The characteristic I have that I value the most in myself is my kindness. The world we live in is not an easy place to be, and the last thing we all need is to be surrounded by even more hatred and judgment. We get those things enough from ourselves, so why do we project them onto others? My mother raised me and my siblings to be as kind and helpful as possible. We grew up helping her clean at her jobs and helping babysit kids when she would babysit. We also always had a huge part in helping our church, whether it was making the coffee in the mornings and putting donuts out, or teaching the bible study to the children, or even watching the kids in the nursery. At one point, when our church was mobile, we were even helping put the entire church set-up up and take it down every Sunday. My parents definitely helped set that standard and were huge influences on our lives. I often do whatever I can to volunteer or give to those in need. We have done food box packing, toy shoebox backing, donating and packing necessities for Ecuador and other places, and even for Ukraine recently during the war. Every year, my church and my hospital has a giving tree, where they find kids who need Christmas presents and then they make little paper ornaments with their name, age, clothing sizes, and toys they want. I participate every year and grab as many children as I can possibly afford so because everyone deserves to have a Christmas even when their parents can't afford it. I feel that this quality is so important in life, and I feel that it will always help me in the future. You never know what someone is going through and how much a simple hello or compliment will mean to them. With my degree that I am working towards, which is Forensic Science, I hope that my kindness and love for criminal justice will help me find peace and comfort for those who have lost someone due to crime. I hope that I can bring some sort of closure to those who need it at their worst moments. This is how I feel I was meant to be giving to the world and how my kindness will flourish throughout my career as a forensic scientist. I can't wait to continue spreading kindness throughout the world in my daily life as well as my future career.

I have always struggled with severe depression and anxiety. Although I was good at school, I struggled to keep going and finish. I always had to push myself through to the finish line, and by then I was basically crawling with my arms stretched out trying to reach the line. Mental health is a serious issue in the world, and some struggle with it more than others. I know that I don't have the worst of it, because I don't take any medication for it. I have the opportunity to, but I feel that I need to work through it on my own instead of the help of medication. Everyone is different and I am lucky enough to be able to fight through it without regular medications. My mental health issues have still had a huge effect on my life and who I am as a person today. I used to be a very shy, anxious person who would try to stay hidden in the shadows. I didn't go out much, I didn't have many friends, and I usually just kept to myself because that was where I was comfortable. Now that I have grown more and continued to push through my mental health struggle, I have learned to overcome and adapt instead of hide away. I changed my mind set and now believe that I can do anything that I set my mind to. I do still struggle with anxiety and depression, but overall, I am a lot more willing to try new things like go to college and find new friends. I was able to push myself past my boundaries and start going to school because it is something I have always wanted to do, but always told myself I couldn't do because I didn't think I was smart enough. When you are depressed and anxious, your mind is the most hateful thing around you and all you ever do is judge yourself and say no. It is so hard to push past that hate in your mind and turn it around to say yes. I am not perfect, and I will never be, but I know that those bad and hateful thoughts in my head are just simply not true. I know that I am my worst critic and that I always will be, but that shouldn't stop me from doing the things I love. I didn't want to live my life in the shadows absolutely hating everything about myself and not giving myself any chances. So now that I have changed my mindset, those bad thoughts are deep in the back, and they don't own me anymore. They are still there, and every now and then when my depression gets bad, they get more prominent, but I do my very best to push them to the back and keep moving forward. I am so thankful for the growth I have had since high school, and I am so thankful that my mental health didn't get the best of me like it unfortunately does to others. I hope the best for every single person who struggles with mental health issues or any other condition or disease, because we are all truly superheroes for fighting the villains that we deal with daily.

