Environment controls people more than they think. It can control numerous things such as values, beliefs, relationships, morals, ethics, career aspirations, and more. Depending on where you grow up, these values can be influenced differently than someone else's values that grew up somewhere else. Growing up in Pennsylvania has influenced these characteristics in my life and helped me become the person that I am today. Growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania, everyone was very close. This means that many people hold the same values. Some of these values included relationships, beliefs, and religion. Family relationships were greatly influenced. This has taught me to be respectful, use manners, be caring and open all at a young age. Religion and beliefs also tied together. Growing up, church was a weekly occurrence. Church has influenced a lot in my life and has made my religion even stronger. I began to become more active in the church as a praise dancer, and am still currently a praise dancer. This has taught me a lot such as self discipline, strengthening my beliefs and morals, as well as knowing right from wrong and becoming the best version of myself that I can possibly be. I come from a small town in Pennsylvania. This means that for the most part, everyone knows everyone, so most people are influenced by the same things. Growing up, we didn't, and still don't, have many things to do as far as activities. This means that most days as a kid were spent walking around and going to get ice cream. There weren't many events outside of school functions, which means there was no where for kids to go. Most kids just went home and played outside, others got into bad habits. Seeing all of this, and having to chose which crowd to follow, I chose to follow the crowd who went home, did their homework after school, and who did not get in trouble. This small choice, which I thought was only keeping me out of trouble, influenced my educational values, which soon turned into influencing my career aspirations. As a kid who did not want to follow the crowd, I went home straight after school and did homework and studied. This influenced me to want to do good in school and learn more. As I went through the rest of my schooling history, I also had top grades, which paid off by the time I graduated high school. This ended up paying off by me being able to get accepted to college based on good grade point average, and graduating as my class salutatorian. Eventually, my career aspirations were also influenced. As a college student, succeeding is my main goal. I go to college for nursing, and want to work hard in this. These simple moral has made me become the person that I am today. Most people regret growing up in our town because of how small it is and lack of opportunities, but for me, I see growing up in this small town in Pennsylvania as something that helped me grow into the wonderful individual that I am today.

Many people can be a nurse, but what truly makes a good nurse? To be a nurse, you need to have the right credentials, but to be a good nurse, you need to have certain qualities and characteristics. These include compassion, patience, being ready to help at all times, making sacrifices, putting patient needs first, and overall having a good character. These qualities and characteristics were one of the reasons why I became interested in nursing. Nursing first interested me as a kid. As someone who has multiple health problems and has a parent with multiple health problems, I was no stranger to doctor offices and hospitals. Seeing everything that they do growing up, made me realize that this would be the best career for me. Nurses have many traits that I admire, as well as the job they do fascinates me. Nurses, like everyone else in the healthcare field, have a job to do. Their job is to get standard information from the patient, make sure they feel safe and comfortable, answer questions for the patient, and overall make their visit a good experience. After researching all of this and looking at the credentials needed to become a nurse,I realized this was the best career choice for me. Nurses help people everyday, make sacrifices for them, assist them in daily struggles, and even have to choose between morals and ethics. Another thing that fascinates me is how they are so calm and collect under pressure. If a patient comes in with bad health, or if their health is declining at an abnormal rate, they have protocols in place. These protocols ensure patients are best taken care of. Codes that stand for certain things that only the staff knows about gets called out. These codes are designed to not alarm other people in the hospital, but to let the staff know whats going on in case extra assistance is needed. This best ensures that other people in the hospital are not alarmed, so they are not sent into a panic. Nurses also do many things that help the people around them. Nurses hold a high position, higher than we assume. When you visit hospitals or doctor offices, you see the nurse first. Aside from the receptionist, you typically see the nurse first. Nurses have the opportunity to make or break your visit. If they give off a good impression and express emotion, the visit goes well, the patient is more open with them and the doctor, and more cooperative when it comes to treatment. But if a nurse is shallow or seems like they don't care, the patient will be less likely to open up, have hurt feelings, and might be less cooperative to treatments. Some nurses are rude and only care about the money and job title, instead of helping patients. Many people in my community have faced this problem. People are less willing to go receive medical care if they feel like they are not wanted, or if they feel that the best care is not being given to them. My goal as a nurse in my community is to change that. I want to make patients feel as comfortable as possible. As they begin to feel more comfortable, they will be willing to get the healthcare that they need, without the worry of feeling judged. This is a major contribution to my community, as some people even refuse healthcare because they don't feel like they would receive good care, or not feel welcomed. Breaking down this fear from patients will make them open to prioritizing their health.

