My career plan is to go through the Nursing program at East Texas A&M University and become a Registered Nurse. From there I plan to become a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) Nurse. I decided to go down the Nursing and healthcare path because I have always known that I want to help others. As a little kid I wanted to be a veterinarian but as I have gotten older, I have decided to be a nurse. I was once a prematurely born baby weighing 3 pounds 6 ounces and was taken care of by an amazing and helpful staff. I want to become that person for someone else, who trusts a stranger with their child and knows that they are in the best of care. I want to take care of anyone who needs it and to preform a service for others. I know that becoming a NICU nurse is very niche, so I know that I need to have a backup plan for if that line of work doesn't pan out. If I can not become a NICU nurse, I am fully willing to be a pediatric nurse to work with young children, or a geriatric nurse in a nursing home or other facility to work with the elderly. No matter what type of nursing or healthcare line I go down, I want to make sure that I am always helping others similar to how I was once helped. I want to give families the peace of mind to know that their loved one is in good hands. Two of my great-aunts work in the healthcare profession and I know that they have a lot of really amazing stories about people they have helped and families they have impacted. I also have a best friend who's mother worked in a similar field. She worked in labor and delivery for a while and then she moved to being a general nurse for babies in the nursery in the hospital she works at. Other than people with similar professions, my Grandma has really taught me that I need to be the best person I can be. She always helps others who need assistance and has always pushed me to do the same. She has always been my idol and I strive to be as caring and helpful as she is. My professional goal is to become a Registered Nurse and to work in the NICU so I can positively impact families who are in need, same as I once was.

I can help members of my community by doing little acts of kindness for people who might need it. It makes a bigger impact if those people aren't expecting it. Going out of my way to do small gestures that don't hinder the duties and responsibilities that I have can brighten someone's day. Something as small as a smile or helping someone carry their groceries to their car can be the happiest minute of their day and who knows, they might pass it on to someone else. When I was at Ruth Cherry Intermediate, I was apart of an extra curricular type organization called Destination Imagination. The competition that my team always did was called the Service Learning Project. We had to do something to help our community and then make a skit and props about it using the theme of that years competition and preform for judges. I was apart of this team for 4 years and 3 of those years we went all the way to the global competition. This particular year we decided to collect items and make goodie bags for patients at a local cancer center because one of our 5 teammates mom had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. This year was different because we got to help someone we knew personally. It wasn't helping make dog goodie bags, care packages for victims of a recent tornado, or sending money to Africa to build a well. We actually got to see the impact we had on someone we all loved. No one would've known that Mrs. Anna wasn't perfectly healthy if she hadn't had to shave her hair. She was always the most positive, bubbly, and outgoing person we knew. We kept the project that year a secret and when we hand delivered her bag to her we could see how much it meant to her. Through this I learned that even people who you think can manage on their own and don't seem to have a care in the world might need a pick me up from time to time. You never know what someone is going through, or even if you do, you don't know how it is truly affecting them. Other ways that people can volunteer and help their community could include looking for places that have volunteer opportunities such as animal shelters, food pantries, and libraries. You can also join groups that are centered around volunteering and helping such as the Lions Club. Something small that doesn't require a group but you could put a little group together could include cleaning up trash in parking lots or on the side of the road, helping carry groceries for the elderly, or taking people's dogs for a walk and not asking for money. Volunteering is an easy way to help out one's community and do small acts of kindness that could change someone's life

I want to go into nursing because I want to help others in a way similar to how I was once helped, and I believe that becoming a Registered Nurse would be the perfect way to do this. I was born over 2 months early because my mom got extremely sick while pregnant with me partially due to our blood types. Due to being born so prematurely, I had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for almost 4 weeks. During this time I had to have machines help me breathe, help me eat and I even had a hernia that has resulted in me having an interesting shaped belly button. The nurses took such good care of me that my parents didn't have to worry because they knew I was in good hands. However, being first time parents they were worried nonetheless, but the nurses helped them through everything. The first time my mom got to hold me, she was afraid I had died because I had fallen asleep and forgot to breathe. Machines were beeping everywhere and my mom was terrified but the nurses simply told her to wake me up and I would be just fine. I would love to be able to become a Registered Nurse (RN) and be able to specialize in and be able to work with Premie babies like I once was. I know that this is an extremely specific job and that there are only so many positions available at any given hospital for this type of work, so having a RN license will help me if I need to get a different nursing job. Being a RN will help me get a job in other areas of nursing too such as pediatrician offices, nursing homes, emergency rooms, pharmacies, and schools. Being a Registered Nurse will open the door for many more possibilities if I decide that working in the NICU is not for me. I would be able to find another line of work helping others in the way that I would most enjoy! I have had quite a few family members who have had to go in and out of surgeries and therapies and I have seen firsthand what an impact nurses have on their patients. I would love to bring a family, or even just a single person the piece of mind that they are in good care and don't have anything to worry about other than getting better and that I will be there with them to help them alokg the way. I have always wanted to help people and do things for others and I believe that helping others with their medical needs would be a great way to pay back the help I got to start my life, and I would be doing something that I love!