While I was in elementary school, I often spent time at a senior care home with my childhood best friend, Andrei. Both of our moms worked as nurses at the same senior care home and we’d always participate in the events hosted by the staff. On Halloween, we would receive candy from the residents who were handing out candy. On Easter, we would search through the workplace trying to find eggs filled with candy. I later realized how impactful this exposure to the field of healthcare would be to my future. During these events, my mom would often introduce me to some of the CNAs and her fellow nurse managers, but I had no interest at the time and didn’t realize how much their hard work would resonate with me in the future. Whenever these people asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer always changed, from being a doctor to a teacher, to an engineer. Regardless, my overall goal even as a kid was constant. I wanted to help others and care for others for the overall betterment of society, and I soon determined that I wanted to make that impact by becoming a nurse. My first year of high school was entirely virtual due to COVID-19 and there were often headlines about how nurses were on the frontline during the pandemic. I saw this first hand as my mom was very precautious when coming home from work and worked much longer hours than usual even until now. After hearing and seeing the experiences of close family who are nurses or work with nurses, I wanted to become a nurse. I gained a lot of respect for the strenuous work that nurses do and the impact they can have on a patient. Today, as a senior in high school, I’ve had the opportunity to finish my first two years of college as a pre-nursing major at a local community college while finishing my high school graduation requirements through the Running Start program. Participating in the program however resulted in many hardships. Taking courses at the college as a 16-year-old was intimidating. While there were other running start students, many of the students were older than I was, and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the coursework. In addition, I was left unable to participate in the activities I enjoyed doing at my high school like tennis, orchestra, and French because my college was nearly a half-hour drive away from my high school. I didn’t have consistent transportation because my parents didn’t allow me to get my driver’s license until the summer break after my junior year and would give me rides from and to campus. Despite all this, my ultimate goal is to be commissioned into the United States Air Force as a registered nurse, and potentially further my career as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. While I faced the loss of my last two years of high school, and first two years of college because of running start, I’ll soon be able to fulfill my childhood dream of helping others by becoming a nurse.