I genuinely enjoy learning; naturally my hobbies revolve around learning. I enjoy taking ballet classes, learning Spanish, running, and reading. When I was three years old, I started taking dance classes. I continued with this for years until I was eleven and fell in love with ballet. I switched to a more intense training program to prepare myself to take on my dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. I became sick with a rare and undiagnosable disease when I was thirteen, switching my career path of choice to doctor. Now that I am healthy, I have rekindled my love for ballet and taken up classes in the context of a hobby, rather than a future career. I started college at the University of Miami in the fall of 2021. I noticed that so many people here speak Spanish, and it has sparked my passion for learning the language to have the ability to communicate with more people here. I downloaded and read an online textbook and took a self-paced Spanish course online. I practice speaking with my fluent friends, and thoroughly enjoy learning this wonderful language. In the middle of my senior year, I fractured my fifth metatarsal and sprained my anterior talofibular ligament. Due to this, I had to stop dancing for a year while it healed. Once I was cleared for exercising, I took up running. It has become one of the few aspects of my life that are not metricized; I allow myself to run because it feels good, and practice fully intuitive runs in which I listen to my body on what distance and pace feel right for each day. It has been wonderful to find an activity that allows me to relax from my normal habit of being so calculated and full of intent.

I slide my finger across the screen of the little box that provides millions of people instant access to an endless stream of media. One-minute video clips with various background noises play on my screen. From videos of cute dogs to trendy dances, the diversity of my homepage draws me in and locks me there, keeping me scrolling and stumbling upon these short clips. The aspect that has struck me the most in my two years of swiping through Tik Tok in my rare and short-lived free time is the compassion of my generation. Every day, I aim to live with and through compassion. I believe that overall, the human population is progressing towards a more compassionate and less judgmental society. Just on Tik Tok alone, I have watched parents support each other’s difference in parenting styles, I have seen videos of women detailing their sexual assault experiences and people supporting them in the comment section. During the Roe V. Wade overturn, I witnessed people offer up their homes in states in which abortion was still legal to anyone who may be in a desperate situation. I have seen countless videos and comments empowering and supporting people and populations in between my scrolls entailing cute pets and hip-shaking. One may argue that the level of compassion in society has always been the same and that it is the connection we have through technology that allows me to notice this compassion; this is precisely it. Each person using these apps has access to see others practicing empathy. What are two crucial things that populations thrive off? Relatedness and morale. The more people that are seen practicing compassion, the more other people will pick up the habit. So what gives me hope for the future? Technology. There are many downsides to technology; this increase in societal compassion may be one of the few things we can thank technology for.

My interest in a STEM degree runs deeper than a simple interest in math or science. While I am the person who looked forward to my first-period calculus class in high school, and the person who genuinely enjoyed attending chemistry lectures during my first year of college, my interest in a STEM degree is oriented more toward my long-term goal of becoming a pediatric specialist. Loving and caring for kids has always been a large part of my identity. For starters, I am an older sister. Watching over my younger sister has been a part of my life since I was three years old. As soon as I entered sixth grade and was old enough to take my middle school’s Red Cross Babysitting Certification Course, I signed up. As I grew older, I began babysitting most days of the week for a family with a six-year-old and an eight-year-old. Fast forward to the summer after my senior year of high school, and I was now caring for these two kids, who are now 9 and 11, for ten hours consecutively multiple days of the week. It was an incredibly rewarding experience, and the relationship I have developed with these children will last a lifetime. My ambition to become a pediatric specialist has also been shaped by my personal experience as a pediatric patient. When I was thirteen, I began experiencing a worsening of symptoms I had experienced my entire life. This was the year of hospital stays, and when each test result came back clear, doctors did not believe that anything was physically wrong. I was sat down by doctors countless times in countless hospitals and was told that I had an eating disorder. There were some days when I believed this to be true, but luckily, I pushed through and listened to the little voice in my head reminding me that I knew my body best. Nine months later, I was diagnosed with a rare disease: Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome. I underwent corrective surgery and am now in perfect health. So, part of my passion to become a pediatric specialist comes from my desire to help and care for children. However, most of this passion comes from my experience as a pediatric patient who received terrible care and medical mistreatment. When ten doctors would sit down to discuss my case, only one advocated for me. More importantly, however, she told me one day to continue advocating for myself. Out of dozens of medical professionals, it only took this one believing me to keep me going and find my diagnosis. I want to be that one for other kids; I want to teach children to advocate for themselves because they know their bodies best. Most importantly, I want to advocate for sick children; I want to listen to them in a way that makes them feel heard and help them from my unique perspective of the time I was a thirteen-year-old in a similar situation to them. That is why I work so hard to obtain my STEM degree.

Each day I live by the belief that life is a series of events that occur, and what matters is how I choose to deal with them. I cannot trace this idea back to one singular day, however, I attribute this lesson to a time in my life when I was experiencing a myriad of mysterious symptoms with an unknown linking diagnosis. I spent weeks in the hospital due to stomach pain and an inability to hold food down; I watched my friends' lives move forward while mine felt stuck in time. The doctors told me my symptoms were nothing but an act; there became a point where I even thought I was making this all up. There were numerous nights that I asked my mom, “why me?” Each time I got close to a diagnosis, I hit a dead-end, causing hope to feel nonexistent. I pushed forward with the mindset of it not being about what was happening in my life rather how I chose to deal with each situation. So, I continued to search. What choice did I have? I was not going to give up on myself. Nine months later, I was diagnosed with Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome: a rare, congenital disease that I stumbled across online in one of my countless hours of research. I had surgery to correct my anatomy and cure the symptoms I had been experiencing. I can apply this lesson to different aspects of my life as I move forward. As an aspiring pediatric specialist, I have a heavy course load in college and an understanding that the path to my career will be demanding. Despite my confidence and hard work, there is always a chance that my plan does not play out accordingly; perhaps I do poorly on my MCAT or do not get into medical school in the first round that I apply. After what I have been through, I know I will not give up. I would remind myself that this is just another experience for me to apply my lesson in; I would choose to handle these situations by assessing my values and upholding my optimistic viewpoint. I carry this lesson to a smaller scale and extreme situations I have experienced these past few years. When situations stray from the original plan, say, an additional assignment on a busy week, I remind myself that all that matters at that moment is how I choose to handle this. I have also used this lesson when larger-scale situations have impacted my life. My dad became hospitalized due to a double organ failure during college application season. I was applying to college as a first-generation college student. Immediately, my brain fluttered with victimizing thoughts, wondering why I had to be at such a disadvantage. However, I recognized that this was not how I wanted to handle this situation, so I made a mental list of all the privileges I did have and held onto that as I worked through a difficult time in my life. I am now attending the University of Miami as a Health Science major on the pre-medical track. Four years later I can answer my thirteen-year-old’s question: “why me?” My experience taught me this crucial lesson that I carry into future situations in my life. It aided my discovery of my grit and was a catalyst for the growth mindset I have today. I am often asked if I could go back and not have had to deal with the physical and emotional pain, would I? No. I am too grateful for the lessons I have learned.