By the age of seven, I was a professional smuggler. When my parents weren’t looking, I would sneak upstairs and hide the forbidden objects in my bedroom. These contraband items, however, were the least thing that you might expect: books. When I was young, my parents instilled in me a love of reading; this love only grew until it reached the point where I would stay up reading far past my bedtime. Consequently, my parents banned books from my bedroom and I resorted to surreptitious importation to feed my hunger for reading. Little did I know how the impact these books would have on my future. As I grew older, I decided that just as I loved books, I absolutely deplored STEM: healthcare was boring, and math was too complicated and confusing. However, my 9th grade algebra teacher completely changed my mind on math: through her clear teaching, she transformed my confusion into deep understanding. To my surprise, I grew to enjoy math; that year it was my favorite subject, and I decided that STEM wasn’t so bad at all. In 10th grade, chemistry was my favorite subject, and I resolved to pursue a career in STEM. While these subjects changed my mind on STEM, what changed my mind about healthcare in particular was, unsurprisingly, books. Often, having devoured all the books I could find, I would turn to reading books that I would have otherwise dismissed as being too young for me. Around 9th grade, this led me to read the Cherry Ames books, a series about a nurse, and the series which completely transformed my perspective on healthcare. Before reading these books, I had dismissed healthcare as boring because I viewed it as merely taking care of a body; however, after reading them, I realized healthcare was about taking care of a person. While nurses play an important role in administering healthcare, they are also some of a patient’s biggest emotional supporters. Whether through encouraging a mother in labor, comforting a lonely child, or reassuring an anxious patient before a procedure, nurses are crucial in helping patients feel that they are not alone. It was the realization of this that drew me to nursing. My dream is to make an impact in the future, not through some breakthrough discovery or achievement, but through the smaller-scale, yet equally important task of easing the mental and physical suffering of a patient through my care. Throughout my life, I have always been a nurturing person: I love playing with and babysitting children, and at school I always feel compelled to reach out to new students. Last year, I even co-founded a Women’s Club at my school to foster community between the girls in my school and to help them find a welcoming group of friends. Being a nurturing person is a critical aspect of becoming a nurse, as they empathize with and care for patients. Through becoming a nurse, I will be able to continue to pursue my goal of making a difference by impacting one life at a time. As I have researched the path to becoming a nurse, I have come to appreciate the crucial role that education plays every step of the way. College, and even my current high school education, will not only teach me knowledge necessary for this career; they will also help me develop the immense discipline, perseverance and hard work which I will need to become a nurse and fulfill the dream inspired by a young smuggler’s love for books.