The largest thing that has changed about me in the last year is how much I appreciate life. Over the past year I have discovered the fragility of the human experience and how lucky I am to be alive. There was no single event or situation that caused this to happen, but a multitude of events that caused me to be more optimistic about life. To begin, working in the nursing field I see a great number of patients at the end of their life. Talking to these patients has given me insight into the beautiful memories and things that has given each individual their push for survival, how they remained happy, and what they experienced in life. Those things showed me that I have so much more life ahead of me to look forward to and why I need to love life more. These experiences have also shown me how fragile life can be and that every day is a gift. Along with my patients, seeing my daughter grow through the last year has made me appreciate life more, due to the amount of happiness and joy that my daughter brings me. Being her teacher, showing her new places or things, and experiencing life through her eyes has caused me to love life even more and see things in many new ways. Also, my study into science and religion has caused me to see that even if there is a reason we are here or if there is not, the chances that we are here now and living life is astronomical. The fact that there is the existence of life on Earth, that there are humans, and that I am on this planet at all is unbelievable. This phenomenon is why I love life so much, the unbelievably randomness or non randomness of it is why I now know that life is such a gift to have. This philosophical and crazy self-discovery journey has caused me to see that every day must be appreciated (even the bad ones). I enjoy everything now a little more, from washing my hair to saving a life, I enjoy it all. As I have made this discovery and changed myself, I feel like I have also caused a better environment for those that are around me and hopefully a happier life for them. Overall, I am still fundamentally the same person I was before, but now I enjoy life on a higher level, am a lot happier, and also my mental health has gotten much better. I hope to have more positive life experiences to cause me to continue to go on self-discovery journeys.

Many may not consider nursing to be a STEM major, but the amount of science and math courses I took through my BSN and now my BSN-DNP project tend to say otherwise. I chose this field for three main reasons: caring for others, math, and science. My main goal in nursing is to care for every individual that comes to me for medical care. This person can be a patient in a clinic, an injured individual on the street, or even my friends and family. My goal in life has always been able to make the lives of others healthier, happier, and stress free; and nursing gave me that ability. Besides my need to help others, the mathematics that is involved has always been a good portion into why I decided on this field. On a daily basis I must understand the mathematical equations and values that new evidence based practice has in-store for me, the equations I must use to properly program the chemotherapy drips my cancer patients get, and even the math it takes to ensure that each individual gets the highest level of care. Beyond math, I also did it for the science. Every category of science has a sense of excitement to it and a vast amount of knowledge to gain from it. My favorite science growing up was biology, specifically anatomy and psychology. Nursing gave me the ability to constantly learn more about the human body and the biological reasons we behave the ways we do. Anatomy alone could keep an individual busy with new knowledge for a lifetime, but add in psychology, and I have enough information for multiple generations. The vast amount of knowledge meant I can be a life long learner in topics that I love to learn about. Overall, the scientific, mathematic, and caring aspects of nursing are the reasons why I became a nurse and why I am furthering my education in nursing.

Without any kind of hesitation, my favorite Disney character is Eeyore. The Winnie the Pooh books, TV shows, and movies have always been in my life due to my mom's obsession with Pooh. I love all of the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood, but Eeyore has a special place in my heart. To begin, Eeyore's demeanor has always reminded me of my grandfather. His slow mannerisms, his morbid sense of humor, and even the way he talks is the spitting image of my grandfather (who I love very much). Also, Eeyore reminds me of, well, me. Looking at this character's personality, I can definitely see his cynicism, loyalty to his friends, and his excellent ability to lose his tail everywhere he goes. I, myself, can be very cynical, I have a deep loyalty to those I hold close, and I tend to lose just about everything that is humanly possible to lose. Like Eeyore, I dislike social situations (I am very much an extroverted introvert) and prefer having small amounts of people around me at a time. Also like Eeyore, I can be very sarcastic. However, Eeyore's personality and his resemblance to myself and my grandfather is not the only reason I love him so much. Ultimately, I love Eeyore due to the fact my mom loves Winnie the Pooh. Reading those books and loving this character made me closer to my mother. The first book I read was a Winnie the Pooh book with my mom. The characters in these stories made my mother happy, so it made me happy. The vast amount of love I have for these stories is reflected in my vast amount of love I have for my mother. Winnie the Pooh stories and Eeyore will always have a special place in my heart.

