The moment I knew that I wanted to enter the field of healthcare and medicine happened in a way that I had never expected. It was a typical weekday morning for me during my junior year of high school. I had boarded the school bus with just a few hours of sleep under my belt from my extensive night of homework and SAT prep. I was doing my usual routine which was listening to music and scrolling through Twitter when I came across a video that piqued my interest. It was a video where a man recalled the heartbreaking story of losing his wife during the birth of their second child, partly due to found negligence and racial discrimination of the hospital staff. I spent the rest of that bus ride and the rest of my morning in tears. It’s a moment that I will never forget. I knew from there I wanted to dedicate my life to saving and changing lives through medicine and healthcare. Looking back at it now as a Biomedical Sciences major, all I can feel is gratitude for the moment that made me realize my true passion in life and the same emotions that I felt that same day. I am currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree at St. John’s University. Within the next few years, I plan on applying to medical school and pursuing either a PhD/MD or MPH/MD dual degree program so I am able to integrate research, medicine, and public health into my lifetime career. The things that I have achieved now have set me on the path to being able to make a true and long-lasting impact on people and their health. I want to help as many people as I can, including underserved mothers. It is my ultimate life goal to open a birthing center that is accommodating to all insurances and those who are uninsured, so women can have equal opportunities to have a safe delivery in a welcoming environment. While STEM is my passion and my main route of helping people, I believe that understanding each other as human beings is one of the most important steps to helping one another. The future to us means many different things, but for all of us, it is certainly unknown. We have no plausible way to predict the future with complete accuracy. The one thing we can do is let our experiences influence our futures. My one true hope is that the ups and downs of my journey as a first-generation college student will allow me to help make someone else’s journey in the future a little easier. This scholarship would ease some of the stress and burdens that I carry when it comes to paying for my education. It would help me push through my financial insecurities and continue to fight for my goals.