Aspiring to be a steward of science to the general public, scientists, and those in the future who aspire to be stewards, I wish to attend graduate school and pursue a master's degree in neuroscience. I am a technician that currently works in comparative medicine but wishes to gain more knowledge in research methodology. My educational goal is to obtain a master’s degree in neuroscience and to pursue a career in research, possibly even applying for a doctoral program in the future. To pursue this career, I need additional training in grant proposal writing, research tools, knowledge of previous studies and how to apply knowledge from my studies into active research being done. During graduate school and proceeding it, I wish to forge pathways for people of various backgrounds to pursue STEM studies, especially for those who did not grow up with guardians that were not STEM professionals. I believe more opportunities should be opened to expose underrepresented minorities to STEM teaching earlier in life. A degree in neuroscience would lead me on a road to becoming more knowledgeable about neuroscience, ironically a field where much of this field has yet to be answered. During my college years, I took several oral and writing development courses to discuss various research papers in front of my class, presenting key points of the papers, conclusions, the importance of the research done and possible changes I would make to the reports. As a Lead Animal Care technician, I discuss adherence to research protocols with researchers, and ensure the welfare of various lab mice that are involved with various preclinical studies in both hazardous and conventional settings. I have participated in a career development program that gives select technicians a view of lab duties in areas such as necropsy and histology. Through my experiences and background, I feel I have prepared the steps to seek higher education with a focus in neuroscience research and methodology. Research goes hand in hand with education whether it takes place in a lab or classroom and is done with researchers of every background. It can be arduous, demanding, time consuming but the potential that the research enhances quality of life and broadens our way of thinking makes it worth the effort. Although I work in labs that focus on pathology now, after obtaining my master’s degree, I plan to work in a lab in the future with a focus in neuroscience. I believe this degree will propel me towards a broad connection of researchers in the field of neuroscience. A master’s degree would teach me more about neuroscience applied in the classroom, the anatomy of the brain, research methods and neural processes of both normal function and dysfunction. My degree will be a valuable opportunity for me to gain further experience in both conducting research and writing reports from data gathered from prior experiments and studies.

Success to me is defined by the strength to persevere over significant challenges and how your strength is molded by the triumphs you have collected. It fits over a broad spectrum of hurdles and successes, and it does not have to be physical, monetary, or in the shape of an object. It can be as intangible as finally gaining peace or happiness, feeling the sun on your skin after a long time in the cold or darkness, or even the chance to relax after a busy season. The triumphs you have collected over your life show as your victories, both words being synonymous with a great feat being achieved. People often think success must take the form of extravagance and show to others who see such as a lavishly decorated house, designer clothes, and traveling, which is a privilege. The meaning of success is different for all 8 billion people on the earth, success cannot be measured by just physical means, it must be determined through a holistic lens. My examples of triumphs and victories for me personally were my ability to overcome my non-verbal speech skills at age 5 with the assistance of a school that aids in special needs children, becoming the first person in my family to graduate college, and overcoming my fears and anxiety of going back to school again for a master’s degree in Neuroscience and Education. My greatest achievements include successfully balancing work, school, and volunteer work in my college years, even landing on the dean’s list during my undergraduate years as a first-generation student. Despite the obstacle of having no parent, grandparent or other immediate family finish college before me, I persevered and graduated college while balancing several endeavors. The fact that I balanced those areas of my life then gives me comfort that I can balance it all over again for my master’s degree. For my victories I will give examples of my college life, starting with how I worked as a part-time writing assistant for the director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Providence College, during all 4 years of my attendance there. During my sophomore and junior years, I would head to the myrmecology lab in the evenings taking pictures of different ant species found on campus and drawing specific parts that could be focused on in the lab. The pictures were taken by carefully attaching a camera to a microscope connected to a computer. Once I would find the part of the ant I wanted to analyze, I would zoom in and snap the picture and watch the pixels slowly connect to make this tiny specimen life-sized. It was fascinating to see how much life was just underneath our feet on our tiny campus. It was incredibly daunting as a first-generation student STEM major with no family background in medical or scientific professions, to become proficient in my STEM studies and balance my wants of being a lab assistant and the need to work to cover the fees for my basic needs. My undergraduate years taught me how to persevere even through my greatest obstacles and several skills I use to this day including comprehension of scientific articles, the importance of research, and a variety of research methodologies used around the world. I am proud of the achievements I made in school to achieve my bachelor's degree in biology, the first in my family to do so. Looking back at my achievements, the lessons I learned here are an important reason for me deciding to head back to school to pursue graduate studies, specifically applying and fortunately being accepted to the M.S. neuroscience and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. I am ecstatic to get a chance to delve deeper into biological and behavioral studies and to learn more about research methodologies regarding neuroscience. This scholarship would help me greatly to have funds towards my tuition for my neuroscience degree, as the tuition at Teachers College, Columbia University is nearly $20,000 a semester, so any amount helps greatly to pay for my schooling. I would see this scholarship as a chance to redefine myself again as my studies will be harder and I will be working at the same time so I can support myself and my family while studying to get good grades. This scholarship is a chance for individuals to continue on their pathways to success through education and experience, preparing for careers to be founded and for leaders to be made. An opportunity to obtain a scholarship for my tuition would be a successful relief of some burden as I struggle to pay for tuition for the two years I attend, it is an honor to be considered for this scholarship.

