I live through the lives of others to better appreciate mine. When forming a genuine connection, people oftentimes engage in deep conversations regarding their life. Stories about family, childhood, education, and milestones. Moments when they felt they could conquer anything, and moments that almost broke them. As an empathetic individual, I become the person in the story. I briefly lived through the things they did. Albeit what I feel may only be a sliver of what they felt, I still feel connected and impacted. Living through others' lives often brings to light things I am fortunate to have and have taken for granted. I value these moments where I am reminded of how lucky I am to be living my life. I appreciate the vulnerability people show and I return it by sharing my story. When recounting my story, I like to let my emotions flow and feel them. For example, sharing about my father always brings me to tears, and I hope that will never stop. For me, it shows my truest emotions of gratitude towards my father. Because I am fortunate to have a father who worked hard to succeed in a foreign country and still continues to work long, grueling days in the sun to provide for his daughters' education. Therefore, I live in gratitude by not only sharing my story and emotions but also listening to and feeling those of others.

Brittle self-esteem, dreading socialization, failed classes, mediocre grades, skipped meals, rocky family relationships, and absence from reality. These were all things I found to be normal after entering college. It was all I felt capable of doing. I had been a top student at my high school, and coming into college, I frequently compared myself and my achievements to other students. These comparisons created self-destructive thoughts, and I did not know how to identify and manage them. Consequently, the thoughts accumulated and affected my self-esteem, health, and performance. To begin my recovery, I first had to overcome the warped idea of self-reliance I had grown up with and my Mexican heritage’s stigmatization of mental health. This was made possible due to the supportive community at UC Davis. The community educated me on mental health and its importance. With this, I came to accept that the cultural ideas I was raised with can be faulty because they are only one perspective, and no single perspective is correct about everything. After welcoming this new mindset, I engaged in counseling and developed skills to maintain good mental health. For instance, I now measure my success through personal improvements rather than comparisons with others. I can also identify and utilize my strengths, am aware of the thoughts behind my actions, and have coping strategies for stress. Counseling was also an opportunity for self-discovery. I explored my values, aspirations, and queer identity, and reclaimed my passion for reading. My experience with counseling has led me to encourage friends and family to utilize resources to care for their mental health. Furthermore, this has strengthened my relationship with my younger sisters and developed into a support group to help navigate college. In addition, to friends, it has affected my outlook on romantic relationships as well. I now consider openness to therapy as a non-negotiable when looking for a partner because I believe therapy can help mediate our interactions during difficult times and help us succeed together. Before overcoming my mental barriers, I lacked confidence in exploring my career possibilities and personal goals. However, by learning to manage my mental health I gained resiliency, confidence, and a stronger growth mindset. These have helped me take advantage of more opportunities, like interning for a feminist film festival, studying abroad, and applying for volunteer programs and scholarships. As I have participated in more activities, I have become more clear about what I want out of my career. For example, I know I want it to allow me to explore communities and cultures and for it to have a part in the advancement of social justice and human rights. I also no longer fear the prospect of making my own career path, if none fits my goals. My mental health journey had a painful start, but I wouldn't erase it. It has helped me become the strong, ambitious person I am today and I would not give that up. I plan to continue to care for my mental health to ensure I reach my goals and unlock my full potential.

Failing has crushed my self-esteem before. I learned to become comfortable with failure, challenge myself in my areas of failure, and ask for help. A great example of this is my current coding journey. In my freshman year of college, I took an introductory coding class because I saw it as a valuable skill. My fixed mindset led to many failures when facing challenges in the class. I thought I lacked the naturally gifted skills others had to succeed and easily gave in to failure. This left me crushed and fearful of coding. The following year, I took my first design class where I was introduced to the growth mindset and gained awareness of my fixed mindset. Learning about the growth mindset gave me hope and I strived to make this my dominant mindset. One of the most difficult steps to accomplishing this was accepting my failure in coding and rebranding it as a setback and learning experience. This gave me the confidence to register for another coding class. My success in this class helped me regain confidence, and more importantly, showed me that I can learn to code. I then took another class with a more challenging coding language. Near the end of the class, I almost gave in to my fixed mindset but was able to overcome my challenge by asking for assistance from my professor. Even after this difficulty, I plan to enroll in a capstone coding course in my major because I have seen the benefits of defying the limits I set myself. As I have become more comfortable with failure, I have amassed a collection of situations where I was near failure, yet ended up surpassing the hardships and succeeding. These memories now drive me forward through challenges and cultivate my growth mindset.

