For years, my job has been to notice small changes in people. As a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I support adults with lifelong developmental disabilities with daily living and safety, and I work alongside nurses on their care. When someone seems off, I document it, report it, and then step back while a nurse assesses the situation. I respected those nurses deeply. Over time, I realized I didn't want to keep stepping back. That's why I'm pursuing nursing, through the Accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx. My planned specialty is psychiatric mental health. I'm committed to becoming a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and the patients I want to serve are people living with chronic mental illness, the kind of conditions that don't resolve after one visit and have to be managed over years. I've chosen this group for a few reasons. The first is that my DSP work has shown me what long-term care actually looks like. It's not one dramatic intervention. It's routines, trust, patience, and catching problems early. People with chronic conditions need providers who stay consistent, and consistency is something I've practiced for years, both at work and on Saturdays, when I've spent more than three years cooking meals at my church for people experiencing homelessness. That kitchen reminds me that health is hard to manage when the rest of life is unstable. The second reason is that mental illness and physical illness travel together far more often than people realize. Adults with serious mental illness have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease, and some psychiatric medications can raise blood sugar and affect weight. That means a psychiatric provider can't just treat mood or thought patterns and ignore the body. I want to be the kind of provider who checks the labs, asks about chest pain and diet, and coordinates with primary care, because for these patients, a gap between those two worlds can cost years of life. The third reason is personal. I'm a Black man, a first-generation college student, and the son of Nigerian immigrants. In my community in Queens and in the Bronx, where I go to school, mental health care is hard to reach, and a lot of men are taught to keep their struggles quiet until they turn into a crisis. My coursework in Race, Ethnicity, and Health showed me the numbers behind what I'd already seen. I want patients who look like me to sit across from someone who understands them and doesn't rush them. Right now I'm taking Adult Mental Health Alterations alongside Health Assessment Across the Lifespan and Pharmacology, and I'm holding a 3.82 GPA. Each course is giving me tools I didn't have as a DSP: how to assess, how to explain a medication, how to see a pattern before it becomes an emergency. Chronic illness asks for providers who show up for the long haul. That's the kind of nurse I'm training to be, and it's the kind of nurse practitioner I plan to become for the communities that raised me.

The first time I finished a bachelor's degree, nobody in my family had a template for what that day was supposed to feel like. My parents are Nigerian immigrants, and neither of them completed a four-year degree. There was no family roadmap for applications, financial aid, or deadlines. So when people ask what being a first-generation college graduate means to me, I have a slightly unusual answer: I've already crossed that line once, and I've learned it's not the finish line I thought it was. That first degree proved I could finish something nobody before me had finished. The degree I'm working on now, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in the accelerated program at Monroe University in the Bronx, is the one that turns that proof into a purpose. When I graduate in December 2027 and sit for my license, I won't just have a second diploma. I'll have a profession that lets me walk into a room and change how someone's day goes. To me, that's what being a first-generation graduate really means: you stop being the person who figured it out alone, and you become the person who can help the next one figure it out faster. I didn't grow up with much stability. I was raised in a blended family and moved between households, sometimes living with relatives and sometimes with whoever was willing to take me in. That taught me to adapt quickly and to never take anyone's kindness for granted. It also explains the activity that has shaped me more than any club or title could. For more than three years, I've spent every Saturday in my church's kitchen, cooking meals that go out to people in our community who are experiencing homelessness. It isn't glamorous. You prep vegetables, you watch the pots, you pack trays, and most of the time you never see who eats what you made. But I know what it's like to not have a steady place to land, and that kitchen is where I pay back the people who once opened their doors to me. It taught me consistency. Showing up once is easy; showing up every Saturday, through exam weeks and long work shifts, is what actually builds character. During the week, I work as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. I help adults with developmental disabilities with daily living and safety, and I work alongside nurses on their care. Watching those nurses is what pushed me toward nursing. I kept noticing changes in the people I supported, reporting them, and then stepping back while someone with more training decided what to do. I wanted to be that person. Balancing those commitments with an accelerated program hasn't been easy, but I've kept a 3.82 GPA, and I made the President's List in Winter 2026 and the Dean's List in Spring 2026. My goal is to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and serve communities in Queens and the Bronx where mental health care is hard to reach. The Saturday kitchen and my DSP shifts taught me the same lesson: care is something you prove through repetition. This degree is how I'll keep proving it, and how I'll make sure the next first-generation student in my family has a map I never had.

The moment I decided to become a nurse wasn't dramatic. It was a pattern I couldn't ignore anymore. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. I support adults with developmental disabilities with the basics of daily life and their safety, and I work next to nurses on their care. I give medications under clinical supervision, keep careful records, and watch for anything that seems off. When someone is overwhelmed, I use calm de-escalation to help them feel safe again. Again and again, I'd notice a change in someone, report it, and then step back while a nurse assessed the situation and decided what to do. I respected those nurses. I also realized I wanted to be the one making that call. That realization is what inspired me. It wasn't a TV show or a single hospital visit. It was hundreds of ordinary shifts that showed me exactly where my training ended and how much more I could offer if I kept going. So I went back to school. I'm a first-generation college student; my parents are Nigerian immigrants, and neither finished a four-year degree. I grew up in a blended family and moved between households, so I learned early how to adapt and how to keep going without a map. I brought that into the Accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, where I hold a 3.82 GPA. I made the President's List in Winter 2026 and the Dean's List in Spring 2026. Courses like Race, Ethnicity, and Health showed me the data behind what I'd already seen: health outcomes in this country follow neighborhood, income, and race far too closely. Here's how I plan to make a difference. My goal is to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Mental health is one of the biggest gaps in care in communities like mine in Queens and the Bronx. People wait too long, can't find a provider, or end up in the emergency room because nothing caught the problem earlier. I want to be a provider who is reachable, who explains things in plain language, and who treats a patient's whole life as part of the picture: housing, work, family, faith. Representation is part of it, too. Black men make up a small share of the nursing workforce, and an even smaller share of psychiatric care. I know what it can mean for a patient to sit across from someone who looks like them and doesn't rush them. I want to be that person for young men in my community who have been taught to keep their struggles to themselves. Service is already part of my week. For more than three years I've spent every Saturday cooking meals at my church for people experiencing homelessness. It keeps me grounded in why I'm doing this, especially on weeks when school and work feel like too much. Health care starts with showing up for people consistently, and that's what I plan to do for the rest of my career, first as a nurse and then as a nurse practitioner.

A lot of my job as a Direct Support Professional comes down to small things done the same way every day. I support adults with developmental disabilities through the routines of daily living: meals, hygiene, medications given under clinical supervision, getting where they need to go safely. None of it looks dramatic. But I've seen how much steadiness a good routine creates for someone, and how quickly things slide when that routine breaks. So when I read Dr. Aldana's belief that lasting health comes from small, consistent habits, it didn't sound like a theory to me. It sounded like my workday. That work is also why I'm in nursing school. Over the years, I kept running into the ceiling on what I could do. I could flag a change in someone's health, but a nurse had to step in to assess it. I wanted to be the person who could do more. Today I'm in the Accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx with a 3.82 GPA, and my long-term goal is to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Mental health is where Dr. Aldana's message matters most to me. People tend to picture mental health care as a crisis followed by a big intervention. A lot of real recovery happens in between, though: sleeping on a regular schedule, eating real meals, taking medication consistently, staying connected to other people, showing up to the next appointment. Those habits are unglamorous, and they're exactly what slips first when someone is struggling. As a PMHNP, I want to treat them as part of the care plan, not an afterthought. That means helping a patient pick one change they can actually keep, then building from there. My public health coursework sharpened how I think about this. In Race, Ethnicity, and Health and in Introduction to Global Health, I learned how much a person's neighborhood, income, and access to care shape which healthy habits are even possible. Telling someone to eat better doesn't mean much if there's no affordable grocery store nearby. I live in Laurelton, Queens, and go to school in the Bronx, and I know those barriers are real in communities like mine. Sustainable change has to fit someone's actual life. Health advice that ignores where a person lives usually ends up ignored, too. I see this mission outside of work and school as well. For more than three years, I've spent every Saturday cooking meals at my church that go out to people in our community experiencing homelessness. A warm, regular meal is one of the smallest health interventions there is, and one of the most basic. Showing up every single week has taught me that consistency is its own kind of care. Dr. Aldana believed change doesn't have to be dramatic to be powerful. I'm building my nursing career around that idea: patient education that's realistic, routines that fit real lives, and steady follow-through for people in the Bronx and Queens who too often only meet the dramatic version of health care, the emergency room, after small problems have gone unaddressed for too long.

Every Saturday for more than three years, I've spent part of my day in my church's kitchen, cooking meals that go out to people in our community who are experiencing homelessness. Nobody there asks what you accomplished that week. You chop, you stir, you pack the trays, and someone you may never meet eats a hot meal that night. If you asked me where my faith actually shows up, I'd send you to that kitchen first. Faith wasn't something I picked up later in life. It was the one thing that came with me everywhere when I was growing up. I was raised in a blended family, and I moved between households a lot. At different points I lived with different relatives, and sometimes with whoever was willing to take me in. There wasn't one permanent home I could point to. What stayed the same was my belief that God hadn't lost track of me, even when my address kept changing. That season taught me things I couldn't have learned any other way: patience, independence, how to adjust quickly, and how to never take someone's kindness for granted. I think about the people who opened their doors to me. They didn't owe me anything. Cooking on Saturdays is partly my way of passing that same kindness along to people who are living through their own version of not having a stable place to land. Faith has also carried me through school. I'm a first-generation college student; my parents are Nigerian immigrants, and neither of them completed a four-year degree. When I decided to go back to school for the Accelerated BSN at Monroe University in the Bronx while working as a Direct Support Professional, there was no family roadmap. My faith gave me the nerve to start, and then it was on me to do the work. Today I hold a 3.82 GPA, and I made the President's List in Winter 2026 and the Dean's List in Spring 2026. I don't credit that to luck. I credit it to discipline that my faith keeps grounded. On weeks when exams and work shifts pile up, it's what keeps me from quitting on myself. My goal is to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Mental health care asks something specific of a provider: you have to see the whole person, even when they're at their lowest and can't see much worth in themselves. My faith tells me every person carries a dignity that doesn't depend on their diagnosis, their housing, or their bank account. I learned that in the kitchen on Saturdays, and I've seen it again in my DSP work, supporting adults with developmental disabilities and working alongside nurses on their care. As a nurse, I expect to sit with patients on some of the hardest days of their lives. I'll need patience I can't manufacture on my own, and the humility to remember that I'm there to serve. That's what my faith gives me. It turned a childhood without a fixed address into a sense of purpose, and I plan to carry that purpose into every patient room I walk into.

An accelerated nursing program doesn't leave much room to breathe. I'm earning my BSN at Monroe University in the Bronx on a compressed timeline while still working as a Direct Support Professional. This semester I'm taking pharmacology and dosage calculation, health assessment, nursing essentials, and Adult Mental Health Alterations. I hold a 3.82 GPA, and I'm proud of it, but I've learned that grades don't stay steady if your mind doesn't. That's the first reason mental health matters to me as a student: it's the foundation everything else sits on. As a first-generation college student, I didn't grow up with anyone who could warn me how heavy college can feel, especially when you're balancing work and school. I grew up in a blended family and moved between households, living with different relatives and sometimes with whoever would take me in. That made me adaptable and independent. It also taught me that being able to handle a lot isn't the same as being okay, and that admitting you need rest or support is a strength, not a failure. The second reason is my future. I'm planning to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Studying Adult Mental Health Alterations right now has made that goal feel concrete. I'm learning the clinical side of conditions that affect real people, and I'm more convinced than ever that mental health care should be as normal and accessible as care for a broken arm. My advocacy so far happens mostly through showing up. In my work with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I support adults with developmental disabilities in their daily lives, and part of that job is speaking up for them. I've learned to pay close attention to changes in mood and behavior, document them carefully, bring them to the nurses and the clinical team, and stay calm and use de-escalation when someone is overwhelmed. Making sure those signals don't get brushed aside is mental health advocacy, even if nobody calls it that. It means the person is seen as a whole human being, not just a list of behaviors. Outside of work, I've spent every Saturday for more than three years cooking meals at my church for people in our community who are experiencing homelessness. Mental health and housing are tied together in ways most people never see from the outside. Treating people with dignity, consistently, week after week, is one small way I push back against the stigma they carry. As a Black man in nursing, I also know that men in my community are often taught to keep their struggles to themselves. Being visible in this field, and eventually in psychiatric care, is part of my advocacy too. I want the next young man from Queens or the Bronx who is quietly struggling to look at his provider and see someone who looks like him and takes him seriously. Mental health matters to me because it decides whether students like me can finish what we start, and whether communities like mine get care before a crisis instead of after one. I'm building my career around changing that.

1. My path to mental health care I came to mental health the way I came to everything in healthcare: by sitting next to people nobody else was sitting next to. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex cognitive and behavioral needs. Many can't name what they're feeling. One man on our unit became agitated at every transition. Instead of keeping my distance, I started arriving before each change, sitting nearby, talking quietly. It took weeks, but the fear softened. He taught me that presence regulates distress before any words do. I grew up in a blended family, moving between households and sometimes living with whoever would take me in, so I know what it is to carry things you can't say out loud. As a first-generation college student and a Black man in nursing, I'm now in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, with a 3.82 GPA, currently taking Adult Mental Health Alterations. My plan is to practice at the bedside and then become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. The provider I hope to become is the one who notices early, doesn't rush, and shares enough of a patient's world that they feel safe telling the truth. 2. The unwritten rule The rule that takes the greatest toll, in what I've seen, is "take care of everyone else, but keep your own needs small." I work in a field, direct care, that is mostly women, and I've watched colleagues absorb a whole unit's crises and call their own exhaustion normal. Growing up, I depended on relatives who opened their doors to me, and I understand now how much of that generosity ran on someone quietly setting her own needs aside. The rule is dangerous because it rewards the symptom: the more a woman disappears into caring for others, the more she's praised for it. A therapist can help by making the rule visible first. Ask a client to list what she did for others this week, then what she did for herself, and let the gap speak. Then reframe self-care as part of caregiving rather than its opposite, with one concrete, scheduled act of attention to her own needs each week, and track what happens to her patience and sleep. Rewriting the rule means practicing being a person with needs until it stops feeling like a betrayal. 3. The future of access The change I'd make is representation at the point of first contact. Most people in my community don't start mental health care in a therapist's office; they start in an emergency department, a primary care visit, or a group home. If the nurse in that room is trained to screen for anxiety, depression, and trauma, knows the free and low-cost resources in that zip code, and shares the patient's background, the first conversation happens in the one window where it otherwise never would. Pair that with teletherapy follow-up that accepts Medicaid, and the gap between "I should talk to someone" and actually doing it closes from months to days. I plan to be one of those nurses first, and one of those providers after.

I plan to make my impact in rooms where people feel least seen: a hospital bed, a group home, a meal line on a Saturday morning. I know those rooms because I've spent years in them. For over three years I've volunteered every Saturday at my church, helping prepare and cook meals that we distribute to people experiencing homelessness in our community. It's simple work with a large effect. For someone who has been invisible all week, being handed a hot meal by a person who looks them in the eye and asks how they're doing is a reminder that they still count. The gratitude I see every week humbles me, because I know how little it costs me to be there and how much it seems to mean. I understand that gratitude from the inside. I grew up in a blended family, moving between households and sometimes living with whoever was willing to take me in. I learned early what it feels like to depend on the generosity of others, and I learned never to take kindness for granted. The Saturday kitchen is how I pay back the doors that were opened for me. My job is service too. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex needs who often can't speak for themselves. Many have no family involved in their daily lives. I learned to notice the small changes that meant something was wrong and to flag them, and I learned that presence itself is a form of care. I also learned my ceiling: every time a nurse stepped in to assess and treat what I'd noticed, I wanted to be able to do the whole job. So here is the plan. I'm a first-generation college student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work. When I earn my RN, I'll work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes, and where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest because they waited the longest. After a few years at the bedside, I'll become a nurse practitioner and bring that experience into community health in the parts of New York City where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use it to get people better care. The impact I'm aiming for isn't one big gesture. It's a long chain of small ones: a change caught early on a night shift, a patient who tells the truth about their symptoms because the nurse looks like them, a younger first-generation student who sees my path and decides theirs is possible, and a Saturday kitchen I don't plan to stop showing up to. This scholarship honors someone who deeply cared about others. The best way I know to honor that is to keep doing what she did, with more skill every year. This support would help me finish my program while working and get me to the bedside sooner, where the real work starts.

How I give back right now fits in one sentence: every Saturday, for over three years, I've helped cook and serve meals to people experiencing homelessness through my church's outreach. The rest of this essay is about why that sentence matters more than it sounds. The outreach is simple. Volunteers prepare and cook food, pack it, and hand it out to people in our community who might otherwise go without a meal. What I didn't expect when I started was how much the few minutes of conversation at the table would matter. A meal is never just a meal. For someone who has been invisible all week, being handed a plate by a person who looks them in the eye is a reminder that they still count. The gratitude I see every Saturday humbles me, because I know how little it costs me to be there and how much it seems to mean. I understand that gratitude from the inside. I grew up in a blended family, moving between households and sometimes living with whoever was willing to take me in. I know what it feels like to depend on the generosity of others, and I learned never to take kindness for granted. The Saturday kitchen is how I pay back doors that were once opened for me. Service is also my job. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many can't communicate in conventional ways. Some have no family involved in their daily lives. I learned their routines well enough to notice when something was wrong, and I learned that presence itself is a form of care. I also learned my limits: every time a nurse stepped in to assess and treat what I'd flagged, I wanted to be able to do the whole job. That's my plan for the future. I'm a first-generation college student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work. When I earn my RN, I'll work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes and where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest because they waited the longest. After that, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that skill set into community health in the parts of New York City where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use it to get people better care. I also plan to keep the Saturdays. Nursing will give me a bigger set of tools, but the kitchen taught me the part that tools can't: look people in the eye, don't rush them, and treat their dignity as part of the job. I want to widen that circle over time, from a meal line to a hospital unit to a community clinic, and eventually to the people a younger first-generation student looks at when deciding whether a path like mine is possible. Priscilla Shireen Luke spread hope among the people around her. I can say that for three years I've shown up on Saturdays, and that I plan to spend my career showing up for people in their most vulnerable moments. This scholarship would help me get there sooner.

