As a student-athlete at Eastern Washington University, I carry more than just the weight of my dreams, but also the dreams of my parents, who immigrated from Gambia to build a life for my siblings and me and future generations. Growing up in a Muslim household shaped by my parents' West African values, I learned early that discipline, humility, and service are not just virtues; they're tools that you use in everyday life. Both my parents left their homes and their families, and they sacrificed their time and effort to ensure I had the opportunities that they never had. Yet, navigating the American education system has been a struggle for us. The financial burden of college is one of the many issues my family and I face. As a walk-on athlete on the Track & Field team, the costs of tuition, books, housing, and more are taking a toll on us. My parents work so much, but the reality is that higher education in America is expensive, especially if you are an immigrant family that lacks generational wealth or systemic support. In classrooms where few students look like me or share my background, I’ve had to learn how to speak up and advocate for myself. I've also had to educate others about my culture and faith. Feeling like an outsider has its downsides, but over time, I've learned a lot about myself, including empathy, resilience, and the importance of representation. I want to be the kind of doctor who sees my patient as a whole person, not just their symptoms. My lived experience gives me a lens that may assist me in the medical field. Being a student-athlete adds more positives and negatives to my life. Track has taught me discipline, time management, and the power of perseverance. I have felt pain and emotions that I would have never experienced if I were not an athlete, and I am grateful for every experience so far, whether good or bad. It has also given me a community in a team that pushes me to be better every day. Balancing athletics with hard pre-med coursework is not easy, but it reminds me that I am capable of more than I think, mentally and physically. Looking ahead, my goal is to become a physician who serves many diverse communities. I want to advocate for health equity and mentor students who feel like outsiders in systems not built for them. Higher education may feel unfamiliar, but my heritage, faith, family sacrifices, and my own determination will help me along the way.

As a student-athlete at Eastern Washington University, I carry more than just the weight of my dreams, but also the dreams of my parents, who immigrated from Gambia to build a life for my siblings and me and future generations. Growing up in a Muslim household shaped by my parents' West African values, I learned early that discipline, humility, and service are not just virtues; they're tools that you use in everyday life. Both my parents left their homes and their families, and they sacrificed their time and effort to ensure I had the opportunities that they never had. Yet, navigating the American education system has been a struggle for us. The financial burden of college is one of the many issues my family and I face. As a walk-on athlete on the Track & Field team, the costs of tuition, books, housing, and more are taking a toll on us. My parents work so much, but the reality is that higher education in America is expensive, especially if you are an immigrant family that lacks generational wealth or systemic support. In classrooms where few students look like me or share my background, I’ve had to learn how to speak up and advocate for myself. I've also had to educate others about my culture and faith. Feeling like an outsider has its downsides, but over time, I've learned a lot about myself, including empathy, resilience, and the importance of representation. I want to be the kind of doctor who sees my patient as a whole person, not just their symptoms. My lived experience gives me a lens that may assist me in the medical field. Being a student-athlete adds more positives and negatives to my life. Track has taught me discipline, time management, and the power of perseverance. I have felt pain and emotions that I would have never experienced if I were not an athlete, and I am grateful for every experience so far, whether good or bad. It has also given me a community in a team that pushes me to be better every day. Balancing athletics with hard pre-med coursework is not easy, but it reminds me that I am capable of more than I think, mentally and physically. Looking ahead, my goal is to become a physician who serves many diverse communities. I want to advocate for health equity and mentor students who feel like outsiders in systems not built for them. Higher education may feel unfamiliar, but my heritage, faith, family sacrifices, and my own determination will help me along the way.

