrospect is the ‘Bad Blood’ remix track featuring Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar added well to the track because of the beat and experimental flow/cadence delivery of Taylor Swift during both the chorus and post-chorus. He served as a feature that could keep up and even level with Taylor’s talent, and both artists and the production team did an enthralling job of creating a memorable track that will continue to have great replay value for many decades to come. What I appreciate most about the track is the opening of the song, and this is because of the tunnel-vision-like effect that the production team had placed on Taylor’s vocals, then the slow fade of said effect as the beat and other musical elements that are layered as the track further progresses. I appreciate the delivery of the vocals, the soft and flowy rhythm that Taylor displays through the chorus, and then the further broadcast of the emotion of the lyricism whenever Taylor grows louder and exemplifies the annunciation on the lyrics, “Hm, if you love like that, blood runs cold” after the post-chorus. Another reason why this is my favorite song off of Taylor’s ‘1989’ studio album is because of its familiarity and ability to not become redundant or stale, much like a lot of other songs that are frequently played on the radio for a lengthy radio air time. The ‘Bad Blood’ music video is also one of my favorite Taylor Swift music videos because of her outfits and overall looks within the production. My favorite look of the ‘1989’ era was the all-black, futuristic outfits from what was presumed to be some sort of militarized artillery; it has served as my favorite look of hers, even over her photography and runway event outfits, and this is merely an opinion without malice.

I have been a child of a single parent since 2020 after my mother regained custody of me following her graduation from her faith-based rehab program, and my father has continued to be a drug addict who refuses to financially or emotionally support our family and has gone to the lengths of physically assaulting me and opening up a legal defense case against me in early 2022. My experience being a child of a single parent in the LGBTQIA+ community has been a bumpy ride with many obstacles, but I can take the positive lessons from these challenges, and I plan to use my education to make a positive impact on the world by becoming a psychiatrist who aspires to spread mental health services throughout the Southern United States and treat individuals within my community with personal understanding from similar experiences as them. I have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and attending the University of Central Arkansas to receive a Bachelor of Psychology degree. I have been low-income my entire life and our family does not receive any form of financial support from my father, and have not for years on end already. I have been a member of the LGBTQIA+ community since the age of twelve upon a moment of self-discovery during one of the most crucial time frames during one’s puberty development. My father is a homophobe and he physically assaulted me after I came to my mother’s defense when he pushed her into the ground, and later after the altercation he contacted me via text message to further threaten me and call me various homophobic slurs. One of my first memories was when I was three years old, and I was singing the ‘Barbie Girl’ song out loud in my kitchen. Furthermore, my father proceeds to threaten my life and rant about how if I ever become gay that he will disown me as his son and kill me. This has already been reported to the Department of Human Services as of less than two weeks ago before the time I am currently writing this essay on May 27, 2023. My father will only be getting a slap on the wrist for the hate crimes and assaults he has committed against me, and the Saline County courts prove that they do not care about victims of child abuse and or their county’s LGBTQIA+ population. Both my father and my local government have failed me when it comes to my sexual identity and my protection, knowing that I am of a population that is statistically more likely to be killed in public or as a result of a hate crime. I have also experienced discrimination against my sexual identity by numerous staff members at Cabot Junior High School, and I have yet to receive any closure, action, or apology for these unlawful words being spoken to a minor by an adult whose job is to follow school guidelines. Everyone who has ever discriminated against me, the motive being my sexual orientation, has ever faced the moral or legal repercussions for their hateful actions.

I have both medical conditions and issues that affect both my mental health, clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder, and my physical health, currently labeled as an unspecified seizure disorder due to unknown causation. My medical conditions/issues have affected my life by gifting me the extensive determination for overcoming the adversity that continuously stacks itself upon my shoulders; the same adversity that attempts to compromise my journey towards achieving my future goals of becoming a psychiatrist and spreading the access of mental health services to low-income families throughout the Southern United States, especially within my home state of Arkansas. I am also an underrepresented student because of my financial, religious, and sexual orientation attributes. I have been low-income all of my life and my father no longer financially supports my immediate family as a result of his drug addictions and ongoing legal battles with myself. I am a member of the LBTQIA+ community, and this only adds to the adversity that I have had to battle. I do not have any religious affiliation, despite being raised in a Christian household, and I have identified as an agnostic atheist since the age of eleven. The conditions that I have been diagnosed with are clinical depression and anxiety, both of which have been affecting me for my entire life. These conditions have resulted in me having to seek out treatments to stabilize being a functioning person daily: therapy, drug therapy, and psychiatric evaluations. Every day I have to take medications as a result of my medical and mental conditions, clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Just less than two months before currently writing this essay I was sent to a week-long psychiatric residency program as a result of a breakdown caused by my condition. I have also noticed that I significantly lack social connections and skills like the majority of my peers, and this is a result of my conditions not allowing me to trust others and stay inside. My conditions have also made it difficult to empathize with others as much as a regular person should. As of writing this essay, I have had a confirmed total of three seizures, and by ‘confirmed’ I mean that there are a few instances that I believe I have had seizures before but was alone, resulting in me not being comfortable in the conclusion that the black-outs I experienced were in fact seizures. I visited a neurologist who put me through a PET scan but was unable to identify the causation of the seizures nor any abnormal emissions from my brain waves. I am also unable to further go testing because of my braces, which prevents the process of receiving an MRI scan. I have future aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and helping others who have gone through similar experiences as I have and accomplishing this through the enlightenment of my disorders and experiences. I wish to destigmatize the negative beliefs behind mental health, therapy, and medication treatments for disorders throughout the Southern United States, a place where I have been raised and downplayed as a result of my identification with my disorders and overall mental health. I wish to advocate for individuals who have the same disorders and medical issues as I do and work to advocate for equal treatment in the medical and pharmaceutical fields when it comes to access and prices. A personal goal I have that is non-career related is being able to find peace with my medical conditions, and finding stability regarding my mental disorders and prescription medication treatments.