I wasn't raised in one house. I was raised in several. Growing up in a blended family meant I never had one set of parents or one permanent address. I moved from house to house, living with different family members and, at times, with anyone willing to take me in. Each household had its own rules, its own rhythms, its own idea of what a kid should be. I learned to read a room fast, to figure out where I fit, and to make myself useful. I didn't have the stability of one home, but each one taught me something about life, about relationships, and about what it means to have people who care. Constantly adjusting was hard. It would be easy to tell that part as a sad story. I don't, because it gave me things I use every single day. It gave me resilience, because starting over became a skill instead of a crisis. It gave me independence, because nobody was going to manage my life for me. It gave me patience and adaptability, because every new household asked me to learn its ways before it would trust me. And it gave me the one lesson I hold tightest: never take kindness for granted. I know what it feels like to depend on the generosity of other people. When someone opens their door to you, you remember it for the rest of your life. That memory is why I spend my Saturdays the way I do. For over three years, I've volunteered at my church every Saturday, helping prepare and cook meals that we distribute to people experiencing homelessness in our community. I understand, in a way that isn't abstract, what it means to need somewhere to belong. Handing someone a hot meal and a few minutes of real attention is my way of being the open door I once walked through. It's also why I'm becoming a nurse. I'm a first-generation college student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while working as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. The adults I support often can't speak for themselves, and some have no family involved in their lives. I know what that feels like from the inside. I want to be the person others can depend on in their most vulnerable moments, the way a handful of people were there for me when I had nowhere else to go. My plan is critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes, and later to become a nurse practitioner serving communities like the one I grew up in, in Laurelton, Queens, where too many people feel unseen by the systems that are supposed to care for them. As a Black man in nursing, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use it. I may not have grown up with the stability of one home, but I learned that family isn't always defined by blood or by an address. Sometimes family is simply the people who open their doors when you need somewhere to belong. That's the kind of nurse, and the kind of person, I plan to be: someone who opens the door, and keeps it open. This scholarship would help me finish a program I'm paying for while working, and get me to the bedside sooner. I'd honor it by doing good with it, every shift and every Saturday.

Every Saturday for the past three years, I've been in my church's kitchen cooking meals for people who might not have one otherwise. Our church runs a weekly outreach for people experiencing homelessness in our community. Volunteers prepare and cook the food, pack it, and hand it out. I've been one of those volunteers for over three years now. It isn't complicated work. It's hot food in a container and a few minutes of conversation with whoever is on the other side of the table. But it has shaped how I see service more than anything else in my life. Here's what I've learned standing there week after week. A meal is never just a meal. For someone who has been invisible all week, being handed a plate by someone who looks them in the eye and asks how they're doing is a reminder that they still count. I've watched people's shoulders drop and their faces soften when they realize nobody is going to rush them. The gratitude I see every Saturday humbles me, because I know how little it costs me to be there and how much it seems to mean. My faith is the reason I started, and it's the reason I keep going. I believe we're called to serve the people the world overlooks, not with speeches but with our hands. The Saturday kitchen is where that belief became a habit. It built a sense of responsibility in me: if I don't show up, someone eats less. It built patience, because the line is long and every person in it deserves the same attention as the first. And it built compassion that isn't abstract, because the people we serve have faces and stories, not labels. That same compassion is what pushed me toward nursing. I'm a first-generation college student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while working as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults who often can't speak for themselves. Between the church kitchen and that job, I've spent years around people in their most vulnerable moments. Every time a nurse stepped in to do what I wasn't yet trained to do, I wanted to be able to do the whole job. So I went back to school. I plan to work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, and later to become a nurse practitioner serving communities like the one I grew up in, in Laurelton, Queens, where people too often feel unseen by the systems that are supposed to care for them. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to bring the Saturday kitchen into every one of those rooms: the eye contact, the patience, the refusal to rush someone who has been rushed all their life. Sherman S. Howard's foundation asks for ambition, drive, and faith. My ambition is to be the nurse that man at the end of the line would trust. My drive is the schedule I keep to get there. My faith is what put me in the kitchen in the first place, and it's what will keep me showing up long after I earn my license.

Motivation for pursuing advanced education I already have a bachelor's degree. I went back for a second one because the first didn't let me do the work I'd found. My first degree was in Legal Studies. While I earned it, I worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many of them couldn't communicate in conventional ways. I learned their routines, their signals, the small changes that meant something was wrong, and I flagged them. Every time a nurse stepped in to assess what I'd noticed and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. I was doing the part before the nurse arrived. I wanted to do the whole job. So at 26, as a first-generation college student with no family roadmap for higher education, I enrolled in the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. What they gave me was the habit of showing up. That habit has turned into a 3.906 GPA, with A's in Anatomy and Physiology, Developmental Psychology, and Race, Ethnicity, and Health, earned while I continue to work in patient care. Advanced education, for me, is the only way to close the gap between what I can see and what I'm allowed to do about it. My plan after earning my RN is critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes. After a few years at the bedside, I plan to return to school for my master's and become a nurse practitioner, so I can carry that experience into community health in the parts of New York City where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I grew up watching people in my community navigate a system that wasn't built with them in mind. I intend to be part of changing that. How this scholarship will benefit me I'm paying for an accelerated program while working. That means the real cost of tuition isn't only dollars; it's the shifts I pick up to cover it, and every shift is time taken from clinicals, studying, and sleep. A $500 award covers books and supplies for a term, or a certification review course, and that's not abstract to me. It's hours I get back and put toward becoming competent faster. It also matters that this scholarship comes from an organization built around continuing education for NPs, PAs, and RNs in exactly the areas I'm heading toward: emergency medicine, cardiology, prescribing. Being supported now by the people who'll be teaching me later feels like the right kind of investment, and I'd treat it that way. I don't plan to stop learning when I earn my license. I plan to be the clinician who keeps showing up to get better, for the patients who are counting on someone to notice.

Paramedics like Eddie Hankins work in the gap between when something goes wrong and when help arrives. I've spent years in a version of that gap, and it's why I'm becoming a nurse. Personal challenges I'm a first-generation college student from Laurelton, Queens. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. There was no roadmap at home for higher education, no template for balancing school with work and adult responsibilities. I earned a first degree in Legal Studies while working, and then, at 26, made the harder choice: to go back to school as a career changer and start over in nursing. Doing that while continuing to work in patient care is the obstacle I live inside every week. There isn't a dramatic story to it, just the discipline of showing up to a shift, then to class, then to the books, and refusing to let any of the three slip. The result is a 3.906 GPA in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx. What that taught me about resilience is simple: it's not a feeling, it's a schedule you keep when you're tired. And determination isn't about believing you'll succeed. It's about knowing exactly what you want to become, so clearly that quitting stops being an option. Service and community My service hasn't come through a uniform or a club. It's come through my job. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many can't communicate in conventional ways. Some have no family involved in their daily lives. For them, community is whoever shows up on the shift. One man on our unit became agitated during every transition: changing rooms, switching activities, anything unexpected. The common approach among some staff was distance. I tried the opposite, arriving before each transition, sitting nearby, speaking calmly, giving him time to notice me before anything changed. It took weeks. The agitation didn't disappear, but it softened. He learned that when I showed up, something predictable and safe followed. That work shaped my character in two ways. It taught me that presence is a form of care, and that the most important intervention is often the one you make before the crisis. And it showed me my ceiling. Every time I flagged a change and a nurse stepped in to assess and treat, I was handing off the most important part. I wanted to be able to do the whole job. Future aspirations I'm pursuing nursing with a specific destination: critical care, the ICU and emergency department, the units closest to what first responders do. Those are the places where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes, and where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest, because they waited the longest. I grew up watching people in my community navigate a healthcare system that wasn't built with them in mind. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say, and I plan to use that to get people better care. Longer term, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that experience into community health, so that fewer people reach the emergency department in the first place. The values Eddie Hankins embodied, compassion and resilience, aren't abstract to me. Compassion is noticing the person who can't tell you what's wrong. Resilience is coming back the next shift. I've been practicing both for years. Nursing school is how I'll get to practice them with the full set of skills, and this scholarship would help me finish that training while continuing to work, so I can get to the bedside sooner for the people who need someone there.

My contribution is to put mental health care where people already are, instead of asking them to find it. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults who can't always say what they're feeling. I learned that the moment someone is most reachable is often the moment they're already in front of you for something else. Nobody on our unit scheduled a therapy appointment. They needed someone who noticed. As a nursing student at Monroe University in the Bronx, and a Black man in a profession where fewer than 3 percent look like me, I plan to carry that into every bedside. In critical care and the emergency department, where I intend to start, patients from communities like mine arrive in crisis, and a nurse who screens for anxiety, depression, and trauma, and who knows which free and low-cost resources exist in the neighborhood, can connect someone to care in the one window they'd never seek it on their own. Longer term, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and have seriously explored the psychiatric mental health track, because the shortage of Black mental health providers is itself a barrier to access. A clinician who shares a patient's background lowers the stigma that keeps so many young people of color silent. My unique contribution is to be that person, in the room, before anyone has to ask.

1. Tell us about yourself. Why do you want to be a nurse? My name is Omowaye Jegede. I'm 26, a first-generation college student from Laurelton, Queens, and a student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, where I carry a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work in patient care. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. What they gave me instead was the habit of showing up, every day, whether or not anyone was watching. I want to be a nurse because I've spent years doing the part of care that happens before the nurse arrives, and I want to do the whole job. As a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I learned to notice when something was off with a person who couldn't say so, and to flag it. Every time a nurse stepped in to assess what I'd noticed and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. Nursing school is how I'm removing it. I also want to be a nurse because of where I'm from. I grew up watching people in my community navigate a healthcare system that wasn't built with them in mind, and I know what it feels like to be unseen by the institutions that are supposed to care for you. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use that. 2. Describe your experiences working or volunteering as a nurse, or in any other job that made you want to pursue nursing. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with OPWDD, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many can't communicate in conventional ways. Some have no family involved in their daily lives. My job was to learn each person well enough to be useful to them: their routines, their signals, the small changes that meant something was wrong. One man on our unit had a history of agitation during transitions. Changing rooms, switching activities, anything unexpected could set him off. The common approach among some staff was distance: move fast, stay clear, document the behavior. I tried the opposite. I started arriving before the transition, sitting nearby, talking quietly, giving him time to register that I was there before anything changed. It took weeks. The agitation didn't disappear, but it softened. He started to recognize that when I showed up, something predictable and safe followed. That experience taught me that presence is a clinical tool and that anticipation is a form of care. It also showed me where my role ended. The nurses on our team were the ones who could assess and treat. I was doing the part before they arrived, and I wanted to do the whole thing. That's the job that made me want to be a nurse. 3. Describe your plans for pursuing a career in nursing, including whether you have applied, have been accepted, or are currently enrolled in a nursing program. I'm currently enrolled in the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx, New York, which is ACEN accredited. Nursing is my second degree; I earned a degree in Legal Studies first. I enrolled in 2025 and expect to graduate in December 2027. I've completed Human Anatomy and Physiology I with lab, Intro to Health Care, Developmental Psychology, Statistical Applications, and Race, Ethnicity, and Health, and I'm continuing through Anatomy and Physiology II and my remaining prerequisites and nursing coursework now. I've maintained a 3.906 GPA while working in patient care throughout. After graduation, I plan to sit for the NCLEX-RN and begin my career at the bedside in critical care. After a few years of experience, I plan to return to school for a master's degree and become a nurse practitioner, which would let me carry what I've learned into primary and community care. 4. Describe your dream job. My dream job has two chapters. The first is as a critical care nurse in an ICU or emergency department in New York City. Those are the units where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes, and they're also where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest, because they waited the longest. I want to be the nurse who catches what others miss, who stays calm when the room isn't, and who treats a patient's dignity as part of the treatment plan. The second chapter is as a nurse practitioner in community health, in the parts of the city where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. Mary Lou Losinger spent her career being a nurse to everyone around her, in and out of the clinic, long after the shift ended. That's the version of the job I'm aiming for: skilled enough to handle the hardest cases, and present enough that people in my community know they'll be seen.

Maureen Pace ran an emergency room before she ran a hospital. I want to start where she started. What inspired me to study nursing wasn't a single moment. It was years of them. I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs, many of whom can't communicate in conventional ways. I learned their routines well enough to notice when something was off. I sat with them in their hardest moments and held space for those who couldn't hold it themselves. And every time a nurse stepped in to assess a situation I had flagged, or to provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the pull of something more. I didn't want to hand off the most important part of the work anymore. So I went back to school. I'd already earned a degree in Legal Studies; nursing was a second act, started at 26, as a first-generation college student with no family roadmap for higher education. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. What I had instead was certainty about the kind of nurse I wanted to become. That certainty has turned into a 3.906 GPA in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, earned while continuing to work in patient care. What I hope to achieve is specific. When I earn my RN, I want to work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes. Maureen was Head Nurse of an ER and later raised hospital standards by bringing new tools to the people at the bedside. That's the trajectory I admire: start where the stakes are highest, master the craft, then use what you've learned to make the whole system better. After a few years at the bedside, I plan to become a nurse practitioner. The impact I want to make is in communities like the one I grew up in. I'm from Laurelton, Queens, and I watched people around me navigate a healthcare system that wasn't built with them in mind. I know what it feels like to be unseen by the institutions that are supposed to care for you. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use that to get people better care, in the Bronx, in Queens, and wherever in New York I'm needed. Maureen's values show up in the details of her story: she drove cancer patients to their appointments, shared her own story, and offered a shoulder to lean on. She treated care as something that happens outside the hospital as much as inside it. That is exactly what my support work taught me, and it's how I plan to practice. I'll carry on her example by being the nurse who notices early, stays calm, treats dignity as part of the treatment plan, and keeps showing up for the community after the shift ends. This scholarship would ease the cost of a program I'm paying for while working, and keep my focus on clinicals and patients. I'd honor it by becoming the kind of nurse Maureen was: skilled, innovative, and never too busy to see the person in front of her.

I'm Omowaye Jegede, a first-generation college student from Laurelton, Queens, and a student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. What they gave me instead was the habit of showing up, every day, whether or not anyone was watching. That habit is what carried me into nursing. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults who often can't speak for themselves. I learned to notice the small changes that meant something was wrong, and to flag them. Every time a nurse stepped in to assess what I'd noticed and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. Going back to school at 26 as a career changer, with no family roadmap for higher education, was my answer to that ceiling. I now carry a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work in patient care. My goals are specific. When I earn my RN, I want to work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes. After that, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that skill set into community health in the parts of New York City where people too often put off care because they don't expect to be seen or believed once they arrive. I know that feeling from the inside. I grew up watching my community navigate a healthcare system that wasn't built with us in mind. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use that to get people better care, and to be the person a younger first-generation student can look at and know the path exists. This scholarship would help me finish an accelerated program I'm paying for while working, with less debt and more attention on the patients who need me. I'd pay it forward the same way Camille does: one person at a time, for as long as I'm able.

Nobody inspired me to become a nurse with a speech. A man who couldn't speak did it by letting me sit next to him. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. One man on our unit had a history of agitation during transitions. Changing rooms, switching activities, anything unexpected could set him off. The common approach among some staff was distance: move fast, stay clear, document the behavior. I tried the opposite. I started arriving before the transition. I'd sit nearby, talk quietly, and give him time to register that I was there before anything changed. It took weeks. The agitation didn't disappear, but it softened. He started to recognize that when I showed up, something predictable and safe followed. He never said a word about it. He didn't need to. That taught me something I've never let go of: presence is a clinical tool. Knowing a person well enough to meet them before they need you is care, not a nicety. And it showed me where my role ended. Every time I flagged a change and a nurse stepped in to assess and treat, I felt the ceiling above me. I was doing the part before the nurse arrived. I wanted to do the whole thing. Nursing wasn't my first plan. I earned a degree in Legal Studies, and the support work started as a job that mattered and paid the bills. But slowly, and then all at once, I understood that the work I was already doing was pointing somewhere. The decision to enroll in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx didn't feel like a leap. By the time I made it, it had already made itself. The road behind it wasn't simple. I'm a first-generation college student. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little, and neither finished a four-year degree. There was no roadmap at home for going back to school at 26 as a career changer while working. What I had instead was certainty about the kind of nurse I wanted to be, and that certainty has translated into a 3.906 GPA, with A's in Anatomy and Physiology, Developmental Psychology, and a course on Race, Ethnicity, and Health that put history behind what I'd already seen growing up in Laurelton, Queens: people in my community navigating a healthcare system that wasn't built with them in mind. That history is the other half of my inspiration. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I plan to use it. My goal is critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes. Later, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that skill set into communities that face barriers to quality care. The nursing shortage is real, and I'm glad to be part of the next generation stepping in. But I didn't choose nursing because it's needed. I chose it because a man who couldn't tell me what he needed taught me how to notice anyway. I want to spend my career being the nurse who notices.

My name is Omowaye Jegede. I'm 26, a first-generation college student from Laurelton, Queens, and a student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx. I came to nursing the long way around, and I think that's the most important thing to know about me. My parents came to America from Nigeria with very little. Neither finished a four-year degree. I grew up watching them navigate a country that wasn't built with people like them in mind, and I grew up watching people in my neighborhood put off care because they didn't expect to be seen or believed once they got there. I know what it feels like to be unseen by the institutions that are supposed to care for you. That's the lens I bring to everything I do in healthcare. My first degree was in Legal Studies. While I earned it, I worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults who often couldn't speak for themselves. I learned their routines, noticed the small changes that meant something was wrong, and flagged them. And every time a nurse stepped in to assess what I'd noticed and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. I didn't want to hand off the most important part of the work anymore. So I went back to school. I now carry a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work in patient care, with A's in Anatomy and Physiology, Developmental Psychology, and a course on Race, Ethnicity, and Health that put numbers and history behind what I'd already seen. Here's how I plan to make an impact. First, at the bedside. My goal is critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and quick decisions decide outcomes. Those are also the units where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest, because they waited the longest. I want to be the nurse who catches what others miss and who treats a patient's dignity as part of the treatment plan. Second, through representation. Black Americans are about 13 percent of the country, and Black men are under 3 percent of the nursing workforce. When patients don't see anyone on the care team who shares their background, trust goes down and so does the quality of information clinicians have to work with. That's a documented driver of worse outcomes. My presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I intend to use that every shift. Third, by growing my reach. After a few years in critical care, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that skill set into community health, in the parts of New York City where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. Long term, I want to be part of closing the gap between what the healthcare system promises and what it delivers to Black and immigrant families. I also want to be the person I didn't have: someone a younger first-generation student can look at and know the path exists. This scholarship would help me finish an accelerated program I'm paying for while working, and keep my attention on clinicals and patients. I'd make it count, for every patient I'll serve and for the next student who needs to see that this is possible.

