Michelle Obama once said, "With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.” Although I do not have any kids I can relate to this in the sense that I have two younger siblings that watch my every move. My younger sister is one of the most intelligent people I know. With her creativity and determination I know that she will be able to tackle whatever the world throws at her when she grows up. My younger brother is as iron-willed as they come. He is only six so he has got a lot to learn, but I know that he will grow into a respectable man. They are the people that motivate me on a daily basis. They motivate me to work hard to accomplish my goals no matter how hard that may seem. Because I am the oldest, everyday I try to set the standards for my siblings. I want to show them that no matter how hard society tries to knock you down you can always get back up and prosper.

When I was younger Hannah Montana was my idol. I decided at a very young age that I was going to do whatever it takes to follow in her footsteps and become a famous vocalist. This was hard to accomplish because I soon realized that my vocal abilities were very limited and I needed to choose a different path if I wanted to be successful in life. As I was doing research about other jobs like acting, teaching, and the army, I stumbled upon the first responders. I thought it wouldn't hurt to look deeper into their jobs to see if I would be interested in any of those professions. First, were the firefighters, but I turned that down because I prefer the cold to the heat. Then, were the paramedics. Immediately after watching the first video about this specific profession I was hooked. I thought what could be better than riding or driving around the city in a cool truck saving lives. My mother is a Certified Medical Assistant, so when I told her my plan she was quick to give me some insight about this profession. She encouraged me to take a step further and become a nurse. I was pretty set in my ways, but I kept her comments in the back of my mind. A couple weeks later my mother had to work as an on site medic at a roller derby game. Because my siblings and I had never seen anyone play roller derby before she decided to bring us with her. Although the game was exciting to watch, all of my focus was on my mother who was working on a player that hurt her shoulder in the middle of the game. That night I recalled back on what my mother had told me weeks before and decided to look further into becoming a nurse. After an abundant amount of research I decided becoming a registered nurse and in due time a nurse practitioner is the right career path for me. Throughout my high school career I have and will continue taking classes focused on important topics that are immensely useful in the nursing field. I have also attended a nurse camp during the summer of 2020 to better understand the profession and what it all entails. After high school I plan on going to Tennessee State University to earn my Bachelors of Science in Nursing. Eventually, I will go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. As I was doing my research I learned about the plethora of health inequities throughout the healthcare system. To mention a few, racial and ethnic minorities, people living in low income households, and members of the LGBTQ+ community often experience barriers to the care they deserve, such as violence, low income, and atrocious living conditions more often than their counterparts. This is unacceptable. I am passionate about helping those in need by any means necessary. I can not sit back and watch poor practice flourish. We may all be our own individual person, but how we are raised, where we grew up and events we have lived through influences how we treat one another. Increasing racial diversity in healthcare would be beneficial to the minorities who are constantly being mistreated because they can better relate to certain patients and provide them the care they deserve. By going into the medical field I am positive that I can make a difference to help those in need.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “to lose patience is to lose the battle.” In other words, patience is the key to turning any dream into a reality. To be patient one must persevere, tolerate delay, and respond to stressful situations without annoyance or anger. This is immensely important to me because I have a goal that I know I will be put into tough situations in order to accomplish it, but with patience I know that it is possible. My goal is to go to college to become a nurse and in due time a nurse practitioner. I have taken high school classes geared towards nursing and as of right now I am taking college classes that will also benefit me in achieving my goal of becoming a nurse practitioner. During the summer of 2020 I participated in the Multicare Nurse Camp to better understand what the job entails. The high school classes on top of the college classes have been difficult to persevere in because of the fact that many of my classes have been virtual instead of in person, but my patience has helped lead me towards the path to success. Because I have been patient throughout his entire pandemic I know that I will have no issue doing so once I go to college and eventually start my career.

