Similarly to Martin Luther King I have a dream; even a dream whose entirety transcends above my self needs and seeks serving communities. It is looking beyond the self that makes life worth living. I come from a less fortunate background where the thought let alone the dream to become a physician is too expensive to achieve for two reasons. First, the toxic nature of the neighborhood almost totally roots against you in conceiving in mind such a dream due to sheer hopelessness among the youth. To put it into perspective, there is a high drop-out rate among schools. For one, school is utterly a challenge—especially having to learn eight various subjects in a language that is only secondary to you. Then sheer challenge of mastering the English grammar rules as if my native language grammar rules were not torturous enough to learn. This is part of the reason for the high drop-out rate. I could only hope not to make the statistics. I conceived a dream and held onto school for dear life. More so—because outside the school premises looms unforgiving peer pressure. Unforgiving in the sense that it has the power to very easily change one’s life course to a completely new reality: even a reality infested with drug abuse and addiction, a reality of prostitution, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, a reality of teen homelessness, a reality of deepening poverty, and a reality of crime amongst others. Second, the state affairs of the country in its entire makes achieving my dream after conceiving it mind nearly impossible because even after enduring both primary and high school and withstanding the relentless peer pressure outside elementary and high school, it is nearly impossible to cover the cost of college tuition from personal savings. I am from a third world country where nearly 70% of the population lives below the poverty line. Having been born of parents that do not hold any college degrees and work in not so reliable jobs (my mother being a house cleaner and the breadwinner, while my father drove asbestos-mining trucks before the mine was closed in 2001), there was no college money to save for me to attend college. Luckily, I had picked up a sport (golf) which saw me getting recruited by a US college in 2017. Leaving my country is the greatest blessing that has ever befallen me. For one, the country does not have tertiary institutions with infrastructure and education programs to support my dream to become a physician. In addition, there are no initiatives erected to support physician dreamers like myself. There is so much grit we have to demonstrate if we are to achieve such a dream. Even with all the grit, dedication and perseverance the lack of finance becomes a dream killer. It is almost as if the right and freedom to become a physician is one that is exclusively reserved for the few that are utterly rich. Talking about challenging the status quo, my perseverance in achieving my dream to become a physician came at the cost of applying myself immensely in learning the English language, staying at school despite the outside peer pressure of dropping-out alongside other toxicities, acquiring a skill in playing golf to get a full athletic scholarship to attend a junior college, excelling academically in that junior college in order to gain admission into a four-year college (New Mexico State University). For me this is the essence of the American dream; the sheer demonstration of grit in overcoming obstacles and making every use of the opportunities that this great country (US) provides.

Similarly to Martin Luther King I have a dream; even a dream whose entirety transcends above my self needs and seeks serving communities. I come from a less fortunate background where the thought let alone the dream to become a physician is too expensive to achieve for two reasons. First, the toxic nature of the neighborhood almost totally roots against you in conceiving in mind such a dream due to sheer hopelessness among the youth. To put it into perspective, there is a high drop-out rate among schools. For one, school is utterly a challenge—especially having to learn eight various subjects in a language that is only secondary to you. Then sheer challenge of mastering the English grammar rules as if my native language grammar rules were not torturous enough to learn. This is part of the reason for the high drop-out rate. I could only hope not to make the statistics. I conceived a dream and held onto school for dear life. More so—because outside the school premises looms unforgiving peer pressure. Unforgiving in the sense that it has the power to very easily change one’s life course to a completely new reality: even a reality infested with drug abuse and addiction, a reality of prostitution, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, a reality of teen homelessness, a reality of deepening poverty, and a reality of crime amongst others. Second, the state affairs of the country in its entire makes achieving my dream after conceiving it mind nearly impossible because even after enduring both primary and high school and withstanding the relentless peer pressure outside elementary and high school, it is nearly impossible to cover the cost of college tuition from personal savings. I am from a third world country where nearly 70% of the population lives below the poverty line. Having been born of parents that do not hold any college degrees and work in not so reliable jobs (my mother being a house cleaner and the breadwinner, while my father drove asbestos-mining trucks before the mine was closed in 2001), there was no college money to save for me to attend college. Luckily, I had picked up a sport (golf) which saw me getting recruited by a US college in 2017. Leaving my country is the greatest blessing that has ever befallen me. For one, the country does not have tertiary institutions with infrastructure and education programs to support my dream to become a physician. In addition, there are no initiatives erected to support physician dreamers like myself. There is so much grit we have to demonstrate if we are to achieve such a dream. Even with all the grit, dedication and perseverance the lack of finance becomes a dream killer. It is almost as if the right and freedom to become a physician is one that is exclusively reserved for the few that are utterly rich. Talking about challenging the status quo, my perseverance in achieving my dream to become a physician came at the cost of applying myself immensely in learning the English language, staying at school despite the outside peer pressure of dropping-out alongside other toxicities, acquiring a skill in playing golf to get a full athletic scholarship to attend a junior college, excelling academically in that junior college in order to gain admission into a four-year college (New Mexico State University). For me this is the essence of the American dream; the sheer demonstration of grit in overcoming obstacles and making every use of the opportunities that this great country (US) provides.