Below, please find the admissions essay I submitted to UCLA School of Law. As a child, it felt like I spent all my time in hospitals, pacing across checkered tile floors under harsh fluorescent lights. When I was five years old, my mother developed severe chronic illnesses that required constant medical attention. Though my father was her primary caregiver, when he needed to start working more hours to keep us afloat, I stepped into the role, giving her insulin injections, accompanying her to doctors’ appointments, and maneuvering her around the apartment in the later years when she could no longer walk. Though I was glad to make my parents’ lives a bit easier, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated by a healthcare system that seemed to offer neither relief nor improved quality of life for patients or their families. By the time I was a college sophomore, both of my parents had passed away— my mother had gone into hospice care with renal failure, and my father, burned out from twenty years of caregiving, succumbed to a sudden heart attack. Losing my parents by nineteen ignited my passion for public service and led me to discover a future in health law and policy, advocating for change not only for individuals, but at the systemic level. During my undergraduate education, I built a foundation in public health and advocacy. In the classroom, I explored debates surrounding issues of bodily autonomy, like death with dignity and reproductive rights, and discussed policy impacting marginalized groups like women, the LGBTQ+ community, and the elderly. For my sociology honors thesis, I focused on compulsory vaccines for public school students in the US. By synthesizing materials from public health journals and legal sources, I determined that the lack of effective intervention to vaccine-hesitant behavior carried the risk of more outbreaks of otherwise preventable diseases in low-income communities and among people of color, suggesting that the anti-vaccination movement could disproportionately harm marginalized communities if policy remained unchanged. On campus, I was eager to apply theoretical knowledge from the classroom to make a difference in student health outcomes as Chair of the Student Health Advisory Committee and as a Peer Health Educator. As the only student representative at Student Health Insurance Plan meetings, I successfully argued against a proposed emergency room copay of $150, negotiating it down to $75. As a member of the plan myself, I knew the struggle of having to decide whether to see a doctor or save the money for tuition and books. I loved being able to advocate for and meet my peers’ needs as a liaison between the student body and the administration, which solidified my decision to go into law and policy. To gain direct experience in public interest health law after college, I joined the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) as a paralegal. Serving older adults and individuals with disabilities, I worked on my clients’ behalf to obtain retroactive Medicaid benefits and advocated for them to receive 24-hour home healthcare through appeals and Administrative Law Fair Hearings. Helping clients access necessary services that would improve not only their lives but the lives of their families, who were often acting as caregivers without pay or support, was incredibly rewarding. At the same time, I disagreed with a system that left vulnerable people struggling to access benefits to which they were entitled, and I knew that we were only able to assist a fraction of the population in need. My time at NYLAG affirmed that I wanted to work in the public sector, supporting underserved groups, and felt that I could do that most effectively as a legal advocate. After NYLAG, I sought out ways to make a broader impact through advocacy and joined Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) before later embarking on a specialized Fulbright grant. At WRJ, I utilized our platform to call attention to issues like abortion access and gender-based violence through educational webinars, conferences, and blog posts. The most fruitful parts of my time at WRJ were the opportunities to participate in policy discussions with lay-leaders and stakeholders representing both religious and secular interests. Currently, through Fulbright, I teach English at a small university in Hungary, supporting the Roma student population, who historically faced significant systemic discrimination— less than 1% of Hungarian Roma receive college degrees, and statistically they have worse health outcomes than any other group in the country. Both my experiences with WRJ and with the Roma in Hungary have taught me valuable skills in building trust when working with a particular identity-based group, which will be invaluable for a future in public service. As a lawyer, I will spend my career fighting for equitable and accessible healthcare that centers the agency of patients and their families. When I was a child watching my parents struggle physically, emotionally, and financially, I knew we couldn’t be the only ones facing these obstacles. Confirming that these hardships were shared did not bring me any comfort, rather, it mobilized me to leverage my experiences and pursue a career in public service to empower individuals and communities. It is my hope that in honor of my parents, and of everyone struggling to access care, as a future lawyer and policymaker, I will be a part of enacting necessary change through compassionate and empathetic policy.