Being a first-generation college student has been very eye opening to how other people live. Growing up in a rural area within Wyoming we did not get to see very much diversity in my community. Most people who live in the area look like me and tend to have backgrounds similar to mine. However, my town is lucky enough to have a community college. So, it made complete sense to enroll here and take classes on campus as well. This was extremely eye opening as my community college had a well used international student program. There were many students from different parts of Asia and Africa that I had classes with. Many of these students also happened to get jobs at the same place as me. It was amazing to learn about the countries these students came from, what their lives looked like then, and what they think of Wyoming and the United States. On the other hand it was interesting to see just how different the people who I have always known were compared to me. So many students I knew growing up had help paying their education from their parents and only worked for spending money. For me, I was extremely lucky and qualified for the Pell Grant at the time which significantly helped lower education costs. I worked full time, and many times after COVID hit, I was working six days a week while still being a full time student. It was very eye opening to see how many different levels everyone was at even though we were all going to the same college. Both of these experiences, while different, had about the same impact on me. It solidified my choice in major and career. I have always wanted to be in a helping profession, but always bounced around on exactly what I wanted to do. Being a social worker gave me a large amount of employment options while also giving me an extremely solid background for becoming a therapist. Being a therapist means that you will work with people from all walks of life, many of whom are different than me. Meeting new people from a wide variety of places made me excited for a career of working with a diverse group of people. Seeing some people have an easier time completing their degree than I did also made me move towards social work. Social work is all about lifting up the oppressed and underserved. I was lucky and benefitted from the social programs that help low income students. This helped me finish my associates degree. I want nothing more than to give back to people who are worse off than me. To help guide them to a path where they are thriving in their lives like all people should be.

My mom had children very young. By the time my mom was eighteen she had already had three kids, myself included. Due to the fact that she had kids so young, not only was my mom watching us grow up, I feel we watched her grow up as well. I have watched my mom become an extremely responsible and stable adult. In recent years she has kept a stable job in a management position, she has bought her first "new to her" used car, and she has even become a grandma. Being that my mom and I are so close in age compared to that of my friends and their parents, I think that my mom and I tend to like the same things. Growing up and even still we tend to watch the same television shows and movies as each other. We love to spend the day traveling to Utah, spending time and money in the mall, and finishing it off every time with too large dinner at Olive Garden. I think that this has given us an extremely close relationship even to this day. Currently, I am living on an Army base in Germany, and my mom and I still talk on the phone at least once or even twice a week. My mom has shown me what being responsible can really get you. As my mom has learned the ins and outs of being an adult, she was really showing her kids how to do the same every step of the way. My mom's biggest impact on me was how to persevere even when you do not really have much. She is a great cook even when the meals she was feeding a family of five did not cost more than ten dollars in total. She taught us how to have a great holiday season even when there were not many gifts under the tree. My mom has inspired me to keep going even when it seems like your situation will never change. Even though we have had our ups and downs we have always stood by each other no matter what. My mom inspires me to live my life to the fullest with what I have, and to be grateful for what I do have. It is okay that you stay at a regular chain hotel rather than a five star hotel on vacation, at least you get to go. When you go out to dinner you just order waters so you have enough money for desert. I feel as though I am no longer trying to compete with others, because I have watched how happy you can be when you don't.

I started playing the flute in sixth grade. At this point in my life I had started to develop a rather severe eating disorder. For five years I battled my mind just to keep myself alive. At seventeen I had a turning point in my life: either I let this disease consume me or I fight back with everything in me. But the questioned still remained. Fight back for what? I had lost my whole identity to this disorder. There was not anything that I did that was not synonymous with feeding my eating disorder. Slowly I looked into paths that I could travel down to improve my life. With the help of some amazing people I landed on music therapy. I realized that my love of music was actually something that I could use to help people. I could use my story of finally recovering from an eating disorder to help people just like me. This still meant that I had to recover. I could not be a success story without coming out on the other side. Day by day I continued to battle myself to get better. Now, I am almost five years into recovery, and I would consider myself a success story. I truly do not believe that I could not have done that without finding something to throw myself into. Currently I am a social work student with an associates degree. I still play my flute all the time, and it brings me so much peace. I am planning on getting my music and art therapy certificate as soon as I am able to. This passion will help me bring the peace that music has been able to give me to those who need it the most. I still look back on the decision to play the flute and I am amazed on how much that simple decision has changed my life. It brought me my best friend as she also played in our school band. It brought me wonderful experiences such as receiving the woodwind caption award my senior year of high school. Playing the flute propelled me into pursuing the career that I have always dreamed of. I truly do not believe that I could be in the position that I am in today if it were not for that decision to play the flute back in sixth grade. That decision has really changed my life.