There's a version of my life where I never became a nurse. I almost lived it. I earned a degree in Legal Studies first. While I was in school, I took a job as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, mostly because I needed work that mattered and paid the bills. I didn't know it would reroute my life. The people I supported were adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many couldn't communicate in conventional ways. Some had no family involved in their daily lives. I learned their routines, their signals, the small changes that meant something was wrong. I sat with them in their hardest moments and held space for those who couldn't hold it themselves. Slowly, and then all at once, I understood that the work I was already doing was pointing somewhere. It was also showing me a ceiling. Every time a nurse stepped in to assess a situation I had flagged, or to provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the pull of something more. I didn't want to hand off the most important part of the work anymore. I wanted to be the person who could do it. Going back to school at 26 as a career changer wasn't a small decision. I'm a first-generation college student. Neither of my parents finished a four-year degree. My family came to America from Nigeria with very little, and I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, watching them navigate a country that wasn't built with people like them in mind. There was no roadmap at home for balancing school with work and adult responsibilities. What I had instead was certainty, the kind that comes from knowing, through daily experience, exactly what kind of nurse I wanted to become. That certainty has held. I'm in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx with a 3.906 GPA, still working in patient care. I've earned A's in Anatomy and Physiology, Developmental Psychology, and a course on Race, Ethnicity, and Health that deepened my understanding of why people in communities like mine so often arrive at care late and leave feeling unseen. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I carry both the weight and the privilege of that representation. I intend to use it. My goal is critical care: the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and decisive action are the difference between life and loss. Long term, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that skill set into communities that face barriers to quality care. Rose Browne earned her RN, BSN, and MSN while raising children and working full-time, mostly at the VA. I recognize that road. I'm walking a version of it now, working while I study, building toward each credential one term at a time. Her example is the kind I'd want to live up to, and this scholarship would help me keep my focus on clinicals and patients rather than on the next tuition bill. When I earn my RN, I'll be the nurse who sees every patient fully, completely, and without reservation. My life experience didn't just influence that decision. It made it for me.

The moment that taught me the most about nursing didn't involve a nurse. It involved a man who got agitated every time his routine changed. I was working as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults with complex physical and cognitive needs. One of the people on our unit had a history of agitation during transitions: moving from one activity to the next, changing rooms, adjusting to anything unexpected. The standard response from some caregivers was distance. Move quickly, keep clear, document the behavior. I tried something different. I started coming to him before the transition happened. I'd sit nearby, speak calmly, and give him time to notice me before anything changed. It took weeks. The agitation didn't vanish, but it softened. He started to recognize that when I arrived, something predictable and safe followed. That experience rearranged how I think about care. It taught me that the most effective intervention is sometimes anticipation: knowing a person well enough to meet them before they need you to. It taught me that slowing down is a clinical skill, not a soft one. And it taught me that presence itself regulates fear. He couldn't tell me any of that in words. His body told me. It also showed me my limits. Every time a nurse stepped in to assess something I had flagged, or to provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. I wanted to be able to do the whole job, not just the part before the nurse arrived. That's why I'm now in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work in patient care. The nurse I hope to become is the one that man needed: someone who notices early, stays calm, and treats a patient's dignity as part of the treatment plan. I plan to work in critical care, where that kind of attention decides outcomes, and later to become a nurse practitioner serving communities like the one I grew up in, where people too often feel unseen by the system that is supposed to care for them. Ellen Randolph's family describes nurses who offer comfort, dignity, and humor in life's most vulnerable moments. That is exactly the standard I'm holding myself to. This scholarship would make a real difference. I'm a first-generation college student and a career changer, paying for an accelerated program while working. Every dollar that doesn't go to tuition is an hour I can spend in clinicals and study instead of picking up another shift. Finishing strong, and on time, means getting to the bedside sooner. That is where I'm meant to be, and this support would help me get there.

The community I've contributed to most doesn't show up in a volunteer log. It shows up in a state-operated program in Queens, where for years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. The people I support are adults with developmental disabilities. Many can't communicate in conventional ways. Some have no family involved in their daily lives. For them, "community" isn't an abstract word. It's whoever shows up on the shift, and whether that person treats them as a whole human being or as a set of tasks to get through. I chose to be the first kind. That meant learning each person's routines well enough to notice when something was off before it became a crisis. It meant sitting with people in their hardest moments and holding space for those who couldn't hold it themselves. It meant flagging changes to the nurses on our team, and watching, every time, as they stepped in to assess and treat in ways I wasn't yet trained to do. Those moments taught me two things: that steady, attentive presence is itself a form of care, and that I wanted to be able to do more. That's why I'm now in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while continuing to work in patient care. I'm a first-generation college student from Laurelton, Queens. Neither of my parents finished a four-year degree, and they came to this country from Nigeria with very little. I grew up watching people in my neighborhood navigate a healthcare system that wasn't built with them in mind, and I know what it feels like to be unseen by the institutions that are supposed to care for you. Serving my community, for me, means becoming the clinician who sees people fully. Here's how I plan to keep contributing. When I earn my RN, I want to work in critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and fast decisions decide outcomes. Those are also the units where patients from neighborhoods like mine arrive sickest, because they waited the longest. After that, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that experience back into community health, in the parts of New York City where a trusted provider who looks like the patient is still rare. As a Black man in nursing, a group that makes up under 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence changes what people are willing to tell me, and I intend to use that to get them better care. I also want to be the person I didn't have: someone a younger first-generation student can look at and know the path exists. Every term I finish is a small piece of that. The Bright Lite Scholarship would ease the cost of a program I'm paying for while working, and let me stay focused on clinicals and the people who need me there. I don't take that lightly. The community that shaped me is the one I plan to spend my career serving, one patient and one shift at a time.

What matters most to me is being the person who shows up. I learned that from my parents before I had words for it. My family came to America from Nigeria with very little except the conviction that hard work would eventually be rewarded. I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, watching them navigate a country that wasn't built with people like them in mind. They worked hard, stretched every resource they had, and gave everything so I could have the opportunities they never did. Neither of them finished a four-year degree. They gave me something else: the habit of showing up anyway, every day, whether or not anyone was watching. I'm now a permanent resident, a first-generation college student, and a student in the accelerated BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, carrying a 3.906 GPA while working in patient care. That sentence took a long road to write. Nursing wasn't my first degree. I earned a degree in Legal Studies first, and while I was in school I worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. I supported adults who couldn't always speak for themselves: people who depended on someone noticing when something was wrong. I sat with them in their hardest moments. I learned to catch the small changes and flag them. And every time a nurse stepped in to assess what I'd noticed and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. I didn't want to hand off the most important part of the work anymore. I wanted to be able to do it. So I went back. Returning to school as a 26-year-old career changer, without a family roadmap for higher education, was the hardest decision I've made and the one I'm proudest of. There was no one at home who'd done this before, no template for balancing school with full adult responsibilities and a job in patient care. What I had instead was certainty about the kind of nurse I wanted to become. The GPA matters to me not as a number but as proof that the choice was right. What I've had to navigate has also shaped what I want to build. I grew up seeing people in my community put off care because they didn't expect to be seen or believed when they got there. I know what it's like to feel unseen by the institutions that are supposed to help you. As a Black man in nursing, part of a group that makes up less than 3 percent of the profession, I know my presence in a room changes what a patient is willing to say. I plan to use that. My goal is critical care, the ICU and emergency department, where sharp assessment and quick decisions matter most. After that, I plan to become a nurse practitioner and bring that same attention to communities like the one I grew up in, where people deserve a clinician who sees them fully. My parents began on new ground and built a life from it. I'm building the next piece: a career that turns what they taught me into care for people who need it. This scholarship would help me finish that work without carrying more debt than I have to. I would make it count, the same way they taught me to.

I want to be the nurse in the room who sees the whole patient. That sounds simple, but I've spent enough years in healthcare settings to know how rare it is for people who look like me. My plan is specific. I'm finishing an accelerated BSN at Monroe University in the Bronx, and when I earn my RN I want to work in critical care: the ICU and the emergency department, where assessment has to be sharp and decisions have to be fast. Those are the units where a patient's outcome can turn on whether someone noticed a subtle change in breathing or a blood pressure that didn't match the chart. I want to be the person who notices. After a few years at the bedside, I plan to go back for my master's and become a nurse practitioner so I can carry that same attention into primary and community care, especially in neighborhoods that get the least of it. I didn't arrive at this plan from a textbook. For years I've worked as a Direct Support Professional with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, supporting adults who often can't advocate for themselves. I've sat with people in their hardest moments and held space for those who couldn't hold it themselves. I learned to notice when something was off and to flag it. Every time I watched a nurse step in to assess what I'd flagged and provide care I wasn't trained to give, I felt the ceiling above me. Nursing school is how I'm removing it. That work also taught me why representation in healthcare isn't a slogan. Black Americans are about 13 percent of the country, and Black men are under 3 percent of the nursing workforce. I've seen what that gap looks like from the patient side. I grew up watching people in my community navigate a system that wasn't designed with them in mind, and I know what it feels like to be unseen by the institutions that are supposed to care for you. When patients don't see anyone on the care team who shares their background, trust goes down, honesty goes down, and the quality of information the clinician gets to work with goes down with it. That's not a feeling; it's a documented driver of worse outcomes in everything from maternal mortality to pain management. Diversity changes the conversation in the exam room, and it changes the team behind the door too. A nurse who has lived the barriers knows which questions to ask and which silences to pay attention to. A team with that knowledge catches things a homogeneous team misses. And a Black patient who sees a Black nurse learns, without anyone saying it, that this place was built with him in mind. As a first-generation college student, neither of whose parents finished a four-year degree, I know I'm also a signal to the next person. Every term I finish with a 3.9 GPA while working in patient care is proof to somebody younger that the path exists. This scholarship would ease the cost of a program I'm paying for while working, and let me keep my focus on clinicals and the patients who need me there. More than that, it would be an investment in exactly the kind of representation MedLuxe exists to build. I intend to make it count.

Epictetus opens the Enchiridion with a categorical distinction that, on its surface, appears simple: some things are in our control, others are not. Yet the underlying claim of this passage is far more radical than a practical sorting exercise. Epictetus argues that the self, properly understood, is coextensive with its own rational will, and that every form of suffering arises not from circumstance but from a fundamental confusion about where the self ends and the world begins. The passage reads as follows, from the Enchiridion of Epictetus, Chapter 1: "Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our actions. The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed." The opening sentence establishes a binary, but the language Epictetus uses to describe each category is revealing. He does not simply say that some things go well and others do not. He says that the things in our control are "by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered," while those outside our control are "weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others." The word "slavish" is particularly pointed. In Epictetus's world, a slave is someone whose movements and conditions are governed entirely by an external authority. By applying this word to body, reputation, and circumstance, Epictetus makes a striking claim: that these things were never truly ours to begin with. They belong, in some essential sense, to the world, to chance, to other people, to time. The error is in thinking otherwise. What Epictetus describes as the consequence of this error is also worth reading carefully. He does not say that those who misidentify what they own will merely suffer disappointment. He says they will be "hindered," will "lament," will be "disturbed," and will "find fault both with gods and men." This escalation is deliberate. The person who mistakes the world for their own property does not simply feel loss; they feel accusation. They look outward for causes and begin assigning blame. The gods are unjust. Other people are to blame. Society has failed them. The disorder is internal, but its expression becomes relational. Misidentification of the self leads to a fragmented and hostile relationship with everything outside it. The second half of the passage presents the inverse. If a person correctly recognizes that what is truly theirs is only their own will, then, Epictetus claims, "no one will ever compel you or restrain you." This is not a claim about power in the ordinary sense. Epictetus was himself a former slave. He knew that bodies could be constrained, that conditions could be brutal, that external life offered no immunity from suffering. What he means is something more precise: that the will, when it does not reach beyond itself to grasp at things outside its nature, cannot be coerced. No one can make you desire something you have decided not to desire. No one can make you form a judgment you have genuinely rejected. The final sentences of the passage extend this logic to its furthest point. "You will have no enemies, and you will not be harmed." Enemies, in Epictetus's sense, are a product of the confused will. When I believe that my reputation belongs to me, I become vulnerable to anyone who might damage it, and I begin to see them as adversaries. When I understand that my reputation belongs to the world and to others, it loses its power to make me into someone who fights. The reduction of harm is not a social outcome here; it is a philosophical one. Harm is redefined as something that can only occur at the level of the will, and the will, rightly governed, is impervious. What this passage ultimately teaches is that Epictetus understands freedom not as the expansion of what one controls in the external world, but as the precise contraction of what one claims to own internally. The path to invulnerability runs inward, not outward. Every suffering is, at its root, a category error. Every enemy is a misidentification. And every obstacle dissolves when the self stops reaching beyond the only domain it has ever truly occupied: its own considered judgment and will.

What I want to build is not a product and not a platform. It is a practice, specifically, a way of delivering care that people in communities like mine can trust and feel seen by. I grew up in New York, shaped by immigrant families, working-class neighborhoods, and households where healthcare was an afterthought because it had to be. When you are worried about rent or working a double shift or raising children without a second income, a doctor's visit feels like a luxury. People in these communities do not avoid healthcare because they do not care about their health. They avoid it because the system, too often, does not feel designed for them. I am building toward something different. I am currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe College in the Bronx, where I hold a 3.906 GPA. Before nursing school, I worked as a Direct Support Professional, providing daily care to adults with developmental disabilities. That role taught me something I carry into every clinical setting: the way you treat someone during a difficult moment is what they will remember. Not the technical procedure, not the policy, but whether you made them feel like a person. What I want to build is a clinical practice, and eventually a broader professional presence, that brings that kind of care to patients who are routinely underserved. I want to work in hospital systems and community health clinics that serve low-income and immigrant populations. I want to become a resource for families who do not understand their diagnoses, who are afraid to ask questions, who do not have anyone explaining their options in plain language. Building this means finishing my degree with the same rigor I have maintained so far. It means pursuing certifications and clinical experience that make me effective in diverse settings. It means continuing to show up fully, the way I showed up as a DSP, the way my mother showed up raising me largely on her own, with consistency and purpose. The difference this will make is hard to quantify but not hard to imagine. One patient who finally gets a clear explanation of their treatment plan. One family who does not leave a hospital more confused than when they arrived. One person who sees a nurse who looks like them and realizes this path is open to them too. That is what I am building. It is quiet work, close to the ground, done one patient at a time. But that is the kind of work that accumulates into something real.

Growing up in a household with one parent means learning certain things early. You learn to be resourceful because there is no backup. You learn to show up even when it is hard, because there is no one else to take your place. You learn that progress often looks quiet and unglamorous, but it still counts. My mother raised me largely on her own. She worked, managed our home, and found ways to keep us moving forward without making us feel the weight of it all, even when that weight was clearly there. What I saw in her was not struggle for the sake of struggle. It was purpose. She chose to keep going, and she did it with dignity. That example shaped how I approach everything, especially school. When I made the decision to enroll in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe College in the Bronx, I was not just making a career choice. I was continuing a pattern my household established early: do the hard work, stay consistent, and trust that it leads somewhere. My GPA of 3.906 reflects that same commitment. There were semesters when balancing coursework, a job, and adult responsibilities felt overwhelming. But I did not have a framework for giving up. That was not something I grew up watching. Before nursing school, I worked as a Direct Support Professional, providing care and daily assistance to adults with developmental disabilities. That role required me to show up, to be patient, and to treat people with dignity even on difficult days. I chose that work because something in me was already oriented toward service. I did not realize it at the time, but I was already practicing what I intended to do for my entire career. Nursing is how I plan to give back most concretely. The communities I come from, immigrant families, working-class neighborhoods in New York, single-parent households, are communities that often receive less than adequate healthcare. People delay seeking help because they cannot afford it, cannot navigate the system, or do not feel respected when they try. I want to be a nurse who changes that for at least some people. Someone who communicates clearly, treats every patient as a full person, and takes the time to understand what someone actually needs rather than just what the chart says. Beyond clinical work, I plan to stay connected to the communities that shaped me. Whether that looks like mentorship, outreach, or simply being someone in a professional role who comes from a background similar to my neighbors, I believe representation in healthcare matters. When a young person from a single-parent household in the Bronx sees someone who looks like them working in a skilled profession, something shifts in them. I want to be that for someone, the same way my mother's persistence shifted something in me. My household gave me more than I understood at the time. The discipline, the empathy, the understanding that things worth having require sustained effort. I am carrying all of it into my career and into every community I serve.

Addiction never announces itself. It does not show up at the door with a warning. It moves slowly, quietly, until one day you look at someone you love and realize that the person in front of you is both familiar and a stranger at the same time. I grew up watching addiction reshape someone close to me. I will not pretend I understood it then. What I understood was the unpredictability, the conversations that went nowhere, the good days that felt too fragile to trust, and the low days that seemed to last forever. I learned early to read a room, to sense shifts in tone before they turned into something bigger, to stay steady when steadiness felt almost impossible. What I did not understand until much later was how much strength it takes to choose recovery. To wake up every day and recommit to sobriety when the easier path is right there. I watched that choice being made, sometimes quietly and sometimes with tremendous effort, and it changed how I see human beings entirely. When I started nursing school at Monroe College in the Bronx, I brought things with me that no classroom had given me. I already knew what it looked like when someone was fighting something bigger than themselves. I knew the difference between someone asking for help and someone who had stopped believing help was possible. I knew that real care is not about having the right answers. It is about showing up with patience when the answers are not available yet. Those lessons became part of how I approach my studies. When I sit in pharmacology and we cover substance interactions, I am not just memorizing compounds. I am thinking about real consequences and real people. When we discuss patient-centered care, I understand at a personal level what it means to treat someone without reducing them to their diagnosis or their history. People in recovery deserve that kind of care, nurses who see past the stigma to the person underneath it. Dr. Haymon's legacy is built on the belief that life begins with sobriety. I believe that too, and I think it extends further than it might first appear. Life does not just begin again for the person in recovery. It begins again for everyone around them. I have seen that firsthand, the slow return of trust, of ordinary conversation, of moments that no longer feel charged with tension. I am becoming a nurse because I want to be present for people in their most vulnerable moments, without judgment and without flinching. Addiction has been part of my story, not as my own struggle but as something I witnessed and something that shaped me deeply. It gave me empathy I could not have manufactured and patience I did not know I was building over all those years. That is what I carry into every clinical rotation, every patient interaction, and every step I take toward becoming a healthcare professional.