The past year has actually been one of the years where I have had most growth. I just turned 25 in September, and I graduated high school in 2016, so I have been out of high school for 6 years now. Time really does fly once you graduate. Since high school has been over, I have struggled to push myself to change and figure out what I am supposed to do on this earth. In the past year I have changed my entire mindset from "I can't" to "I can." This alone has completely changed me as a person and changed my everyday life. New opportunities that I never thought about have come knocking at my door. One opportunity in particular, has been to go to college for something I am extremely passionate about, which is Forensic Science. I finally decided that I actually could achieve this if I try and believe, so I took an SAT and got accepted to IUPUI. This has probably been the biggest change in my life in the past year other than becoming engaged to the love of my life. Working to achieve this degree has opened so many doors of possibilities for my future. Possibilities that I can't wait to get to! Changing my mindset has definitely inspired this new personal growth of going to college and even more as well. I still am a very anxious and stressed individual but being able to say "I can" to almost anything has helped my anxiety. I do still hold a lot of anxiety and everyday stress; however, I am way better at trying new things that I end up absolutely loving. There is a lot about me that is still the same, but my growth has really pushed me to become a new bubbly person. My self-discovery journey is extremely important to me, because if I didn't take all of these years to try and figure out who I was supposed to be, I never would have realized that I can do anything I put my mind to. I would have never gone back to school, and I would have just hidden in the shadows for the rest of my life and not been fully fulfilled. I feel like my self-discovery has helped me become who I am truly meant to be and helped push me to work towards my dream career in Forensic Science and say, "I can" instead of "I can't!"

Learning is so important to me, because without learning, you simply never know. I have always been one who enjoys further education, whether it means I am getting it through schooling, jobs, friends, etc. I loved going to school even though it was not always easy due to depression, and I was in Orchestra always learning to play my violin better from 6th grade throughout my senior year. During high school I did the JEL program and went to cosmetology school. I graduated and became a licensed cosmetologist shortly after graduating high school. I never pursued hair, but I learned how to roller skate and became an aggressive roller skater after that. I taught myself how to do all sorts of fun tricks at skateparks on the ramps and boxes. Since I decided not to do hair, I became a pharmacy technician. I worked for 3 years at Walgreens, where I became licensed, certified, and also became the senior technician. I then went to a hospital to continue learning and became efficient in the IV room, chemotherapy room, medication reconciliation in the ER, and inpatient pharmacy. I always work my way up to the top very fast and always find myself reaching for more. That is why I decided to be where I am today in college. I decided to go to college even though in high school I told myself I never would. I went to my old high school and took an SAT with students who were 7 years younger than me. I started classes at IUPUI but struggle to keep up with full time school, a full-time job, and all of the bills that come with life owning a house and going to college. Learning is so important to me, because I absolutely love to learn, and I want to know everything. I always am trying new art forms, games, etc. to keep learning new things. It makes me proud to have knowledge on something that I once didn't know anything about. I will do whatever I have to in order to continue reaching towards my dreams of my further education. I hope that someday I will be able to say that I have earned my degree with determination despite how hard it was. Scholarships will help me be able to reach my dream and further my education when I can't really afford it in the first place. Thank you for reading!

I am majoring in Forensic Science, and I am possibly going to be minoring in Criminal Justice. I have also thought about double majoring with Math since Forensic Science has so many math requirements. Math and science are huge passions of mine and I think they are both very important in society. With science, we can develop new vaccines to save hundreds of people, or new ways to produce energy for us to use, or even to make new medications for those who need them to survive. There are so many ways that science is important and used in our daily lives without us even knowing. With my degree of Forensic Science, I will have a huge part in criminal justice and justice for those who are no longer with us, along with their family members. I hope to be able to bring peace, comfort, and closure to those who have lost someone in a horrible way. I have always had a desire to help people and help the world and with my passion on this, I think I can go far with helping solve crimes of those gone too soon. I think that my degree and working in a crime lab is important for society because we help bring closure to those family members and friends who have no idea what happened to their loved one. Closure and peace are important to our minds and mental health. I feel that it is simply a domino effect of help to those in this type of situation and I can't wait to complete school and be able to give to society with my knowledge of science. I have a long way to go, but I will only go forward from here and will eventually achieve that goal.

Higher education is a huge opportunity for growth, and sometimes people don't have the means to be able to reach that. Higher education and receiving a college degree that I am proud of is super important to me because I want to be able to prove to myself that I can achieve my dream job. I have always had a love for criminal justice, math, and chemistry. I always did good in school, but I never thought I was smart enough to go to college. Once I took a class in high school called Principles of Biomedical Sciences, I realized that my true passion is Forensic Science. Even though I loved it, I never thought that I could achieve it, so I gave up and didn't apply to colleges or take an SAT. A couple of years later I decided to change my mindset and took an SAT, applied to IUPUI, and started classes! In order to be able to go to college, I have to be working full time while I am doing my full-time schooling. I have my own house and a lot of bills to keep up with, but I have pushed to try to be able to afford college for my dream job. Now I am filling out as many scholarships as I can possibly find so that I can try to afford to go to school for something that I am very passionate for. To be able to continue on in schooling and achieve my degree after working so hard for it would mean the world to me. I will be so proud of myself once I can finally say that I did it after all of my hardship. I can't wait to hear my name called at the ceremony and start looking for a job that I have desired for so long and at first didn't think I could reach. I want to show the world that I am powerful, smart, and determined to become the forensic scientist that I have dreamt of for so long.