This is about my boyfriend's now husband's dog. I met my husband through work, and in spending more time with him met his dog. After moving in together, I very will considered her just as much my dog as she was his. My husband joined the military right when COVID-19 struck. This meant that I had to wait to join him at his first duty station all the way across the world in Germany. During this time it was just me and Pip. I was horribly worried as she was an old dog who had only ever really known my husband. Was our connection strong enough? Would she be able to thrive or even survive with her favorite person gone? It turned out that our connection was incredibly strong. The first month without my husband was incredibly difficult for both of us. There were days when I would catch her laying by the front door for hours as if she was waiting for my husband to walk through the door. Some nights I felt the same way, but she was always right there to put a smile on my face. Unfortunately, Pip became extremely sick. The slow kind of sick that breaks the ones watching its progression. Her kidneys began to slow down, so we got her on an expensive prescription food to help. Then after a few months the vets found a heart murmur. The vets gave us the grave news; "prepare yourselves". Six months. Such a short amount of time to have left, and even six months was not promised. I did my best to monitor her symptoms, but Pip remained strong. Eventually, I did notice her slowing down. Laying on the floor by my feet instead of jumping up onto the bed with me became so common place I had to buy a bigger blanket so that it would cover the spot on the floor she liked too. Never did I see her personality fade or even a hint that she was ready to go. I did not want to make here hold on longer than she wanted to simply because I was not ready to let her go. About two months after we had received the news at the vet I went out on a weekend trip with my mom. Just three days. On early Sunday morning I woke up to my phone ringing at 4am. "Pip's dead". Those words echoed in my mind. She was just fine three days ago! That cannot be right! After the quick phone call I realized I now had to call my husband and inform him as well. I was already heartbroken that my dog had passed without either of us there, but I was especially heartbroken for my husband. He was all the way across the world and had to find out that his childhood dog had finally succumbed to her disease. Coming home from that trip was unlike anything I had imagined. Walking in the door, I instinctively looked up the stairs where Pip likes to sit when I am not home. But, there was no Pip to see. It was devastating. Not only was she gone, but I did not even get to say goodbye. I only got a see you later. During this entire ordeal I was planning on joining my husband that is stationed overseas. Due to COVID it was almost impossible to get over there. Every single time we had a date set something always happened that it got pushed back. My intentions were to always bring Pip and my cat Garfield with us to Germany, but then Pip kept getting sick. We had planned that my husband would come back the the United States to say goodbye, and we would put her down if she happened to beat out what the vet told us. Finally, we had received news that housing had opened up on the base! All we had to do was buy plane tickets. My husband and I were so excited to be together after over a year of being apart. However, as the date kept creeping closer all I could think of was saying goodbye to Pip. What if she was still healthy enough? What if we should wait a little longer to put her down. I did not want to think of all the things that could go wrong with the timing. Since, we would be in Germany for a few years my mom wanted to take one last trip with just us. So, we left for the weekend. That was when I had received the call about Pip. I cannot help but feel as though she held on for me. Our moving date was less than two months away at that point. She hung on just until the end so I did not have to be alone for too long. During the time my husband was gone Pip was sometimes the only thing that would make me smile when I felt all alone. She reminded me to take care of myself and make sure to get out of bed. Taking her outside got me outside. Bringing her along for car rides to get coffee so the baristas could give her a treat was the highlight of my week. I loved her so much and one thousands words would never be enough to even begin to describe how that dog changed my life. So, I will just end that here. Thank you for letting me tell her story and keeping her memory alive.

One practical solution for helping people who struggle with mental health would be to make sure everyone has access to mental health care. There are huge gaps in our mental health care system that make it extremely difficult to get the care that you may require. I grew up in Wyoming, and we did not even have an outpatient psychiatrist in the state. This meant that in order to get any medications I would either have to leave the state, or I would have to see my doctor via tele-health. Due to weather and the amount of money it would cost to commute to the next state, we chose the tele-health option. Seeing as tele-health was the most popular option, the one doctor that provided tele-health services rarely had open appointments. This meant that if you were a new patient or a patient that required more rigorous care you would not receive appointments when you needed them rather as you could get them. I believe that if we were to begin to fill in these gaps we would see a shift in mental health care. We may see less burnout in doctors which leads to better care of the patients. Having readily available appointments may lead to fewer emergency care visits as patients are able to use other avenues first. Patients may also feel more empowered to seek care because now they would have more options to do so rather than being in a situation similar to mine. While I realize this is not a simple fix I do believe it is a fix that makes the most sense. If someone cannot even get the mental health treatment that they deserve then we should begin there. Rather than trying to fix issues that all boil down from this one.

The most important financial lesson that I practice is planning ahead. You never know what life is going to throw at you, so it is extremely important to be able to set yourself up for success. Growing up, my family lived paycheck to paycheck and was always under the threat of unforeseen expenses. I quickly learned that you should always save what you can when you can. If a paycheck has five extra dollars that you do not need, set that money aside in case you need it next paycheck. Doing even just that can leave you with one hundred and thirty dollars in savings at the end of the year. That could be enough to cover a prescription or a car part that you may not have expected that you needed. I myself have been in situations where there was no extra money left over toward the end of my paycheck. This meant for months that no money was going into my savings. The extreme anxiety of being eighteen, uninsured, and broke was unmatched. Saving during this time was not possible, but I always kept that mindset at the front of my brain waiting for when I would be able to start building a savings again. Now that I have a better job and am financially stable I am right back into that savings mindset. The stress of knowing that I do not have to worry if an unforeseen expense hits is like no other.