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Hobbies and interests
Poetry
Martial Arts
Environmental Science and Sustainability
Learning
Spanish
Korean
National Honor Society (NHS)
Student Council or Student Government
Reading
Drama
Law
Realistic Fiction
Adult Fiction
I read books multiple times per month
Cameron Gibson
815
Bold Points1x
Finalist![user profile avatar](https://static.bold.org/profilePictures/photo20240422171337dccda185ee9a4092aa23c9d11c762902.webp)
Cameron Gibson
815
Bold Points1x
FinalistBio
My life goal is to become a psychiatrist who furthered the research in health regarding healing people's minds and take care of patients. I want to understand the people around me and what makes them how they are. If there is a problem, I want to help. I am hardworking and dedicated when it comes to my goals. I want to make a difference in the world and make people's lives better. I write poetry and care for the environment through different ways as my side hobbies. I want to write books as a psychiatrist and leave an impression for generations after me when I'm gone. I believe I can make a difference for today and a difference for tomorrow. That is my life goal.
Education
University of California-Merced
Bachelor's degree programMajors:
- Psychology, General
Laguna Creek High
High SchoolMiscellaneous
Desired degree level:
Master's degree program
Graduate schools of interest:
Transfer schools of interest:
Majors of interest:
- Psychology, General
- Education, General
- English Language and Literature, General
Career
Dream career field:
Writing and Editing
Dream career goals:
Novelist or poet
Sales Associate
Five Below2021 – Present3 years
Sports
Track & Field
Varsity2019 – 20201 year
Public services
Volunteering
LCHS Environment Club — President (lead the event)2021 – Present
Future Interests
Advocacy
Philanthropy
Entrepreneurship
Lieba’s Legacy Scholarship
“We hold our dreams and ideals close to our hearts, where the promises are made to the future generations.”― John Rachel
My ultimate career goal is to become a psychiatrist, imagining with a focus on serving gifted children and individuals. My passion for this field stems from my desire to provide these individuals with better resources and opportunities, which can help them to thrive in life. After completing my education, including medical school, I plan to specialize in psychiatry, though I have yet to determine which specific area of psychiatry I will pursue. However, I am particularly interested in children's psychiatry, and I would love to work with gifted children to help them reach their full potential.
Sadly, gifted children are often misunderstood and misdiagnosed by the medical community. Many practices misrepresent these children, incorrectly diagnosing them as having something wrong rather than acknowledging their unique gifts and talents. This is why there are not enough resources available for gifted children, who often fall through the cracks of the current system.
As we all know, bullying and teasing are rampant in schools, especially when it comes to those who are different from their peers. Gifted children are no exception; in fact, their unique abilities often make them stand out, which can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation. This can have a negative impact on their emotional and social well-being, making it difficult for them to develop healthy social skills and navigate the complexities of life.
As a psychiatrist, my role will be to help gifted children overcome these challenges and achieve their full potential. I will not only have the ability to prescribe medication, but I will also be able to teach them alternative techniques and coping mechanisms to manage their emotions and become more socially adept. Through counseling and therapy, I will help them build the necessary skills to make friends who accept them for who they are and provide them with a safe space where they can express their frustrations and work through their problems.
I am currently an undergraduate studying at a research university that specializes in conducting research on children. As a part of my future academic plans, I intend to conduct research in the field of child psychology during my undergraduate years. Given the prevalence of child research at my university, this area of study seems like a good fit for me. Through my research, I hope to discover possible solutions that can benefit future gifted children and help them overcome obstacles in their academic journey.
One of the key challenges that children face is meeting their intellectual needs. If these needs are unmet, it can divert their attention and negatively influence their academic performance. As such, I believe that my research can help identify markers that ensure children hit their intellectual needs in all fields that their brain requires. However, there is still much that we don't know about the intellectual needs of children. For instance, we do not know whether children require visual or audio intellectual stimuli, whether literature alone is sufficient, or whether they also need analytical and spatial intelligence stimuli. By researching these areas and finding solutions, we can help future gifted children thrive.