I am a first generation college student. I currently live in a single-parent household with my two younger siblings. My wildest dream is to become a nurse and eventually a nurse practitioner. During my high school career, I have taken and will continue to take classes geared towards nursing. After high school, I plan on going to college for nursing. Eventually, I want to go back to school to further my education and become a nurse practitioner. I have also completed a nurse camp during the summer of 2020 to better understand the profession and what my future may look like. Although taking these steps towards becoming a nurse has been helpful, I have also been doing research on my own time about the profession and the medical field as a whole. I had learned many fascinating things that have only made me more sure of my decision to go into nursing. For example, nurses are persistently named as one of the most trusted professions in the world according to The annual Gallup Survey, a licensed nurse can practice virtually anywhere around the globe, and nurses can work in almost any health care specialty there is. Unfortunately, during my research I had also found out about the health inequities that thrive in the medical field. To mention a few, Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to acquire severe disabilities or even die from pregnancy-related complications or childbirth than White women (https://bwhi.org/policy-development/), according to http://www.uniteforsight.org/, the urban poor are often neglected by health officials because of their adverse living arrangements despite having the most serious health issues, and according to The National Academy of Medicine, “racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable." I believe this is unacceptable. There is no valid reason as to why people are being treated differently in the healthcare system based on who they are. Although I can not help everyone around the globe, becoming a nurse will ensure that I change someone’s world for the better. I can not watch as minorities are constantly being mistreated by those who are there to help. By joining this profession I can better relate to certain patients and therefore give them the proper care they need and deserve. By taking a step forward I hope others are inspired to do the same so eventually, the health inequities disappear and the world can change for the better.

Known as the “Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman is the woman that I admire most from history. We all know that Harriet Tubman was able to free a plethora of people as a conductor in the Underground Railroad. That is outstanding in and of itself, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. On her missions, Harriet Tubman did all that she could to make sure her “passengers” made it to freedom. They would sleep in swamps, move only at night (often in the winter), and if needed she threatened to kill those who got cold feet. During this time, a bounty was placed on her head for what would be around $330,000 today. Even Though, there were an abundance of factors working against her, she never lost a single person on any of her expeditions. During the early 1860’s she was a nurse, cook, and spy for the Federal Troops. While in active service she found a cure for Union troops suffering from dysentery based on her knowledge of the local flora in Maryland, led combat assaults, and helped relieve symptoms of Chickenpox, Cholera, and Yellow Fever. When she was younger, she was hit in the head with a heavy object which caused her to have severe headaches and narcolepsy. After the war she had brain surgery to fix the issues and instead of going under she insisted on biting a bullet just like how the soldiers did when they had to get an amputation. Looking at her life, she teaches us what it means to be brave, powerful, and determined even when the world is trying to stop you and that is why she is the person I admire most from history.

One of the greatest kid movies of all time is “The Incredibles,” because it provided a great example of teamwork, responsibility, and family. Growing up I would watch this movie so often, that I could recite the movie almost word for word. During the movie, Elastagirl had said "Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it.” I did not understand how important this quote was when I was younger, but I now see the power it holds. From the moment we are born everything around us influences who we will become. As we grow we are told to love ourselves inside and out, but that is easier said than done. Society creates insecurities that can be hard to forget. Because of this some people change who they are to make others happy instead of being who they want to be. In my opinion living life for others instead of yourself is not a life worth living. Elastagirl’s quote is special to me because it reminds me to keep being me no matter what because that is the only way I can truly live.

When someone is down on their luck and feel as though they are experiencing the worst pain there is, most people would want someone by their side to help them through it. For some that may be a parent, a sibling, or maybe a friend, but who do people turn to when their person is not around? Someone who will always be there for you no matter what is a nurse. Even Though, they have one of the hardest jobs in the world, they still work in the most honest and ethical profession. These values are extremely important to me. After high school I plan to go to college to become a nurse and in due time a nurse practitioner. I have taken high school classes geared towards nursing and as of right now I am taking college classes that will also benefit me in achieving my goal of becoming a nurse practitioner. During the summer of 2020 I participated in the Multicare Nurse Camp to better understand what the job entails. After I completed the program, I was more sure than ever that this was the right path for me. I am aware that personally I can not help everyone, but by taking this step I can change a few lives and influence others to do the same.

The average person speaks thousands of words a day, so we are bound to hear something amazing every once in a while. The wisest thing I have heard was by the one and only Martin Luther King Jr. in a sermon called “ Loving your enemies.” Here he said “Darkness can not drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” This means that in order to live we must be kind to one another no matter what because if we are constantly trying to fight one another we will always be stagnant. Sometimes being the bigger person is hard because it is in our nature to want to get an eye for an eye, but we must remember if it is truly worth it. For example, during my last softball season one of my teammates was constantly being rude to me without having a cause. I could have gone out of my way to get her back, but I took the time to think about if that was really worth it. I came to the conclusion that it was not worth my time. If I would have tried to “get her back” the mortality of the team would have declined and we would not have made it through the season peacefully. Times like that is when I am reminded of Dr.King’s quote.