My Love Island challenge is called "The Real Deal," and I think it would shake the villa up in the best possible way. Here is how it works. Every couple is separated and taken to opposite sides of the villa. Each person receives a set of cards with questions about their partner — not surface-level stuff like "What is their favorite color?" but the kind of questions that reveal whether you actually know someone. Things like: "What is the one thing your partner is most insecure about?" and "What does your partner need when they are upset — space or comfort?" and "What is something your partner has not told anyone else in the villa?" Each islander answers independently. Then the couples are reunited and their answers are read out loud to everyone. The host reads both answers at the same time, and the villa reacts to what matches and what does not. The scoring is simple: one point for every answer that lines up. But there is a twist. Two of the ten questions are flagged as "Real Deal" questions, and those are worth three points each. These are the most personal ones, the kind that separate couples who are genuinely connected from couples who are just comfortable. At the end, the couple with the lowest score has to face a public vote from the villa on whether they stay coupled up. It is not elimination — it is more like a mirror. It forces every couple to look at whether they have put in the work to truly understand each other, or whether they have been coasting on chemistry and good looks. What makes this challenge different from others is that there is no physical task, no embarrassing costume, no food to eat. The only thing on the line is whether you paid attention. It rewards emotional investment over performance, and that is what I think Love Island is actually about underneath all the drama. The best relationships on the show are not the ones with the most sparks at the beginning. They are the ones where two people are genuinely curious about each other and keep choosing to learn more. "The Real Deal" is a challenge built to find those couples — and expose the ones who are not quite there yet.

I did not expect to become a Sabrina Carpenter fan. I was studying for an anatomy exam when Espresso started playing somewhere in my apartment, and by the time I realized I had listened to it four times in a row, I figured I should just accept it. I am a 26-year-old nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx. My days are not exactly glamorous. I work as a Direct Support Professional caring for individuals with disabilities, go to school full time, and try to sleep when I can. I do not have a lot of room for things that are just fun for the sake of being fun. But Sabrina Carpenter's music has somehow carved out that space without asking permission. What draws me to her is the confidence. Not arrogance, not performance, but the particular kind of ease that comes from knowing who you are and not apologizing for it. Short n' Sweet is an album that sounds like someone fully comfortable in their own skin, and that is not a small thing. It is actually something I have been working on for a long time. When you are a first-generation college student, the son of Nigerian immigrants who sacrificed a great deal to give you opportunities they did not have, confidence does not always come easy. There is a version of you that is always calculating, always proving, always justifying. Hearing an artist who seems genuinely unbothered by all of that, who sounds like she is having the time of her life, is honestly a little healing. Her career trajectory has also been inspiring to watch in a practical sense. She did not go from Disney Channel to pop superstardom in a straight line. There were years in between, albums that did not break through the way she hoped, moments where it must have been easy to wonder if the vision she had for herself was ever going to land. And then it did, because she kept going and kept being herself. That kind of long-game persistence is something I relate to deeply. Nursing school is not a short road. The path I am on will take years before I am where I want to be. But if Espresso has taught me anything, it is that sometimes the thing you have been building quietly just needs the right moment to connect. I listen to her music on the train to clinical rotations. I listen on the long shifts. She does not make the hard parts easier, exactly, but she makes them feel less grim. And that, in the middle of a demanding program, is worth a lot.

Faith was not something I chose as an adult. It was something I was born into, shaped by parents who carried it across an ocean. My parents came to the United States from Nigeria with almost nothing. They did not come with money, connections, or guarantees. What they brought with them was work ethic, love, and an unshakeable trust in God. Watching them build a life in a country that was not their own taught me something before I was old enough to articulate it: that faith is not passive. It is the belief that if you keep showing up, even when the odds are against you, something greater than yourself is at work. Growing up in New York as the child of immigrants, I faced the kind of uncertainty that comes with straddling two worlds. There were moments when I questioned where I fit, whether I was doing enough, whether the path I wanted was even possible. Faith was the steady thing in those moments. Not a guarantee that everything would go right, but a conviction that I was not walking alone. That conviction carried me into my career. I work now as a Direct Support Professional, caring for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The work can be emotionally demanding. You are present with people during moments when they are most vulnerable, most frustrated, most in need. My faith has shaped how I show up in those rooms. It has taught me that every person has inherent dignity. It has given me the patience to stay present, even when the shift is hard. It has reminded me that the work I do matters beyond what I can see or measure. Now I am pursuing my Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe College, and I believe my faith will continue to be central to how I practice. Nursing, at its best, is more than a clinical task list. It is a calling to see patients as whole people, to offer not just competence but compassion, to be steady when someone else cannot be. The nurses who make the deepest impact are the ones who bring something more than skill. They bring presence. That kind of presence, for me, comes from faith. I am a first-generation college student. My parents never had the opportunity to complete four-year degrees. There are days when the road ahead feels long and the financial burden feels heavy. My faith has been the thing that pulls me back to purpose in those moments. It reminds me that I am not just studying for a degree; I am becoming someone who will go into communities underserved by healthcare and offer them something they deserve. I do not know what every chapter of this career will look like. But I know that my faith will be there in each one. It has been there in every hard room I have walked into, and it will be there in every patient room I walk into as a nurse. That is not a small thing. For me, it is everything.

The first time math made sense to me in a way that mattered, I was not in a classroom. I was calculating medication dosages in a care setting and realizing that a mistake in arithmetic could hurt someone. That moment crystallized something I had always felt but never fully articulated: math is serious, precise, and powerful. And that is exactly why I love it. I am a nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx, and math shows up in my education constantly. Dosage and calculation, pharmacology, statistical analysis in healthcare, patient vital sign interpretation. Nursing is, in many ways, applied mathematics. You are working with numbers that represent real human conditions, and the math has to be right. What I love most about math is its honesty. Unlike a lot of things in life that can be interpreted different ways, math gives you a clear answer. Two plus two is four in every language, in every country, under every circumstance. That kind of certainty is grounding. It is also humbling, because when you get the wrong answer in math, you cannot talk your way around it. You go back, find your error, and correct it. That discipline has shaped how I approach problems in general. When something is not working, I do not guess or give up; I trace back the steps, find where things went wrong, and try again. That is a math habit, and it translates to everything else, from studying for anatomy exams to figuring out how to support a client at work. I also took Statistical Applications as part of my nursing program and found myself genuinely engaged by what statistics can reveal. Data tells stories. Behind every percentage, every trend, every correlation is a human pattern worth understanding. In healthcare, that matters enormously. Statistics help identify which populations are at risk, which interventions work, and where resources should go. Math, in that context, is not abstract. It is the difference between policy that helps people and policy that misses them. I love math because it asks you to be precise, to be honest, and to keep going until you get it right. In nursing, and in life, those are the exact qualities I want to carry with me.

My grandmother's mind left before her body did. I am Omowaye Jegede, a nursing student at Monroe University in the Bronx, and when I tell people why I chose nursing, I usually say it is because I have always wanted to care for people. That is true. But the fuller truth is that I watched my grandmother fall apart piece by piece, and nobody around her knew how to help. She had dementia. She also had diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, and all of those conditions made her decline more complicated and more painful than it might have been otherwise. But the dementia was the thing that changed everything. It changed how she moved through the world. It changed her relationships. It changed how my entire family functioned. In my Nigerian immigrant family, mental illness was not something we discussed. Cognitive decline was attributed to old age. Confusion was managed quietly, behind closed doors, explained away to neighbors and extended family. The word "dementia" was not something people used, because using it felt like admitting something shameful. As if my grandmother had done something wrong by losing her memory. As if we had done something wrong by not being able to stop it. What actually happened was that we did not get help early enough. We did not know what to look for, and we did not have anyone to guide us. By the time her condition was clearly serious, she was deep into the illness and her physical conditions had compounded everything. She could not reliably manage her medications. Her isolation made the cognitive decline worse. And the people who loved her most, my aunts, my parents, my cousins, were carrying grief and stress that had no name and no outlet. She passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her underlying health conditions had left her body too fragile to withstand it. We had already been losing her for years, but that loss made it final. That experience did not just shape my heart. It shaped my direction. I am pursuing my Bachelor of Science in Nursing because I believe that nurses are often the first line of real human connection in healthcare. A good nurse does not just address the physical. A good nurse asks who else is in this room, what is this family carrying, and what do they need to understand so they can show up for each other. I want to be that nurse. I want to be the person who sits with a family and says, clearly and without judgment, that what their loved one is experiencing is a medical reality, not a character flaw, not a spiritual failure, and not something to be ashamed of. My grandmother deserved that care. My family deserved that guidance. I am studying nursing so that future families, families like mine, can get it.

When my grandmother started to change, my family did not call it mental illness. They called it old age. She was repeating questions. She forgot faces she had known for decades. Her personality shifted in ways that were hard to put into words. But in my Nigerian immigrant household, giving it a name meant confronting something nobody was ready to face. So we did not name it. We managed it quietly, the way you manage things that are too heavy to carry in the open. Her name was kept out of conversations with outsiders. Her confusion was explained away. And the grief that came with watching her slowly disappear, while she was still physically present, was carried silently by everyone who loved her. She was eventually diagnosed with dementia. She also had diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, conditions that tangled together and made her care incredibly complicated. I watched my family navigate that without support, without proper guidance, and without the emotional vocabulary to even articulate what they were experiencing. They were grieving a living person, and there was no framework for that. When she died during the COVID-19 pandemic, her underlying conditions having left her too fragile to survive, it felt both sudden and like something we had already been mourning for years. That experience reshaped how I understand mental health. It taught me that the stigma around mental illness is not just a social inconvenience. It is dangerous. Because my family did not talk about what was happening, we did not seek help early. Because we did not seek help, we did not know what to expect. Every stage of her decline caught us off guard, and the grief and stress fell on people who had no support system for it. The silence was its own kind of harm. In many Nigerian immigrant communities, mental health struggles are framed as spiritual failures or personal weaknesses rather than medical realities. I grew up in that framework. And I understand now how much damage that framing can do, not because the community is cruel, but because there is no language in place for something it has not been taught to see clearly. I think about this often now that I am studying nursing at Monroe University. The patients I will care for will often come from backgrounds where mental health is undervalued or misunderstood. Some will be carrying grief with no name. Some will have family members going through cognitive or emotional changes that no one has explained to them. Some will need someone to sit with them and say, plainly and without judgment, that what they are experiencing is real, it has a name, and there is a path forward. That is what my grandmother deserved. Nobody gave her that. Nobody gave my family that either. The impact of her illness on me was not just emotional. It was directional. It pointed me toward nursing. It taught me that meeting people with compassion, especially in the places where stigma has kept them silent, is not just a skill. It is the work.

In my family, we did not talk about mental health. We talked around it. When my paternal grandmother started to change, when she repeated questions she had already asked, when she forgot faces she had known for decades, my family called it "old age." Not because they believed that was all it was, but because giving it a name felt like admitting something they were not ready to face. In Nigerian immigrant communities, mental health is often treated as something private, something to manage quietly within the family walls, something that does not belong in conversation. My grandmother had dementia. She also had diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, conditions that complicated her care and accelerated her decline. Watching her lose herself, piece by piece, was one of the most disorienting experiences of my life. She was still physically present, but the grandmother I had known was already somewhere else. We were grieving someone who was still alive. When she died during the COVID-19 pandemic, her underlying conditions having left her body too fragile to survive, I had already been grieving for years. The pandemic only made it final. What that experience taught me is something I think about often now that I am pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Mental health is not separate from physical health. My grandmother's cognitive decline was intertwined with her physical conditions in ways that no single specialist fully addressed. The cognitive changes affected her ability to manage her medications. Her isolation made the dementia worse. Her family, doing their best without proper guidance, carried a grief and a stress that had no name and no outlet. The stigma that surrounded her illness was its own kind of harm. Because we did not talk about what was happening, we did not ask for help early enough. Because we did not ask for help, we did not understand what to expect. And because we did not understand what to expect, we were blindsided at every stage. That stigma is not unique to my family. It is common in many immigrant communities, including Nigerian ones, where mental health struggles are often seen as spiritual failures or personal weaknesses rather than medical realities that deserve compassionate care. As a future nurse, I want to be part of changing that. Not by imposing one cultural framework onto another, but by meeting people where they are, building trust, and helping families understand that getting help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of love. My experience with my grandmother shaped not just my career goals but how I show up in relationships. I am more likely to ask how someone is really doing. I am more likely to sit with someone in their difficulty instead of offering quick solutions. And I am more attuned to the ways that families carry pain silently, the way my own family did, because they do not have the language or the permission to carry it any other way. As a nurse, I hope to give patients and their families that language. I hope to help them understand that what they are going through has a name, a shape, and a path forward, even when the path is hard. That is what my grandmother deserved. That is what I intend to offer the people I will one day care for.

What gives me an advantage isn't a single thing. It's everything I've carried with me to get here. I'm 26 years old and a nursing student at Monroe University in the Bronx. I didn't arrive here on a straight path. I arrived here because no matter how many detours life offered, I kept coming back to this calling. Nursing isn't what I chose because it seemed practical or because someone else wanted it for me. It's what I chose because I've watched people fall through the cracks of a healthcare system that was never built with them in mind, and I knew I had to do something about it. I work as a Direct Support Professional, caring for adults with developmental disabilities. I've done night shifts, weekends, and holidays. I've sat with people in their hardest moments and learned, more than any textbook could teach me, that showing up for people is more than a skill; it's a commitment. I bring that into clinical hours with me. My professors and preceptors don't see a student who's just learning how to communicate with patients. They see someone who has been doing it for years. My background also gives me a lens many nurses don't have. Growing up in a Nigerian household in New York, I understood early that healthcare isn't one-size-fits-all. When my relatives got sick, navigating the medical system felt like crossing a cultural and linguistic border every single time. I saw firsthand how trust erodes when patients don't feel seen or understood. That experience shaped my approach to care in ways I couldn't have learned in a classroom. It also gave me urgency, the kind that doesn't wear off. My GPA is 3.906. I didn't earn that number in ideal conditions. I earned it while working, commuting, and carrying the weight of being a student in a demanding nursing program. Every exam I pass and every clinical I complete is proof that students who take the harder road can still reach the highest standards. I deserve this scholarship because I don't just want to become a nurse. I want to be a nurse who changes what nursing looks like in communities that have historically been underserved. I want to be in the room for patients who feel invisible, and I want them to know someone who understands both the science and the humanity of care is on their side. Other applicants may have cleaner stories. Mine has weight to it. And that weight is exactly what makes me the kind of nurse this world needs.

Somewhere between the pages of Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal" and a twelve-hour shift at the group home where I work, I found a clearer version of what I want my life to look like. I've always loved reading, but it wasn't until certain books found me at the right moment that I understood what reading can actually do: it doesn't just entertain you, it changes the way you see the world. Growing up in a Nigerian household in New York, books were how I made sense of living between two cultures. My mother read to me in Yoruba and in English, and from an early age I understood that stories were bridges. They connected what I knew to what I didn't, and they taught me to extend that same understanding to people whose experiences looked nothing like mine. That habit of looking for the human story underneath the surface is something I carry with me now as a nursing student at Monroe University in the Bronx. The book that shaped my goals most directly was Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal." I read it during my first semester of nursing school, and it stopped me cold. Gawande writes about the failures of modern medicine to honor patients' own definitions of a good life, especially at the end. What I took from that book wasn't despair, it was urgency. I realized that being a good nurse isn't just about administering medications correctly or monitoring vitals with precision. It's about understanding who your patient is as a person and what matters to them. That insight doesn't come from a textbook. It came from a book I read on my own because I was curious about why healthcare so often feels inhuman. Anne Fadiman's "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" taught me something else: that the gap between medical knowledge and cultural understanding can cost lives. The book documents the story of a Hmong family whose daughter had epilepsy, and the devastating collision between Western medicine and their belief system. As someone who watches Nigerian relatives navigate a healthcare system that doesn't always speak their language, literally or culturally, I recognized that story immediately. I read it and thought: this is exactly why I'm doing this. I want to be a nurse who doesn't just deliver care but translates it, making medicine accessible to patients who feel invisible in the system. Books have taught me that nursing is as much about listening as it is about doing. They've shown me that the best caregivers are the ones who remain curious, who read widely, and who understand that every patient is a person with a story. That's what I bring into my clinical hours and what I plan to carry through the rest of my career. Reading didn't point me toward nursing the way a textbook did. It showed me what kind of nurse I want to be.

From the moment "brutal" played on my car speakers during my commute to the group home where I work as a direct support professional, something clicked. Olivia Rodrigo sings about feeling lost in the expectation of youth, wondering why your life doesn't look like it's supposed to. At 26, balancing nursing school, full-time work, and an immigrant family's dreams on my shoulders, those words felt like they were written for me. Most people picture nursing students as fresh-faced 18-year-olds moving into dorms. I started my BSN at Monroe University in the Bronx at 26, which means I've fielded plenty of questions, some well-meaning, some not, about why I'm "starting over." What people don't see is that I haven't been standing still. I've been building myself slowly, the way my Nigerian grandmother built a life in America without a formal education, just sheer will and love for her family. But "brutal" doesn't just capture the chaos of finding your path late; it captures the shame that can come with it. There are moments in nursing school where I sit in anatomy lab, surrounded by classmates who graduated high school just a few years ago, and I wonder if I belong there. Olivia puts language to that knot in your stomach, the one that says you're behind, you're wrong, you missed your window. Her music gave me permission to name that feeling instead of swallowing it. What I love about Rodrigo's writing, especially in "brutal" and throughout her GUTS album, is that she doesn't pretend the hard parts aren't hard. She doesn't skip to the redemption arc. She sits in the mess. For me, that's what it looks like to work a night shift as a DSP, come home at 7am, study pharmacology for two hours, and then walk into clinical hours on four hours of sleep. It's not a neat story. But it's mine. Nursing chose me the way music chooses an artist: not because the timing was convenient, but because the calling wouldn't leave me alone. I watched the Nigerian-American community I grew up in struggle to navigate a healthcare system that didn't speak their language or honor their experiences. I saw my DSP clients overlooked and underserved. I knew I had to be one of the people walking through those hospital doors who actually understood what patients like them needed. Olivia Rodrigo has described her songwriting as being honest about feelings she wasn't supposed to have, the ugly, messy, complicated ones. That's the kind of nurse I want to be. I want patients to feel safe bringing me the uncomfortable truth about how they're really doing, not just the polished version. Art that models radical honesty teaches us to practice it. That's what "brutal" gave me: the courage to be exactly where I am, even when where I am is hard.