Soot, smoke, flames, and magic, all hidden away in a small boiler room in a world far away from our own. The view turns to our main character standing looking at a single large clump of coal confused and ready to give up when the large man in charge of the flames rises and states “Finish, what you started Human.” That single phrase startles the heroine of the film, Chihiro as she looks towards the flames to repeat the same work as the enchanted soot did before her, to fan the flames of the boiler with coal to heat the enchanted bath house. This magical film I speak of is the award-winning, animated classic Spirited Away made by Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. This movie is the film I would choose to watch for the rest of my life because of its heartwarming nature, magical journey, and most importantly a story of a girl becoming strong enough to risk everything to save her family and friends. Spirited Away starts ordinary, a young girl moves away from her old home to a new town, and she is upset about moving away from her friends and old school. Her parents reassure her she will love her new school and new home. The family then stops at a large statue and stumbles upon countless stalls of food with Chihiro calling for them that the place is creepy, with her parents refusing to listen to her and begin to eat every dish of food they see. Chihiro while exploring is told by a strange boy to leave as the place is not safe, and as she runs back to her parents, she shakes them to leave but when they turn around, she sees they have turned into pigs! Adding to her horror and disbelief countless spirits start to appear before her and she runs away, the strange boy finds her and tells her in order not to fade away and not be harmed she must find a job in the world. Later she finds work from the witch who runs the bath house, who has her sign a contract and takes her name away as payment. The movie shows her journey as Chihiro now called Sen works in the bathhouse and becomes braver as she persists through multiple challenges to find a way to break her parents’ spell and return home. This movie is my absolute favorite to watch because it shows how the journey of childhood is not always easy and shows the heights that persistence and determination will take you. Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl eventually gathers the courage and bravery from the friends she has made to challenge the same witch who took her name. She foils the witch’s plan and her parents from their spell and returns home. Stronger than ever since she has seen dazzling spirits, dragons, polluted spirits, and talking frogs! She knows if she can handle that journey full of trials and tribulations, then she can handle a new home with a new school with new friends. Similar to Chihiro I have been on my journey of trials and errors, from climbing the ladder as a first in my family to graduating from college and ready to return to school to gain a master's degree in neuroscience. I adore this movie for its animation and the story of a child being their hero and inspiring bravery to both generations past and futures to come. This movie is truly one of the finest animated movies ever made.