Generosity may mean different things to different people, but I understand that it is when you give all you can to someone or something even when it is not necessary and you are not doing it to get something in return. I believe all healthcare workers are as generous as they come. The medical field is one of the hardest jobs to do well because it requires a great amount of commitment, endurance, and hard work. Healthcare professionals experience high levels of stress, are often exposed to illnesses, and have to help people get through rough times in their lives while expecting nothing in return, but each and every they continue to go to work and do their job. This has inspired me to go into the medical field. After high school, I plan to go to college to become a nurse. Eventually, I will go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I am extremely passionate about helping those in need and I believe that going down this path is the best way for me to accomplish that. I have taken high school classes focused on nursing and in my final year of high school, I will take college classes geared towards my goal. I have also participated in a nurse camp to better understand what my career might look like and it made me more certain that this is the correct path for me.

The medical field is one of the most difficult professions there are because it requires the utmost amount of commitment, endurance, and hard work. Fortunately, technology has advanced to help those in this field. One of the earliest inventions was the stethoscope. It was created in 1816 by René Laennec. Although this stethoscope is not as great as the ones we have today, it is still an amazing invention because it was the first time a physician could explore what was happening inside the body without having to cut open their patient. Over one hundred years later, Dr. John Gibbon created the heart-lung machine, otherwise known as the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. This is significant because it allowed doctors to perform open-heart surgeries. In 1958, Forrest Morton Bird helped to create the first reliable mass-produced mechanical ventilators which help push oxygen into the lungs when they are not functioning properly. Inventions such as these have paved the way for the technology we have now. My favorite piece of technology that has been created in the past ten years would have to be gene therapy technology because according to the Recombinant Advisory Committee (RAC), “it can wipe out genetic disease before they can begin and eliminate suffering for future generations.” The U.S Food and Drug Administration states, “Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease.” The three ways it can do this include ‘replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy of the gene, inactivating a disease-causing gene that is not functioning properly, or introducing a new or modified gene into the body to help treat a disease.” Gene therapy is used to treat many things including cancer, genetic diseases, and infectious diseases. One of the greatest breakthroughs for this therapy was in 2017 when a teenage boy was cured of sickle cell disease. The sickle cell trait is an inherited blood disorder that affects anywhere from 1 million to 3 million Americans. Because oxygen is not being delivered to the body properly, this can cause many problems including anemia, strokes, and acute chest syndrome. To cure the boy, a team in France gathered his bone marrow stem cells, mutated them, and put them back in his body. After three months he began to behave normally. Years later he still shows no signs of sickle cell. Inventions like this motivate me to go into the medical field to become a nurse. Helping people as efficiently as possible while still providing them with the best care is what I will accomplish by joining this profession. I can not help everyone, but by doing my part I will change the world.

The greatest way to learn is by reading books. They teach you all sorts of things like how to treat others the way you want to be treated, good things do not come easy, or to be who you are not what others want you to be. The greatest lesson I have learned is from a book called Tears of a Tiger. In this story, the main character, Andy, and his friends decide to celebrate after they won a high school basketball game by drinking a few alcoholic beverages. Then, they drove around their town and unfortunately crashed the car. All of the characters inside the car except for one made it out before it exploded. Throughout the rest of the story we read about how this incident has affected the other characters. Out of all of the books I have read, Tears of a Tiger is by far my favorite because it has taught me that I should never take a moment for granted because I do not know what will happen next. A time when this was apparent would be towards the end of my sophomore year. One day things were going well and the next thing I knew everything shut down because the pandemic had started. I was not allowed to see my friends or family for months. It made me realize that I should have spent more time with them before it was too late. Although I first read Tears of a Tiger in middle school, I continue to apply this lesson I learned to my everyday life.

Oscar Wilde once said “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that’s all.” I believe that setting goals in life and doing all that you can do to accomplish them is immensely important and is a way we can live instead of being stagnant in life. Having goals helps motivate you to do better whether that is in school, for your health, or for those close to you. I have many goals in life, but the greatest goal I have is to become a nurse and eventually a nurse practitioner. During my high school career, I have taken and will continue to take classes geared towards nursing. After high school, I plan on going to college for nursing. Eventually, I want to go back to school to further my education and become a nurse practitioner. I have also completed a nurse camp during the summer of 2020 to better understand the profession and what my future may look like. Although taking these steps towards becoming a nurse has been helpful, I have also been doing research on my own time about the profession and the medical field as a whole. I had learned many fascinating things that have only made me more sure of my decision to go into nursing. For example, nurses are persistently named as one of the most trusted professions in the world according to The annual Gallup Survey, a licensed nurse can practice virtually anywhere around the globe, and nurses can work in almost any health care specialty there is. Unfortunately, during my research I had also found out about the health inequities that thrive in the medical field, these are including but are not limited to racial and ethnic minorities, people living in low income households, and members of the LGBTQ+ community often having to experience barriers to the care they deserve, such as violence, low income, and atrocious living conditions more often than their counterparts. Although I can not help everyone around the globe, becoming a nurse will ensure that I change someone’s world for the better. I can not watch as minorities are constantly being mistreated by those who are there to help. By joining this profession I can better relate to certain patients and therefore give them the proper care they need and deserve. By taking a step forward I hope others are inspired to do the same so eventually, the health inequities disappear and the world can change for the better.

