The first time I understood the power of a nurse, I was eighteen years old, frightened, and preparing to bring my daughter into the world. I did not yet know what kind of nurse I wanted to become, but I knew what it felt like to need someone to listen when I felt unheard. During my labor and delivery experience, a Black veteran nurse listened to my concerns and advocated for me when I felt vulnerable and overlooked. Her actions changed my experience and helped shape my future. Today, as a first-generation college student, single mother, and CNA, I am pursuing nursing because I want to give others the same sense of safety, dignity, and reassurance that she gave me. My CNA experience has also reinforced the importance of advocacy. I understand that my role has boundaries, but I can pay attention to changes in a patient's condition, communicate concerns to the appropriate nurse, and help ensure that important information is not overlooked. These responsibilities have strengthened my desire to advance my education and develop the clinical judgment, knowledge, and skills necessary to take on greater responsibility in patient care. I want to become a registered nurse specializing in Labor and Delivery, where I can support women and their families through one of life's most vulnerable and meaningful experiences. My education is the bridge between the care I provide today and the impact I hope to make tomorrow. I plan to complete my associate degree in nursing, pass the NCLEX, and begin my career as a registered nurse. As I gain experience, I hope to continue my education and expand my opportunities in healthcare. I am committed to building the knowledge necessary to provide safe, evidence-based care while never losing sight of the compassion that first drew me to this profession. Beyond caring for individual patients, I want to help create a healthcare environment where women feel comfortable asking questions, expressing concerns, and participating in decisions about their own bodies. I especially want to support young mothers and women from underrepresented communities who may feel intimidated, misunderstood, or overlooked. I know that feeling unheard can make an already frightening experience even more difficult. I want my patients to know that they do not have to minimize their pain, silence their concerns, or feel ashamed of asking for help. Every woman deserves to be treated as a person whose voice matters. I also want to empower women outside the hospital. As a young mother pursuing higher education while working to support my family, I understand how easily financial pressure and competing responsibilities can make a dream feel out of reach. I hope to encourage other women, particularly young mothers and first-generation students, to continue pursuing their goals even when their paths look different from what they imagined. I want to lead by example, share what I learn, and remind women that asking for support is not failure and that motherhood does not mean giving up on personal ambition. Sometimes, continuing forward despite difficult circumstances is itself an act of courage. The financial demands of nursing school remain a significant challenge as I balance my responsibilities to my daughter, my education, and my work. However, I see my education as more than a degree or a career opportunity. It is a way to build a more secure future for my family while preparing myself to serve others. Every class I complete and every experience I gain brings me closer to becoming the nurse I once needed.

Painting is always a form of expression for me and a haven from the trauma of stressful moments in my life. Even though I am a nursing student, art, and more specifically watercolor and acrylic-style painting, has since been an important way to work to express myself creatively. Art helps me slow down and think it all in order to get down to feelings of grief and sadness that aren’t necessarily something I can convey in words. It makes me calmer and more reflective, and reminds me that even amidst hard seasons, there’s still beauty, that things change — even in the hard times, and that hope is alive. Nursing is the career in which I want to contribute positively to people’s lives with compassion, care, and advocacy. I have watched as a Certified Nursing Assistant and future nurse observe the need of emotional comfort and human relationships in moments of sensitivity. In many aspects, both art and nursing demand empathy, patience, and attention to detail. In each of these two, their main purposes were to understand the emotions and also comfort others through a person's care. However, this first painting was an art painting I uploaded by myself based on the sunflower and was inspired by resilience and the struggle to grow up. Sunflowers naturally bend toward sunlight, and, for me, they represent hope in rough times. From my personal life I used to have so many commitments and struggles which I wanted to write this piece. The petals falling symbolizes struggles and hardships people go through, so the flower itself keeps standing tall yet. A good painting I desired would tell people that they can still grow despite the overwhelming situation they find themselves in. The second painting, with abstract flowers and bright colors, speaks to freedom, creativity, and the pursuit of emotional expression.

I am working around the clock to terminate my future student debt. All tho it's been hard very anitexy but I have been pushing through and not telling be me just a softmore has a issure to not apply/think about colloge and scolorships.Hopefully, putting be in a better position after completing my bachelor's to bring generational wealth to my family so that not only have I been a fit, but my doing can one day have a domino effect on other generations. In addition, I am also currently helping my BIPOC students at my local high school do so. My action plan in doing so has been improving my knowledge of financial literacy, mainly because this isn't taught in most black communities in school. Through this research, I am currently studying the Disparities of African Americans regarding Financial Literacy and some of the roadblocks in place for BICPOC when it comes to Higher Education. With that; I found that financial literacy is essential,,,, yes! Learning and educating yourself and others within the BIPOC community increase percentages for success, but America is a paper-pen society. Without well-documented calculated steps, you wouldn't be able to achieve your goals. Ways I am helping slowly dismantle the racial wealth gap in my community. Talking to BIPOC students in my high school and shared tips about how I start my small business. How they too can create their own company. How to get scholarships, the different types of scholarships, and any advice or resources I do have, I help share so that they do have a fighting chance of higher education and are as close to debt free as possible. What drives me and fuels my passion for financial literacy and looking at and being able to my debt free after my education are two powerful accepts. It would be my mother's vision and determination and learning about the statistics behind how many black students actually are pretty discouraging and extremely low. From that meager amount, only about 45.9% pursue higher education, and one reason is that it's too expensive. That should be a reason not to be able to go to college. Through my research, I discovered patterns of one person in a family where it is an older brother or sister, maybe even mom drops out, and then that individual is more likely to or does follow the same pattern. My mother is a first-generation student and obtained a full-ride athlete scholarship to Idaho University in track and field. Seeing it was not only it was possible not achieve able to be debt free after high school. I hope to get a full ride or pay my tuition.