“-Autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward – are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make... It’s whether our work fulfills us” (Gladwell, 2008, p. 149-150). As an applicant, daughter, mentor and leader, I can attest that this is a quote that lives and breathes through my work. It has presented itself through my service in the classroom and as a mentor to others, and the communities I have joined. My effort in my work stems from having learning disabilities as a toddler including nonverbal speech impediments culminating from autism. My mother vowed to help me reach every developmental milestone after being told by doctors I was autistic and nonverbal at two years of age. It was not until age five that I began to speak and began to break the same barriers that my doctors told my mother I would never get through. I am grateful for her help and she was my first example in my life of the satisfying connection between effort and reward and how working hard can get us an even greater reward that’s worth more than money. Although she was able to teach me how to read through home school learning, she realized her methods of trying to teach me speech were unsuccessful. In an incredible chance of luck, she found sponsorship for me in a school that specialized in teaching speech to deaf children at Clarke school New York. I was a strange outlier indeed as a child with no hearing issues admitted to a school for the deaf, but this school agreed that my speech issues were severe enough that they were willing to help me. I broke through every developmental milestone that doctors warned her I would never make. I write this story as my history of being developmentally disabled is part of my motivation to pursue graduate school and to study neuroscience, both being a role model as an autistic child that was guided to overcome my learning disabilities and to open pathways to others that may have had similar backgrounds to mine that also wish to pursue higher education. Part of my experiences that led me to pursue higher education and apply to grad school was my year of service at City Year. City Year is an educational nonprofit program that prides itself in providing student success coaches ranging from high school to college graduates that teach children in high need classrooms along with their primary teachers. and seeing the power of connection and community had with the team I served along with the children inspired me to continue to mentor others. I applied to grad school because I have a diverse set of both personal and work experiences that would complement the students enrolled in the neuroscience and education program. I was a neurodivergent child who needed extra help in schools because of my learning and speech disabilities, I was a team leader and mentor to other student success coaches and to children in a high need school. I am a great candidate for this scholarship as I wish to attend a graduate school that promotes diversity learning with effective methods on how to teach neurodivergent students and advocate for neurodivergent children receiving the proper care and advocacy for classroom learning. This scholarship would be very useful to put toward my graduate school tuition. Reference Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The story of success (1st ed.). Little, Brown and Company.

Title: Raven at the suite! Twins meet the future gazer! Plot: check this! Cody is playing chess with some of the elderly residents at the hotel and Zack walks in complaining the skate board park has been over run with older kids and there’s no room to skate. Cody says he’s glad he doesn’t do an activity that could cause pain like skating and that he is happy playing chess with the lovely older folks at the hotel. To which the guest playing with Cody asks who he is again and what is happening. Cody says never mind and walks off with Zack as Zack complains more. London and Maddie then come into the scene with London saying how she got three new bags with her daddy's credit card last week. She overhears zack talking about the skate board park and says she would never do an activity that would ruin her makeup. Maddie then tells her if she buys any more make up she would need to have all the rooms in the hotel stocked with her makeup with even more bags to put the makeup in. London then replies she will have mr moseby work on that and that she already has three to start with. Mr moseby comes in, sees the group and tells everyone some new guests that are staying for two days are coming and looks at Zack and Cody, telling them he will have none of their shenanigans. At that moment raven with her parents and brother walk in and raven says ‘raven in the house!’ And London replies it’s actually a hotel with the crew looking at her. Everyone greets each other with Cody saying he could definitely show raven around as no one knows the hotel better than he does and zack says I thought you wanted to just stay inside and play chess? And cody says it can wait there’s a more important game at play here. As Cody is showing raven around the hotel and hearing Cody attempt to impress her with his knowledge of the hotel, Zack and Corey are talking about skate boarding. They then devise a plan to get the park back from the older kids and Zack agrees to show him a few moves in exchange for his help. As this is going on raven has a vision of Zack challenging the older kids to who can skate board the best teaming up with Corey but she sees a skate boarder fall and hurt himself. She thinks it’s Corey and makes up a lie to Cody that she needs to leave because she thinks she hears her mom calling her but he states they are five floors above from where the family was and follows her. Ravens parents then are wondering where Corey went and realize they can’t find him and ask mr moseby to help them look for him. When he sees both the twins and raven and Corey nowhere to be found he knows the twins are fooling around again. Raven and Cody get there just in time to see Zack performing awesome moves at the skate board park and win against the other kids. But as Mr moseby walks into the scene a skate board rolls in and Mr moseby trips on it and he gets hurt in the park, and he tells the twins that their shenanigans happened anyway. Zack then says he didn’t even know Mr moseby could skate board for a whole minute. The group laughs and raven and her family have a nice time at the hotel.