When I was younger I wanted to be a singer, but I soon realized I could not carry a tune and needed to be more realistic. One night my mother had to work as an on site medic at a roller derby game. Because my siblings and I had never seen anyone play roller derby before she decided to bring us with her. Although the game was exciting to watch, all of my focus was on my mother who was working on a player that hurt her shoulder in the middle of the game. That night I realized I wanted to go into the medical field. After an abundant amount of research I decided I will become a registered nurse and in due time a nurse practitioner. Throughout my high school career I have and will continue taking classes that are focused on important topics that are immensely useful in the nursing field. I have also attended a nurse camp during the summer of 2020 to better understand the profession and what it all entails. After high school I plan on going to a Historically Black College or University to earn my Bachelors of Science in Nursing. Eventually, I will go back to school to further my education and become a nurse practitioner. As I was doing my research I learned about the plethora of health inequities throughout the healthcare system. To mention a few, Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to acquire severe disabilities or even die from pregnancy-related complications or childbirth than White women (https://bwhi.org/policy-development/), according to http://www.uniteforsight.org/, the urban poor are often neglected by health officials because of their adverse living arrangements despite having the most serious health issues, and according to The National Academy of Medicine, “racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable." This is unacceptable. We can not sit back and watch poor practice flourish. One action that could be a solution to this problem is increasing racial diversity in healthcare. We are all our own individual person, but how we are raised, where we grew up and events we have lived through influences how we treat one another. Increasing racial diversity in healthcare would be beneficial to the minorities who are constantly being mistreated because they can better relate to certain patients and provide them the care they deserve.

Fear by definition is an unpleasant feeling triggered by the perception of danger whether it is real or imagined. There are seven fears that we can feel throughout our life, but I believe the greatest is the fear of failure. Everyone, no matter who you are, has decided not to do something they want because they are afraid of failing. We can not move forward if we are afraid of things not going the way we hope. My main goal right now is to do well in school so that when I graduate I can go to college to become a nurse. Sometimes I find it hard to pursue this goal because problems like money, grades, and motivation make me feel as if failure is on its way, but I must keep trying. A song lyric I often bring up when I am afraid of failing is "Fear not." Reminiscing on these lyrics motivates me to push forward. They help remind me that my plans might work out and even if they don't it is okay and I can always try again.

So far my high school career has been pretty interesting. My freshman year I auditioned for the fall play and fortunately, I was cast. After the fall play, I did Student Works which is when students write plays and other students direct and act in said plays. After that was the musical, but I am in no way, shape, or form a singer, so I played softball. I was on the Junior Varsity team. After the season I won an award for most improved which is amazing because it was my first time playing. Due to the fact that I enjoyed theatre and softball so much I decided to do it again my sophomore year, but unfortunately, covid came and ended everything early. A highlight of my sophomore year would be when I participated in a nurse camp where I was able to learn things about the different medical professions, how to suture, and how to dress up for surgery. After high school, I hope to go to college, so that I can become a nurse. As of right now, I am in a single-parent household, so the college funds are quite low. Receiving this scholarship will help me achieve my goal of becoming a registered nurse. I believe that the medical system is atrocious. It is unfair for people that look like me to be treated differently based on things that they can not control. My aspiration in life is to become a nurse so I can help change people's lives for the better.

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question everyone is asked a million times all throughout their school career. Some say they want to be an astronaut, a teacher, or even the president, but I want to become a nurse. The healthcare system is heinous. There is an abundance of health disparities for Black people in every part of the healthcare system. To name a few, Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to acquire severe disabilities or even die from pregnancy-related complications or childbirth than White women (https://bwhi.org/policy-development/), Black women are less likely to have breast cancer, but are more likely to die from it ( https://www.oprahmag.com/life/health/a23100351/racial-bias-in-healthcare-black-women/ ), and according to The National Academy of Medicine, “racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable. " This is inadmissible. There is no valid reason as to why people are being treated differently in the healthcare system. To help fix the inadequacies I will go to college to become a nurse. I truly feel that by becoming a nurse I can help change people's lives.