My passion mostly started during my childhood after seeing my father go in and out of the hospital so often due to a lot of issues he had with his health before, unfortunately, passing a month before my move into college. I always told my parents I would eventually become a doctor, and medicine was such a fascinating field with so many focus varieties that I could explore. This dream hasn't changed in the slightest, and I still continue to love creative arts, writing, and science, which I would love to use to my advantage when interacting with the people I meet. I hope to make others feel comforted and help them heal like my father's doctors and nurses tried their best to do during the majority of my life. I was also further driven to pursue this goal after my mother passed from cancer, and I feel that my first-hand experiences with so much tragedy in my life have allowed me to be much more understanding and sympathetic to other friends and family who have faced similar troubles to my own. My overall goal is to recommend to future family and friends ways to live in more comfort and peace and hopefully achieve my career goal as a pediatrician or family doctor, as in my own opinion, family doctors and pediatricians can truly be an influential part of people's lives for years, and I'd be able to connect with patients on a deeper level rather than the fast-paced and often times stressful energy of hospital settings. I also believe earning this scholarship would be a huge help, as losing my father has been a huge blow in many ways, and the lack of financial support has only hit harder as I have started my first year at college. I've tried my best to work hard at my part-time jobs while still staying on track with my education, but more often than not, I've been more stressed out than not and still lack funds to continue my education since I don't have much family left to rely on. Relieving this pressure would hopefully aid in allowing me to not only be more relaxed but also focus even further on my studies as the MCAT and other volunteer work I'll have to do start to approach. This scholarship would be game-changing in many ways, and I'll be grateful for any support I receive. So, I thank you for reading, even if I do not receive it.

All my life, I have strived to try my best to help the people around me and push through discomfort. I've constantly felt a sense of worry in the back of my mind, feeling as if what I'm doing is not enough to achieve my long-term goals. However, I've realized that my friend's words, "You're someone I strive to be someday," were all the confirmation I needed that I have worked as hard as possible in just this first Fall semester of my first year of college. I got employee of the month during my first month at Starbucks, which I had sought out at the beginning of this year. I wanted to try harder and learn as much as possible to make my life's tuition and long-standing dreams possible. I will admit that the true nature of my perseverance has always been some sense of desperation, longing to make the people around me proud, but I feel I've gotten much more potent and learned much more from each struggle I've encountered. Shortly after my father's death before college, I vowed to work harder than I had before and take more chances than standing idly by as the clock kept moving forward. I always try to stay positive around others and look at things from their perspective whenever I feel confused or angry at them for their actions. It helps me stay grounded and get to know others instead of just surface-level feelings I may have. I feel this allows me to make others feel comfortable around me and put myself out there instead of trying to pretend to be someone I am not. I've helped many coworkers and friends with their academic or personal issues. I often take extra shifts at work or tutor/check over essays with my friends whenever they contact me for help. I feel a sense of pride whenever they come back to me to talk about how helpful our studying was or when my coworkers express their gratitude for extra help at work, as it gives me so much more joy to see the people I know feel better when I'm around to support them than any other gift or activity I could do. You may think I would claim to be the most exemplary example of an employee or person, but honestly, our goals are achieved with the support of all those around us. I give back to my community all I have so that they may pass it forward as well; each extra shift I've taken, each hour-long tutoring session I've had with friends struggling in chemistry and biology, allowed me to gather a group of friends I can trust and lean on when I need it most. I only hope to bring this ideology with me through college. Then, hopefully, at the end of all this suffering I had to endure, I can come out of it knowing that I have made someone else's life better and tried my best through it all.