As a declared biology major, I plan to use my degree to help educate and improve communication between scientists and the general public. In doing so, I could help improve understanding of how addiction works, and create resources to make society see addiction as a disease instead of a taboo subject to dance around. As scientists learn more about how the human brain, body, and person react to addiction, it is important to keep the public informed and aware of the current findings.

I practice self-care by knitting. Sometimes, the world is a little overwhelming and it feels like there are a million things I have to think about and do. When this happens, I know that it's time for me to put aside some time, usually before bed, to give my brain a little break. I've been knitting for about 6 years, so it's a pretty easy, repetitive motion to fall into. The repetitive motion helps me organize my thoughts by giving me something to keep my hands preoccupied while I take some time to re-prioritize in my head. The clink of the needles is a soothing, repetitive sound that helps me count time while I think. I usually end up making a bunch of squares that I can sew together to create something later, too. Knitting is a relaxing, easy activity that lets me give my brain a break from thinking about all the things I have to do, and leaves me with something soft at the end of my ball of string.

I never planned to make it to 20. It sounds awful, I know. But every year past 16 is another year that I beat my own expectations. I feel like I got left behind at the hands of my own brain. While my classmates were planning their careers and future families, I was thinking about how I was going to make it through the dark thoughts I knew I would subject myself to that night. But now, my depression has been inhabiting my home for 7 years. It took time, but I’ve learned to make space for it. I can’t get rid of it, though I’ve tried, so I live with it. 7 years is a long time to learn to live with a weight on your chest. I’ve learned to give my depression a body- a form to inhabit so that it can’t swallow me whole anymore. If I think about my depression as another being that I share my mindspace with, as just an annoying roomate in my body, it’s easier to ignore. To live around it. For example, when my depression chains me to my bed, I lie there and thank it for the rest. When it tells me that I’m worthless because I’m not being productive, I knit. It’s a repetitive, mindless motion that leaves my brain preoccupied enough to breathe and leaves me with something soft at the end of my ball of string. When my depression leaves me restless and jumping out of my skin, snapping at the people who care about me, I take a walk. I jump on my skateboard and zoom down the hills, bringing my depression with me. I give it no choice but to stand in the sun, and have a time-out for a while. One day, I’m going to work in the field of epidemiology. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and more years of schooling. But I’m passionate about improving the communication between scientists and the rest of the world. I’m curious about our immune system and how the outside world affects our inside world. It’s going to take a long time to get into my career. A lot longer than the 16-year expiration date that my depression gave to me, so long ago. I’m not angry at my depression, not anymore. It’s part of me that I’ve learned to live with. To live around. I’m going to accomplish my goals, in spite of the looming presence that it has inside me. My depression is my biggest naysayer. It gives me thoughts to fuel doubt that I have to fight against. A voice to prove wrong. No matter how big and impossible my depression tells me my goals are, I’m going to get to where I need to be.

In order to keep a growth mindset, I like to keep a list of small goals for everyday. It helps keep me on track and gives me a tangible list of things that I have accomplished. Keeping this list is proof that I'm making progress and growing. The list doesn't have to be long, and the goals on the list don't have to be big. Some days, the only thing on my list is washing my mug, or taking a walk outside. Other days it's writing a paper and sending important emails. When I feel like my worth is tied to my accomplishments, or that I'm failing, it is important to remember to stick to that growth mindset. I have to remember that it is important to zoom out, and recognize where I am as part of the bigger picture of my life, instead of the small chapter I might be in. An example of this is if I don't do well on a quiz in class, I may start to feel bad about it. Instead of letting the quiz results cause a negative downward spiral, I add to my list that I should take a breather, and then go over the material that I didn't understand. This helps me to place value of myself not in how easy I can learn something on the first try, but in having perseverance. I try to put the effort that goes into projects and tasks above how easy I find it to be. I have to make sure that I think about learning as I get to where I'm going, not on how far ahead I start.

When I first enrolled in college, I was completely unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I felt that everything was interesting, and I didn't really know what I actually was interested in. I had decided on being a proposed biology major, because that left the most opportunites open for me. There are so many things to study under the broad term of "biology", so I signed myself up. In doing so, I felt like I was giving up something. In my heart, I wanted to be a psychology major, because I had always been interested in the mind. But I felt a pull toward biology, so I kept it. In my first few courses, I found that I really liked my biology courses, and they all felt really relevant to me at the time. Of course, this was at the height of the pandemic. However, because of this, I was introduced to the field that I feel has my future in it, which is epidemiology. From the past 3 years of the coronavirus pandemic, I think we've all seen firsthand how important it is to understand how disease can spread. I want to go into this field because I think that there is a lot of improvement to be made in the way that scientists communicate with the general public. I also think that studying the way that viruses spread and can turn into epidemics is important to understand better than we currently do. Because my major is biology, and not human biology, I have room in my course selection to study the environment. I think that this is important because the way that the environment around us impacts people's immune systems is still widely unstudied, and there is still a lot to disover there. Many of the books that I've read over the course of my life have been stories of kids my same age, figuring out where they fit into the world. One of my favorite books is Percy Jackson. One of the main themes of the story is finding one's identity. Throughout the story, all the characters struggle with their identies at some point, and eventually come to the conclusion that a person can decide their fate. I believe that your identity can be something that you choose, the same way that Percy chose to be a hero in the stories. This impacted me at a young age, as I struggled with my Asian-American identity. I grew up disconnected from my own heritage, and always felt a sense of shame not being able to speak my native tounge, or being able to relate to the stories of other Filipino peers. At the same time, there was still an undeniable divide between myself and my white classmates. Through the stories that I read, I learned to be proud of my identity, and that who I was wasn't reduced to where and who I came from. I had to figure out that there isn't any one way to be Asian. Even though I wasn't the stereotypical asian kid, with the stereotypical asian background, I am still Asian. In the pandemic especially, it was hard and scary to be proud to be Asian, with the news of increased hate crimes against Asian people. However, identity is more that just what you look like and the stereotypes associated with that. That's why I want a career in health care. I want to choose to help people, just like the people in the stories had to choose to be heroes.