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they cannot tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.” - Meditations, Book II Marcus Aurelius’s Stoic call to radical empathy is not a resignation to human flaws, but a disciplined affirmation of shared divinity and moral clarity. In this passage, Marcus Aurelius confronts the inevitability of human conflict with a tone that is neither cynical nor passive. At first glance, his words may seem harsh, but he lists a litany of negative traits and prepares himself for a day of dealing with difficult people. But beneath this stoic armor lies a profound philosophical insight: the recognition that all people, even those who act wrongly, share in the same divine rationality. The central message is not to expect the worst, but to remain anchored in moral clarity and compassion despite it. Aurelius begins with a mental exercise. This is not pessimism; it's preparation. The Stoic does not seek comfort in illusions. He knows that the world is full of flawed individuals, and he refuses to be surprised by their behavior. This is a form of psychological resilience: by naming the vices he may encounter, he disarms their emotional sting. The Stoic mind is trained not to react with outrage, but with understanding. Yet the deeper pivot in the paragraph comes when Aurelius shifts from judgment to kinship. “They cannot tell good from evil,” he says this not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it. Ignorance, not malice, is the root of wrongdoing. This echoes the Socratic idea that no one willingly chooses evil; they err because they lack wisdom. Aurelius’s diagnosis is not moral relativism, it is a call to moral responsibility. If we, unlike the wrongdoer, have “seen the beauty of good,” then we must act accordingly. We must not mirror their ignorance with our own. The most striking line is the affirmation that the wrongdoer “has a nature related to my own.” This is the Stoic foundation of radical empathy. It is easy to love those who are kind, but the Stoic challenge is to love those who are cruel, not sentimentally, but rationally. Aurelius does not claim that we are of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind. This is a metaphysical claim: all humans possess reason, the divine spark that connects us. To hate another is to hate a part of oneself. To respond to evil with evil is to betray the divine order. This passage also reveals the tension between the ideal and the real. Aurelius is an emperor, surrounded by politics, betrayal, and ego. Yet he writes not as a ruler, but as a student of virtue. His meditation is a daily discipline, a reminder that power must be tempered by wisdom. The Stoic does not retreat from the world; he engages it with clarity and restraint. The ugliness of others does not justify the abandonment of one’s own principles. In essence, this paragraph is a blueprint for moral endurance. It teaches that virtue is not reactive, but proactive. It is not dependent on the behavior of others, but rooted in one’s own understanding of good and evil. Aurelius’s Stoicism is not cold detachment, it's fierce commitment to reason, empathy, and the shared divinity of all human beings.

As a student-athlete at Eastern Washington University, I carry more than just the weight of my dreams, but also the dreams of my parents, who immigrated from Gambia to build a life for my siblings and me and future generations. Growing up in a Muslim household shaped by my parents' West African values, I learned early that discipline, humility, and service are not just virtues; they're tools that you use in everyday life. Both my parents left their homes and their families, and they sacrificed their time and effort to ensure I had the opportunities that they never had. Yet, navigating the American education system has been a struggle for us. The financial burden of college is one of the many issues my family and I face. As a walk-on athlete on the Track & Field team, the costs of tuition, books, housing, and more are taking a toll on us. My parents work so much, but the reality is that higher education in America is expensive, especially if you are an immigrant family that lacks generational wealth or systemic support. In classrooms where few students look like me or share my background, I’ve had to learn how to speak up and advocate for myself. I've also had to educate others about my culture and faith. Feeling like an outsider has its downsides, but over time, I've learned a lot about myself, including empathy, resilience, and the importance of representation. I want to be the kind of doctor who sees my patient as a whole person, not just their symptoms. My lived experience gives me a lens that may assist me in the medical field. Being a student-athlete adds more positives and negatives to my life. Track has taught me discipline, time management, and the power of perseverance. I have felt pain and emotions that I would have never experienced if I were not an athlete, and I am grateful for every experience so far, whether good or bad. It has also given me a community in a team that pushes me to be better every day. Balancing athletics with hard pre-med coursework is not easy, but it reminds me that I am capable of more than I think, mentally and physically. Looking ahead, my goal is to become a physician who serves many diverse communities. I want to advocate for health equity and mentor students who feel like outsiders in systems not built for them. Higher education may feel unfamiliar, but my heritage, faith, family sacrifices, and my own determination will help me along the way.

Some ways I would make healthcare affordable and accessible would be to decrease or remove the cost, making it more available to a larger group of people and more communities. Removing the requirement for appointments and waitlists would also aid in making it available 24/7. Support would be there whenever a person needs it, no matter the time of day or where they are in the world. Many people all over the world struggle with depression and anxiety, and at the same time, they have limited or no access to treatments such as therapy. Any person who requires support should have easy access to it because mental health is a human right.

My experiences as a high school student-athlete have heavily influenced my college decisions and future goals for my life. As a student-athlete who participates in track and field, I have many academic and athletic goals. For example, I may aim to run below a certain time at a meet or set a new personal record for myself in my race. My goals for school are to graduate with a bachelor's degree on the pre-medicine pathway, get into medical school and graduate from it, and become a sports medicine physician. This goal is tough, but with a lot of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, I believe I can make this dream a reality. One of the toughest things about sports is that you can train and practice all that you want, but some games or meets won’t go your way. I have had many track races where I felt like I underperformed or didn’t compete to the best of my ability. Another thing that has been a struggle for me is being injured my senior year of track. I was on track to run some of the best times in the state, and I ended up straining my hamstring. It has been tough having to sit out for the bulk of my season, but I have slowly been coming back. After my sophomore year of track, I told myself I wanted to run at the D1 level in college. Since then, I have been working harder than ever before to get faster and stronger. I had a breakthrough my junior year, where I won the MCC Championship and District 8 Championship in the 400m dash. However, I performed poorly at the State Championships, but I didn’t let that bring me down. I persevered through the summer season of club track and improved on my times. The school I want to attend the most is Eastern Washington University. I think they have a very good pre-medicine program and track & field team. Making it onto the track team is my biggest and most important goal as of now. When I visited the campus, I had a conversation with the head coach. I knew the standards to make the team were very high, but after a great conversation with him, he lowered the standard for the 400m from a 49s to 49.99s. This is great for me, as if I run this time, I will be able to pursue my dreams of running D1 track while also being able to study pre-medicine. My whole life, I have loved watching and competing in sports. After taking Kinesiology and Sports Medicine classes here at my high school, I realized I wanted to work in the athletics department. I believe I will be well-suited as a sports medicine physician, where I can work with different types of people and athletes in order to help them with injuries, and assist them in becoming healthier, whether they play sports or not.