My self-care is a cycle, a revitalization cycle. When I notice that I am losing motivation, missing meals, losing sleep, and having low resilience, I initiate my “revitalization” cycle. My revitalization cycle begins with a challenging workout that leads to improvement in my basic needs. Completing a workout that challenges my body also strengthens my mind-to-body connection. Through my strong mind-to-body connection I become more aware of what I eat. It leads me to eat more nutritious, homecooked meals. For example, I start to set aside cooking time and plan meals with fruits and vegetables. In addition to better nutrition, working out leaves my body fatigued thus allowing me to get restful sleep. Consequently, my sleep schedule and health improve. Improving my basic needs aids in maintaining my good physical and mental health along with high resiliency. These prepare me to face and succeed in the challenges I face in my academic, professional, and personal life. As a result, I continue to prioritize weekly workouts in my busy life to give myself the best opportunity to reach my full potential.

As I approach graduation, I have come to further value the opportunities available at my university, UC Davis. With the limited time left at UC Davis, I will study abroad, and earn a double minor in preparation for my career goals. I strive to have a career as a User Experience designer that allows me to immerse myself in different communities, domestic and international. As a user experience designer, I will interview communities to understand and empathize with them. Through this, I compile information about their dilemmas and work with a team to create solutions for the community. Together with the community, the team can test our solutions, rework them or create new ones until we find a solution. I hope that with the connections I build and the information I assemble I will create products whose main purpose is helping communities and not solely for profit or improving technology. Additionally, as I travel to work with different communities, I hope to share what I learn with coworkers and people I meet. With my travel stories, I hope to encourage others to travel or simply build a connection with someone different from them. To achieve my goals, I am diligently working to fund my study abroad program in Singapore. In Singapore, I will obtain work experience in my design field and hone my intercultural skills. Improving my intercultural skills will aid me in creating strong connections with interviewees. Meanwhile, I will enter my career with some foundational work experience, thus facilitating the school-to-job transition. Since the program is offered through my university, I will also earn internship credit that is applicable to my Global Studies minor requirements. From my Global Studies minor, I have gained insights regarding international issues, diversity, and taking action in a global setting. I aim to combine these insights with my Anthropology minor which has a sociocultural emphasis. The sociocultural emphasis provides me with a better understanding of societal and cultural structures that I will constantly encounter in my travels and career. By understanding them, I can better adapt to new environments and empathize with those I help. I plan to make the best of my last years in college by achieving my educational goals because I do not know if I will have the opportunity to further my formal education in the future. However, I plan to continue to learn through my career and the people I meet to reach my full potential. All the while, I will be striving to be a designer who leaves a positive impact on my community, international or domestic.

An unprecedented journey of exploration and self-discovery resulted from my hobby of language learning. I started my language learning in high school where I used my local library’s free resources like CDs, books, and Mango, a language learning app. These resources were used to learn some Korean, Japanese and Chinese. After entering college, my language learning focused on Mandarin Chinese. In college I looked for more resources I could use to practice my listening and speaking skills. Consequently, I participated in cultural exchange program at UC Davis. Through the program I met students from China and Taiwan, and three of my closest friends. While interacting with students from China and Taiwan, I was able to learn about some of the different dialects that existed in Mandarin. Through them, I gained a new perspective on Chinese culture and the diversity within communities who speak the same language. My experience with students in the program also helped me discover my enjoyment of interacting with international communities and learning about their cultures. Therefore, I now aspire to have a design career where I am able to travel to different location where I can interact with the local communities and learn from them. Along with helping me set career goals, language learning has also has impacted my self-confidence. Learning a language required me to become comfortable with being wrong and learning from my mistakes. It has also taught me the value of long-term goals over short-term rewards and the importance of recognizing small improvements. For example, I may not yet have conversational fluency, but an improvement in my listening and comprehension skills demonstrates that I am closer to achieving that goal. My hobby has led me to explore activities, make friends, create career goals, and gain new skills beyond language fluency. Thus, language learning will remain my hobby post-college, and I will continue to enjoy it, and the surprises it brings.