I have always been a loving person who aspires to help others and make the world a better place through my work. I embody selflessness by aspiring to become a psychiatrist and assist others that I can relate to on an experience-based level, and provide others with the proper care that I was not fortunate enough to receive during my upbringing. I currently maintain a total of 124 volunteer service hours that I have acquired over two years for my high school community. I have done volunteer service for the following school organizations: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), National Honors Society (NHS), Esports, Drama Club, Thespian Society, and Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA); and for which I am the vice president of my high school’s student-led FCCLA organization. I want to make the world a better place by providing those within my local and state community with the mental health services that I was not fortunate to receive during my upbringing; services I did not receive because of my low-income financial status and my family’s stigma behind mental health and its treatment methods. I aspire to obtain a doctoral degree in psychiatry because of my developed passion for treating mental health as a result of my own experiences and struggles with my mental health and cognitive disorders. The most notable volunteer service I have done was knitting over a dozen premature baby toboggans for Arkansas Children’s Hospital in my own free time and through my own will. Selflessness is the action/perspective that puts the needs of others above your own and is willing to go without if that means that someone else will be provided the care/treatment they deserve. I know what it feels like to not be cared for in every aspect, resulting in my incapability to treat others in the same negative manner that I have personally been treated. Another reason why I am a selfless person is because I am the kin of two selfish parents, and I have personally experienced the extensive energy that is drained from selfishness, but I also am selfless because their needs were always first before my own. I was never the priority to my parents as a young child, I was second to substances, and I have to provide others with that priority to soothe the void that my family has opened within my soul, mind, and being. I embody selflessness by aspiring to become a psychiatrist and assist others that I can relate to on an experience-based level, and provide others with the proper care that I was not fortunate enough to receive during my upbringing. I have been able to gather compassion for others because everyone has experienced neglect in some shape or form at least once throughout their lifetime. I have showcased my selflessness by giving myself up (time, money, and energy wise) to organizations/clubs in the name of making positive change at a local and state level. This is a change that I will continue to implement and expand throughout my career, and I will ensure the proper treatment of Arkansans’ mental health diagnoses and struggles, but in the name of helping others and not just to receive a paycheck. I care because I know what it is like to not have anyone care about you. As a psychiatrist I will be able to achieve my future goals because I will be provided treatments for multiple disorders, for multiple individuals, throughout many different locations; and everyone will receive the same proper treatment without bias.

I am a college dual-enrolled student through Arkansas Tech University, making myself the first person in my immediate family to obtain college credit; and I have aspirations of becoming a licensed psychiatrist in the state of Arkansas. I am a non-traditional student being a first-generation college student, and my passion for helping others with similar experiences as my own is what drives me to do more for both myself and the world. Another factor that causes me to drive for more is my club/organization affiliations. I am a member of my high school’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) organization, drama club, Thespian Society, National Honors Society (NHS), Esports organizations, Educators Rising, and I am the vice president of my high school’s Family, Community, and Career Leaders of America (FCCLA) student-led organization. I currently have over 124 total volunteer service hours, one hundred of which were obtained through National Honors Society (NHS), and fifty more volunteer service hours are required for my senior year as well. My lack of mental health service resources throughout my upbringing has inspired me to give back exactly that to the rest of the world. I come from a low-income background and do not have financial support from my father, and this drives me to further pursue college because the odds are stacked against my success. Another reason why I want to achieve my career goals is in the name of my community, the LGBTQIA+ community, and showcase that the struggles of being queer can be best when faced with adversity. The same goes for my religious affiliation, I do not have one, and I want to destigmatize the negative beliefs of those who do not worship higher powers. I am driven to help my state and community with their mental health and provide widespread access to these services because I struggle with my mental health, psychological medications, and therapy. I will be able to destigmatize the negative beliefs about mental illness if I rise and overcome the struggle of being sent to a psychiatric residency program, to becoming a licensed psychiatrist a little over a decade later. My father has put me through extensive amounts of abuse throughout my upbringing and I want to help others with their parental, family, and marital issues to ensure the prosperity of the household’s overall mental wellness and stability. I will make impactful, positive changes for others. I am a non-traditional student being a first-generation college student, and my passion for helping others with similar experiences as my own is what drives me to do more for both myself and the world. Some of the benefits of being a non-traditional student are scholarship opportunities, much like this one, being openly available to apply for. However, the disadvantage of being a non-traditional student is “having the odds stacked against you” and colleges will notice that you did not take the most acceptable path in your academic journey. I have sacrificed my social connections and stability by going fully virtual for my senior year, and that is to gather a headstart on collecting college credit before I even enroll in a university. I have had an advanced academic and emotional intellect since a young age, and I want to be able to assist others in utilizing their maximum intellect as well. I have been shaped into a strong, but passionate person because of the strength I mustered to defend myself in every aspect of events that took place in my past, a barren land that I would not even cast upon my worst enemy.

Currently, I am a college dual-enrolled high school student through Arkansas Tech University, and I have aspirations of assisting others with similar struggles and experiences as I. My plans for the future are to obtain a doctoral degree in psychiatry, as well as broaden access to mental healthcare services to the less fortunate, and this scholarship will help me fulfill my plans by providing me a headstart on saving for college expenses as I am finishing my senior year of high school. I am a first-generation college student in my immediate family and the only person in my immediate family who possesses college credit. I am also a minority as I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community and aspire to help those in my community with their mental struggles and their gender dysphoria. I need financial assistance and come from a low-income background, and this scholarship would provide a chunk of the needed funds I would need for my college tuition and fees. Currently, I am a college dual-enrolled student through Arkansas Tech University; however, I wish to obtain a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Central Arkansas. I will then have to obtain my medical degree to further my studies required for becoming a psychiatrist, but I have yet to decide what medical school I wish to attend. The final step towards reaching my career goals would be working at a psychiatric residency program for four years, a type of program that I have once been a patient myself. My future aspirations as a psychiatrist are to help transgender individuals in receiving the proper gender-confirming care to treat their gender dysphoria, and to spread access to mental health services to low-income individuals and the less fortunate. I wish to destigmatize the negative beliefs that follow mental health, therapy, and psychological medications throughout the South, for which I have seen the negative consequences of inflated delusion before my very eyes in my home state of Arkansas. My plans for the future are to obtain a doctoral degree in psychiatry, as well as broaden access to mental healthcare services to the less fortunate, and this scholarship will help me fulfill my plans by providing me a headstart on saving for college expenses as I am finishing my senior year of high school. My struggles and experiences with mental health have convinced me to follow down a path that helps those who have endured the same or similar; and I want to fill the void for others, the void that was left agape for me throughout my upbringing. I struggle with balancing work, school, and home life so I am not able to work to my fullest extent because of my disorders, and this scholarship would help alleviate some of the stress of not receiving an income during my senior year of high school. I wish to transform the pain that I have endured due to my mental health struggles and transform it into a beacon of light of hope and opportunity for those around me.