When I enrolled at Monroe College at 26, I made a decision I'll spend the next decade honoring financially. Student debt isn't abstract for me; it's the cost of a choice I'm proud of, but one that requires a real plan. My first strategy is the one I'm putting into action right now: scholarships. I've spent considerable time researching and applying to every scholarship and grant I qualify for, including this one. As a first-generation Nigerian-American student without a family safety net, I can't rely on anyone else to fill the gaps. Every dollar I receive through scholarships is a dollar I don't borrow, and I intend to pursue this aggressively for every semester I'm in school. Second, I'm working while studying. I'm a Direct Support Professional, providing care to adults with developmental disabilities. It's meaningful work and it pays. I put a portion of every paycheck toward current expenses so I'm borrowing as little as possible, not just living month to month on loans. It's not easy to carry a full course load and hold a job simultaneously, but the alternative is graduating with even more debt, and that's not a trade I'm willing to make. Third, I'm building toward a career that offers real loan repayment pathways. Registered nurses who work in underserved communities, which is exactly where I plan to practice, are eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness and state repayment programs. The Bronx, where I study and plan to work, qualifies as a Health Professional Shortage Area, which opens additional federal repayment options. I'm not counting on forgiveness as a backup plan; I'm actively researching these programs and factoring them into my financial strategy from the start. Fourth, I'm prioritizing my GPA. I carry a 3.9, not just because I take my education seriously, but because strong academic performance makes me more competitive for merit-based aid. Every scholarship dollar I earn now reduces what I'll owe after graduation. I want to be honest about something else. The weight of student debt is particularly real for BIPOC students and for adult learners who return to school later in life without the financial cushion that traditional-age students often have. I didn't have parents who saved for my education. I started this journey at 26 with no safety net. That means I've had to be more strategic, more disciplined, and more proactive about money than many of my peers. Scholarships like this one aren't just financial relief. They're an acknowledgment that people like me can succeed and deserve support in doing it. My plan is straightforward, even if it isn't easy. Work while I'm in school. Apply for every scholarship I qualify for. Minimize borrowing now. Use public service pathways after graduation. Graduate with a degree that funds a career I love, serving communities that need what I can offer. That's the plan, and I intend to see it through.

Growing up in Nigeria under my grandmother's care taught me that education was the one thing no one could take from you. She raised me in a household where resources were scarce but values were not. She worked hard and sacrificed consistently so I could learn and grow. That foundation has stayed with me through every difficult decision I've made since. Coming to the United States as a Nigerian immigrant meant starting over in almost every way. The systems, the culture, even the way healthcare works here were different from anything I had known. But I also arrived with a clear sense of purpose. I had watched people in my Nigerian community navigate serious illness without access to the care they deserved. When I saw the same pattern in immigrant neighborhoods here in New York, especially the Bronx, I knew what I was supposed to do. The greatest challenge I've faced is starting a nursing degree at 26 after years of building a life in a new country. Returning to school meant carrying a full course load while working as a Direct Support Professional, supporting adults with disabilities. There were moments when the financial pressure and emotional weight of that combination felt overwhelming. What I learned is that struggle doesn't disqualify you; it clarifies you. I carry a 3.9 GPA at Monroe College because I know exactly why I'm here, and that kind of clarity makes the hard work feel less like a burden. The person who has inspired me most is my grandmother. She raised me from birth with almost nothing, and she gave me everything she had. She never waited for life to be easier before showing up fully. She modeled a kind of quiet, stubborn love that didn't depend on circumstances being fair. When rotations are long and the coursework piles up, I think about her. She didn't get to go to college. I go for both of us. After I graduate, I plan to sit for the NCLEX and begin practicing as a registered nurse in the Bronx. This is one of the most medically underserved areas in New York and one of the largest Nigerian-American and immigrant communities in the country. I want to work here because I know this community. I have lived the experience of arriving somewhere unfamiliar and needing someone to explain a system that wasn't designed with you in mind. I want to be that nurse, the one who speaks plainly, who notices when a patient is scared, who makes sure people understand their own care. Long term, I'm drawn to community and public health nursing, where the work extends beyond individual patients to the conditions that shape health outcomes for entire communities. This scholarship would ease a financial reality that is genuinely difficult. As a first-generation Nigerian-American student without a family safety net in the United States, every form of support matters more than I can easily say. More than that, it would confirm something I believe: that an immigrant student from a low-income household in Nigeria has exactly the right experience to become an outstanding nurse. I'm committed to proving that every day.

The first thing I noticed about America was how much I had to translate, not just language, but everything. The way people interacted with institutions, the way they asked for help, the way they navigated systems that were designed for people who had grown up inside them. I came from Nigeria, where I was raised by my grandmother in a household that had very little, and where nobody in my family had ever gone to college. Coming to the United States meant rebuilding my understanding of the world from the ground up. It also meant watching my community, Nigerian-American families in New York, struggle with a healthcare system that often felt indifferent to them. I watched people delay care because they didn't know how to advocate for themselves. I watched families sit in waiting rooms afraid to ask questions. I watched my own relatives dismiss symptoms that should have been treated, because back home, you pushed through. You didn't make a fuss. You trusted that if something was serious, someone would tell you. That is why I became a Direct Support Professional after I arrived, caring for individuals with developmental disabilities. I wanted to understand what it meant to help people navigate systems they didn't build, because I knew that feeling intimately. The work confirmed something I had suspected: the gap between what healthcare can provide and what people actually receive is often not a gap in medicine. It's a gap in communication, in trust, in someone taking the time to explain. I made the decision to pursue nursing at 26, enrolling at Monroe College in the Bronx, and I haven't looked back. I carry a 3.9 GPA, not because the path has been easy, but because I know exactly what I'm preparing for. The Bronx, where I study, has some of the worst health outcomes in New York, and some of the most overlooked immigrant communities. I want to practice here. I want to be the nurse who speaks to patients in plain language, who notices when someone is scared to ask a question, who makes sure the person in front of me understands what is happening to their body and what choices they have. My career aspiration is not just to become a registered nurse. It's to be someone who closes the gap I've spent my life witnessing. Immigration taught me that resilience isn't the absence of struggle. It's learning to move through unfamiliar systems without losing your sense of who you are or what you deserve. I bring that understanding into every clinical rotation. And I intend to bring it into every patient room for the rest of my career.

Growing up in a low-income household in Nigeria, raised by my grandmother while my parents worked to establish themselves elsewhere, I learned early that scarcity doesn't have to become your story. My grandmother made something from almost nothing, every single day. Watching her do that quietly shaped how I approach every challenge I face. Coming to the United States as a Nigerian-American teenager meant starting over in a country that didn't always feel like it had room for me. I worked, saved, and eventually made the decision to go back to school at 26 to pursue a nursing degree at Monroe College in the Bronx. I'm carrying a 3.9 GPA while working as a Direct Support Professional, because I refuse to let financial pressure become an excuse to slow down. My goal is to become a registered nurse serving the Bronx, one of the most underserved communities in New York. I want to be the kind of nurse that immigrant families and low-income patients trust: someone who understands their barriers not just professionally but personally. The Lotus Scholarship would offset the cost of textbooks and supplies that add up each semester, freeing me to keep my focus on the work. My low-income background didn't limit what I could become. It taught me exactly what I'm for.

My plan is specific: earn my Bachelor of Science in Nursing, pass my NCLEX, and become a registered nurse serving the communities of New York City that need healthcare the most. That's the short version. The longer version is about who I intend to be in that role, and why it matters. I'm currently a nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx, carrying a 3.9 GPA and building toward something I've wanted for a long time. I'm Nigerian-American, a first-generation college student, and someone who grew up watching families like mine navigate a healthcare system that didn't always feel designed for them. I've seen people delay care because they couldn't afford it, or avoid it because no one spoke their language, or distrust it because of experiences that left them worse off than before. I want to be part of changing that. The Bronx has the highest rates of poverty and the worst health outcomes of any borough in New York City. It also has some of the most resilient, overlooked, and underserved communities I've ever known. That's where I study. That's where I want to work. I'm not interested in nursing as an abstract profession. I want to be in the room when immigrant families need someone who understands what it means to come from somewhere else and feel out of place in a hospital. I want to be the nurse who slows down, explains clearly, and makes sure the person in front of me understands what's happening to their body and what their options are. Before nursing school, I spent years working as a Direct Support Professional, helping individuals with developmental disabilities navigate daily life. That work taught me more about patient care than I can quantify. It taught me that presence matters as much as skill. That someone who feels heard is more likely to engage with their care. That showing up consistently for people who can't always advocate for themselves is one of the most important things a healthcare worker can do. I carry all of that into every clinical rotation. After I earn my RN, my longer-term plan is to pursue a specialty in community or public health nursing, where I can work directly with underserved populations rather than waiting for them to come through a hospital door. I want to be involved in outreach, in education, in closing the gap between what healthcare is supposed to provide and what communities like mine actually receive. The Bright Lights Scholarship would make a real, immediate difference. As a first-generation student without a family safety net for education costs, every semester involves difficult financial calculations. Textbooks, licensing fees, clinical supplies, and tuition add up quickly, and money spent worrying about finances is money not spent on studying. This scholarship would relieve that pressure and let me focus on what I came here to do. More than the money, though, it would be confirmation that someone outside of my immediate circle sees where I'm going and wants to help me get there. That kind of investment doesn't just pay for books. It fuels the belief that the plan is real, that the goal is worth the effort, and that the light at the end of this road is worth walking toward.

College, for me, is not a given. It's a choice that took courage. I grew up between two worlds. My early years were spent in Nigeria, raised by my grandmother, a woman who had very little but made sure I never lacked what truly mattered. When I eventually came to the United States and settled in New York, I carried her with me: her resilience, her refusal to accept scarcity as a final answer. But navigating a new country, a new educational system, and an entirely new set of expectations was not simple. College felt like something that happened to other people. I'm 26 now, and I made the decision to go back. Not because it was easy, but because I realized that the work I wanted to do in this world required it. I'm pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe College in the Bronx, and I'm doing it while carrying a 3.9 GPA, because when I finally chose this path, I decided I was going to take it seriously. What does college mean to me? It means becoming someone my grandmother could not have imagined when she was stretching our scarce resources to keep me fed and in school. It means being the first in my family to earn a nursing degree. It means walking into rooms, clinical environments, hospital floors, community health settings, where Nigerian-American women and immigrant families often feel unseen, and being the person who sees them. That is what I am trying to accomplish. Not just a credential. A presence. The Bronx, where I study, is one of the most medically underserved boroughs in New York. The patients who come through hospitals here face real barriers: language, distrust of systems, financial pressure, cultural norms that discourage asking for help. I understand those barriers. I've lived inside versions of them. And I believe that a nurse who comes from a community brings something that no textbook can fully teach. I also work as a Direct Support Professional, caring for individuals with developmental disabilities. That work taught me what nursing school confirmed: people don't just need clinical intervention. They need someone who shows up fully, who listens, who communicates clearly and kindly even when circumstances are hard. I've been training for nursing my entire working life, even before I knew that's what it was called. College is where all of it comes together. It's where I learn the science behind the care I've already been providing. It's where I build the credentials to practice at the level my patients deserve. And it's where I prove, to myself and to everyone who doubted whether this was practical or realistic for someone like me, that it was absolutely worth doing. The Hines Scholarship would ease a real financial burden and let me focus fully on what I came here to do. But more than that, it would be a reminder that investment in students from underrepresented backgrounds isn't charity. It's a commitment to the future of healthcare in communities that need it most. That's the kind of future I intend to build.

Growing up, my grandmother was my whole world. From the time I was born until I was twelve years old, she was the one who raised me, and she did it with almost nothing. We were poor, genuinely poor, but that word never seemed to land on her the way it might on someone else. She had this quiet, stubborn ability to make things work. Somehow, there was always food on the table. Somehow, there was always a way forward. I didn't understand it then. I understand it now. My grandmother raised me in Nigeria, and the life we lived was not easy by any measure. There were days when resources were scarce and certainty was a luxury we didn't have. But she never let that become the story she told us. She stretched what little we had, asked for help when she needed it without shame, and kept moving. She modeled a kind of resilience that didn't announce itself. It was just the way she lived. What she gave me wasn't money or comfort. It was a template for how to carry yourself when life doesn't cooperate. She taught me that your circumstances don't have to become your identity. She taught me that showing up for the people who depend on you is not optional, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. I'm 26 now, a nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx, and I carry her with me into every clinical, every exam, every long shift. Nursing chose me partly because of her. I grew up watching a woman stretch beyond what seemed possible to meet the needs of the people she loved. Now I'm training to do something similar in a different setting, one where patients often arrive scared and vulnerable, needing someone who won't flinch. As a Nigerian-American woman entering healthcare, I also feel a specific pull toward communities like mine, people who came from somewhere else, who have complicated relationships with medical systems, who sometimes don't ask for help because they were taught to just push through. My grandmother pushed through. But I want to be the kind of nurse who makes it easier for people to not have to do that alone. Being raised with very little also shaped how I approach my education. I don't take it for granted. Every class I pass, every skill I learn is something she didn't have access to, and I think about that often. I'm the first in my family to pursue a nursing degree, and I intend to make that mean something beyond just a credential on a wall. The Humanize LLC Gives In Honor of Shirley Kelley Scholarship would do more than help with tuition. It would be a reminder that someone sees the full picture: not just the student, but the story behind her. I am here because my grandmother made a way out of nothing. This scholarship would help me continue that same tradition, building something real from hard ground.

For several years before nursing school, I worked as a direct support professional for individuals with developmental disabilities. The job title doesn't fully capture the work. It means showing up for people who are often overlooked, advocating in spaces where they might not feel heard, and offering genuine care in moments that rarely get celebrated. It means arriving for a morning shift not knowing what the day holds, and leaving knowing that the choices you made mattered to someone. I chose that work deliberately, and I stayed because it changed how I understood what it means to actually help another person. One memory stays with me. I worked with a man who had difficulty communicating verbally and who had struggled for years with a care team that didn't take the time to learn his cues. He had been misread as difficult and non-cooperative when in reality he was trying to communicate needs that no one was pausing long enough to understand. I spent weeks learning his rhythms, watching what caused him distress, and building a quiet trust with him. When I could finally help him be understood in team meetings, when I could say "he's telling us this" and be right, the shift in his quality of care was meaningful. That is the kind of selflessness I believe in: the slow, unglamorous kind that requires showing up consistently and paying attention even when no one is watching. I left that role to pursue nursing because I realized that the scale of what I wanted to do required more tools. But the values stayed the same. I didn't come to nursing for prestige alone, though that matters. I came because nursing lets me continue being the person in the room who pays attention, who advocates, and who treats every patient as someone with a story worth understanding. My family immigrated from Nigeria. I grew up watching women in my community push through illness and pain without adequate care, minimizing symptoms they should have had help with years earlier. Becoming a nurse is, in part, an act of service to that community. In nursing school, I've tried to hold onto that same orientation. I show up for classmates who are struggling through difficult material, take extra time to explain concepts during study sessions, and share resources freely rather than treating academic success as competition. I tutor when asked, and sometimes when I'm not. I believe that building stronger nurses around me only makes the healthcare system better for the patients we will all eventually serve. Michael Rudometkin believed that life is about relationships, about doing what fulfills you, and about helping others along the way. That is how I try to live. Selflessness, to me, is not a single dramatic gesture. It is a daily orientation: a decision to look around and ask who needs something and whether you have it to give. Nursing is how I intend to keep giving for the rest of my career.

Breast cancer kills Black women at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States, even though we are diagnosed less frequently than white women. That statistic stopped me the first time I encountered it in a course reading. It is not an abstract number. It is an indictment of a system that has historically undertreated, underscreened, and underbelieved Black women, and it is a call to action for anyone who is going to work inside that system. I am training to become a registered nurse at Monroe College in the Bronx, and breast health education is not a peripheral topic in that training. It is central to how I think about my responsibility to my patients. The barriers to breast health go beyond access to mammograms. They include distrust of the medical system, which Black communities have earned through generations of mistreatment. They include lack of education about what symptoms to watch for, especially since inflammatory breast cancer, one of the most aggressive forms, often does not present as a lump at all. They include fear, financial obstacles, and clinical environments where patients do not feel comfortable being honest about what they are experiencing. A nurse who understands these barriers and who actively works to lower them is not just providing better care. She is saving lives that would otherwise be lost to silence and delay. I grew up in a Nigerian-American family in New York. In my community, as in many Black and immigrant communities, health problems are not always discussed openly. Women push through symptoms, delay appointments, and minimize their pain in ways that would alarm any clinician. I have seen this up close. I have also learned, through nursing school, exactly how much that silence costs. As someone who is from these communities and training to serve them, I feel a specific responsibility to be the bridge between what patients know and what clinicians assume they know. Breast health education is one of the most important pieces of that bridge. In practice, this commitment means developing the habit of providing breast health education as a routine part of every patient interaction with women of reproductive age and beyond. It means knowing how to explain the importance of regular self-exams and mammography screening in language that meets each patient where she is. It means understanding which patients may carry distrust or fear into the exam room, and creating enough safety that they feel comfortable asking questions they have held for years. It means recognizing atypical presentations, such as warmth, redness, or nipple changes, as possible indicators of inflammatory breast cancer rather than waiting only for a palpable lump. These are skills that require specific education and intentional practice, and they are skills I am actively cultivating. Annie Pringle's legacy, as a lactation consultant, breast cancer support group leader, and community educator, represents exactly the kind of presence I want to be in my patients' lives. Someone who shows up with knowledge and genuine compassion. Someone who takes breast health seriously long before a diagnosis ever comes. Someone who treats education as its own form of care. I believe every nurse entering clinical practice today needs to understand the racial disparities in breast cancer outcomes and the specific educational interventions that can begin to close those gaps. I want to be part of a generation of nurses who change what that data looks like, not by working around the inequities but by addressing them directly, one patient and one conversation at a time.