When we think of careers, we think of long terms jobs. Something that you go to school for and can do for the rest of your life. A career can determine the entire outcome of your life. The career choice that I decided to pursue was nursing. The decision to pursue nursing started for me at a very young age. As someone who's health problems started at a young age and has a parent who has health problems, the doctor office and hospital was not a stranger to me. Seeing doctor offices and hospitals in full operation, I became fascinated with the medical field at a very young age. Doctors and nurses intrigued me the most. They have the most contact with patients, which is a very good thing. For example, they are the ones who are able to break patients out of their shells, assess their issues, get the information on what they are struggling with, and give the patients the most efficient care that they need. After doing my research on schooling requirements, what the job entails, work hours, what a day in the job is like, and more, I decided that nursing would be the best career choice for me. This scholarship will help me in many ways accomplish my educational goal. As we all know, nursing school is very expensive. From the class fees, books, clinical, tests, internships, uniforms, and more, nursing school is one of the most expensive school programs in the medical profession. On top of nursing school being expensive, my mother has recently not been able to work due to medical issues, making the responsibilities of paying for my schooling to fall solely on me. I also have to contribute to at home priorities such as rent, bills, groceries, household items, and more. I have started to do many things to save and make more money when I can, but that still isn't enough for schooling. First, I started picking up extra shifts at my job and even asking for a raise. Then, I decided to pick up on little odd jobs like baking. I also began to start saving wherever I can. For example, I would save money by using coupon apps to make my purchases cheaper, meal prep instead of eating out, only buying essentials needed for the house and health, and started saving a percentage of my paycheck whenever I can. Even with all of these contributions to saving and cutting expenses where I can, it still is not enough. Winning this scholarship would help cut down the worry of not being able to afford college and nursing school, which is a dream of mine. Thank you!

At a young age I have become very fascinated with the healthcare field. As an individual who has a parent with numerous health problems and has a good amount of health problems of their own, I was definitely no stranger to hospitals and doctor offices. The way everyone in the medical field worked together intrigued me even more. This inspired me to be apart of the healthcare field. When you think about it, the different jobs in the healthcare field works like parts of a machine, all the different parts have different jobs to do, but they all work together to get the job done or meet the end goal. The end goal is to ultimately ensure that the patient is healthy and receives the optimal care. Since I at least knew that I wanted to be apart of the healthcare field, the question was what job did I want to have in this field. When looking at a job in the healthcare field for me, I began to look at what everyone's jobs were. Doctors give the diagnosis, assess the issues, and figure out a game plan for the paitents. Radiologists do the ct scans, x ray, ultrasounds, and more. Nurses do tasks like get information from the patients relay information to the doctor, and sometimes treat the patient for certain things. Desk receptionists answer questions on the phone, fax paperwork, and check the patient in. Pharmacists fill perscriptions and inform patients about the medicine they are taking. After looking at all the possible jobs in the healthcaare field, I realized that nursing was the best choice for me. Nurses are one of the first faces that patients see. This means that they have the opportunity to make the patient fell more calm and at ease. When a patient feels this way they are more compliant and will open up more, making it easier for the doctor to give them the essential care that they crucially need. Sometimes all a patient needs a good face to make their overall impression. Nurses have the opportunity to be this face and that is something that I will enjoy being apart of. Another reason why I decided to be apart of the nursing field was because of everything that nurses do. They have to be able to react in a calm manner even when someone is in danger and especially if they have to deliver bad news. This means you always need to have a clear mind and act accordingly so the patients don't get startled. Nurses also help the doctors with a lot of important tasks. They do things like check vitals, blood pressure, get information from the patient about the reason for their visit, and more. They even assist in crisis and have to memorize all types of code and diseases. I found this scholarship on the Bold website.