I have been prioritizing my mental health above all else since I began taking prescribed psychological medications (antidepressants and antianxiolytics to be specific) for my depression and anxiety mid-summer of 2022. My mental health is important because it corresponds with the body’s physical health, allowing both balance and unbalance to be possibly achieved, and I maintain my mental wellness/balance through psychological treatments/interventions and taking care of myself physically (exercising, eating healthy, hygiene, etc.). I have been maintaining my mental wellness since a very young age because of how vulnerable I was to the stressors and traumas that consumed what I once called a childhood home. Everyone should prioritize their mental health and strive for internal balance because that is the most prominent and fulfilling way of living life. The benefits of psychological treatments and/or interventions outweigh the potential harm of going untreated/unmedicated and losing grip of reality and who you are as a person. Mental illnesses are just like any other disorders, it is an imbalance in chemicals (neurotransmitters in this case), just like how diabetics have an imbalance with their blood sugar/glucose levels. A psychological disorder has the opportunity to develop harshly if left untreated or ignored; and will eventually lead to more problems arising in one’s behaviors and thoughts. I know that my mental health is important because I not only have to care for myself but others around me need me to be there for them both emotionally and physically. When my mental health is not being prioritized I begin to spiral; causing a chain reaction of everyone else becoming distressed with the sight of my distress, and in the end everyone is left upset and unsteady. I have to maintain a good balance with the loved ones around me or it will cause our mental health to decline. I have personally lived through what happens when you do not prioritize your mental health causing yourself to burn out; and that was being admitted to a psychiatric residency program. Though unpleasant, I needed the psychiatric treatment and it has allowed me to restart with a stable standing. Mental health is also important because unbalance could occur at any moment, and the chemicals responsible for homeostasis are constantly shifting between higher and lower levels, much like a weighted scale. I personally know that my mental health is important because I am more vulnerable than the average person due to my mental disorders (anxiety and depression). My mental health is important because it corresponds with the body’s physical health, allowing both balance and unbalance to be possibly achieved, and I maintain my mental wellness/balance through psychological treatments/interventions and taking care of myself physically (exercising, eating healthy, hygiene, etc.). I am able to maintain my mental wellness through a number of ways I have developed over the years as coping skills. My main drive and motivation is to achieve academically and as long as that is being achieved I am usually mentally well. Psychological interventions I use to maintain mental wellness are through taking psychiatric medications and regularly seeing a therapist and psychiatrist. The people I can go to when my mental wellness declines include but are not limited to: my therapist, my mother, my psychiatrist, and/or my school counselor. Coping skills that I have developed over the years to maintain my mental wellness include but are not limited to: listening to music, isolating myself, exercising, or lastly hitting/breaking something if my go to coping methods are not working for a particular mental episode and/or breakdown.

I am an upcoming high school senior (Class of 2024) who is expected to graduate with a possible total of sixteen concurrent college credits, provided through Arkansas Tech University, and I am planning to attend the University of Central Arkansas for a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology. I have always held a strong passion for helping others in need, and as an aspiring psychiatrist, I plan to make a positive impact by expanding access to mental health services for low-income families throughout the southern United States. I was born and raised in the southern United States all of my life and there is a heavy stigma around mental health services and treatments such as therapy and medications, and often even a complete disregard of mental health’s existence. I have also grown up in poverty, for my parents did not come from much, and Arkansas is a rather statistically more poor and disadvantaged state when compared to the other forty-nine. I have developed my aspirations and career goals through the thought of fulfillment from assisting others who have walked in my shoes and shared my experiences, and I want to be able to assist people in the stabilization and cherishing of their psychological health, a protection I was not fortunate enough to receive throughout my childhood. I am confident in my academic and working ability to achieve certification as a psychiatrist because I still maintain above a 3.97-grade point average as a junior, I already possess five college credits in total as a junior and enrolled to receive a possible eleven more college credits during my senior year of high school. I will work with local charities and organizations that raise mental health awareness and have donation outlets for the public at my establishment of work. I will use social media to promote other local mental health advocates and organizations and stay actively involved within my local and nearby communities, just in the name of being a local reminder of the importance of mental health services and advocation. I have a dream and I will do anything I can to make that dream come true, and that is to lessen the psychological weight and burden off of the upcoming youth, and that is because they are the most vulnerable in the current day and age because of the widespread access to substances and unfiltered internet access. Psychological treatments can lessen these poison’s effects and leave clients in their best possible state. I have always held a strong passion for helping others in need, and as an aspiring psychiatrist, I plan to make a positive impact by expanding access to mental health services for low-income families throughout the southern United States. The first step to achieve these career aspirations is by obtaining my bachelor's degree, preferably a Bachelor’s of Psychology, through the University of Central Arkansas. I will then enroll in a four-year medical school to receive my medical degree, but I have not solidified my institute of choice as of currently. I will then attend and work at a four-year psychiatric residency program as my last school-related step before obtaining certification as a psychiatrist, preferably within my home state of Arkansas. I will achieve these goals through hard work and compassion for reaching my end goal and fulfilling my sense of purpose within society. I am from a low-income background so I will need to rely tremendously on student loans and scholarships to assist me, and that’s on top of what finances I have already saved up and the finances that I will be earning during college as well.