I have owned three dogs in my lifetime. My first dog, Boo, was a Newfoundland that gave me a lot of hope and happiness throughout my childhood and early to late teens. I can always remember my mom carrying her to the pool and seeing her the first time. My sister and I couldn't hold in our excitement, she was so small and fluffy. Her size grew unbelievably quick, but no matter how big she got, she was my lap dog. I remember going to her whenever I had a bad day, and just laying down next to her to relax and smile. After a while my sister and I convinced my parents to get another dog, Meg. Meg is a puggle that brought Boo's maternal side out. Seeing those two interact was touching, and having two lapdogs now, my lap was never cold. Meg was a ball of energy and gave me more reasons to get back into exercising to keep up with her. Now that we had Meg and Boo, I could never find a reason to be sad. Both dogs kept me in shape, happy, and always comforted me when I had a bad day at school or a bad day in general. As I grew older, both dogs became my therapists also. I would rant to them on and on about girls I liked at school, a bully I would deal with, and anything else on my mind. Dogs make the best listeners. After Boo passed away it was hard to move on and find a new dog to keep Meg company. No dog can ever replace my first one, but when we found Aggie it made the pain of losing an animal months earlier a little easier to handle. Aggie is a pitbull that has become a fast part of my family and is today the dog that makes me laugh and comforts me on a bad day. Looking back now, all three of my dogs have given me something. Boo gave me a better paternal instinct to care for my own daughter, Meg has made me find the happier parts of life, and Aggie has given me a new outlook on life. After their vast contributions to my life, I can only hope that my care and love for them has given them good lives. Overall, some people can say that they are just animals, but to me dogs (and any pet) give life a whole new level of happiness.

My dog Boo was my first dog and the reason I am the person I am today. Boo was always such a kind dog and would always be there to cheer you up when you were sad. Boo taught me to be a caregiver to all of the people around me, to be kind to all animals on the planet, and to all around care about the way I acted towards others. Boobeary was the most perfect dog that anyone could want or have and was the best animal that came into my life. I love all my animals, but Boo will always have a special place in my heart.

My pets have always been some of my best friends and always been there to make me happy. When I was younger I would play video games and my cat would come lay on my feet to keep me company. When my cat Sammy died, I cried and would not get out of bed for days. My pets have made my life easier to go through and changed me for the better. They have always made me smile, cheered me up when I was sad, kept me company when I was alone, kept me safe when I felt unsafe, and overall made me a better person.

I have been caregiving since I was a child. Growing up I helped my parents through all of their hospitalizations, stayed up countless nights changing my father's ostomy when he could, changing IV bags for my mother and father, helping them walk when they were too weak, and all around ensuring their medical wellbeing was intact. Even to this day I continue to help them. I went into nursing to continue the passion I have for caregiving and spent time providing hospice level care for a family friend's father, until he passed in 2020. I have been a nurse for two years caring for a wide range of individual's in mental health and on a medical surgical floor. These kinds of experiences has made me want to continue my education to receive a doctorate in nursing to help me lobby for better laws in the medical field and better advocate for my patients. My main goals are to create a safer environment for my patients and other nurses by: getting proper staffing ratios to lower the amount of medical errors and safety risks for patients (e.g. 1:4 nurse to patient ratios like California has for medical surgical nurses); universal pay rates for nurses and hospital staff so they can provide for their families; ensure that hospital staff have more protections against sexual, verbal, and physical harassment from patients; better health insurance plans for health care providers and patients; paid holidays for health care workers; clear scope of practices (e.g. not being forced into unsafe environments); and create better mental health outlets for health care personnel (e.g. counselors on-site). Essentially, I hope to be a caregiver to the caregivers and the patients; and ensuring that there is less nurse burnout. Also, I hope to do research into proper treatment for individuals dealing with eating disorders, proper ways on how to educate caregivers on ways to get help when they feel burnout, and research into the best staffing ratios for all health care professionals. All of this experience has caused me to have the identity of a caregiver. This identity has made my journey invested into the life of everyone around me. I hope to make my fellow human's lives easier, healthier, and happier in a world that seems to be getting harder, sicker, and sadder. There is too much to worry about in life to have to worry about how well your health care will be, how you will pay for it, and how to provide for your family.

After losing two uncles, an aunt, and three friends in 2021, my focus has changed a lot. Instead of focusing on my work as much as I did, I now focus much more on my family and my own personal happiness. During the height of the pandemic I was pulling three to four twelve hour shifts at the hospital I work at as a nurse. That kind of mentality took away from my family, my daughter, and my ability to care for myself. As my loved ones and friends began dying around me from COVID, addiction, a car crash, and heart failure; I learned that life is way too precious to do the "grind". I decided to stop picking up every extra shift, and instead take my daughter out to the zoo more and make better home cooked food. I now run and lift three days a week so that I will have the health to stay alive longer to help guide my daughter to a better future. Also, I have more time to take my daughter and parents traveling to see places they have never seen before. My "fight" is not to only achieve greatness for myself, but my family too. My goal in life is to heal the world, but to do that I need to start the healing at home. I am fighting to make my daughter into the best person she can be, be around and learn more from my parents before they are gone, have a better relationship with my sister, and learn from my grandparents about their history. Overall, I am trying to be able to enjoy life more because I never know when it will take those around me or when my life might end.