I am from a small town in Pennsylvania, and go to college at Youngstown State University. I graduate from my high school with multiple honors, including being salutatorian. In the fall, I will be going into my sophomore year of college. Some of the hobbies that I enjoy are walking in nature, exercising, cooking, baking, and coloring. Careers in healthcare became interesting to me at a young age. As someone who has multiple health problems and has a parent with multiple health problems, hospital and doctor office visits were, and still are, very frequent. From a young age, I was able to see the ins and outs of what healthcare professionals truly do and became fascinated with their jobs. Jobs in the medical field are like a team, which I admired the most. The doctor is like the head of the team, they give the diagnosis, order tests to be done, administer treatment, and more. The front desk people answer the phone calls, write down any important information, are good with computers, send over fax's, and do more things. The nurses do a general check in with patients, get all the important info for the doctor, vitals, heart rate, blood pressure measurements, and more. The professionals that specialize in radiology run the tests such as MRI's, ct scans, X-rays, and more. All of this naturally influenced me to want to be apart of the healthcare field, but the question was always which part of the healthcare field should be my profession. Eventually in my sophomore year of high school, I decided that nursing was the best fit of healthcare profession for me. With seeing how nurses react with patients, get their information, and are almost always the first friendly face that you will see, I figured that this is the best career for me. Just recently, during my freshman year of college, I have decided that radiology, would also be a good career for me. As someone that was always interested in the health field growing up, double majoring in two aspects of it always fascinated me and will be a plan that I plan on pursuing during my time at college. There are many categories and types of nursing. Elderly care, pediatrician, doctor offices, nurse aid, CNA, RN and more are all different specializations of nursing. The nursing field that I plan on specializing in is either pediatrician or emergency room nursing. Preparing myself for this step of my life is something that I have had to do since high school. In high school, I have prepared for this by figuring out which college I wanted to go to. By figuring out what school would be the best for me, I could better figure out the cost of tuition. Next, I took courses that would give me a good background on nursing. Classes like algebra 3, chemistry, chemistry 2, and anatomy and physiology best prepared me for my college courses.Then, I filed my FAFSA and applied for scholarships. With having my FAFSA results and number, I could figure out how much money I would have to save up for college. During my freshman year of college, I took most of my core classes, applied for more scholarships and grants, and started budgeting my money. Due to my current financial situation, college has been a little more difficult to pay for. This means budgeting more and working more shifts at my job to be prepared for nursing school fees.

What does it mean to truly struggle? Struggle is define in many ways. Emotional, mental, financial, physical, social, and more, are different categories of struggle. This can be defined as long term, and short term struggle. For my families personal struggle, it was, and still is financial. Financial struggle can come in many different ways. From loosing a job, having to use savings for an unexpected emergency, emergency tragedies, loss of home/shelter, not receiving financial assistance, and more, financial struggle is all around us. Sometimes we can get through these sturggles, but other times, they tend to overpower us. Leaving us with a huge challenge. For me and my family personally, the financial struggle is due to health problems. As a dependent who lives in a single parent household, my mother was the prime caregiver and head of household. This means that all bills, taxes, FAFSA reports, and more all are done through her and based on her income. Our financial struggle began in September of 2024, right after the start of my freshman year of college. My mother went through a surgery. As a person who is a diabetic and has a lot of other health issues, her recovery, was and is still difficult. Since her surgery, it has been difficult for her to do many tasks, making her think the surgery has made her issues worse. Just recently, we found out that she has to have another procedure done. Without her being able to work, whatever expenses that aren't covered by government and family assistance, all fall on me. This includes vet bills, rent, household bills, college tuition, groceries, and more. With being a college student, I have to work to keep up with some of these expenses. My personal goals are to graduate college with mu BSN and Associates in Radiology. I plan to achieve this goal by doing spending more time on my studies, being financially prepared for unexpected schooling expenses, and always studying for the important tests such as the NCLEX and TEAS. With always being prepared, whether its financially or study wise, there is a better chance of graduating nursing school quicker, and being able to do so with less debt to worry about. One of my long term goals are to create my own scholarship fund to help people from my area who are in need of financial assistance. This has been a personal goal of mine since the school that I've graduated from does not have many local scholarships in comparison to other schools. By achieving this goal, I have the opportunity to help people who were in the same situation as me be able to pay for college, which is a very important thing.

While the medical field may seem diverse, it is not very diverse in terms of race and different eithnic backgrounds. How diverse is the healthcare field in the sense of jobs and careers? Well, when you look at it, you have to break down the diverseness of the field. First, choose a specific field, kind of like a category. Elderly care, children, diabetes, chiropractors, physical therapists, and more all have their own specific type of field. Then, look at the type of people that work in these fields, are they good with computers, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, or technicians? That is how the medical field is built. The field may be diverse in terms of jobs, but race and ethnicity is a topic that is barely touched on. In the US alone, only 4-5% of African American make up the medical field. 6% for Latinos, and 13% for Mexicans.This ultimately makes the healthcare field less diverse. While some think this isn't a huge problem, it unfortunately is a problem. As someone who is apart of the African American community, our community, just like others, have had a history of problems with doctors and nurses. More specifically, the minority communities have had racial problems in many health facilities. This included emergency rooms, doctor offices, and more. These problems for the minority communities lie within the healthcare system because of trust. Communities have faced many problems such as not receiving adequate treatment, concerns being bypassed, being the last to be seen by medical professionals in comparison to their white counterparts, expensive medical bills with no way to pay them, racism, unfair judgement, wrongful CPS calls, and more. Therefore, the minority community is not very trustful when it comes to doctors and medical visits. Another reason as to why minorities aren't trustful of the medical community is because there are not many familiar faces. When these communities are getting ready to trust doctors, they want someone who is compassionate, helpful, patient, and most importantly, someone who resembles them. If someone who has lost all trust in the medical field because of distrust with professionals not of their color, people who did not understand their situation because they are not of color, or professionals that judged them because of color, the next time they come back they would want a professional of color. This is so their problems can be better understood and fairly assesed. This is a huge reason why its important to increase racial diversity in healthcare. The goal in my medical career is to graduate college with my BSN and Associates in Radiology. With these degrees, there are many benefits and ways that I can make an impact in my career field, as well as my community. By being apart of the same race as patients, they can trust me more and I can better assess them because they will feel seen and better understood. With patients being better understood and feeling seen, you get them being more patient, cooperative, open to help, more trusting to better help them with their problems that they are facing.