My experiences as a high school student-athlete have heavily influenced my college decisions and future goals for my life. As a student-athlete who participates in track and field, I have many academic and athletic goals. For example, I may aim to run below a certain time at a meet or set a new personal record for myself in my race. My goals for school are to graduate with a bachelor's degree on the pre-medicine pathway, get into medical school and graduate from it, and become a sports medicine physician. This goal is tough, but with a lot of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, I believe I can make this dream a reality. One of the toughest things about sports is that you can train and practice all that you want, but some games or meets won’t go your way. I have had many track races where I felt like I underperformed or didn’t compete to the best of my ability. Another thing that has been a struggle for me is being injured my senior year of track. I was on track to run some of the best times in the state, and I ended up straining my hamstring. It has been tough having to sit out for the bulk of my season, but I have slowly been coming back. After my sophomore year of track, I told myself I wanted to run at the D1 level in college. Since then, I have been working harder than ever before to get faster and stronger. I had a breakthrough my junior year, where I won the MCC Championship and District 8 Championship in the 400m dash. However, I performed poorly at the State Championships, but I didn’t let that bring me down. I persevered through the summer season of club track and improved on my times. The school I want to attend the most is Eastern Washington University. I think they have a very good pre-medicine program and track & field team. Making it onto the track team is my biggest and most important goal as of now. When I visited the campus, I had a conversation with the head coach. I knew the standards to make the team were very high, but after a great conversation with him, he lowered the standard for the 400m from a 49s to 49.99s. This is great for me, as if I run this time, I will be able to pursue my dreams of running D1 track while also being able to study pre-medicine. My whole life, I have loved watching and competing in sports. After taking Kinesiology and Sports Medicine classes here at my high school, I realized I wanted to work in the athletics department. I believe I will be well-suited as a sports medicine physician, where I can work with different types of people and athletes in order to help them with injuries, and assist them in becoming healthier, whether they play sports or not.

My experiences as a high school student-athlete have heavily influenced my college decisions and future goals for my life. As a student-athlete who participates in track and field, I have many academic and athletic goals. For example, I may aim to run below a certain time at a meet or set a new personal record for myself in my race. My goals for school are to graduate with a bachelor's degree on the pre-medicine pathway, get into medical school and graduate from it, and become a sports medicine physician. This goal is tough, but with a lot of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, I believe I can make this dream a reality. One of the toughest things about sports is that you can train and practice all that you want, but some games or meets won’t go your way. I have had many track races where I felt like I underperformed or didn’t compete to the best of my ability. Another thing that has been a struggle for me is being injured my senior year of track. I was on track to run some of the best times in the state, and I ended up straining my hamstring. It has been tough having to sit out for the bulk of my season, but I have slowly been coming back. After my sophomore year of track, I told myself I wanted to run at the D1 level in college. Since then, I have been working harder than ever before to get faster and stronger. I had a breakthrough my junior year, where I won the MCC Championship and District 8 Championship in the 400m dash. However, I performed poorly at the State Championships, but I didn’t let that bring me down. I persevered through the summer season of club track and improved on my times. The school I want to attend the most is Eastern Washington University. I think they have a very good pre-medicine program and track & field team. Making it onto the track team is my biggest and most important goal as of now. When I visited the campus, I had a conversation with the head coach. I knew the standards to make the team were very high, but after a great conversation with him, he lowered the standard for the 400m from a 49s to 49.99s. This is great for me, as if I run this time, I will be able to pursue my dreams of running D1 track while also being able to study pre-medicine. My whole life, I have loved watching and competing in sports. After taking Kinesiology and Sports Medicine classes here at my high school, I realized I wanted to work in the athletics department. I believe I will be well-suited as a sports medicine physician, where I can work with different types of people and athletes in order to help them with injuries and assist them in becoming healthier, whether they play sports or not.