Aside from my research, I am also passionate about writing. I have experience in writing blogs, long prompts, and research papers on various topics. I believe that my academic skills and experience can be used to write books that will help parents of gifted children as well as the children themselves. Gifted children often feel lost and may not have access to the necessary resources to support their unique needs. By providing books that offer guidance and support, we can help these children navigate their academic and emotional journeys. My book can include information on how gifted children can intellectually challenge themselves in ways they may not have considered, as well as how to cope with their emotions and socialize in a world where they may feel different from others. This resource can be incredibly helpful for gifted children, who can refer to it at any time and use it to navigate any challenges they may face. Becoming a writer is a career goal that will allow me to reach the most gifted children and make a positive impact in their lives.
Whatever my future career goals hold, I am confident that I will have the ability to help future gifted children emotionally, socially, and intellectually, making a change for their futures.
Liv For The Future Scholarship
You either survive as a sheep or LIVE as a leader. I exemplify leadership in my everyday life in various aspects of school and work.
For example, I was the President of the Environment club for my senior year (and was vice president during my junior year). As President, I needed to amplify communication throughout my club, which included providing weekly reports and communicating during meetings. Furthermore, I needed to be punctual as a leader and keep a routine. Therefore, I kept a consistent schedule with the team of board members so it was easy to follow. For example, I had announced that a social media post would be posted every two weeks on Monday and had kept that routine throughout the year. Therefore, if a member wants to create a post for the club, they know when to make it for it to be posted. Another supporting factor of my leadership is that I listened to my members' concerns and struggles and provided solutions. Many of my members were honor students with an awful lot on their plate; they couldn't find the time in their day to commit to the club. The board members even had conflicts in running food fairs because of this. However, I had always found solutions (so we never missed a food fair) and provided alternatives for members so they didn't have to spend so much time engaging with the club, mainly because they were having a hard time. I often gave them quicker ways to engage or changed aspects of a project to fit into their schedule. I had also sometimes stepped in and sacrificed my time to aid another in a project, keeping things going. Leaders must be willing to sacrifice to make a difference. I was a very busy senior with two jobs and a full IB diploma student; I needed time. However, I made time and made things happen in the best interest of my club and the members around me. I have also been a leader by being President of the poetry club, where I expressed similar skills.
I have shown myself as a leader at work because I constantly lead and keep my crew going during hard times. At one of my jobs, it was a newer establishment with many flaws in its employment. We often turned up short staff, and because we worked in a popular food chain, we always had a long line and too many customers. My colleagues would often find themselves stressed and mentally distressed. However, I have always found a way to help my colleagues and me through the night (I worked night shifts because of school) by giving plans that would work for everyone. For example, instead of having a colleague who can't socially interact with customers well, I would volunteer to run the drive-thru while having that worker cut the lime or make the drinks—keeping each other in areas where we work best prevented burnt out and supported the restaurant from going into flames. I quit that job a while back, but I still have formal coworkers texting me out of appreciation for my leadership efforts. A leader has a meaningful impact on others, which is what I did.
I have been a leader throughout my life and have demonstrated that strongly throughout my time.
Henry Bynum, Jr. Memorial Scholarship
In my life, I have faced adversity when it comes to being the youth in this generation. To further explain, I advocate for the environment and have recognized that there is not enough time in the world for nothing to be done. Mainly because the world will have devastating consequences from issues like deforestation and climate change during my lifetime. Many articles claim that the world will be ending in 2050 if nothing is done to prevent it, and there have been reports of 5.25 trillion pieces of trash inside the ocean, harming the marine biodiversity of our world's water system. The fall of the environment is a devastating issue that affects my local community and our global community. I wish to help my community in various ways. For example:
1. I want to inform and reach out to more individuals about the issues in our environment and provide them with reasons why we should act. The more informed people are, the more likely other individuals will act. This will allow communities that aim to preserve the environment to emerge and grow. People can make the most significant impact when they work together!
2. I would combat deforestation vigorously first. I would host tree-planting opportunities throughout neighborhoods and locations. Planting and regrowing trees will not only support the combat against climate change because carbon dioxide would be absorbed from the air through the trees but also because trees promote the land's biodiversity. Planting trees promotes various benefits when it comes to preserving our environment.
