My faith is pivotal to every decision I make in life. I am a non-denominational Christian seeking to honor God with all that I do, including my journey to higher education and obtaining a degree in Anthropology. There have been three major ways that my faith has impacted my life and impacted my academic and future goals: overcoming chronic depression, completing a study abroad experience in South Korea for one year, and daily trusting my unknown future into God’s hands. I struggled with chronic depression and anxiety from the time I was a teenager until my mid-twenties, and it led me to drop out of college before I finished my degree. I spent several years working with a Biblical counselor, building healthy habits, and applying myself to Bible study to combat my mental illness. My family, particularly my mom, was one of my greatest supports as I dealt with the illness – she always turned me back to God and reminded me of His presence always with me. Eventually, with the help of my doctor, I decided to begin medication as well. However, I firmly believe that medication alone would not have been enough for me to overcome depression, because one of its deep-rooted causes was learning to entrust my life and future to God. Overcoming depression and trusting the unknown future into God’s hands led me to returning to college as a non-traditional student at age twenty-seven to complete my degree. Only a semester later, I found myself studying abroad in South Korea for one year, a feat that I never would have imagined I’d be able to achieve! The growth I made as I learned to give my anxieties to God allowed me to have a life-changing experience abroad, meet other Christians around the world, and grow into a person who is flexible, confident, and excited to try new things. Today, I continue to trust my future to God. With my graduation approaching, sometimes I struggle with the anxiety of what I will do once I graduate and how I will provide for myself, but I always remind myself to turn those anxious thoughts over to my Savior who knows and guides my future. I know that He already has a plan for me, and my path post-graduation is no secret to him, so I can free myself from anxieties and focus on living in the present instead. Trusting God is a lifelong process, but I have already seen Him work in my life in many ways and I know that if I commit my fears to Him, He will do it again.

I have always loved museums. When I was a child, my family would grow impatient while I read the label on every exhibit, but I just wanted to know everything I could about the artifacts before me. But as I grew up and began college, I didn't connect my love of history, museums, artifacts, and culture to a career, so I ended up studying exercise science instead. Due to depression and mental health issues I dropped out of school before finishing my degree. Five years later, I decided to return to school and complete my undergraduate degree, this time studying anthropology because the interests and passions of my childhood finally made sense! I wanted to work within the realm of culture, whether that is digging artifacts out of the ground or curating a museum collection. With my graduation date nearing, I'm still in the process of finalizing my career choice, but I know I want to work in South Korea and help preserve the beautiful history and culture in a rapidly-globalizing world. Maybe I'll work as an archaeologist there, unearthing artifacts in cultural sites from past dynasties. I had the incredible opportunity to study abroad in South Korea and visit a city called Gyeongju, which was once the capitol city of a 1000-year-long kingdom. Everywhere I looked there was an ancient building, burial mound, artifact, or an archaeological site being excavated. There is still so much history to be unearthed in Gyeongju and I would love to be a part of it. I love the idea of being a museum curator, too. I want to make history come alive to visitors and interact with the little girls like myself who want to read and learn and understand everything they can about what these objects meant to someone long, long ago. My dream of working in a museum in Korea would also allow me to work in a bilingual environment, helping bridge the cultures and peoples of Korean and English speakers. I also want to be a part of the reconstruction of an ancient temple site in Gyeongju called Hwangnyongsa. It was once the largest Buddhist temple in Korea but now is only a few stones protruding from a field. I love the idea of helping to recreate a temple according to the records so that people today can envision what it once was like. All the palaces in Korea are beautiful, but there is one called Changdeokgung that has a secret garden. It's one of the most well-preserved palaces because visitors are only allowed in the garden on tours, and I think it would be amazing to lead tours in English for visitors so they can learn more about Korea's unique history and culture. I have so many dreams and I'm not sure which one I'll end up following, but right now, I'm enjoying living in the moment - finishing my degree, thinking about graduate school, and imagining myself living out any one of my dream jobs.

My greatest achievement was overcoming chronic depression and returning to school as a non-traditional student. I struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my teenage years and into my twenties, and it caused me to drop out of college after only three semesters because the idea of getting a bad grade was too overwhelming. I never expected myself to return to school and imagined that I would be a “college dropout” for the rest of my life. I spent the next five years working to treat my mental health through Biblical counseling, creating a healthy lifestyle of diet and exercise, and finally, with the help of my doctor, I decided to start a medication. Together, my efforts were life changing and I can proudly say that I have overcome my mental health issues! However, that doesn’t mean I never deal with depression anymore. Particularly in the cold and dark winter months my mental health can get worse, but the days occur far less often and when they do come, I am prepared to handle them. When I was twenty-seven years old, I decided to return to college to finish my degree. I had watched myself overcome so many hard things and I finally believed that I was capable of completing my undergraduate degree. I dove back into school, teaching myself step by step that struggling in a class wasn’t a mark of failure but rather a measure of learning, and that the most important thing I wanted to get out of college was the skill of trying something new. I am now one year away from graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology and Asian Studies, and I even had the incredible opportunity to study abroad in South Korea because of scholarships. I never would have dreamed that studying abroad would be possible for someone like me, but all the skills I learned as I fought my mental health issues prepared me for what it would be like to study in another country. I still carry those tools with me daily, my “mental toolkit” for combatting depression on the days it returns – activities like going outside, talking with a family member, meditating on the Bible, weight training, maintaining a healthy diet, and petting my cat. Overcoming mental illness doesn’t always mean it vanishes completely. It means that I can address the issue when it returns because I have watched myself overcome it once, and I know I can do it again. I am so excited to finish my undergraduate degree next year, and I am so thankful for the journey I made overcoming depression and anxiety to prepare me for whatever life holds.