I have been an athlete since the age of seven, increasing my involvement in the sport of swimming each year until I was training at an advanced level 20 hours per week, and competing with a high school team and a club team. As it is widely known, swimming is a full-body workout, which I supplemented with weight training, twice per week. While swimming and being an athlete was part of my identity, the laps, the training, and the workouts were all prescribed and planned out for me, leaving me little time for much else. Swimming met many needs for me. It is where I kept fit, worked off my stress, thought deeply during long sets and met some of my best friends. At the end of my senior season, I decided to retire from competitive swimming. A nagging shoulder injury, was eliminated by college swimming prospects and had me looking forward to my last swim. While I don’t miss the 6 am practices, as a college freshman, I began to miss the benefits my swimming had on my strength, endurance and fitness. I eventually decided to explore other fitness activities. Though I have little experience in either, I have explored cycling and running. Similar to swimming, both have repetitive movements that allow my mind to think about other things, process my day, and pound through stress. These activities have also helped me incorporate my social needs, as I will take a spinning class or run with friends. The biggest difference in my health journey is that now my activities are self-motivated. Without parents encouraging me, or a coach expecting me, I must decide on my own to do activities that contribute to my health. This, I realize, is much harder. Leaning into my strength as a goal-driven individual, I decided to set goals to keep me motivated, and have accountability partners. My cycling accountability partner is my roommate, who is also transitioning from being a tennis athlete. She and I are tracking our spinning data to try to improve. My running accountability partner is my mom, with whom I am training to run a 10K. Next on my fitness journey, I would like to tackle nutrition. I will be transitioning to having meals prepared for me by family or a dining hall, to preparing my own meals. I hope to learn how I can best fuel my body for my activities and my health.

I have several educational and career goals that I believe a degree in communications/journalism will help me to achieve. I hope to build skills and experience to write for major publications and address the misrepresentation of Latinos in the media, as well as grow a small photography business. I plan to engage in courses that advance my writing skills, and contribute to my college newspaper. This, along with experience as the managing editor of my school's yearbook, will prepare me for a competitive internship at a major publication. Spending a summer or a semester in a large metro area interning at a magazine is a long-time dream for me, and will be a stepping stone for my ultimate career goal of becoming an editor at a magazine. I love writing, editing and anything that has to do with fashion, so I would be so happy to intern/work at any fashion magazine, especially if it took me internationally. I plan to take advantage of the University of Texas’s study abroad program to study in a Latin American country to further my cultural experience. As a woman of Mexican and Indigenous heritage, I believe I bring a unique perspective to my writing and photography; experiencing different Latino cultures will only broaden my perspective. Finally, while studying communications, I hope to grow my photography business, it is something that I have loved doing since I was 12. Working as a model and amateur sports and portrait photographer has helped me to grow my skills. These are ambitious goals, but I hope my current experience, combined with my involvement in my college newspaper, as well as the knowledge I will gain from my coursework and internship, will help me grow my networks and contacts and set me up for success in achieving my dreams.

I have several educational and career goals that I believe a degree in communications/journalism will help me to achieve. I hope to build the skills and experience to write for major publications and address the misrepresentation of Latinos in the media, as well as grow a small photography business. I plan to engage in courses that will advance my writing skills, and contribute to my college newspaper. This, along with my experience as the managing editor of my school's yearbook, will prepare me for a competitive internship at a major publication. Spending a summer or a semester in a large metro area interning at a magazine is a long-time dream for me, and will be a stepping stone for my ultimate career goal of becoming an editor at a magazine. I love writing, editing and anything that has to do with fashion, so I would be so happy to intern/work at any fashion magazine, especially if it took me internationally. I plan to take advantage of the University of Texas’s study abroad program to study in a Latin American country to further my cultural experience. As a woman of Mexican and Indigenous heritage, I believe I bring a unique perspective to my writing and photography; experiencing different Latino cultures will only broaden my perspective. Finally, while studying communications, I hope to grow a photography business. Photography is something that I have loved since I was 12. Working as a model and sports and portrait photographer has helped me to grow my skills. These are ambitious goals, but I hope that my current experience, combined with my involvement in my college newspaper, as well as the knowledge I will gain from my coursework will help me grow my networks and contacts and set me up for success in achieving my dreams.

My vision is to be part of the movement to increase the representation in the media of minority and under-represented women in sports and athletics. Together with my college education, I plan to use my photography, graphic design and writing skills to highlight and provide visibility to women athletes who are doing great things in their sport, family and community. As a swimmer on my school’s varsity aquatics team, my teammates and I put in more hours of training,12 months out of the year, than most other sports, but rarely get the recognition, fanfare or excitement received by other more popular sports. Outside of Olympic years, it seems that even women’s professional sports receive very little coverage. I hope that through artistic photography and prose, I can help bring awareness to women at the top of their game. Women are underrepresented in sports journalism as well, and as a Latina woman, I hope to bring a fresh perspective through my work covering women's athletics and athletes from diverse backgrounds. I plan to take courses in communications that will provide me with the background to help me identify some of the nuances and politics in the sports journalism world. I hope to engage in courses and experiences that will advance my skills and vision in photography, design and editing. I will hone my skills by joining my college’s newspaper staff and contribute to a more inclusive paper by showcasing sports and athletes that don’t get the appreciation they deserve. Finally, I will also be taking advantage of my institution’s study abroad program to study in a Latin American country to further my cultural experience. As a bicultural woman of Mexican and Indigenous heritage, I will continue to seek ways to broaden my perspective and enhance my writing and photography.