When I began nursing school, I expected the curriculum to cover the full spectrum of conditions affecting women. What I did not expect was how thoroughly premenstrual disorders would be absent. PMDD and PME are mentioned briefly, if at all, in most nursing programs, despite affecting an estimated 1 in 20 people with a menstrual cycle. That gap did not sit right with me. As a future nurse working in a country where women of color are already undertreated and underbelieved in medical settings, the idea that a patient could spend twelve years searching for a diagnosis for a condition I might be the first clinician to recognize felt like both a problem and an opportunity. What draws me specifically to PMDD and PME is the pattern I kept encountering in patient narratives and research: cyclical symptoms dismissed as emotional overreaction, conditions attributed to personality rather than physiology, and women leaving appointments without answers for years. This mirrors broader patterns in how women, especially women of color, are received in healthcare. As a Black Nigerian-American nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx, I have read extensively about the systemic failures in how women's pain and mood symptoms are assessed. PMDD and PME represent a place where better clinical training translates directly into fewer patients suffering without a name for what they are going through. The most concrete thing I can do from where I currently stand is to make PMDD and PME part of how I approach every patient of reproductive age from the very beginning of my nursing career. This means learning validated screening tools now, including the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, and understanding how to distinguish cyclical worsening of existing conditions from other presentations. Most clinical training does not cover this systematically. I intend to be the kind of nurse who asks the questions providers often skip, flags patterns in a patient's symptom timeline, and knows when and how to connect patients with specialists who can provide accurate diagnoses. Nursing sits at the front line of patient contact. A nurse who knows what PMDD looks like is positioned to redirect a patient's care at the moment it matters most. Beyond my individual practice, I want to advocate for integrating PMDD and PME screening into standard nursing education and care protocols at whatever institutions I work in. If these conditions are going to move from the margins into routine clinical recognition, that shift has to happen at the level of every clinician who is taught what to look for. I want to be someone who learned early, so that my patients do not spend a decade waiting for someone who did.

When I made the decision to go back to school at 24 to pursue nursing, I knew it was going to be hard. What I didn't expect was how much it would matter to the women around me. I'm a first-generation Nigerian-American student at Monroe College in the Bronx, and for many of the women in my life, my choice wasn't just about my career. It was proof that changing direction is possible, that education is always within reach, and that starting over is not giving up. Before nursing school, I spent several years working as a direct support professional for individuals with developmental disabilities. Many of the people I supported were women who had spent years on the margins, overlooked by systems that weren't built for them. My job wasn't just to provide physical care; it was to advocate. I learned how to speak up when a client's needs were being minimized, how to teach self-advocacy so that the women I supported could express their own preferences and push back when they were dismissed. That work shaped who I am. I hope it also changed something for them. Being seen and heard is its own form of empowerment, and I made it a priority for every person in my care. In my community, women have watched me return to school and reached out to say it gave them permission to think about their own goals again. Two cousins have asked me for guidance on applying to nursing programs. A neighbor who earned her GED later in life asked how I balance studying with everything else. These conversations happen naturally, and that tells me something: representation carries weight. When a Black Nigerian woman shows up to clinicals or sits in pharmacology class, she is communicating something to other women without saying a word. She is saying that this space belongs to us too. As I move closer to becoming a registered nurse, I carry these lessons forward. Women, especially women of color, face serious disparities in healthcare, from not being believed when they describe their symptoms to facing higher risks in maternal health outcomes. I intend to be the kind of nurse who listens carefully, advocates without hesitation, and ensures that every woman who walks into my care feels like her health matters. That is what women's empowerment looks like in a clinical setting. And it begins with the choices I am making right now: staying in this program, showing up every day, and making sure other women can see what that looks like.

There's a moment from the Eras Tour that I keep coming back to. Near the end of the show, when Taylor performed "Long Live," the entire stadium felt like it was holding its breath. Seventy thousand people, singing in unison, and Taylor Swift on stage with tears in her eyes. I watched a video of it on my phone at 2am while studying for pharmacology, and I had to pause to collect myself before going back to my notes. I'm a nursing student at Monroe College in the Bronx. My family is Nigerian, and I took a long road to get where I am. I started in legal studies, then spent years working as a direct support associate alongside individuals with developmental disabilities. Somewhere in those long shifts, watching people fight through hard moments, I realized nursing was what I was supposed to be doing. The pivot wasn't easy. Some days the doubt gets loud. "Long Live" hits differently when you're in the middle of something hard. The lyrics are about remembering the journey, about honoring the people who believed in you before you believed in yourself. "Long live all the mountains we moved, I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you." That image gets me every single time. During the Eras Tour, Taylor would sing it and look genuinely overcome. She'd spent more than a decade building something, and you could see her actually feeling the weight of it in a good way. There was no performance face in that moment. It was just gratitude, stripped down and real. That's what moves me: the honesty of it. Taylor Swift has built an entire career on being willing to feel things loudly and put them into words for people who needed the words. As someone who left home, rebuilt a life, switched careers, and started from scratch, I know what it feels like to not have words for the big stuff. Her music gives me some of those words. "Long live all the mountains we moved" plays in my head during clinical rotations when I'm exhausted. During the pharmacology exam I wasn't sure I was ready for. During every moment I almost talked myself out of this path. That Eras Tour performance of "Long Live" is the one that stays with me because it wasn't just a concert moment. It was a reminder that the hardest roads are worth finishing. And that sometimes, when you're seventy thousand people strong and one woman is crying on a stage because she made it, you cry a little too, because you're still trying to make it, and somehow you believe a little more that you will.

My name is Omowaye. In Nigeria, where my family is from, it's a perfectly common name. Here in the United States, it's a different story entirely. Growing up, I got used to the hesitation before teachers called roll. That tiny pause right before they hit "O" in the attendance list. Some would attempt it, stumble, and shoot me an apologetic look. Others would just stop and ask. A few brave souls would take a running start, mispronounce it spectacularly, and laugh alongside me when I corrected them. I learned early on that my name was going to be my most reliable conversation starter, whether I liked it or not. It used to make me self-conscious. I remember wishing I had a name like "Tina" or "Michelle" that nobody had to think twice about. But then something shifted. I started to realize that my name tells a story. "Omowaye" carries meaning rooted in Yoruba tradition, connecting me to generations of my family. It's not just a label; it's an identity. That shift in how I see my name mirrors a bigger shift in my life. I came to the United States carrying big dreams but also a lot of uncertainty about where I fit in. I started college studying Legal Studies, which felt practical and stable. But somewhere between sitting in theory classes and working alongside individuals with developmental disabilities as a Direct Support Associate, I realized I was in the wrong room. The law interested me, but people needed me in a different way. I changed course and applied to nursing school at Monroe College in the Bronx. Another awkward moment. Telling people you're starting over isn't exactly comfortable. I was pivoting into a completely new field, still working full-time while carrying a full course load. But that discomfort felt familiar. It felt like standing in front of a teacher who couldn't say my name, choosing to smile instead of shrink. There's something interesting about being the person who stands out. When you've spent years being the student with the unusual name, the immigrant navigating two worlds at once, you stop needing things to be easy. You just need them to be worth it. Nursing is worth it. Every clinical hour, every early morning study session, every textbook I work through after a long shift, it all connects back to that same instinct I had working with people who lit up when someone truly paid attention to them. That's what I want to spend my career doing: showing up fully for people, even when things are hard, even when I'm the one who stands out. My name is Omowaye. Most people say it wrong the first time, and I've made peace with that. What matters is what comes after: the conversation, the connection, the chance to show up as exactly who I am.

I grew up watching the children in my neighborhood get sick in ways that felt preventable. The South Bronx, where I spent much of my time as a young Nigerian immigrant adjusting to life in New York, has one of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the entire country. Kids I knew missed school because their inhalers were out of refills. Families managed flare-ups with whatever was on hand because a clinic visit meant taking time off work. The children were sick, but the system surrounding them had not caught up to their needs. That observation stayed with me long after I left those streets. When I began working as a Direct Support Associate with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I cared for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, many of whom had experienced lifetimes of inadequate early intervention. Time and again, their care teams would reflect on how much could have been different if the right support had come sooner, before conditions progressed, before families burned out, before the window for meaningful change had narrowed. Pediatric care is not just about treating children. It is about protecting entire futures. That realization is what solidified my path. I am now pursuing a BSN at Monroe College in the Bronx, with a GPA of 3.906, and my clinical goals center on community health nursing for underserved populations. But community health, when you work in a place like the Bronx, is inseparable from pediatric care. The children of immigrant families here are navigating asthma, food insecurity, and limited access to bilingual providers, often without a consistent primary care relationship. A nurse who shows up in that community shows up for those children. What inspires me most about pediatric medicine is the reach it has. When you care well for a sick child, you are also teaching a caregiver how to manage that illness going forward. You are building health literacy in a household. You are signaling to a family that the healthcare system is not something to fear. I have seen the opposite happen too: families who brought their children in late because past experiences had taught them they were not welcome, that their concerns would be dismissed, that they would leave more confused than when they arrived. That is a failure of pediatric medicine that I intend to spend my career addressing. My goal is to become a community health nurse who serves as a bridge between complex medical systems and the families who feel locked out of them, particularly immigrant and low-income families with children. I want to run health education sessions at local clinics, recognize early signs of illness in children who do not otherwise have consistent providers, and advocate for kids who cannot advocate for themselves. The Noah Jon Markstrom Foundation's commitment to honoring caregivers who build real relationships with their patients reflects exactly the kind of nurse I am working to become. I am grateful for the opportunity to be considered.

I did not know much about sepsis before it took my great uncle. What I knew was that he had gone to New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Queens with what the family thought was a bad infection, and that within days, he was gone. We did not have the medical vocabulary to understand what happened. We just knew he died fast, and that it did not feel right. That experience stayed with me longer than I expected. I was a teenager at the time, old enough to ask questions but young enough that no one gave me real answers. The doctors spoke in terms we did not understand, and no one in my family had the background to push back or demand clarity. We left that hospital with grief and without explanation. It was the kind of loss that does not just hurt. It teaches you something about what it means to be on the wrong side of healthcare. I grew up in Queens, and I know that community. I know what it looks like when families do not get the information they need. I know what it looks like when people go to the emergency room too late because they waited, hoping things would get better on their own. Sepsis is one of those conditions that punishes waiting. It moves fast, and if the people around you do not know the signs, by the time you recognize the danger, the window may already be closing. That is part of why I decided to become a nurse. I am currently a nursing student at Monroe University in the Bronx, working toward my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I maintain a 3.906 GPA, and I plan to work in acute care in the Bronx or Queens after graduation. I want to be in the environments where the need is real and immediate, where the patients I serve look like my family and come from communities like mine. There is research showing that Black patients face worse outcomes with sepsis than white patients, even when you control for other factors. That disparity is not a mystery to me. It is what I watched happen with my great uncle. It is what happens when a community does not have enough clinicians who understand the context, who know how to communicate across cultural lines, who will sit with a family and explain what is actually happening. The Begin Again name means something to me. My nursing journey has been one of starting over, of returning to school after setbacks, of building something that felt impossible at first. My great uncle did not get a second chance. I am determined to use mine well. This scholarship would help me do that. It would reduce the financial pressure of my final two years of clinical training and let me stay focused on what I am here to do: become a nurse who serves the communities that need it most, and who helps families get the information and care they deserve.

Being a first-generation college student means carrying a question nobody in your family can answer. When I did not know how to file a FAFSA, there was no one to ask. When I needed to understand the difference between a subsidized and unsubsidized loan, I figured it out alone. When I was unsure whether to appeal a financial aid decision, I sat with the uncertainty because there was no parent, aunt, or older sibling who had been through it. I am 26 years old, Nigerian American, and currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx. I am the first in my family to go through this process, and I have learned that being first means building the road as you walk it. The challenges have been more than paperwork. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from having to learn a system while also trying to perform well within it. During my first college experience, I lost ground. I made mistakes, transferred, and started over. Most people would not have continued. I did, and I carry a 3.906 GPA now, not because the path got easier but because I got more deliberate about how I walked it. What being first-generation means to me, at its core, is accountability to the future. I do not just represent myself. Every decision I make, every semester I complete, every clinical hour I log is proof to my family and to others like me that this is possible. That proof matters more than I can easily say. My dream is to become a registered nurse in acute care, serving patients in underserved communities in New York City, the same neighborhoods where I grew up. I want to be the nurse who explains a diagnosis in plain language, who notices when a patient is scared and does not just move on, who understands the cultural context behind what a patient is and is not telling me. Healthcare disparities are real, and they are not fixed by technology alone. They are fixed by having more nurses who come from the communities they serve. This scholarship would make a direct difference. Nursing school is expensive beyond tuition: clinical fees, supplies, transportation, textbooks. I manage all of it on my own. Every dollar in financial support keeps me focused on what matters, which is becoming the nurse I am working toward. The Bick First Generation Scholarship would not just help me pay a bill. It would remind me, during the hard stretches, that someone believed I was worth investing in. That is something a first-generation student does not take for granted.

The community I want to give back to is one I know well. I grew up in Queens, New York, in a neighborhood where hospital waiting rooms were crowded and health information was often delivered without much thought for the patient's language, culture, or circumstances. I am 26 years old, Nigerian American, and currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx. My GPA is 3.906. My goal is to become a registered nurse in acute care and to be, for my patients, the kind of nurse I did not always see growing up: one who looks like them, speaks with them rather than at them, and understands where they come from. The person who has shaped this vision most is my mother. She came to this country and built a life through sheer effort, navigating a healthcare system that was rarely designed with people like her in mind. Watching her and others in my community struggle to access quality care, and sometimes struggle just to be heard by a provider, is what turned healthcare from an interest into a calling. I do not want to simply work in medicine. I want to close a gap. The challenges I have faced getting here have been real. I am a first-generation college student and a transfer student, which means I have had to build knowledge of the financial aid system, the scholarship process, and the demands of nursing school largely on my own. There was no blueprint in my family for this. At 26, I manage my own finances, pay my own bills, and still show up to class and clinical with everything I have. My coursework has covered anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, fundamentals of nursing, health assessment, nutrition, and pathophysiology. None of it has been easy, and none of it has made me want to stop. The impact I want to make is specific. After passing my NCLEX-RN and entering acute care, I plan to work at hospitals that serve high-need populations in the Bronx and Queens. I want to advocate for patients who might otherwise be dismissed or misunderstood. I want to be culturally competent in a way that is not just a box to check but a genuine practice, one where I take the time to explain diagnoses in plain language, to ask about home situations that affect recovery, and to treat every patient as a full person rather than a case. Longer term, I hope to be involved in community health education, helping people in my neighborhood understand preventive care and navigate the healthcare system before a crisis forces them into the emergency room. Health disparities are not inevitable. They are the result of systems, and systems can be changed, one nurse at a time. Sloane Stephens built something meaningful in honor of the people who shaped her. I am building toward something meaningful in honor of the community that shaped me. Education is how I get there, and every scholarship that supports that education is an investment in the people I will serve.

My goal is straightforward to state but demanding to carry out: complete my Bachelor of Science in Nursing, pass the NCLEX-RN, and build a career as a registered nurse in acute care serving underserved communities in New York City. I am currently enrolled in the BSN program at Monroe University in the Bronx, where I hold a 3.906 GPA. This plan is not a vague wish. It has a timeline, a budget, and a clear sequence of steps. I started my BSN program in early 2026 as a transfer student. My coursework covers anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, fundamentals of nursing, health assessment, nutrition, and pathophysiology. After completing my degree, my target graduation window is 2028. From there, I plan to sit for the NCLEX-RN licensure exam and apply for positions at acute care hospitals serving high-need populations, particularly in the Bronx and Queens, where I grew up and where the gaps in healthcare access are ones I have seen firsthand. The financial side of this plan is one I have mapped out as carefully as any clinical skill. Monroe University's annual tuition and fees for nursing students run approximately $20,000 to $22,000 per year. Clinical rotations bring additional costs on top of that: scrubs and uniforms cost roughly $300 to $400, clinical supply kits and a stethoscope add another $200, required textbooks run $500 to $800 per semester, and transportation to off-campus clinical sites adds around $100 per month. Over two remaining years, my rough estimate for total out-of-pocket expenses runs between $46,000 and $52,000. My current financial resources include federal aid through FAFSA, which covers a portion of tuition through grants. I am actively applying for scholarships to close the remaining gap. At 26, I manage my own finances without a family safety net. Every scholarship I receive has a direct impact. My goal is to finish my BSN with the minimum possible loan debt, so that when I enter the workforce I am financially stable rather than starting behind. The resources I need go beyond money. Strong clinical mentorship matters enormously at this stage. I plan to use every clinical placement Monroe offers to build both technical skills and the kind of judgment that can only come from real patient contact. I am also pursuing membership in the National Black Nurses Association, which will give me access to a professional network of nurses who share my commitment to reducing health disparities in communities of color. Nursing demands more than clinical knowledge. It requires cultural competence, calm under pressure, and the ability to advocate for patients who often feel unheard. I work on these skills deliberately. I see each clinical hour not just as a requirement to complete but as practice for the nurse I am building toward. What makes this plan realistic is its specificity. I know what I want, I know where I am in the process, I know what it costs, and I know what I need to get there. I am not waiting to feel ready. I am planning my work and working my plan, one step at a time.