I have been actively involved in my school community since 2021 and I have worked to influence change in my school’s involvement with small and starting organizations/clubs for the better. The Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) student organization has been my main inspiration for active community involvement, and all of my volunteer service hours were completed at and for my high school and school district. I currently possess a total of one-hundred twenty-four volunteer service hours and I have a yearly requirement of fifty volunteer service hours each school year because of my membership in the National Honors Society (NHS). Through the National Honors Society, I have received a total of one-hundred-four volunteer service hours this school year alone, the 2022-2023 school year. I received my volunteer hours through knitting hats for premature babies at Children’s Hospital located in Little Rock, Arkansas, I have run every position possible at concession stands too many times than I can count, I helped my FCCLA adviser with preparing our baking fundraiser and with cleaning her school-provided kitchen classroom. I enjoy volunteer service because I genuinely thrive off of helping others, and as an aspiring psychiatrist that will eventually be the entire purpose of my career and work, to help others. Alongside Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America, I am a member of several other student organizations and clubs at my high school, all of which have volunteer service opportunities! As well as being the vice president of my school’s Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America student-led organization I am also a member of the following organizations/clubs at my school: Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Thespian Society, Drama Club, E-sports, and National Honors Society. What inspired me to get involved and sign-up for these school organizations was my friends insisting that I do; however, that then grew into a passion for active involvement within my community. These student organizations have brought me closer to my community than I have ever been before and have made me help and provide for my community more than I have ever had before as well. I joined Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America and E-sports the first years they were offered at my high school, and since starting my involvement our amount of members have done more than doubled, and the school began providing larger funds for these organizations after perceiving that we are serious about our school and community involvement. The excess funding allowed for my school’s FCCLA organization to go to district competitions (we won) and to state finals, in which we were awarded a silver medal for our presentation of the Star Event: Event Management Level Three.

If I could have everyone in the world read just one book, that would be Shatter Me by Teherah Mafi because it is my favorite book series and does a beautiful job of blending the romance and science-fiction genres into one story. I occasionally read throughout the month, but when I put my hands on this book series I will be physically glued to it for days. It scratches the right itch of mixing fantasy, magic, and apocalypses with romance, and reading about the triumph that it takes to love in these environments is like watching a train crash, you cannot. There is every emotion humanely possible present in the novel and the amount of plot twists causes me to applaud this author. I can usually predict where stories might be going but I had no clue with this novel series, left and right I was being slapped in the face with pure and utter shock/disbelief. Another reason why I recommend this book is because though it is for older-teen to adult audiences it is at a fairly easy reading level, not that I cannot read advanced books, but rather it makes the experience feel less like a chore and more like a means of entertainment. The story broadcasts a wide range of different characters with different backgrounds, and this book was extremely inclusive when it came to characters of a minority race, differing gender and/or sexual orientation, and nationality. The topics that are covered throughout the novels are all of the heavy and dark meanings and a lot of which I can relate to my own life and personal struggles in some aspects. I relate to the main character on an extremely personal level because I too know what it is like to be outcasted by society and treated like a monster over a quality of myself that I cannot even control.

My personal experience with mental health has shaped my goals, relationships, and understanding of the world in a positive light, even if there are minuscule negative connotations located within these aspects of my life as well. My goals, relationships, and understanding of the world have been shaped through the lessons I have endured as a result of my mental health; and are on track to remain as positive foundations of my life and character. I am wanting to become a psychiatrist to help others; I just want everyone around me to prosper and thrive to the best of their humanly possible ability. Everyone deserves proper health care treatments and services because the people of our nation deserve an equal opportunity to live the best versions of their lives that can be granted to them with current technological and medicinal developments. I have battled with my mental health for as long as I can remember, and this is likely due to genetics being passed down from my parents to me; my parents who both have multiple mental illnesses/disorders. I have been trading in and out therapists since I was eleven years old, and now that I am almost eighteen years old I am finally finding a therapist with that I can make progress (everyone before that was terrible and unprofessional) and I want to be filling up an occupation space that I plan on doing at the best of my ability and I will never work for just the money. I have been taking antidepressants (venlafaxine) and anxiolytics (hydroxyzine) since the summer of 2022 after being officially diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. The worst point that my mental health at ever gotten to was whenever I was twelve years old, it was a couple of months after finding out I was gay and right after I came out to my family, and during that particular time frame was at the lowest point in my life and even contemplated taking then as well; however, I bested the battle and quickly grabbed a hold of the reigns again after sixth grade school year and dove into education to the extent I did in the seventh grade. My experiences with my mental health struggles have taught me to just be kind to people at initial conversation and to not be rude towards someone unless they are truly deserving of it, because you never know what someone else may be going through and your nasty actions/behaviors could be said person’s last straw or complete breaking point from trying in life. Both of my parents exhibited (if not diagnosed with) common symptoms of mental main mood and personality disorders (bipolar, narcissistic personality, antisocial personality, borderline, etc.) and my mother is the only parent who has taken the initiative to treat their disorders. My mother is diagnosed with bipolar type one, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, substance-use disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. My father is not diagnosed with, but closely resembles the traits of narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, bipolar type one, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and substance-use disorder. At one point in time, both of my parents were addicts to narcotics and amphetamines; however, my mother was the only guardian that was able to overcome their addiction and substance-use disorder through the assistance of a religion-based rehab facility. The likelihood of genetics playing a role in the development of my psychological disorders is likely since my younger sister also developed the same disorders as me around the same time that I began noticing their development. My mental health has caused me to develop aspirations to become a licensed psychiatrist in the state of Arkansas, and assist other people who are going through/gone through similar hardships as I; especially when it comes to young children still in the early childhood development phase and their mental health treatment access. My struggles with mental health inspired me to dive into academics and dedicate the majority of my time and energy towards course content, and as a result, I will be a first-generation college student who starts college with a possible sixteen college credits in total (only fourteen if I do not pass my psychology or statistics AP exam; and I am taking this college courses through concurrent credit dual-enrollment Arkansas Tech University on Virtual Arkansas. I want to become a psychiatrist to assist in the destigmatization of mental health treatment and existence throughout the southern region of the United States of America, especially within my home state of Arkansas. There is a tendency for the folks down in the South to not believe in mental health or any kind of therapies/medications with psychological purposes. I also want to be a psychiatrist that assists transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals with taking the official step toward gender-affirming surgeries and operations. For a transgender individual to legally fully transition a psychiatrist has to determine if said individual is truly transgender and their gender dysphoria is posing a threat to their psychological well-being, and then once approved they can become the best versions of themselves that they have always strived to be since adolescence; gender-affirming surgeries are health care and should be automatic rights for the citizens of the United States of America. My goals, relationships, and understanding of the world have been shaped through the lessons I have endured as a result of my mental health; and are on track to remain as positive foundations of my life and character. I advocate for the destigmatization of mental health and I exhibit that truth through my aspirations of studying to become a licensed psychiatrist and obtain a doctoral-level degree. Negative experiences must be interpreted as positive lessons or else everything bad that ever happens to you will eat away at the person you have become, your thoughts, and your actions. What damage is done will remain and prevail.

