Hobbies and interests
Writing
Reading
Drawing And Illustration
Tutoring
Learning
Speech and Debate
Reading
Young Adult
Science
Fantasy
I read books daily
Helen Teddy
2,865
Bold Points78x
NomineeHelen Teddy
2,865
Bold Points78x
NomineeBio
Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to be a doctor.
Whenever I turned on the TV, or read books, they would be related to science. Even now, every night, my hands itch if I don't flip through the crisp pages of my self-requested bio textbook, absorbing the knowledge like a thirsted plant in a desert.
It's been my passion. So, whenever I think about my career, I remember little Helen, with her stethoscope in hand. I remember her big, gaping eyes as she insisted, "I will be a doctor!" as she stuck band-aids to perfectly well arms. I remember her tight doctor's coat, too small after years of wear, hands barely fitting through the sleeves. I remember her sweet smile, telling others she would go back to Ethiopia, providing medical care for the sick and poor.
That's what I see when I look at white coats, stethoscope looped around the tops. That's what I see when I look forward, the hopes and the dreams twirling just within reach.
That's what I see when I'm asked, what career do you want to have?
Well, I want to be a doctor. And that's why I need scholarship money.
As an aspiring med student, I can tell you the pricey nature of med school is intimidating enough without college loans. This meant that even as a kid, I understood I was going depend on scholarships to pay for college. After all, I would be in debt for $150,000 or even more in loans for med school and college combined. Your scholarship could help me pursue my dreams and get where I want in life, to establish my childhood dream of being a doctor, without the cost of lifelong loans.
Education
Woodbridge High
High SchoolMiscellaneous
Desired degree level:
Doctoral degree program (PhD, MD, JD, etc.)
Majors of interest:
- Medicine
- Law
- Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration
Career
Dream career field:
Medicine
Dream career goals:
Neonatologist to assist impoverished youth in Ethiopia, owning nonprofit to do so
Sports
Swimming
2020 – Present4 years
Table Tennis
2022 – Present2 years
Badminton
Club2023 – Present1 year
Research
Botany/Plant Biology
(Independent) — Conductor of Research2018 – 2018
Arts
Coursera
Book Writing2023 – Present
Public services
Advocacy
Woodbridge High School — Podcaster2024 – 2024Advocacy
(self-initiative) — Writer(poetry) to assist Orthodox Christian youths feel heard in the struggle of being cast out due to faith in the eyes of society.2024 – PresentVolunteering
VLC (Viking Learning Center) — Tutor2023 – PresentAdvocacy
(self-initiative) — Wrote letter to community association, colleced petitions. Request was approved to allow more areas to be blocked off for only emergency vehicles. Writing current letters to be published in order to continue advocacy.2023 – Present
Future Interests
Advocacy
Politics
Volunteering
Philanthropy
Entrepreneurship
Cocoa Diaries Scholarship
A Pain Such As This
"Are you Indian? Or Egyptian?"
Her voice is like a hot iron to the scalp, a feeling I've often felt before, tryin to hide my coils underneath the ruse of straight, artificial style. Wanting something that is not mine. But I push these thoughts away as I shake my head.
"No. I'm Ethiopian."
"And that's in...Europe?"
"Africa."
"Oh." They seem to muse over my face for a while, before staring at my hair, whispering, "You don't look African, really. Maybe mixed?"
Tingles wash over my face, and I'm sure my smile looks bitter as I release a shaky, "I guess."
My grip tightens on the pencil I have in my hand as I think, 'they don't know any better'. Every word that they utter comes from a blissful, deep unknowing, hidden away from the struggle of identifying that came with being from anywhere in Africa, really.
In America, I was Black.
In Africa, I was Ethiopian-American.
In almost every country, though, what has never changed was being the Other.
Not quite Black, I would see on their faces, and not quite African, because who can't even write in her own home language? Not quite either, and therefore not quite anything.
I let myself be drained by standards. I hid myself under silk press after silk press, Americanized myself with fear of speaking my own language, Amharic, and silenced myself, never allowing anyone to know who I truly was.
I buried myself underneath a mask of who I thought I had to be for so long, so long that my hair did not know of braids, my lips did not know of home, and I almost echoed "White."
I remember when I was little, I was always a bit afraid of what my dominately White neigboorhood would think of me, what they saw in our Habesha kemis', as me and my mother covered our foot to toe in white and went to Beta Kristian. Would they find us weird? What would they think of us?
If only I had known.
My skin, my culture, my traditions, are for ME. They could say what they wanted to, if they wished. They could bully me behind their backs, bully my food, my dress, my prayers and my religion as a whole.
But I will never, ever stop being who I am for someone else, because I am who I am.
If I can help one other Black girl learn this, if I could guide her in the right way so she won't stumble like I have, it would mean the world to me. I've begun this action from tutoring at my school, and from there, helping disadvantaged Black girls using the knowledge I have so that we can get Black women into the best schools, and into every field men have dominated.
Because we all know that Black women deserve it just as much as the men do, and no Black girl deserves pain such as this.