There's something that keeps me going at 11 PM when the nursing textbooks are spread across the kitchen table, and my eyes are getting heavy. It's not just ambition. It's the memory of watching family members navigate a healthcare system that didn't quite understand them, and the quiet promise I made to myself that I would become the nurse who bridges that gap. My name is Omowaye Jegede, and I'm asking you to consider me for this scholarship because I'm not just studying nursing; I'm preparing to serve communities that genuinely need me. I'm a 26-year-old first-generation college student enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx. My current GPA is 3.906, and I work hard to protect it, not because of the number itself, but because I know it reflects my discipline and commitment to mastering material that will directly affect patients one day. As a transfer student, I had to rebuild my academic footing quickly, learning new systems and expectations while keeping pace with a rigorous nursing curriculum. Maintaining a near-4.0 through that transition is something I'm genuinely proud of. Being a first-generation college student means there's no family blueprint. Nobody in my immediate family could tell me exactly how to navigate financial aid, when to apply for scholarships, or how to balance the cost of nursing school with everyday life in New York City. I figured it out by asking questions, doing research, staying persistent, and refusing to treat obstacles as reasons to stop. That mindset has carried me a long way, and it's the same mindset I'll bring into every clinical setting when I graduate. Nursing school demands more than studying. It asks you to become comfortable with discomfort: learning to assess a patient under pressure, to communicate clearly in high-stakes moments, and to hold someone's fear gently while remaining clinically focused. My coursework has included anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, fundamentals of nursing, health assessment, nutrition, and pathophysiology. Each course has deepened my understanding of the human body and strengthened my ability to think critically and act with care under pressure. I've learned that nursing requires both precision and humanity, and I take both seriously. My long-term goal is to work in an acute care hospital setting, specifically serving communities that are often underserved by the healthcare system. I've seen firsthand how people sometimes receive less attentive care because of cultural misunderstandings, language differences, or implicit bias from providers. I want to be part of changing that from the inside. A nurse who takes the extra moment to explain a diagnosis clearly, who respects the patient's cultural context, who treats every person with full dignity regardless of their background: that's the professional I'm committed to becoming. Outside of academics, I carry responsibilities that many traditional college students don't. At 26, I'm navigating adult financial obligations, family responsibilities, and the everyday logistics of living in one of the most expensive cities in the country. I don't have the luxury of focusing solely on school without thinking about bills, transportation costs, and how to make everything work within a tight budget. Rather than pulling my focus away from school, these realities sharpen it. Every day I show up to class or a clinical rotation, I'm making a conscious choice to invest in a future that goes beyond just myself. Financial support like what this scholarship offers makes a direct and practical difference. Tuition, clinical fees, nursing uniforms and supplies, exam preparation materials, transportation to clinical sites: the costs accumulate faster than most people realize. Receiving this scholarship would ease that financial pressure in a meaningful way, allowing me to dedicate more mental energy to learning and less to financial stress. That shift in focus has real academic impact. I chose nursing because it places me directly in service of people at their most vulnerable. It requires scientific knowledge, emotional intelligence, cultural humility, and the ability to remain steady when circumstances are uncertain. These are qualities I've been developing long before I entered a formal nursing program. Scholarship support is not just financial assistance; it's a vote of confidence in a student who is building something real and purposeful. I am asking to be considered because I show up, I work with discipline, I hold a 3.906 GPA while managing genuine adult responsibilities, and I carry a deep sense of purpose into this field. Every scholarship I receive moves me one step closer to becoming the nurse I know I can be. Invest in me, and I'll make it count for every patient I care for.

The decision to pursue nursing did not come from a single dramatic moment — it came from years of witnessing what care looks like up close and understanding what happens when it is absent. I work as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), providing daily care and support to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In that role, I have sat with people during medical appointments when no family member was available, advocated for clearer communication between patients and clinical staff, and watched the visible difference that comes over someone when they feel genuinely cared for rather than processed. That difference — the shift from invisible patient to seen human being — is what drew me to nursing. Before enrolling in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx, I had completed a Legal Studies degree. I believed, at the time, that advocacy for underserved communities would come through the law. What I discovered through my OPWDD work is that for many people, the most immediate form of advocacy happens at the bedside — in the hands of a nurse who listens before they advise, who notices what a chart cannot capture, and who treats the whole person with the dignity they deserve. I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, as the child of Nigerian immigrants. My parents navigated a healthcare system that was not always designed with people like them in mind — language barriers, cultural mismatches, providers who moved too fast to truly connect. Those experiences taught me early that healthcare disparities are not abstract policy problems. They are felt in examination rooms, emergency departments, and waiting areas by real people who have nowhere else to turn. When I become a registered nurse, I intend to make a difference by serving those communities most often overlooked — immigrant families, low-income neighborhoods, people with disabilities, and first-generation Americans who carry the same anxieties about healthcare that my family once carried. I want to be a nurse who bridges the gap between clinical expertise and cultural understanding. In the longer term, I hope to pursue public health nursing or community health work, where I can address not just individual patients but the systemic conditions that produce health inequity in the first place. I maintain a 3.906 GPA while working full-time, not because it comes easily, but because I believe the communities I will serve deserve the best-prepared version of me. Maxwell Tuan Nguyen's story — a life committed to medicine and to others — resonates with the path I am building. The medical field is where purpose meets discipline, and I am committed to both for the long haul.

One of the most meaningful service events I have organized was a community outing for the individuals I support through my work as a Direct Support Professional with the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). I planned and coordinated a trip to a local park and recreation center in Queens for a group of adults with developmental disabilities — handling logistics, transportation coordination, activity planning, and the direct supervision required to ensure everyone participated safely and joyfully. For the individuals I work with, outings like these are not a luxury. They are how community membership is made real. I have been providing this kind of service for several years now. In my role, I do not just assist with daily tasks — I actively plan programs, organize recreational activities, and coordinate with families and healthcare providers to create meaningful experiences for people who are often excluded from the kind of community participation others take for granted. Each event I organize is an act of advocacy as much as it is an act of care. Beyond OPWDD, I volunteer my time mentoring younger students who are navigating the college process as first-generation students, sharing what I have learned about financial aid, course planning, and keeping going when the road feels uncertain. I understand firsthand how isolating that experience can be, and I believe those of us who have figured out parts of the path have a responsibility to turn around and light the way for whoever is coming next. Leadership through service is important because it reorients what leadership actually means. We live in a culture that often defines leadership by rank, visibility, and authority. But the most durable leaders I have encountered are the ones who show up for others without the expectation of recognition — the nurse who stays late, the case manager who makes one more call, the volunteer who returns every week even when the work is hard. That consistency, that quiet commitment, is what actually changes communities. I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx. I chose nursing because it is one of the most direct expressions of servant leadership that exists. Every patient encounter is an opportunity to lead with compassion — to listen before advising, to advocate before assuming, to treat the whole person rather than just the presenting condition. Students Today Leaders Forever understood that service and leadership are not separate tracks. They are the same road. That belief drives everything I do, both inside and outside the classroom.

My name is Omowaye Jegede, and I am a first-generation Nigerian American pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx, New York. I maintain a 3.906 GPA while working full-time as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. My path to nursing was not a straight line, but every step along the way has pointed in the same direction: toward a career built on caring for others. Before nursing school, I earned a Legal Studies degree. During that time, my OPWDD work brought me face to face with something I could not walk away from — the profound difference that skilled, compassionate care makes in the lives of people who are often overlooked. I work with individuals with developmental disabilities, people who depend on support systems to live with dignity and independence. That work taught me that service is not a side project. It is a life orientation. My family came from Nigeria with very little except determination. I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, watching my parents navigate a country that was not always built with people like them in mind. They worked hard, stretched resources, and gave everything they had so that I could have access to opportunity they never did. That upbringing gave me a clear picture of who needs advocates most: immigrant families, low-income communities, people with disabilities, and anyone the healthcare system has failed to see as fully human. When I become a registered nurse, I intend to serve those communities directly. I want to work in community health settings in neighborhoods like the ones I grew up in, where patients often arrive at appointments without a trusted advocate in the room. I want to be the clinical professional who bridges the gap between complex medical information and the lived experience of patients who deserve to understand their own care. I also hope to eventually work in public health, where I can have a broader impact on the systemic factors that determine health outcomes for underserved populations. Robert F. Lawson spent his life in service — first to his country, then to his community. That kind of commitment to something larger than oneself is exactly what motivates me to keep going, especially on the hard days when work, school, and the weight of being the first in your family to navigate this path all converge at once. I believe that careers in healthcare are not just jobs. They are investments in the fabric of the communities we serve. This scholarship would ease the financial pressure of my nursing education and help me stay focused on what matters most: becoming the most capable, compassionate nurse I can be for the communities that need me.

Being a first-generation college student means carrying two things at once: freedom and weight. The freedom to build something that did not exist before in my family. And the weight of knowing that the people who sacrificed for me are watching, hoping, and trusting that I will not waste the opportunity they could never have themselves. My parents came to the United States from Nigeria with no roadmap. They were not able to pursue higher education in America, so when I began my college journey, I entered a world they could not fully guide me through. There was no one to call about financial aid appeals, no family precedent for choosing a major, no one who had already figured out what office to visit when something went wrong. I learned by doing, by asking, by making mistakes and correcting them. Being first-generation means becoming resourceful by necessity. What being the first means to me, at its core, is responsibility. Not obligation in a burdensome sense, but a deep sense of stewardship — for the path I am clearing, for the family members who will follow, and for the communities I will serve when I graduate. In college, I am pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx. This is not my first degree — I previously completed a Legal Studies program — but nursing is my calling. My work as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities showed me that care, delivered well and with dignity, changes lives. I want to be on the front lines of that work as a registered nurse. I maintain a 3.906 GPA while working full-time, because the standard I set for myself has to match the magnitude of what I am trying to accomplish. My long-term goals are rooted in service to underrepresented communities. I want to become a registered nurse who works in neighborhoods like the one I grew up in — Laurelton, Queens — where immigrant families, first-generation Americans, and low-income households navigate a healthcare system that was not always designed with them in mind. I want to be a nurse who serves as a bridge between those communities and the care they deserve. Beyond direct patient care, I hope to eventually move into public health advocacy or nursing education. First-generation students need to see themselves in positions of expertise and authority. If I can teach one future nurse how to serve a Nigerian immigrant family the way my family deserved to be served, that is a legacy worth building. Being first means the path ends with me opening a door — and holding it open for everyone behind me.

My family came to the United States from Nigeria carrying everything they had in bags and everything they hoped for in their hearts. What they were not carrying was certainty — no established network, no family member to call for guidance, no blueprint for how to make it in a country that did not yet know their names. The greatest challenge my family faced was invisibility. Not the dramatic, visible struggle that others might immediately recognize, but the quieter, more persistent difficulty of existing in systems that were not designed with you in mind. When my parents arrived in Laurelton, Queens, they were educated and hardworking by any standard — but their Nigerian degrees did not translate automatically, their accents were sometimes met with skepticism, and the pathways to advancement that others took for granted required twice the effort for them to locate, let alone navigate. I watched my parents work jobs that did not reflect their education or their capabilities. I watched them figure out taxes, insurance, and medical appointments in a country whose bureaucracies were foreign and often unwelcoming. I watched them stretch money in ways that required both mathematical precision and sheer willpower. And through all of it, they never complained in front of me. They just kept building. That silence — the dignified, determined silence of parents who did not want their child to feel the weight of what they were carrying — shaped me more than any lecture ever could. I grew up understanding that life would require me to work harder, navigate more carefully, and prove myself more thoroughly than many of my peers. I did not resent that. I absorbed it. Today, I am pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx, maintaining a 3.906 GPA while working full-time as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. I am the first in my family to pursue a college degree in the United States. I carry my parents' sacrifices in every exam I sit for, every clinical skill I practice, every early morning I choose study over sleep. The challenge my family faced taught me to see people who are invisible to systems. In my nursing career, I intend to serve the communities that immigrants, first-generation Americans, and low-income families build their lives in — the same neighborhoods that raised me. I know what it feels like to navigate healthcare as someone whose cultural context is not accounted for in the room. I will be the nurse who accounts for it. Cyrilla Olapeju Sanni lived an industrious and productive life without the opportunity of higher education. My parents did the same. This scholarship honors that kind of resilience, and I am honored to carry it forward.

Before I ever enrolled in nursing school, I was already working in the nonprofit sector — I just did not have the language to describe it that way yet. For several years, I have worked as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), a New York State agency that partners with nonprofit organizations to provide care and community support for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Every shift I work is an act of public service. The people I support depend on systems — nonprofit systems, government-funded systems, community-based organizations — to live with dignity. Without those systems, and without the people who staff them, they would have nowhere to turn. This work changed how I understand what a career is supposed to be. I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, as the child of Nigerian immigrants who taught me that success means something only when it is shared. My OPWDD work gave me the first real proof that this belief is a viable way to build a life. I discovered that showing up for people who have been pushed to the margins of society — people with disabilities, people without advocates, people who rarely see themselves reflected in the professionals meant to serve them — is not a sacrifice. It is a calling. I am now pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx, and I see nursing as fundamentally nonprofit in spirit. The nurses who have shaped me most are not the ones chasing high salaries or prestigious hospitals. They are the ones working in community health centers, pediatric clinics in underserved neighborhoods, and advocacy organizations that translate medical complexity into plain language for patients who have never had someone fight for them before. That is the career I am building. I want to work at the intersection of healthcare and public health advocacy. I hope to serve communities like the ones that raised me — immigrant families, first-generation Americans, people with disabilities, low-income New Yorkers who navigate a healthcare system that often treats them as afterthoughts. As a registered nurse with lived experience in these communities, I will be positioned to do something no degree alone can grant: offer genuine understanding alongside clinical expertise. The nonprofit sector is where this kind of work happens. It is where healthcare is not a product but a right, where the mission is measured in outcomes for the people served rather than returns for shareholders. I want to bring my nursing skills into that space — whether through community health organizations, public health initiatives, or direct care programs that specifically serve populations who are underrepresented and underserved. This scholarship would allow me to focus on my nursing studies without the constant weight of financial strain. More than the financial support, it would affirm that the path I am on — one that centers service over profit — is worth investing in. I am committed to a career in public health and nonprofit service, and I am prepared to give everything I have to it.

My educational journey has not been a straight line — and that is exactly what has made it meaningful. I grew up in Laurelton, Queens, the child of Nigerian immigrants who worked hard so that I could do what they never had the opportunity to do: earn a college degree in the United States. As a first-generation college student, I had no family blueprint to follow. I navigated financial aid forms, registration deadlines, and academic expectations largely on my own, learning the language of higher education one step at a time. I began my academic path pursuing Legal Studies, and I completed that degree. But somewhere along the way, a deeper calling emerged. My work as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities brought me face to face with something I could not walk away from — the dignity and vulnerability of people who depend on skilled, compassionate caregivers. I realized that the most direct way I could serve my community was through healthcare. That realization led me to Monroe University in the Bronx, where I am now enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. The transition has not been without sacrifice. I work full-time while carrying a full course load. There are nights where the demands of caring for others by day and studying by night feel impossible to balance. But I think of my parents — who showed up every single day in a country that was not built for them — and I keep going. I maintain a 3.906 GPA not because it has been easy, but because I have learned that difficulty and determination can coexist. New York City shaped who I am. It is a city that demands resilience, that rewards those who show up even when the system creates obstacles. I have seen that in the communities around me in Queens, and I see it every day in the Bronx, where Monroe University sits among neighborhoods that deserve more healthcare professionals who understand their lived experience. This scholarship would directly ease the financial pressure of my final nursing courses and clinical requirements. It would allow me to focus more fully on my education rather than calculating how to cover the next tuition bill. More importantly, it would affirm that students like me — first-generation, immigrant-raised, committed to service — belong in rooms like this. Marcia Bick Herman believed in students who struggled to see their own potential. I see mine clearly. I am going to become a registered nurse who serves the underrepresented communities of New York City, and this scholarship would help me get there.

My parents left Nigeria with a dream that was not guaranteed — the belief that sacrifice, discipline, and hard work could build a life in a country that was not their own. They arrived in the United States without connections, without a roadmap, and without certainty. What they had was each other, an unshakeable work ethic, and faith that this country offered something their homeland could not: the possibility of reinvention. Growing up in Laurelton, Queens as the child of Nigerian immigrants, I learned early that the American dream is not a destination. It is a practice — something you show up for every single day, whether or not the system meets you halfway. I watched my parents navigate a country that was not always welcoming to people who looked like them or spoke with their accents, and yet they never stopped building. That image of quiet, persistent effort is my definition of the American dream. As a non-citizen Permanent Resident pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Monroe University in the Bronx, I carry that legacy forward. I am the first in my family to pursue a college degree in the United States, and I take that responsibility seriously. I maintain a 3.906 GPA while working full-time as a Direct Support Professional through the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. I care for individuals who are often overlooked by the same society that promises them opportunity. That work has deepened my understanding of what the American dream actually requires: not just personal success, but a commitment to lifting others as you climb. The American dream is often described as individual achievement — a house, a degree, a salary. But the version I inherited is more communal than that. In my household, success was never just about one person. My parents sacrificed so that I could study. I study so that I can serve. I will serve so that the communities around me — immigrant families, underserved patients, people with disabilities — have a healthcare advocate who understands their struggles from the inside. Nursing is how I will make the American dream tangible for others. When I become a registered nurse, I will walk into rooms where patients may feel invisible, speak languages that are foreign to the institutions meant to serve them, or distrust a system that has failed people who look like them. I will be proof that the dream is not reserved for those born here, but for those willing to work for it, fight for it, and share it with those around them. That is my definition of the American dream: not a prize at the end of a race, but a responsibility that passes from one generation to the next.

My mother came to America from Nigeria with little more than determination and the belief that sacrifice today creates opportunity tomorrow. She did not have the chance to pursue higher education herself, but she made sure I understood its power. Watching her navigate an unfamiliar country while holding our family together taught me more about leadership than any classroom ever could. She is the person who shaped the way I see myself as someone capable of uplifting others. Growing up in Laurelton, Queens, I was surrounded by hardworking immigrant families who gave everything for their children's futures. My mother was no different. She worked long hours, managed a household, and never complained, all while quietly instilling in me a sense of purpose. She did not lecture me about leadership. She modeled it every single day through consistency, humility, and an unwavering commitment to our family. I watched her show up when things were hard, and I learned that leadership is not about titles — it is about showing up. As a first-generation college student, I have carried her example into every decision I have made. When I completed my Legal Studies degree, it was for her. When I enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Monroe University in the Bronx, it was to honor the standard she set. She sacrificed her own educational journey so that mine could begin, and I take that responsibility seriously. I maintain a 3.906 GPA not because perfection is the goal, but because excellence is the least I can offer in return for what she gave me. Her influence also pushed me toward service. I currently work as a Direct Support Professional through OPWDD, supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. It is demanding, emotionally complex work, and there are days that test my patience and compassion. On those days I think of my mother — how she never turned away from difficulty, how she found dignity in caring for others even when it went unrecognized. She taught me that real service is not glamorous. It is quiet, consistent, and personal. As I move through nursing school, I am building a legacy that mirrors hers. I want to become a registered nurse who serves underrepresented communities, the same communities that raised me. I want to mentor younger first-generation students who feel overwhelmed by a system that was not designed with them in mind. I want to stand beside my patients the way my mother stood beside our family — steady, present, and full of belief in what they can become. Jesus Baez-Santos sounds like someone who embodied these same values. He showed up for his family, gave freely, and worked toward a better future for those around him. I am honored to apply for a scholarship in his name, because it reflects everything my mother taught me: that the most meaningful life is one lived in service to others.