I have been financially educated through personal experience, observation of others, and an economics course and I plan to better my future with what I know by graduating college with as little to no debt as possible. Though I have scarce opportunities for financial education in high school, I have been able to learn most of my financial skills and behaviors by avoiding the screwups I observed from my parents; and I will use what I learned and know to navigate my payment plan and options for college. I will have paid for over fourteen college courses by myself before I graduate high school, on top of my monthly phone bill and extra school expenses (fees, textbooks, clubs, etc.). I have already filed my taxes for the first time this year and am ready for next year, my first full year of financial independence away from my parents. The college will be my main economic test to see if I am truly ready for adulthood and financial responsibility. I have not had an entire full year of gaining personal financial experience and literacy for I only started my first job in August of 2022. However, I eventually had to take an absence from work as a result of my mental health, so I will likely not even gain a full year of work experience at one company before I graduate from high school. In August of 2022, I began working at a Baskin Robbins located inside a Big Red gas station in Benton, Arkansas for $11.25 an hour. The majority of the finances that I made while working there went towards the college classes that I was taking this year, and for the college classes that I am taking next year; but I do happen to have over five hundred dollars saved up for a college laptop. Every single week I would make a new hand-written budget whenever my check arrived and would divide my check up the exact moment that I received it, and I rarely spent any money unless I necessarily had no other choices. I have also been paying my phone bill every month since I started working in August, and that was the only fixed-ratio bill payment that I was required to pay each month. All other financial literacy that I have learned was through observing my parents' financial mistakes and noting what I need to avoid doing with my money whenever I become an independent adult. I have already paid for all of my college classes by myself so far, and that is the plan for the rest of my college journey as well. Though I have scarce opportunities for financial education in high school, I have been able to learn most of my financial skills and behaviors by avoiding the screw-ups I observed from my parents; and I will use what I learned and know to navigate my payment plan and options for college. I am planning on getting another job when I graduate high school to pay for a few more milestones/items in preparation for college and to have some fun with the last of my unrestricted finances before the start of college and my payments for my courses. As an aspiring psychiatrist from a low-income family (and who also happens to be a first-generation college student), I am going to require tremendous amounts of loans, scholarships, and payments to eventually pay off the dent that will stack as a result of my chosen career path. I believe I am personally ready for my financial independence after high school.

I am an aspiring psychiatrist and my career goal is to contribute to the spread of access to psychiatric treatments to children, low-income families, and individuals who have endured similar struggles as I. I plan to make a positive impact on the world by pursuing a career in psychiatry and spreading access to mental healthcare services to low-income families/less unfortunate children throughout the southern United States region, specifically in my home state of Arkansas. Overall, my main goal is to help other people and treat the members of our community to further strengthen the forged bond of our nation’s society. I am also wanting to help others like me in the aspect of my identity; I am a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and I want to help people in my community with their mental health struggles that have derived from their gender identity or sexual orientation. I want to be able to play a vital role in the transitioning stage for transgender individuals, I want to be able to assist these people with gaining access to the medication and surgeries they need to feel affirmed in their bodies and to calm down the effects of gender dysphoria they are facing. When I was a child I was not fortunate enough to receive the psychological treatment that I should have during my adolescence. I want to give other less fortunate children, like me, and give them access to a life-changing treatment that can completely redirect the trajectory of their life, and that is because mental illnesses and disorders are easier treated the earlier the issue is found and addressed. The main reason I did not possess access to mental health treatments or organizations at a young age is because of my family’s low-income social status. Money should not be a preventive factor when addressing one’s mental health, and I am wanting to specifically help low-income families and individuals gain access to these life-changing treatments and therapies. Last but not least, I want to spread access to psychiatric treatments to children who came from broken homes of physical/emotional abuse and substance abuse as I did. I know the effects drug addiction can have on children, and that is from first-hand experience. I want to be able to make a positive impact on the lives of those affected by addictions and substance use because they are the people who are statistically more apt to fall the same path as their parents. I plan to make a positive impact on the world by pursuing a career in psychiatry and spreading access to mental healthcare services to low-income families/less unfortunate children throughout the southern United States region, specifically in my home state of Arkansas. No matter how minuscule my impact on the world is, it is just important that I reach my goal of wanting to help other people with their mental health journeys. Growing up in the South, especially Arkansas, has inspired me to delve into psychology as a career path of interest because of the stigmatization surrounding mental health and psychological treatments. I know more people than I can count on two hands that believe that mental health and mental health disorders are not real and do not affect one’s behavior/thoughts, which is the exact opposite of the actual truth. However, despite all of the hardships surrounding my mental health journey I still am making tremendous progress and I want others to be able to experience the same euphoria as I after starting psychiatric treatments.

