I am the first generation to go to college to further my education and I am extremely proud of that. Both my parents have gotten a high school diploma but due to special circumstances, they were not able to go further than that. But I can and with the help that you are giving me, I am just one step closer to reaching my goal. I am the sister to a 14-year-old brother who is just starting his high school career just as mine is ending. I did not play any sports but I did spend my time on the sidelines being a student athletic trainer for the last 4 years and I wouldn’t trade one second of it for the world. I am Hispanic and I am proud to be. My first language is Spanish but my English is just as fluent. I had some trouble growing up, my parents always put me in bilingual classes and so the transition from my mostly Spanish-speaking classes in elementary to all English classes in middle school was tough. But I got through it because I knew that my Spanish was only a benefit, a positive thing not something negative or something I should be ashamed of. And as I got older and I started to work is when I got to realize that I was being more successful because I knew how to talk to customers and get them to come back for more. I see it at my internship when Dr.Parker or Reagan his P.A. asks me to help them translate it is a feeling that is indescribable that I can’t get enough of. Shadowing Dr.Parker and his staff from Parker Sports Medicine & Orthopedics was the one push that inspires and motivates me to want to follow my dream career of being an orthopedic surgeon. I had my heart set on sports medicine since my freshman year when I fell in love with athletic training. But I knew that I wanted more than to just be on the sidelines, not that there is anything wrong with that, I love being a trainer, but I just know that I was made for more. I did some research on the different career paths in sports medicine and that’s when I discovered orthopedic surgery at that moment I decided that I was going to be a surgeon. Not just any surgeon as I have followed Dr.Parker to the hospital on his surgery days when I look at the O.R. Board all I see are male doctors who are in the orthopedic surgery field. I want to be a female orthopedic surgeon who can one day top all those names on that board. Now when I saw the amount of school I had to go through I was shocked but I know that it will go by fast and that if I apply myself I will get through it. Going to college is the first step I need to take to get closer to being Dr. Castaneda. Every day that I go to class will be one day closer and as scary as it is I am so excited for what my future holds I think college is the way to go to be who I want to be and get to where I want to one day be.