The most significant challenge I have faced was my type one diabetes diagnosis. On December 1st, 2021, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which put my life into a full tailspin. I had been slowly and unknowingly descending into diabetic ketoacidosis in the months before the diagnosis. My symptoms were awful, day in and out I had headaches, nausea, extreme thirst, difficulty breathing, etc. Through all of this I was managing a full course load and struggling to say the least. Throughout all of school I have been a model student but during this time I was falling asleep in class, getting bad grades, and falling behind. I reflect on this time as the lowest point in my academic career. After being diagnosed I emailed my teachers who let me retake assignments and dropped lessons to help lighten the load. Those teachers are the only reason my GPA remained intact. Since then, I have taken many steps to not “overcome” this but to manage it as well as I can. Diabetes has affected my academic achievement in quite a few ways. Diabetes made me rethink everything, I went from knowing the next 5 years of my life to a tee, to teaching myself how to eat again. I soon concluded that I must prove that I am more than my diagnosis, and what better way than to graduate early. I have put my heart and soul into this goal for the past two years, and while I now recognize that I am more than diabetes I still decided to pursue graduating early. All in all, my life has been turning completely upside down which has helped me push myself academically and mentally. I have been able to do all this while maintaining a 4.07 GPA, all A’s, perfect attendance, and the extra course load that comes with graduating a year early. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work with staff to maintain this through tough times, for example, when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and hospitalized for four days. After I graduate, I plan on attending college. While I have yet to decide where that is going to be, my top three choices are UC Davis, UNR, and UC Berkeley. Additionally, I do not know what I plan on majoring in, I am hoping to be able to take a wide variety of college courses that will help me narrow down the options for my future career. All I can hope is that I find a career that I am passionate about and will love for the foreseeable future.

Throughout my high school career, I’ve had the privilege to participate in many opportunities that have furthered my education, improved my community, and accomplished my personal goals. This has all taken place while battling health issues. I have been a part of many activities from the annual Chili Cook-Off to the Student Advisory Council. During my 3 years in high school at Gerlach K-12, I have been part of the student advisory council and the annual town beautification project. My sophomore year I was a member of the Student Advisory Council. While I was a member of the council, we found innovative solutions to problems we heard about while meeting with students and staff around the district. Lastly, I participated in planting fresh flowers in barrels around town. I have been part of this project my freshman and sophomore years. Additionally, I have been given the opportunity to volunteer for the Annual Chili Cook-Off, Toys for Tots, and the regional hospital. I have helped with the chili cook off since, 2018 where we hold a chili competition, raffle, and fundraiser for local businesses. More recently I have been given the opportunity to volunteer at the nearest hospital, I started here in October of 2023 and help patients and their family members with their needs during their hospital stay. The most significant challenge I have faced was my type one diabetes diagnosis.Two years ago, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes I had been slowly and unknowingly descending into diabetic ketoacidosis in the months before the diagnosis. Through this I was managing a full course load and struggling to say the least. Throughout all of school I have been a model student but during this time I was falling asleep in class, getting bad grades, and falling behind. I reflect on this time as the lowest point in my academic career. Since then, I have taken many steps to not “overcome” this but to manage it as well as I can.Diabetes made me rethink everything, I went from knowing the next 5 years of my life to a tee, to teaching myself how to eat again. I soon concluded that I must prove that I am more than my diagnosis, and what better way than to graduate early. I have been able to do all this while maintaining a 4.07 GPA, all A’s, perfect attendance, and the extra course load that comes with graduating a year early. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work with staff to maintain this through tough times, for example, when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and hospitalized for four days. After I graduate, I plan on attending college. While I have yet to decide where that is going to be, my top three choices are UC Davis, UNR, and UC Berkeley. I am hoping to be able to take a wide variety of college courses to learn as much as I can. All I can hope is that I find a career that I am passionate about and will love for the foreseeable future. Lastly, I plan on using the money from these scholarships to help pay for tuition, room and board, and any other anticipated college expenses. This money will help me tremendously with paying for college, every bit will help with the cost. I am paying for college myself and am struggling to afford it. All things considered, I have done my best to make the most out of my high school career, while simultaneously being an active member of the community.

How many books do you remember reading? I’ve read hundreds of books in my lifetime, yet I only remember the plot to a few. Of those few the book that will stick with me forever is The Hunger Games by Suzzanne Collins. Beyond the obvious lesson that violence is not a means to an end, the book also has another main lesson that it teaches its readers. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, know that it is about a publicized event that the government hosts each year where they forcefully take a male and female child (tributes) from each of the 12 districts (like states) puts them all in an arena and makes them fight to the death for the promise of fame and a peaceful life. The story follows the two tributes, Katniss and Peeta, who were selected to take part in the 74th annual hunger games. Katniss being a teenage girl who is incredibly talented with a bow-an-arrow who, though she entered her name into the drawing many times to feed her family wasn’t reaped but volunteered so her sister who was reaped didn’t have to face the horrors of the games. Peeta, being the local baker’s boy who is very strong and an incredibly talented artist and is considered an underdog in the games. As states, the main theme to the story is, violence is inhumane. But there is another lesson to be learned as well, it is that people are the total sum of the environment around them. For example, the people in the capital have become accustomed to the hunger games and turns it into a party-like event because they don’t have to worry about their children being reaped and have been coerced by the capital into thinking that the districts deserve it because they rebelled decades ago. We can take the same scenario and view it through the districts. In the career districts the children look forwards to the games train their entire lives because their district views the games as a chance to become wealthy and thinks the outcome of the games is worth the danger of the games themselves. Lastly, we have the perspective of the poorer districts, the ones the main characters are from. It shows the fear of being reaped as well as the reality that children typically must enter their names multiple times to feed their families.