I am both a first-generation college student and I am an out and proud member of the queer community. My lived experiences and personal advocacy contributed to change for me, my community, and other marginalized individuals positively and lawfully regarding respect for the LGBTQIA+ community, my community. The most effective method of creating active change is to start having informative discussions and destigmatize the misinformation that trails marginalized communities. Growing up as a gay teen boy in Central Arkansas, a conservative state, has resulted in me helping and fighting for others as a career path. As a queer, first-generation college student I am wanting to pursue an education in psychiatry to assist those who have been in similar situations as I, members of my community, and assist transgender individuals in taking their next transitional step legally toward the gender-affirming procedure. I have been able to form my support group and community of queer, transgender, and gender nonconforming students at my school, allowing all of us the opportunity to feel involved in our community and to have a voice when advocating or discussing crucial issues surrounding the school and general area within my county. I want to be a part of the process that legally allows people to fully transition their sex, as some may not know a psychiatrist has to confirm that an individual is truly transgender before any major surgeries are permitted for the individual. I am wanting to assist transgender individuals in taking their next transitional step legally toward gender-affirming procedures and ensure the care for a demographic of individuals who are statistically more likely to be dismissed or not provided proper treatment in every possible aspect. Though I am not personally transgender or fall under the transgender umbrella, I am friends with multiple transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, and I have personally witnessed the triumphant battle they are forced to face every day as a result of not being provided the proper treatment (again in every aspect) by their own family, let alone professionals who get paid to help you if they so choose. This is how we slowly strip the power away from the oppressors and embrace the beauty of equal opportunity and fair treatment for all. My lived experiences and personal advocacy contributed to change for me, my community, and other marginalized individuals positively and lawfully regarding respect for the LGBTQIA+ community, my community. Growing up in the South has offered me multiple opportunities to challenge oppressive ideologies and experience discrimination to further spread my truth using logic and reasoning to battle the same arguments that are copied and pasted by every existing conservative in the states. I have changed my entire family’s mind about queer and trans people and opened the door for my younger sister to be able to come out safely and in a manner that she felt comfortable with, as I was the child who took the impact of initial homophobia and discrimination shortly after coming out to my family. I have also been able to assist my family in being less discriminatory towards marginalized races. Since the beginning of middle school, everyone in my school hated gay people and with the implementation of my queer friend group into the popular populations of our high school the hate has dwindled, and I experience less discrimination in an entire month at high school compared to just a single day in middle school.

The experiences of new opportunities, locations, and people excites me for college the most, and I will be able to maintain a healthy mind, body, and soul mainly through the process of connecting with the Earth. Another main reason that I am excited about starting college is because of all of the milestones that I will finally reach once I do: gaining independence from my current household, taking the next step towards my career goals, and finally receiving the advanced education that I have been dying to receive for years. If I am able to accomplish all of these common goals, common in improving overall health, then I will be in a healthy enough period of my life to prosper and strive for success to my fullest possible extent. The experiences of new opportunities, locations, and people excites me for college the most, alongside the milestones that will finally make me feel as if I accomplished that step over from adolescence to adulthood officially. Since a young age I have always been dying to gain personal independence from my household and go explore the world on my own, and college is that opportunity. It will always rebirth purpose into my life as continue advanced educations and further approach my goal of becoming a psychiatrist. I will be able to maintain a healthy mind, body, and soul mainly through the process of connecting with the Earth, alongside keeping up with my physical health (hygiene, eat, and sleep), mental health, and social-emotional health. In order to successfully maintain my physical health during college I must simultaneously maintain my psychological health since the two are directly linked; afterall, a decline in one’s mental health results in the decline of one’s overall health and dedication to work for health. I will need to incorporate proper diet and exercise to my daily routine in college in order to maintain a positive health, and that is to ensure weight loss, muscle gain, and the balance of the body’s nutrition. I will also need to continue my psychological treatments (both psychoanalytic therapy and drug therapy) to ensure the incline in my mental health and keep my mind coordinated to even remain healthy; and this entails the continuation of my treatments for depression and anxiety. I will most likely start college with the same psychological medications that I am currently prescribed, the antidepressant and anxiolytic, venlafaxine and hydroxyzine. In order to maintain my health throughout college I will need to also balance my social-emotional health; and that is to continue building on the relationships that I cherish most (close family and friends) and continue repelling the relationship that are detrimental to my safety, health, and progress (my father and toxic partners). If I am able to balance all of these aspects of my health throughout college then I will be able to graduate with the degree I wanted with one hundred percent certainty, and that I can claim with confidence. The experiences of new opportunities, locations, and people excites me for college the most, and I will be able to maintain a healthy mind, body, and soul mainly through the process of connecting with the Earth. I will have had a positive college experience if I am able to accomplish the goal of connecting with the Earth and experience those important life milestones. I will be able to maintain my health through the practice of positive and beneficial daily habits. My goal after college is to go to medical school to further pursue my aspirations and career goals of becoming a certified psychiatrist in the state of Arkansas.

To become more healthy I have made psychological, behavioral, physical, and social changes to my lifestyle within the previous three years of my life. I began making changes to improve my overall health about three years ago when I noticed that my mental health and personal hygiene began slipping away from my control, and when the toxic people surrounding me finally revealed their true colors. My journey towards long-lasting improved health has been a difficult one but one that I would be willing to take one hundred times over because the benefit outweighs the work that needs to be applied. Since I began my health journey three years ago I have since gained an improved support system (consisting of my family, friends, and therapist), new and improved coping skills, improvements in my psychological health, and also improvements in my eating habits. The process of improving my health has consisted of taking away negative reinforcers and replacing them with positive reinforcers. I have let go of things that once brought me temporary joy and replaced them with things that now bring me long-term happiness and complacency. My healthy journey has been a lengthy process that will continue far beyond the imaginable, but this is just the start of the best version of myself that I will later become. The primary psychological changes I have made to improve my health were beginning psychoanalytic therapy and drug therapy as psychological treatments for my mental health. I began taking antidepressants (venlafaxine) and anxiolytics (hydroxyzine) for my depression and anxiety disorders. The only social change that I made to improve my health was cutting off toxic people that could be detrimental to my health and safety later down the road. The behavioral changes that I began implementing for the benefit of my health consisted of relaxing more to avoid overstimulation or rowdiness and winding down for bedtime much earlier than I was accustomed to. Last but not least, the physical changes that I made to positively benefit my health journey was increased sleep, exercise, vitamins and supplement, and water intake and a decrease in food consumption and caffeine intake. I have been able to form all of these beneficial actions into personal habits so I am automatically accustomed to the procedure of caring for my health without a second thought or even an increase in energy exertion. To become more healthy I have made psychological, behavioral, physical, and social changes to my lifestyle within the previous three years of my life. The overall best change that I have made to my health was a social change; rejecting my father and causing him to end up back in prison was the best improvement I could have made to my health because he is a toxic parent and does not have my best interest in mind; and he proved to be a threat to my health after physically assaulting me unprompted. Since beginning my health journey I have been rid of and set free of personal demons (habits) that have followed me since adolescence, and poorly formed or learned habits. I have not regretted taking the initiative to improve my health even a moment since deciding it was the best thing for me, and I plan to continue this journey until I have reached my maximum potential healthwise. Though my health journey started when I was first born, I did not take full initiative until about three years ago after realizing that I had let my health slip beyond its physical means. I have been able to re-stabilize my health in preparation for my college journey.

