I don’t have many dreams, just one in particular. I see myself being a neuroscientist with a lab that focuses on Traumatic Brain Injury and neurodegenerative diseases that arise from these injuries. I know that I have to dedicate a large part of my young adult life in schooling and research, but I’m willing to give that sacrifice for the sakes of answering many mysteries in neuroscience. I want to be successful in discovering treatments, medicine, and preventative procedures so that people with brain dysfunctions can have a chance at enjoying life without the burden of lack of knowledge on the topic. In my career, I plan to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help make regulations for sports, especially for elementary to high school students. Hopefully, I can become fortunate enough to work with sports doctors in professional sports like the NFL, NHL, and MLS to create policies for brain injury management and prevention. I’ve been passionate about neuroscience since the age of five and I want to use my passion to better society the best way I can.

I practice self-care by being attentive to my body and how I feel. To further explain, I won't let the chaos of the outside world distract me away from being healthy, safe, and caring to myself. With school and college applications, my life has been hectic with trying to set priorities. Despite this, I make sure that I am eating properly, going to sleep at a relatively decent time, and giving myself breaks from school work by hanging out with my friends or simply resting. These seemingly simple things were once difficult to do just a few years ago: I would let my work and ambition of being a top student pull me away from myself and I often neglected my needs-- eating, sleeping, and socializing. It took me getting sick with unexpected weight loss and daily migraines to realize that I had been damaging my body. Now that I have been taking care of myself I feel happier and more care-free. It has even reflected in my grades and school participation. With me having less stress over school, my grades have actually improved. Also, I participate in more academic organizations, like the Mentorship Program and National Honor Society as Vice President. I feel comfortable engaging in other activities that do not necessarily come with a grade and my mind is relaxed. Self-care is an extremely useful act and it changed my life completely.

By far the easiest way to keep a growth mindset is to accept the fact that humans will never know everything there is to know. I have been called smart my entire life and told that I “basically know everything” by friends due to me receiving nice grades. However, that is far from the truth. I go into each class lecture with the mentality that I am going to learn something new and I leave each lecture with the mentality that I have not learned everything; I have to go back in order to learn the rest. In a conversation about politics, I understand that the person I am talking to knows something about a politician and government policy that I may not know. I listen. And I believe that is the key to growth: listening. I listen in order to gain newfound knowledge on a topic. Even when my human tendencies get to me and make me believe that I know everything about a particular subject, I keep my voice quiet and learn as much as possible from another person by keeping my ear open. As cheesy as it may sound, one cannot grow if they believe they have already grown enough.

Patience is the key to peace and understanding the value of the things around us. Often, especially with my busy schedule, my mind is in shambles because I want things done immediately, I want responses quickly, and I want to be places with time to spare. I have to remind myself to look at the world around me and enjoy it instead of rushing time for time cannot be rewinded. When I embrace patience, I find myself happier and content. Also, patience is a quality that allows me assess the importance of something or an event. I have came to the understanding that not all things are worth the rush. Most of the time the things we think are important just aren’t. During my early action college applications, I would rush my teachers and counselor to put my recommendations on Common App and become aggressive towards them if they weren’t done 2 weeks before the deadline. I had to reevaluate my actions and realize that there was so much time to get my recommendations in and that there was no need place burden on my teachers. So, patience is important to me because it keeps me balanced and in check. It helps me stay in my current life and stops me fast forwarding into the future and stressing about what is to come.

“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at,” said Stephen Hawking, my favorite scientist. He was a famous theoretical physicist with great ideas about the way life and our existence is interpreted. In his career, despite the physical and mental barriers that got in his way due to an illness, he worked to be successful and achieved at a lot. He inspired me to not only be involved in the scientific field, but to also overcome any obstacles and surpass any limits society places on me. His passing in 2018 definitely made an impact on the world and that showed how much his logic and words touched many, especially those who were researchers and scientists. I hope to one day have an impact on the world the same way he did in his lifetime.