3. I would host lake and beach clean-ups. Plastic getting into the water is a potent cause of damage to our marine biodiversity. Animals consume plastic, which can kill them by choking or filling their digestive system with so much plastic that it can not function properly. Other garbage that gets into the ocean can also bring toxins to their habitats, killing more marine species. Cleaning the beaches and areas near water pools would prevent more trash from ending in the water, harming our marine life. I plan to improve this project and even get boats so individuals like myself can go into the ocean and pick trash straight out of the water. Removing trash directly from the sea is a direct approach to reducing plastic pollution. Plastic pollution can harm our community because it poisons our food source in the ocean and can even cause us to consume plastics from eating fish. We already suffer from mercury poisoning due to mercury spills within the sea.
Improving our environment would strengthen our community overall, allowing us to grow without worrying about "the end of the word." The best way to help your community in the future is to give the community a lot to survive and strive for.
Mental Health Importance Scholarship
Mental health is important because mental health is the deep foundation of an individual. It can not be seen through physical inspection but affects and impacts individual physical health and lifestyle. For example, there has been researching that mental health can affect physical health and can indirectly even cause cancer. Poor mental health can result in individuals not taking care of themselves, such as not getting enough sleep, which less sleep has shown a high correlation to increasing the chance of cancer. The correlation indicates that people with poor mental health instill bad habits, which may leave their physical health in a lousy condition revealing why maintaining good mental health is essential.
Furthermore, mental health can affect an individual's lifestyle, which, when in a poor state, may negatively impact a person's lifestyle. For example, people with poor mental health tend to stay more isolated. They push friends and families away and choose not to communicate with people in other aspects of life, such as professors, coworkers, managers, doctors, and more. Poor mental health causes people to isolate themselves, revealing that mental health can affect an individual lifestyle because of how social someone is referred to someone's lifestyle in terms of interactions and goals. People often intend to build and grow in relationships, and their social ability is a reflection of the lifestyle that someone has focusing on those relationships. The negative effect of mental health on someone's social life will result in a negative aspect of their lifestyle.
One way I maintain mental health wellness is through exercise. I exercise for at least 30 minutes every morning on a spinning bike. There has been researching that exercise helps improves mental health through blood flow, enhancing chemical reactions in your body, and allowing an individual to release any stress. Improvements to physical health help improve mental health, and it is the same as vice versa. I also lift weights during my free time or while watching tv. The thought of me improving my body also helps improve my mental health through having a goal and seeing changes in my body throughout my life.
Another way I maintain mental health wellness is that I have changed my diet within the last year and begun eating more healthily. For example, there have been studies that suggest that eating more sodium may result in a negative effect on one's mental health. I decided to decrease my sodium intake and stay within the daily limit based on a 2000 calories diet. Furthermore, I began to eat potassium more which will cause a counter effect towards sodium, helping my body maintain balance. Another example is that I began to eat more fruits and vegetables. They have vitamins such as vitamin K, B6, and B12, which help improves one's mental health. Bananas are called the "happy fruit" because of their benefits to one's mental health; I eat one every day. My change in my diet has improved my mental health and the quality of my life itself.
I have taken more steps, such as social involvement and keeping myself busy while getting outside quite often. I even got more involved with nature and plants, which can also improve wellness of mental health. There are many ways to enhance the wellness of one's mental health, and I have taken steps to improve mine. Anyone else can do it too and live an entire life by caring for their mental health in every way possible.
Richard Neumann Scholarship
Focusing on the environment, one of the significant issues in the present-day world is climate change. As deforestation and mass air pollution occur, global warming becomes more critical. One of the significant issues regarding climate change is the need for more attention gained from the public. Many people still believe that global warming is either not personal or not as urgent. However, Global warming is urgent and personal to everyone. If humanity is going to combat global warming, we must bring it to people's attention and implement caring for the environment in their lives.
First, making "Environmental Care Class" (ECC) a required course for students during their education for at least a year from grade 7 to 12 will allow them to engage with the topic. Even if a student leaves the class with little memories of what they learned, they will still be impacted by the course, affecting their life. Within the class, students should grow and care for their campus's tree(s). They can learn the importance of plants and how to care for them while caring for the tree. Their coursework will consist of topics helping them understand how trees and other important plants help the environment. By implementing such a class into their studies, students of future generations will be more aware of the environment and have skills they can use to take care of the environment. Over time, more people will combat global warming as the class changes individuals' lives to care for the environment more.