Gifted children are an important demographic of people to whom the field of psychology applies central focus, and that is something that I lacked when growing up, and I want everyone to experience equal opportunity when it comes to maintaining and managing their psyche and mental health. My career goals of becoming a psychiatrist and spreading access to mental health treatment will foster social-emotional well-being and meet the intellect needs of gifted children by that demographic being offered the opportunity of possible needed psychological treatment and therapy, and this excludes lengthy costs and physical arriving to appointments if those are the best available (both literally and financially) options for the children. Lieba and I both share the qualities of being intellectually advanced but find it difficult to contain their outbursts of emotions when met with personally unjust social situations, and I also want to help other people with these similar challenges regardless of who they are. I want to help gifted children like Lieba because I know what it is like to bring yourself up from the ground up, with no assistance, when faced with both academic and emotional development obstacles during adolescence. My career goal of wanting to pursue a psychiatric career will foster the needs of gifted children because the education that I will have acquired for my doctorate will have prepared me to be able to assist children, including the gifted and disabled, in reaching their emotional and social needs simultaneously through the process of therapy/psychological treatment. Just like Lieba, I have always been caring of others but I was especially sensitive when I was younger, and I want to be able to help children that have the same emotional needs as I once did so they grow complacent with their sensitive nature. I want to be able to help children in unfortunate social circumstances learn to cope with their emotions so they can at least remain stable in the environment they are currently in, and the word ‘environment’ here could just refer to a certain age range or somewhere random and not just their living space. Children need their psyches protected from the stress that adolescence causes when paired with advanced intellectual and social-emotional stressors. I can achieve this through implementing therapeutic and medicinal psychoanalytic treatments. As an aspiring psychiatrist with experience and a specific interest in early childhood development and education, my career goals will meet the intellectual needs of gifted children. I already possess experience with educational teaching and observation experience, so I already am accustomed to assisting children with schoolwork and learning. Taking more psychology-based classes, and gaining personal experience working with children, will ensure that I will be capable of assisting all children, gifted or not, with reaching their intellectual needs. Just like Lieba, as I grew from adolescence to adulthood I developed a passion for wanting to help others and standing for what is morally correct, and I will strive for the children I work with to reach their intellectual potential just like I was able to when I was a child. Just as Lieba wanted to use her intellect to spread love and positivity to all, I want to utilize my intellect to spread love and care to all regardless of that person’s social standing. I want to ensure that every child that I work with in the future has their social-emotional needs met through psychiatric treatment because that is something that no one had ever ensured for me as a child. My career goals of becoming a psychiatrist and spreading access to mental health treatment will foster social-emotional well-being and meet the intellect needs of gifted children by that demographic being offered the opportunity of possible needed psychological treatment and therapy, and this excludes lengthy costs and physical arrival to appointments if those are the best available (both literally and financially) options for the children. Just like Lieba, I have always advocated for the equal treatment and care of disabled populations, even if that required aggression towards the original aggressor, but I also want to be able to do that as a career as well and assist in the prosperity of gifted/disabled children’s psychological development during early childhood. Everyone deserves equal treatment and should not be ostracized for what makes us unique, and growing up intellectually advanced and in the LGBTQIA+ community has just further engraved that advocational fire into my future career goals. I promise to help all gifted children reach their intellectual and social-emotional needs because they are the future generation that is next in line to run the world and need to be able to develop properly to face the challenges that linger in everyday life, and the challenges that will arise in the near future.

I have been an agnostic Atheist since I was ten years old. I had determined that the Christian god and the Christian belief were not aligning with what was taking place in my life. A god, or father, is supposed to be caring for his children and healthily teach them, not in a harmful way. However, most of what I learned has come from negative experiences and trauma; and I cannot believe there is a higher power that would allow me to suffer in such a manner. I have been able to see the evil that is present in the world, and a lot sooner than the majority of people. My intellect has been advanced for all of my life because I was forced to grow up too fast and care for myself and my psyche. However, my religious beliefs are not the only beliefs that mental health has impacted; in fact, my mental health also impacted my socio-cultural and socio-economic ideologies. I found out that I was a member of the LGBTQIA+ community when I was just twelve years old, and I came out immediately because of the extent that my mental health was clawing at all of my other issues, and I could not bear to add such a large lie on top of all of my other previously piled-up issues. Before this discovery I was extremely homophobic and conservative in belief; however, after about a year out of the closet was when I realized the negative effects of growing up in a household of homophobia and misogyny. Henceforth, I have been an advocate for my community because they are a small minority community that is protected enough. I hated myself because of my mental health’s reaction to being queer, I was disgusted. I want to now help others feel comfortable in their skin and to feel heard. My mental health has allowed me to understand people, their emotions, and how people think. After experiencing trials, tribulations, and trauma I can view others’ experiences from a more understanding and empathetic perspective; and I now hold a higher respect for those who respect themselves and others. I am now able to more easily decipher between evil people and people I should cherish. I have been able to further understand my parents and their certain ways of thinking/reacting because of the mirrored view they have provided me. I am a product of their combined mental health issues thrown into one package, resulting in the occasional butting of heads, but more importantly the inherent understanding and perception of the reality that they are living/experiencing their reality separate from mine (that happens to be just a parallel of mine). Growing up with a restrictive voice, because of my thoughts, has resulted in my advocating for mental health treatment and proper childhood development. As a child I always believed that I would grow up to become a lawyer; however, my career of interest was shifted during my battle with mental health. I want to be able to assist others in their battles and lead them to the light at the end of the tunnel. I currently have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and focusing on a career that directly involves helping people. I know what it is like to be truly alone, trapped only with the thoughts inside your head, and feel hopeless; and I refuse to watch someone else lose the same battle that I was fortunately able to conquer. I will be the first member of my immediate family to go to college, let alone shoot for a doctoral degree.

The dream version of my future self is someone who possesses a doctoral degree as a psychiatrist, and I see myself as the owner of a house and vehicle. My student loans will be paid off and I will be able to live out the rest of my life pursuing the career that I have always been attracted to and can be financially stable with my own income alone.