Through my experiences in college I learned a lot about and changed my perspective on myself and the world. I found out that I work well under pressure and that my dedication to my education paid off. Through my honors program's director and the travel abroad director, I was able to take classes abroad for free which gave me a new look at multiple different cultures and how world systems work. Learning about the Swiss welfare system taught me how much I actually enjoyed helping and giving back to the community. Studying philosophy and classical English drama at Oxford taught me new ways to see the world and all the individuals in it. As a young single father that takes care of his medically ill family, I never thought I'd get these kinds of experiences when I got out of high school. I am very happy of myself to be able to say I changed my perspective on myself and am now proud of who I am.

My greatest achievement to date would have to be my completion of the honors program at my university. Going to college in any field is tough for all individuals, but taking it a step further and taking classes on an honors level in college was a very large mountain to climb. My entrance into the honors program was due to my ACT score of 32 and 3.8 high school GPA, which I am also very proud of. Education means a lot to me, so this mundane thing to some, makes me very happy to have achieved. Through the honors courses I learned a lot about myself and the world at large. I found out that I work well under pressure and that my dedication to my education paid off. Through this program's director and the travel abroad director, I was able to take classes abroad for free which gave me a new look at multiple different cultures and how world systems work. Learning about the Swiss welfare system taught me how much I actually enjoyed helping and giving back to the community. Studying philosophy and classical English drama at Oxford taught me new ways to see the world and all the individuals in it. As a young single father that takes care of his medically ill family, I never thought I'd get these kinds of experiences when I got out of high school. I am very happy and proud of myself to be able to say I completed my honors program. Finally, based on my achievement and the experiences I had while going through it; I have a wide range of goals that I wish to accomplish as a family nurse practitioner and for my future. I hope to create a better overall hospital experience and health outcome for patients through proper advocacy. Also, I greatly hope to create a much safer and more involved health care system by lobbying for the creation of laws that protect health care workers and put proper staffing ratios in place. Along with this, I will dedicate my time to do extensive research into a large range of mental health disorders so that I can create better treatments for them. Plus, I would like to create better funding to help those who suffer from these mental health disorders. Overall, I am striving to make my community, and the individuals in it, healthier and happier.

The biggest personal financial lesson that I learned growing up was to invest wisely. Growing up, my grandfather used to tell me a lot about how stocks worked, what life was like growing up with a poverty struck family, and how his parents survived the Great Depression. This kind of insight helped guide me into researching my own investments and learn from the past instead of repeating it. I only invest the amount of money I can afford (albeit a very small amount). I never put all my money in the same basket and make sure I always have a diverse portfolio. When stocks go down, I don't scramble to sell (you have to play the long game). Ultimately, I was taught to never gamble with my money in the stock market by researching my stocks heavily, being patient with what I invest in, and never bite off more than I can chew (i.e. investing wisely).

Being a preceptor on my unit has caused me to impact the lives of many people, but there is still a lot I'd like to do with my mentorship. Guiding the new graduate nurses in the complexity of nursing is a very large love of mine. Being a guide to them, I hope to show them the passion that goes into caring for patients and how the little things we do can impact individuals in a very large way. I hope to show the new nurses that having a dedication to learning at every moment can greatly impact their future as a nurse. I hope to be able to guide these nurses to be the best that they can be so as a collective we can make a large impact on the world. This impact, I hope, is that there are lowered amounts of health related problems in my community, the creation of a safer and happier nursing environment, and a much happier hospital experience for patient and their families.

Mental health illnesses are ingrained in my family history. My great-grandmother and all ten of her siblings lived their lives with schizophrenia. My grandmother is an undiagnosed anorexic and has OCD. My aunt is bi-polar; my mother anxious and depressed; my father with ADHD, anxiety, and depression; my sister with anxiety and depression; and the list goes on. I, myself, did not know until my week long in patient psych stay in high school that I was obsessive compulsive along with my major depressive disorder. However, my families history and my own illnesses have not discouraged me from pursuing my dreams. After my suicide attempt in high school and subsequent stay at the psych facility, I realized how lucky I was to be alive and the impact my life has on others. From that day I started focusing more on what I could do for myself and what that would do for others. I changed my life from having no goals to wanting to travel and heal the world. I dedicate my time to studying to become a family nurse practitioner so that I can help individuals suffering from psychological illnesses. To not just throw medication at an individual, but heal them and give them hope for the future. This kind of mindset has positively impacted my relationships with others. Such as being able to understand and recognize my emotions so that I can be more open and vulnerable with my parents. My ability to listen and need to heal others has caused me to be a better friend. My recognition of my need to micromanage and anger issues has caused me to work on myself greatly, which in turn caused me to be a better dad to my daughter. Finally, my own mental health awareness has caused me to be able to perceive the world in a more optimistic way and see those in it brighter than I did before. Overall, mental illness has been a very large part of my life and it has greatly impacted how I perceive the world, those in it, and my own goals.