Second, people spend community service cleaning cities and doing other tasks, especially people who committed unlawful acts. Instead of having these people only clean cities, one of the tasks that can be included is planting trees. Over 3.5 billion trees are lost a year (Ran.org). Humanity needs to focus on recovering the trees lost over time. Due to it taking years to grow a tree but a few minutes to cut down a tree, the sooner people attempt to recover the lost trees, the better. Countries may also make it a required act for healthy people during a specific time. For example, a country can make its citizens replant trees for an hour once a year. By making the mass amount of people take action towards combating global warming, it outlines the seriousness of the situation. People will become more engaged and curious about climate change when planting trees, even by order of their country. Furthermore, trees will be recovered, which will help fight climate change in itself.
Lastly, government jobs should be dedicated to recovering trees and combatting climate change. For example, the US spends much of its budget on defense, much more than it needs. The US can dedicate a small percentage of those spending to making combatting climate change a career. The career should be showcased at career fairs and inspire people to sign up for it. This will get people who are not scientists and are just regular citizens much more involved. These citizens will feel a deep sense of achievement when they care for the environment due to their service to their job and country. Furthermore, with US funding, it will be more efficient, and recovery for the environment will be faster. Combatting global warming while inspiring individuals to partake in a career will make it more common to care for the environment, catching the public's attention.
Implementing the habit of caring and paying attention to the environment in people's lives will lead to a recovery from global warming and make stopping climate change no longer a far-fetched goal.
Bold Career Goals Scholarship
“The best way to learn is to teach” quoted by Frank Oppenheimer. In my life, I have always been an advanced learner, ahead in curriculum courses. In middle school, I became a math tutor. My teacher and peers were so amazed by how creative my teaching was, I used physical methods such as jumping to teach algebra. When my teacher first noticed, he was going to intercept but then realized what I was doing, which amazed him. Ever since then, as I grew into becoming a tutoring director in highschool and a friend who my friends know they could go to for academic help, people have been suggesting to me that I become a teacher.
I have always been interested in the human mind, curious about the patterns of a person and how a person thinks. Psychology has always been a field that I want to go into depth to, whether it’s personally or professionally. I took AP psychology and I passed the exam on the majority of universities’ level. I am retaking the exam just to master the subject more. I watch videos on psychology and read books about psychology. I even refer to psychology in my everyday conversations. Psychology is such a fascinating subject that I want to take into my life in the future.
In my future career, I want to go into depth as a psychologist, perhaps a clinical psychologist or even a criminal psychologist. I find it interesting to learn about how the mind can go wrong and cause individuals to do things that they know are wrong. After my career as a psychologist, I want to teach others, where it’s at a university or highschool, the art of psychology. It would be a career I would enjoy and one that would fulfill my soul.
Bold Speak Your Mind Scholarship
Imagine a ghost behind you, following you with the most terrifying sound while it’s scythe scrapes the ground. With every minute hearing that sound, you are reminded of what could have been if you spoke instead of meeting with silence. That, my friend, is regret.
At a young age, I learned that one of the most painful feelings in life is regret. It’s a feeling that is difficult to combat for it is based on the past, something that can not be changed. One must learn that where they are now is indeed their past for where they will be. With that, that same individual should learn that the “you” yesterday, the “you” today, and the “you” tomorrow are all “you”. I take a great understanding in this, that whatever I do will indeed affect how I feel and am in the future.
By not speaking what is on my mind, I risk the change and opportunity I can bring to my life for it to reach its fullest potential. My goal in my life is to live with no regrets. I rather not carry the great sadness of not speaking my mind being the cause of suffering than to at least speak, try, and be met with friction. You can only bring change when speaking, even when the voice is silent. You can speak with more things than words but speaking is a must.
I am confident that my voice has a standing in this world, thus my voice, like my life, has a purpose. With a voice, it is meant to speak, similar to how life is meant to live. If you want a great life and change, it comes from the words in our minds and therefore, we must speak and I will speak.