We may think that our life plans are completely in our control, unfortunately, life unfolds and has other plans. One of these times for me personally was, and still is, financial struggle. Many people think of financial struggle as something that isn't long term. For some, this can be loosing a job, having to pay for a huge expense, or financial scam. For me personally, this is my financial situation adjusting to a current situation. I come from single parent household, even with the parent that I don't live with still active in my life, budgeting, saving up for important moments, or just helping around the house, these simple tasks can be difficult. The parent that I do not live with unfortunately does not work due to disability. Even though both parents are active in my life, finances are still a hard battle. Just recently, more specifically the summer before my senior year of high school, my mom became slowly unable to work due to disability. With the expenses of senior year approaching, and college being right around the corner from that, I knew that there was going to be some form of a financial struggle. At the beginning I viewed my situation as a horrible hardship. Multiple questions came in my head at a time. How can I pay for college? What is money going to be spent on? How am I going to save for the important and even harder times? Once the most important thing was paid for, which was my freshman year of college, I started viewing the situation as something differently. I viewed it as something that I can learn and grow from. I took it as part of a life lesson. During this situation, I had to budget my expenses, and save money that I would originally spend. Even though I had a direct understanding of the value of money, this helped me understand its value even more and I have learned to be grateful for what I have in life. Paying for college was, and still is, the first thing on my mind. I needed a plan to be able to pay for my college education. First, I applied for the fafsa and other scholarship/grant outlets. After applying, I was then able to see how much of my housing and tuition would be covered. The next thing that I decided to do was pick up extra shifts at my job. After saving up money from my job, I was then able to pay for my college education. This upcoming school year, I do not have as many scholarships and the price of education has gone up, so I am applying for more scholarships and picking up extra shifts at my job. As a nursing and radiology student, the cost of schooling goes up with the extra fees. These fees can be a lot of things, such as clinical, uniform, textbooks, courses, and more. If able to win this scholarship, it would take some of the cost worry off me and my families mind. Thank you for your consideration.

There were many times in my life when I was faced with challenges and hardships. These challenges and hardships seemed extremely hard, and I thought that I would never overcome them. Overcoming these challenges in a way of using faith is what made me the person that I am today. Keeping up with my faith had helped me overcome these challenges in the best way possible. One of these challenges were moving to a new school and adjusting to the new life. In February of 2022 of my sophomore year, I had moved to a new school. I did not know I was moving to a new school until my last day at the old school. Even though this school was in a neighboring city 3 minutes away from my old school, I was still very nervous. All I could possibly think about is how hard everything would be and what would change. How am I going to fit in? How are my classes going to be? Are my friendships with my old school friends going to change? These were all the questions that I was asking myself. Once I had my first day at this new school, I realized that things are very different. From the teachers, polices and rules, and dress code to the way everyone acts as well as the new lunches, this was a very difficult and hard change for me. The sports were even different. On my first day, they held a track sign up meeting, which was my favorite sport to do during middle school and high school. This is where I made a lot of my friends and started to fit in more. While making new friends in sports, it brought out more confidence in me to try new things, which is one of the reasons that I decided to start going to church more consistently. The next year, which was my junior year, I eventually became a captain, this was a very good achievement for me, and I was proud of this. As a captain, I learned the value of discipline, hard work, dedication, perseverance, and more. As a result of moving to a new school in a different city, I started going to church with my family that lives in this city. This church was in the city of my old school. After going to church almost consistently for about half a year, I decided to eventually join the church as a member in the summer of 2022. Joining the church was a decision that I know would be good for me but would change my life in a good way. By joining the church, I started going to church more consistently, praise dancing/miming, making new friends that go to my school, as well as getting an inner touch faith and closer to God. In addition to making new friends, some of my friends from my old school go to this church, so I got to get closer with them. This has helped me with my challenge of moving to a new school by making new friends that went to both the school and the church. Even now in college, I am keeping up with my faith to overcome hard personal obstacles and challenges. I have started to build a connection with my faith and still go to church when I am away from college. Learning about my faith during high school has helped me overcome so much and adjusting to a new school is just one of the things that this has helped me with.