I never used to be big on health, but I have always wanted to be. I was never good at any sports and instead I was in Orchestra throughout school. Once I graduated, I stepped outside of my comfort zone and I became a roller skater! I want to eventually be a part of roller derby, but I am mostly just an aggressive roller skater. I started on the streets to get used to it and get comfortable and confident and now I do all sorts of fun things at skate parks on the ramps and boxes! It is the best type of therapy I can give myself! Most recently, I have gained weight from not skating as much due to depression, so I wanted to take on some workouts. I joined the Beachbody program through my hospital pharmacy I work for, and I found that I absolutely love Pilates! I did a 21-day program to start and lost 3 inches around my stomach and have never felt stronger since! It is my favorite way to feel healthy and strong and helps with my skating abilities. Roller skating and Pilates have been super helpful things I have changed throughout the past 5 years of my life, and I can't wait to keep including more things into my lifestyle! I am trying to learn to eat better too, and I have started taking in more water every day, so I feel like I am on the right path! When you are an extremely stressed, anxious, and depressed person like myself, things like roller skating and Pilates can not only change your whole life, but also possibly save it. Thank you for reading!

I believe a large majority of students while growing up constantly pester their math teachers with the usual, "we won't use this in our life" complaints. Why do we have to go through all of the math classes when we don't see how they are used in the daily life? Is it as pointless as we all once thought? I was one of those students who constantly wondered why I had to go through all of the classes that I thought were pointless. I was always very good at math, and it was always easy for me. I always got all of my homework done while at school so that I didn't have to do it at home. But I was always complaining to my parents thinking that my life was being wasted with this knowledge that according to myself, I "wouldn't need." Despite my thoughts and complaints, I still enjoyed math and always did my work and kept up in class. Even though I always did good in my classes, I didn't think I would go to college because I didn't think I was smart enough and I didn't want to be stuck with debt. I always had such a passion for math and science and really appealed to forensic science. I held myself back due to thinking that I would never be successful with the college experience even though deep down I greatly desired finishing college and getting a degree I was proud of. I even took a class my senior year called Principles of Biomedical Sciences. It was my favorite class I have ever taken, and my teacher took me aside at the end of the year alone and genuinely told me that I am good at it. It made me so proud, but since I had such hateful feelings towards myself, I didn't decide to take the SAT that year. I took what she told me to heart, and it made me question whether I was doing the right thing or not. A few years passed since I graduated high school in 2016. I was able to try to find myself and understand what it is I am meant to do in the world. I started to believe that I could do anything that I put my mind to, so I applied to college and started to take classes. I did a few classes at my local Ivy Tech and eventually became confident enough to take an SAT at my old high school where kids were now 7 years younger than me so that I could have better chances at getting accepted to IUPUI. I did a lot better on the SAT than I thought I would and got accepted to IUPUI! I couldn't believe how far I had already come just by getting myself to take it and apply. Now I am working my way slowly through my college classes and still holding my 3.5 GPA while working full time. My last math teacher here helped me understand that math is everywhere in this world, and that I am on the right path. All of our math questions were real world examples that put into perspective for us how often we actually use math. He would always tell us, "See? You do use math everywhere!" Because of him, I now see everything in the world as a math problem, like I should have as a learning child. I am so proud that I realized where I needed to be and got to learn this lesson that I feel every child should have learned as kids.