Showing up, in my experience, rarely looks like a grand gesture. It looks like returning — shift after shift, to the same people, with the same attentiveness — even when the work is hard and the progress is invisible. When I worked as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I cared for individuals with complex physical and cognitive needs. Many of them could not communicate in conventional ways. Some had no family involvement in their daily lives. My presence — consistent, patient, and intentional — was often one of the steadiest things in their world. There was one individual I supported whose behavioral profile made him one of the more challenging people on the unit. He had a history of agitation during transitions: moving from one activity to another, changing environments, adjusting routines. The standard response from some caregivers was avoidance — keep your distance, move quickly, document the behavior. I chose a different approach. I started coming to him before transitions happened. I would sit nearby, speak calmly, give him time to notice me before anything changed. Over weeks, he began to settle when I was present. The agitation did not disappear, but it softened. He started to recognize that when I arrived, something predictable and safe followed. That moment asked me to slow down in a system that does not always reward slowness. It asked me to trust that relationship-building was not soft or supplemental — it was clinical. It revealed to me that care is most powerful when it is not reactive but anticipatory: when you have learned enough about a person to meet them before they need you to. This is the insight I carry into my nursing education at Monroe College, where I am pursuing my BSN with a 3.906 GPA. I am a first-generation Nigerian immigrant and college student, and I bring to this field a deep understanding of what it means to feel unseen in systems that were not designed for you — whether that is a healthcare system, an immigration system, or a caregiving institution. My goal is community health nursing, specifically within underserved immigrant communities where patients often disengage from care not because they do not want help, but because they do not trust that help will show up for them consistently. Shaunterrio Hudson showed up for the people around him — as a healthcare professional, as a fierce friend, as someone who understood that your presence in someone else's life is a form of care in itself. The moment I recognized that my presence could help regulate another person's fear before a word was spoken, I understood what that meant. Healthcare is not only a set of technical skills. It is a commitment to showing up, again and again, for people who may not be able to say thank you — and doing it anyway. This scholarship honors that commitment, and I intend to spend my career living it.

There was no single moment that made me decide to become a nurse — there was a gradual accumulation of experiences that made it clear I had been moving toward this career all along. I grew up in Nigeria, where healthcare was not something people took for granted. Access was limited, resources were stretched, and the few healthcare workers who showed up for communities like mine carried an outsized responsibility. Even as a child, I understood that a nurse or a doctor was someone who made things possible for people in impossible moments. I carried that understanding with me when I immigrated to the United States, and it only sharpened when I saw similar dynamics playing out in the immigrant communities of New York. My path was not direct. I completed a bachelor's degree in Legal Studies, believing that advocacy and systems navigation would be how I made a difference. And in many ways, that training did prepare me for the work I now want to do. It taught me to read complex systems, identify injustice, and argue for what is right — skills I now recognize as essential to nursing, where advocacy happens not in a courtroom but at the bedside. The turning point came when I began working as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. Every day, I provided hands-on care to individuals with complex needs — helping with daily living, ensuring safety, facilitating communication, and standing in the gap for people who could not always stand up for themselves. I watched the nurses I worked alongside do the same, but with a clinical depth that I did not yet have. I saw how their assessments could catch what others missed. I saw how their presence could transform fear into calm. I knew, watching them, that I wanted to do what they were doing. I wanted to be trained to respond at that level. So I pivoted. I enrolled in the BSN program at Monroe College in the Bronx, and I have not looked back. I carry a 3.906 GPA not because I am trying to prove something but because this work matters too much to do halfway. I am the first in my family to pursue a nursing degree, and I feel the weight of that — not as pressure, but as purpose. What inspired me to pursue nursing is the same thing that drove Mighty to support his daughter through her own nursing program: the belief that nursing is one of the most meaningful forms of service a person can offer. It is intimate, demanding, and profoundly human work. When I finish my BSN and step into my first clinical role, I will carry that belief with me — and I will carry the example of every family, like Mighty's, that understood nursing was worth the sacrifice. This scholarship would help me continue honoring that belief.

Nutrition is not simply a topic covered in a health education pamphlet — it is a clinical intervention, and nurses are often the most consistent, trusted point of contact a patient has with the healthcare system. As a BSN student at Monroe College in the Bronx, I am training to be the kind of nurse who does not wait for a patient to develop a crisis before addressing the habits and conditions that led them there. My nursing career will center on community health within underserved immigrant and first-generation communities in New York City — populations that carry disproportionate burdens of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. These conditions are deeply connected to diet, and diet is deeply connected to culture, access, and economic circumstance. A nutrition intervention that ignores those realities will fail every time. My approach will be built on a different foundation. The first step I plan to take is culturally responsive nutritional education. Many of my future patients will come from West African, Caribbean, and Latin American backgrounds — communities with rich food traditions that mainstream nutrition advice often overlooks or dismisses. Rather than telling a Nigerian patient to stop eating rice and stew, I will work with them to understand portions, preparation methods, and ingredient substitutions that preserve cultural identity while reducing sodium, saturated fat, and glycemic load. Sustainable change happens when patients feel their identity is respected, not when they are handed a list of foods they have never eaten. Second, I plan to integrate nutrition screening into routine care. Too often, nurses assess vital signs and medication compliance without asking what a patient ate for breakfast or whether they had access to fresh food that week. As part of my practice, I will use validated tools to identify food insecurity and nutritional deficiencies, then connect patients with resources — community food pantries, WIC programs, local nutrition services — that bridge the gap between what patients need and what they can access. Third, I intend to build group education programming into any community health role I hold. Individual appointments have limited reach; group sessions focused on healthy cooking on a budget, reading nutrition labels, and understanding how specific foods affect blood sugar or blood pressure can create collective change and foster peer support within a community. I've seen how information spreads when it is delivered in a setting that feels familiar and welcoming. Nurses are uniquely positioned to make nutrition education real — not as abstract science, but as practical, personalized guidance delivered in a moment of genuine trust. I am pursuing this career because I believe health outcomes in my community can change, and I know that the nurses who make that happen will be the ones who show up consistently, speak their patients' languages — literally and culturally — and understand that a healthy diet starts with access, education, and being truly seen.

In many African and Nigerian immigrant communities, Alzheimer's disease and dementia are not widely recognized as distinct medical conditions. For much of my upbringing in Nigeria and within my community in New York, cognitive decline in older adults was explained as simply "old age" — an inevitable softening of the mind, something to be endured by families rather than treated by healthcare systems. There were no formal diagnoses, no care plans, no conversations about early intervention. There were only families doing the best they could without the information, resources, or cultural framework to understand what was happening to their loved ones. This is not an uncommon reality. Research has consistently shown that Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are significantly underdiagnosed in Black and immigrant communities, due to a combination of limited awareness, language barriers, distrust of medical institutions, and a cultural tendency to internalize elder care as a private family matter. What this means in practice is that people are living with progressive, manageable conditions without the support they deserve — and their families are carrying enormous burdens in silence. I saw a version of this dynamic play out during my time working as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. While the individuals I served were primarily diagnosed with developmental conditions, many of the older clients also showed signs of cognitive decline as they aged — changes in memory, communication, and recognition that caregivers around me had learned to navigate through experience rather than formal training. What struck me was how much better their quality of life could have been with earlier intervention, proper assessment, and nursing staff specifically trained in dementia-inclusive care. The gap between what existed and what was possible was visible every single day. That experience has directly shaped my goals as a future nurse. I am currently pursuing a BSN at Monroe College in the Bronx, with a 3.906 GPA, and my long-term vision is centered on community health nursing within underserved immigrant populations — communities where dementia awareness is dangerously low and where the stigma around cognitive decline keeps families from seeking help until a crisis has already occurred. I want to be the nurse who begins that conversation early: who recognizes the signs of Alzheimer's in a 68-year-old patient who came in for a blood pressure check, who connects a family with resources before they reach a breaking point, and who works to normalize both the conversation and the care. What I have learned from witnessing Alzheimer's and dementia touch my community is that silence is not protection. The families who suffered the most were not those who faced the hardest diagnoses — they were the ones who faced them alone, without language for what was happening or a system willing to meet them where they were. Nursing gives me the tools to change that, one patient and one family at a time. The Henry Respert Alzheimer's and Dementia Awareness Scholarship would support the education that makes that possible, and I am committed to carrying that purpose forward in every phase of my career.

The decision to pursue nursing emerged from a life of witnessing what happens when healthcare systems and patients fail to understand each other — and from the conviction that a skilled, compassionate nurse can bridge that gap. I grew up in Nigeria and immigrated to the United States as an adult, which meant I arrived with firsthand knowledge of how different a healthcare experience can look and feel depending on where you are and who is caring for you. My community in New York is rich in culture and resilience, but it is also marked by health disparities that follow patterns well-documented in public health research: elevated rates of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and cardiovascular complications — conditions that disproportionately affect Black and immigrant communities and that too often go unmanaged until they become life-threatening. Those statistics are not abstractions to me. They are the people I grew up with, and they are the people I intend to serve. My path toward nursing became concrete during my time working as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. In this role, I provided hands-on care to individuals with complex health profiles, including those managing chronic conditions alongside physical and cognitive needs. What I saw reinforced what I had long believed: that patients living with chronic illness need more than a prescription. They need a nurse who can explain their condition in terms that feel accessible, who can recognize when subtle symptoms signal a dangerous shift, and who understands the social and cultural factors that shape whether a patient will take their medication, return to follow-up, or trust the care team at all. My planned specialty is community health nursing, with a focus on chronic disease management — specifically within underserved immigrant and first-generation communities in the Bronx and across New York City. Populations in these communities carry disproportionate burdens of diabetes, cardiac disease, and other chronic conditions shaped by structural inequities: food insecurity, housing instability, occupational stress, and limited access to culturally competent care. I want to be the nurse at that intersection — one who combines clinical rigor with cultural fluency to reach patients who have been failed by systems not designed with them in mind. I am a BSN student at Monroe College in the Bronx, maintaining a 3.906 GPA, and I bring to this work not only academic commitment but lived experience as a first-generation Nigerian immigrant who has navigated these same systems. I understand, in ways that go beyond textbooks, why a patient might avoid a clinic, why a diagnosis might be met with fear rather than compliance, and why trust — earned slowly, through consistency and care — is the foundation of everything else. I chose to work with patients experiencing chronic illness because this is the work that most needs doing in the communities that shaped me. The impact of a nurse who truly understands her patients extends far beyond a single interaction: it reduces hospitalizations, improves disease management, and changes the relationship a family has with healthcare for generations to come. That is the nurse I am becoming — and it is exactly the work the EverGreen Trails of Service Scholarship would help me continue.

The nursing industry calls to me not as a profession I stumbled into, but as one I consciously chose after years of personal and professional experience that showed me exactly what healthcare can mean to the people most in need of it. I grew up in Nigeria before immigrating to the United States, and what I encountered here shaped my perspective on healthcare in ways that continue to motivate me today. As my family navigated a new country, we also navigated a healthcare system that felt foreign — in language, in cultural context, and in the unspoken expectations it placed on patients. I watched family members struggle to communicate with providers, advocate for their own care, and understand diagnoses delivered in clinical language that left them more confused than informed. Those early experiences planted a seed: nursing would give me the ability to bridge those gaps at the bedside — where it matters most. That seed grew into conviction when I began working as a Direct Support Assistant with the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. In this role, I provided daily hands-on care to individuals with complex physical, cognitive, and behavioral needs. Every shift required me to navigate the intersection of clinical responsibility and human dignity — ensuring physical safety, facilitating communication, and advocating for individuals who could not always speak for themselves. This experience gave me an unfiltered view of caregiving: the patience it demands, the critical thinking it requires, and the immense impact that compassionate, consistent care has on a person's quality of life. Working alongside registered nurses in that setting was transformative. I observed how their training equipped them to respond under pressure, identify subtle changes in a patient's condition, and coordinate care across disciplines — all while maintaining the calm, human presence that reassures patients and families. It was then I understood: nursing was not just what I wanted to do; it was who I was already becoming. Today, I am a BSN student at Monroe College in the Bronx, maintaining a 3.906 GPA while channeling every chapter of my life experience into each course. My personal accomplishments include completing a prior degree in Legal Studies — training that sharpened my critical thinking and advocacy skills — before making the intentional decision to redirect my education toward nursing. That pivot was not a detour; it was a deepening. I also bring firsthand knowledge of navigating complex healthcare and social systems as an immigrant and first-generation college student, which I consider among my most relevant qualifications for the kind of nurse I intend to become. My goals for a successful nursing career center on service to communities that are often underserved. In the short term, I aim to gain clinical experience in critical care or community health — environments where skilled, empathetic nurses have the greatest impact. Long term, I plan to use my nursing career as a foundation for launching health education initiatives for immigrant and first-generation communities in the Bronx, helping to close the gap between available care and accessible care. Sara Jane dedicated 48 years to lifting patients and encouraging the next generation of nurses. I am pursuing this career to honor exactly that legacy — to show up, stay present, and make every patient feel seen.

Growing up as a Nigerian immigrant in the Bronx, I watched my family struggle to navigate the American healthcare system without a guide. When relatives fell ill, they left appointments confused — overwhelmed by medical jargon no one took time to explain, afraid to ask questions they feared would mark them as difficult patients. I did not know then what I would do about this. I only knew someone should. My path to nursing was not straight. I began college studying Legal Studies, drawn by the belief that law could be a tool for justice. But during my time working as a Direct Support Associate with OPWDD, caring for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, I found my answer not in a courtroom but in a clinical setting. I watched the nurses on our team do something law rarely offers: immediate, tangible care. They assessed, comforted, advocated, and healed — present with patients during their most vulnerable moments. With every interaction I witnessed, the pull became undeniable. I changed my major, enrolled in the BSN program at Monroe College in the Bronx, and have not looked back. What sustains me now is a recognition that has guided others before me: skilled, compassionate nursing has the power to transform lives, especially for those who have been overlooked. My neighborhood — the South Bronx — ranks among the highest in the country for asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. These are largely preventable conditions that disproportionately affect low-income Black and Latino families. Patients arrive in crisis not because care did not exist, but because it never reached them in a language, a setting, or a form they could access. I intend to change that. My goals are shaped by this reality. I am pursuing critical care nursing so I can be competent in the highest-stakes environments. But I also envision working in community health — leading health education initiatives in local clinics, serving as a bridge between complex medical systems and patients who navigate them alone, much like my own family once did. Nursing gives me the rare ability to intervene in both crisis and prevention, and I plan to use both. I carry this work seriously. My GPA of 3.906 reflects not just academic discipline but genuine investment in becoming the most prepared nurse possible. Every pharmacology principle and clinical skill is preparation for the patient who will one day trust me during their most frightening moment. Eric Maurice Brandon demonstrated throughout his career that service in nursing is not bounded by setting or circumstance — from battlefield care during Desert Storm to overnight shifts caring for a child with tracheostomy needs. That commitment to showing up, regardless of difficulty or hour, is the standard I am building toward. I am grateful to The Brandons for honoring his legacy by investing in the next generation of nurses who will carry that spirit of service forward. I found out about this scholarship through Bold.org.

When I enrolled in my Accelerated BSN program at Monroe College, I was not starting fresh — I was starting over, intentionally. I already held a bachelor's degree in Legal Studies and had spent years working in roles that taught me about systems, service, and the weight of being present for someone in their most vulnerable moments. But it was not until I began working as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities that I understood, with absolute clarity, what kind of work I was truly called to do. Every shift, I stood beside nurses who carried out their duties with a precision and compassion that humbled me. I watched them advocate for patients who could not advocate for themselves. I watched them hold hands, explain diagnoses in gentle language, and remain steady in moments of crisis. I realized that my previous education had trained me to navigate systems on paper, but nursing would allow me to navigate the most human system of all — the one where a person's body, mind, and spirit are entrusted to your care. Pursuing an advanced degree in nursing was not just a career pivot. It was an alignment. The legal training I had cultivated sharpened my ability to think critically, identify injustice, and advocate within complex institutions — skills I now recognize as essential to the kind of nurse I want to become. Nursing is, at its core, an act of advocacy. Every clinical decision, every conversation with a frightened patient or exhausted family member, is an opportunity to champion someone who cannot always champion themselves. My goals for my specific area of nursing reflect both my personal history and my broader vision. In the short term, I aim to gain experience in critical care or community health nursing — two environments where the intersection of clinical skill and human connection is most visible and most vital. As a Nigerian immigrant and first-generation college student, I am especially drawn to serving communities that share my background: people who navigate language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and distrust of the healthcare system. In the long term, I intend to use the foundation my BSN provides to eventually pursue a graduate-level credential and launch health education initiatives for underserved immigrant communities in the Bronx and beyond. Dashanna K. McNeil understood that nursing is not merely a profession — it is a legacy. Her life’s work is an example of what becomes possible when passion, education, and purpose align. I am pursuing this advanced degree because I believe the same alignment is possible for me, and I am committed to honoring it.

My path to nursing was not a straight line — it was a journey shaped by lived experiences, a deep sense of purpose, and an unwavering conviction that healthcare can and should be transformative. As a 26-year-old first-generation college student and Accelerated BSN student at Monroe College in the Bronx, I chose nursing because it sits at the intersection of science and humanity — and because I have seen firsthand what it means to be left behind by a healthcare system that does not see you. I grew up in Nigeria before relocating to the United States, where my family quickly learned that navigating health and social systems as immigrants was both complex and daunting. I watched family members and community members struggle to access care, communicate with providers, and advocate for themselves in medical settings that felt culturally foreign. Those moments planted a seed in me: a conviction that patients deserve more than a diagnosis — they deserve a nurse who truly sees them. What crystallized my decision, however, was not a dramatic moment but a quiet one. While working as a Direct Support Assistant at the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities, I provided daily care to individuals with complex physical and behavioral needs. Watching the nurses I worked alongside — the way they moved through the unit with both clinical precision and deep compassion — I understood for the first time that nursing is not simply a job. It is a vocation. A single intentional nurse presence could reduce a patient's fear, rebuild their dignity, and make the difference between a person feeling seen or invisible. That is the nurse I am committed to becoming. My earlier education in Legal Studies sharpened my ability to think critically and advocate within systems. But nursing calls me in a way that law never did — because in nursing, I can advocate at the very bedside, where lives are actually changed. With a 3.9 GPA in my BSN program and years of experience in service and leadership roles, I have channeled every chapter of my life into becoming a nurse who is both clinically excellent and profoundly human. My long-term vision is to specialize in critical care or community health nursing, and to eventually use the financial stability of my career to launch health education initiatives for underserved immigrant and first-generation communities — communities like the one that raised me. Nursing is not only my career path. It is the lens through which I intend to give back, build generational impact, and show my community that healthcare can be a place where they truly belong. I found out about this scholarship through Bold.org.