I have had a history of mental health and behavioral issues since before I even started head start, and I am the offspring of two parents with multiple different, and multiple commonly shared, mental health disorders. Though there are negative instances when looking back at my psychological record, overall my mental health has had a positive influence/impact on my personal beliefs, career aspirations, and the relationships I have established with others. I am prone to a higher risk of developing mental health and substance-use disorders because of my parent’s genetics and history of drug use. Both of my parents are diagnosed with bipolar disorders, depression disorders, and anxiety disorders. My father, though not diagnosed, showcased symptoms and stereotypes tied around individuals who possess narcissistic personality disorder; and my mother suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after she had suffered a physical assault. I am officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder; corresponding with the anxiolytics (hydroxyzine) and antidepressants (venlafaxine) that I am now prescribed as treatment. However, I am still prone to more diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, because signs of certain disorders do not properly surface until individuals are in their late teens to early adulthood. Though it was a battle, I feel as though I finally have re-established homeostasis after years of psychological treatment (therapy) and now psychiatric/biomedical treatment (medications). I have been an agnostic Atheist since I was ten years old. I had determined that the Christian god and the Christian belief were not aligning with what was taking place in my life. A god, or father, is supposed to be caring for his children and healthily teach them, not in a harmful way. However, most of what I learned has come from negative experiences and trauma; and I cannot believe there is a higher power that would allow me to suffer in such a manner. I have been able to see the evil that is present in the world, and a lot sooner than the majority of people. My intellect has been advanced for all of my life because I was forced to grow up too fast and care for myself and my psyche. However, my religious beliefs are not the only beliefs that mental health has impacted; in fact, my mental health also impacted my socio-cultural and socio-economic ideologies. I found out that I was a member of the LGBTQIA+ community when I was just twelve years old, and I came out immediately because of the extent that my mental health was clawing at all of my other issues, and I could not bear to add such a large lie on top of all of my other previously piled-up issues. Before this discovery I was extremely homophobic and conservative in belief; however, after about a year out of the closet was when I realized the negative effects of growing up in a household of homophobia and misogyny. Henceforth, I have been an advocate for my community because they are a small minority community that is protected enough. I hated myself because of my mental health’s reaction to being queer, I was disgusted. I want to now help others feel comfortable in their skin and to feel heard. My mental health has allowed me to understand people, their emotions, and how people think. After experiencing trials, tribulations, and trauma I can view others’ experiences from a more understanding and empathetic perspective; and I now hold a higher respect for those who respect themselves and others. I am now able to more easily decipher between evil people and people I should cherish. I have been able to further understand my parents and their certain ways of thinking/reacting because of the mirrored view they have provided me. I am a product of their combined mental health issues thrown into one package, resulting in the occasional butting of heads, but more importantly the inherent understanding and perception of the reality that they are living/experiencing their reality separate from mine (that happens to be just a parallel of mine). Growing up with a restrictive voice, because of my thoughts, has resulted in my advocating for mental health treatment and proper childhood development. As a child I always believed that I would grow up to become a lawyer; however, my career of interest was shifted during my battle with mental health. I want to be able to assist others in their battles and lead them to the light at the end of the tunnel. I currently have aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist and focusing on a career that directly involves helping people. I know what it is like to be truly alone, trapped only with the thoughts inside your head, and feel hopeless; and I refuse to watch someone else lose the same battle that I was fortunately able to conquer. I will be the first member of my immediate family to go to college, let alone shoot for a doctoral degree. I am planning on attending the University of Central Arkansas for my Bachelor’s of Psychology, followed by med school, then finally following a four-year psychiatric residency program to become a licensed/certified psychiatrist in the state of Arkansas. Though there are negative instances when looking back at my psychological record, overall my mental health has had a positive influence/impact on my personal beliefs, career aspirations, and the relationships I have established with others. I have developed a more liberal perspective on life and society as a result of my mental health enlightening of the mistreatment and common experiences of others. I changed my religious belief from Christianity to being agnostic as a result of an overanalysis of scripture and Christian foundations and finding that they did not align with my outlook/explanation on life. Although the curse of psychological disorders has been cast upon me I have been able to develop into a successful young man with a bright future ahead of me.

My family and I have been directly impacted in every aspect as a result of my father’s incarceration and his incompetence in general. My father has been in and out of incarceration since I was twelve years old; however, disregarding how negative that statement sounds, my father’s absence has had a positive impact on my academic and career ambitions. My father has presented himself to me as the perfect mold and example of the exact person that I am trying to avoid becoming in life. I know that my father will amount to nothing in this lifetime and will never get any certificate greater than his GED. I am motivated to do the exact opposite and pursue a doctoral degree as a Psychiatrist. My father has not even made an annual salary above thirty-thousand dollars in years as a result of his incompetence and priority of drugs over his own immediate family. His break from the family resulted in my mother being forced to financially support three children on her own, and my father’s incarceration has delayed my mother’s efforts of placing child support on my father. My father’s first incarceration, specifically during my childhood, was in 2017 for stealing an elderly woman’s credit card out of her purse and draining the account on wasteful things for me and the rest of the family. This was the first incident in that I was able to realize my father’s buffoonery and how sorry an excuse of a man he had become. His incarceration motivated me to strive for academic success that next school year, and I have been taking advanced and college courses since then. I currently hold a cumulative grade point average of 3.97 and ranked within the top ten of my class. I am now the first person in my immediate family to take college classes and receive college credit. I am expected to graduate high school with thirteen to fifteen college credits by taking concurrent credit courses through Arkansas Tech University. My father has been in and out of incarceration since I was twelve years old; however, disregarding how negative that statement sounds, my father’s absence has had a positive impact on my academic and career ambitions. The crimes and atrocities committed by my father have taught me to turn the other cheek, and motivate me to be an overall better man and dad than my father; after all, anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a father. However, I would like to clarify that I hold no blame toward the justice system that has been put in place to protect us as citizens and that I solely can acknowledge that the blame shall be placed on my father’s actions and decisions. The grand lesson that I learned from my father’s incarceration is that if I followed the same path as my parents as I grew older, then I would find myself in a life of crime and poverty.