My name is Jessica Koscak, and I am a Graduate Music Education major from Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, lobular carcinoma type, on April 17th, 2024. She was diagnosed at the end of my junior year of college for my undergraduate degree. With the news of this diagnosis, I did not realize how fast-paced we were going to move for the next three months. On May 28th, she had a double mastectomy. She wanted to get the cancerous tumors out of her body before doing anything else. If the cancer was caught early enough, it could be contained before it metastasized. On the way home from the hospital, she was on the phone scheduling her next surgery. She wanted to get everything done to get back to work as an LPN nurse and support my sister and me. On June 27th, she had a hysterectomy. On July 12th, she got her port for her chemotherapy treatments, which began on July 19th and ended on September 18th, 2024. I saw cancer drain her. I was at her side, offering any assistance I could. I drove her to all of her appointments and surgeries, spent all my extra time with her in case she needed something, and spent time with her in the hospital while she was getting chemotherapy treatments and recovering. She heard the diagnosis and wanted to stop the growth of the tumors as soon as possible. She had to get the surgery first to get the tumors out of her for her mental health. She is my rock that supports me in anything I do. I knew it was my turn to give back to someone very important in my life. My mother maintained a positive attitude through everything that was thrown at her during the summer. She used her experience to educate others, and she continues to educate through her experience via social media. I did not have time to process all of this until after I got back to school, unfortunately. I thought it was right for me to resume my college life as if nothing had happened during the summer before. She knew that time was of the essence when she got the cancer diagnosis and moved as fast as she possibly could, and I ran alongside her. She said, especially all summer, that we needed to “crap and get off the pot”. We needed to keep moving because there was more that needed to be done. She never gave up, she showed me the power of drive and ambition, she kept pushing herself to get better. This experience has taught me how to have a positive outlook on situations and how to turn something extremely negative into a tool for education that is positive. I was able to see, firsthand, how she worked hard to understand what she was going to go through and what she needed to do in order to maintain her health while she underwent all this treatment. This experience also taught me the power of educating yourself. My mom spent hours upon hours researching what was going to happen, her options, and how to make this experience have a better outcome for her. She read everything from others’ experiences, medical research journals, books, articles online, and asked a plethora of questions to her medical team. Every appointment with her team, she took a ginormous notepad with her that was filled with questions that she thought of from all the research and knowledge she had gathered. My mom wanted to thoroughly know what she was going to face.

I have had so many people in my life who supported me through thick and thin. From teachers and professors to friends and family, I have had a plethora of supporters who have encouraged me to go in the direction of music and happiness for myself. The biggest supporters in my life are my parents. My parents have pushed me to be the best that I can be in whatever I put my mind to. My mother is a nurse, and my father is a plant operator. Neither one of them went to college, but that did not stop them from supporting my dreams and wants for going to college for music education. My parents have been so supportive of what I wanted to do with my life since day one. They encouraged me to do something that I love to do. When I said I wanted to attend an institution for higher education for something that I loved to do, they were behind me one hundred percent. Specifically, my mother has helped me realize my love of music. She and I would always be singing songs in the car, seeing Broadway shows, listening to different styles of music and appreciating the emotion behind the music. In elementary school, I wanted to begin learning an instrument. She was more than open to letting me learn an instrument of my choice, so I started to learn the baritone horn. Learning the baritone developed into me joining multiple choirs, the drama club, learning more instruments, and the marching band in middle school. I could not get enough music. I knew that I wanted to pursue music in some way, shape, or form. I was heavily involved in these clubs from sixth grade until I graduated in 2021. These clubs and my involvement in them for seven years, as well as the support I have received along the way, shaped me into the person I am today. When I finally decided that I wanted to go to college for music education, my parents were behind me every step of the way. We had to figure a lot of difficult things out together since I am the first person in my family to go to college. Now I am a college junior, and I am thriving in my classes and extracurriculars. I am an honors student who is active in the school's choirs, the school's handbell choir, the local community choir, and the university's pep band serving as president this school year.

I consider myself to be passionate about what I do, but also patient and loving with everyone I come into contact with. I would be sorted into the house of Helga Hufflepuff, full of people who are full of loyalty, patience, and hard work. They are also humble and they value the importance of love and kindness to others. I am not one to talk about myself or my accomplishments. Hufflepuffs value the importance of being loyal to people. I consider myself to be very loyal to my friends, family, professors, colleagues, etc. If someone asks me to do something, I will do it without hesitation. I will help someone in any way that I can. Along with being loyal, they also like to be fair to everyone. In Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory wanted to be fair to his fellow Hogwarts Champion, Harry Potter, by informing him about a hint to figure out the next challenge after Harry did the same to him previously for the first challenge. Hufflepuffs are known for being hard workers. They put one hundred percent into anything and everything they put their minds to. In the Fantastic Beasts books, Hufflepuff Newt Scamander does everything in his power to take care of his loved ones and his unique, "fantastic beasts". I like to think that I put all of my efforts into everything that I do, as well as do the most that I can without overstretching myself. I am a junior in college who is involved in clubs and activities around the university, and I try to put everything I got into everything I put my mind to. I have a drive to do the best that I can when it comes to everything that I am involved in. Hufflepuffs are also known for being modest and humble when it comes to themselves. I do not like to boast because there might be others who overhear what I am saying and might get jealous. I am not the greatest at talking about myself; I'd rather talk about someone or something else. I also fear bragging about myself. I have heard the phrase "You should be so proud of yourself" or "You should tell more people that" constantly. The Hufflepuff common room is conveniently located near the kitchen. I love food, eating food, cooking food, and everything about food. Hufflepuffs dislike arguing or any sort of disagreement or fighting. They are people pleasers in a sense; they will do anything they can to avoid any sort of disagreement or conflict. I do not like conflict at all. I have developed bad anxiety about conflict, so I will do what I can to put a stop to any conflict. I would consider myself to be a Hufflepuff because they are loyal, patient, hard-working, humble, and modest. They also do not like conflict or any form of disagreement.