I am a severely anxious and socially awkward person and I personally love gaming. Growing up, my older brother always loved his playstation 2. Anytime he was able to get a new game, he would already have it all finished by the 2nd or 3rd day. He was so fearless and invested in each game that came out and was a huge influence for me growing up. I was never really good at most games, so I usually just sat back and watched in awe. When I became a teenager, I started to play a game on the computer that was a first-person shooter game called Combat Arms, and it was the first game I was good at and genuinely loved. A couple years later, I bought my very first own Xbox and got Call of Duty. This is my favorite and always will be, simply because I am really good at it. Being good at a game as a perfectionist is a huge achievement, but it isn't the only reason I ended up truly loving gaming. Growing up I never had many friends. I was friends with everyone until I finished 4th grade, and then everyone made new friend groups and I wasn't a part of any of them. I always struggled to find people to sit with at lunch and was often just swinging alone every recess because I liked it and could do it alone. When you play online and make friends online, you can be yourself behind the screen and they can't judge anything except the way you talk or what you talk about. Some of the gaming community is hateful, judgmental, and rude. However, in my experience, the gaming community is welcoming, non-judgmental, and at times more like a family than my real family. The quote above definitely relates to me because those who are severely anxious or socially awkward are able to be themselves and feel welcomed and comfortable in the gaming community while simultaneously being in the environment where they feel most at home. I know that I was able to open up to my friends that lived across the country a lot more than the people I called "friends" in my area that I saw on a daily basis. My local friends talked about me behind my back and laughed at me, while my friends online were very similar to me and actually related to me and enjoyed my presence. The social norms of civil discourse and actions are hard for people who are anxious and socially awkward. It is so hard for anxious introverts like myself to go out in the normal world and be confident and comfortable. Many of us struggle to survive in the real world full of uncomfortable social interaction. For many of us, being able to be comfy at home playing a game with the coolest and most genuine people we have ever met is all we can ask for. It helps us thrive in a world so depressing and helps us get the social interaction that we need without being uncomfortable and ignorant towards our own mental health. I don't believe that "discarding" these social norms is a bad thing because I think that if anything it only enhances our ability to have social interactions. I also believe it simply helps those who don't feel like they belong in social settings to feel like they belong and are accepted somewhere. That somewhere doesn't have to be in real life, because all that matters is that there is somewhere.

My name is Rayna, and I am a 25-year-old student who decided to pursue further education despite feeling like I could never achieve it. I started college at IUPUI in January to reach for my dream goal of getting a Bachelor's in Forensic Science with a minor in Criminal Justice. I am not in any leadership roles; however, I was born to be a leader. I maintain a leadership mindset because I feel that I am an efficient leader and can guide others to success. My best showcase of my leadership would be through my job experience as a certified pharmacy technician. Throughout my 5 years as a pharmacy technician, I have worked in a retail setting at Walgreens, as well as two local hospitals. In every location, I have worked quickly and efficiently to reach the top of the totem pole. At Walgreens, I became licensed, certified, and promoted to senior technician in the 3 years that I worked there. I took on many metrics for our store and each one had greatly improved since I had taken them over. Since I reached the top of the totem pole, I searched elsewhere for more experience and knowledge. I went to a large hospital, where I only stayed for a year due to mental health issues. During my year there, I received a gold and silver award, which are not easily earned. I often suggested new ideas or helped bring new ideas to life in the pharmacy. My current hospital I have been at for a little over a year, and I work in Inpatient, a small offsite hospital, and Outpatient all at the same time. I work in the offsite on Mondays, where I take care of inpatient and outpatient duties for the whole day, and then work normally in the Inpatient pharmacy and pick up extra days in the outpatient pharmacy as needed. I will soon be taking a full-time position in just outpatient pharmacy to help with my schedule for school. At each location I go above and beyond in my work and have helped train new technicians. I take pride in working very hard and being efficient and fast as well as reliable and accurate. I work very hard at my job, and trying to balance work with school is not easy. I work full time while doing full time school. It is not easy to maintain a good schedule at work while trying to find time to work on classes. I try my best to focus on work, and then schoolwork, and only once I am done with schoolwork will I move on to fun activities or other activities. I do really well with school, and self-motivation is a key element to success in managing school and work together. I managed to keep good grades in school and still give 110% at work because of my motivation to pursue and succeed in my school for Forensic Science. School is a big priority for me now since I decided to pursue this degree. I always wanted to do something with Criminal Justice, but my ultimate passion was always for Forensic Science. In high school, even though I kept good grades, I never thought I was smart enough to go to college and succeed and I did not want to live in debt. Once I turned 24, I decided it was now or never and that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. This scholarship would greatly help me achieve my goal and succeed in my degree. Thank you for your time!