What excites me the most about college is being able to set my own routines and healthy habits that I can carry over to adulthood. Throughout middle and high school, my dream was to become a professional ballerina. I was dancing 20 hours a week and spending all my weekends and summers practicing at the studio. Though my career goals shifted away from dance due to the pandemic, much of the mindset around health that I had learned from dance remained the same when I entered college. In ballet, it is ideal to be extremely thin, and eating disorders are normalized if not encouraged. Dancers are taught to work through injuries because “the show must go on.” Dance taught me hard work and perseverance, but it also exposed me to unhealthy ideas about health that I have needed to gradually unlearn throughout college. I have had anxiety for most of my life, but it became more severe during the pandemic. Entering college in the fall of 2021, it became even worse as I was attending a new school in a new state and having my first major social interactions since the spring of 2020. One of my main symptoms of anxiety has always been nausea, but during orientation week, it was so bad that I was barely able to eat. My anxiety became debilitating. During my second week of freshman year, I called my doctor to determine what to do with my complete lack of appetite, and she told me to start going to the gym. I was transitioning from 20 hours of physical activity a week to only three scheduled hours of dance classes combined with nausea, so adding more physical activity to my schedule would hopefully bring my appetite back. While this was effective in getting my appetite back and making me feel more physically normal, I found that working out was even more beneficial to my mental health. I loved the routine of getting up and hopping on the treadmill, and I especially loved how relaxed I felt afterward. I started working out early in the morning before everybody was awake so I would have alone time to focus on myself. Now, I have expanded from my freshman fall treadmill exercises to a combination of indoor and outdoor cardio, weightlifting, swimming, and pilates. With a busy course-load and a part-time job, I still find my early morning workouts to be my favorite form of self-care. Physically, my workout regimen helps me cross-train for dance, which is still something I love, when I don’t always have time or money to go take a class. Mentally, working out helps manage my anxiety and provides a sense of calm that other coping mechanisms have not been able to. My mindset has also shifted overall to be more healthy. By doing research on exercise science and getting into different kinds of workouts, I have learned that physical fitness doesn’t have to look like being stick thin and that food is imperative for fun and for fueling your body. I have been able to use skills like perseverance and hard work that I learned through dance and apply them to my new goal of working on my physical and mental health. Though my healthy lifestyle changes have mostly been focused on the physical, I’ve found that they’ve greatly impacted all aspects of my well-being. Throughout my college career thus far, I have learned that the most important thing I can do for my health is listen to what makes my body feel good, and I hope to continue this mindset into adulthood.

Throughout middle and high school, my dream was to become a professional ballerina. I was dancing 20 hours a week and spending all of my weekends and summers practicing at the studio to achieve this goal. Though my career goals shifted away from dance due to the pandemic, much of the mindset around health that I had learned from dance remained the same as I entered college. In ballet, it is ideal to be extremely thin, and eating disorders are normalized if not encouraged. Dancers are often taught to work through injuries because “the show must go on.” Despite these negative aspects, dance has taught me hard work and perseverance and showed me what it means to be motivated to achieve a goal. I have had anxiety for most of my life, but it became more severe during the pandemic. Entering college in the fall of 2021, it became even worse as I was entering a new school in a new state and having my first major social interactions since the spring of 2020. One of my first symptoms of anxiety has always been nausea, but during orientation week, it was so bad that I was barely able to eat. My anxiety became debilitating. During my second week of freshman year, I called my doctor to determine what to do with my complete lack of appetite, and she told me to start going to the gym. I was transitioning from 20 hours of physical activity a week to only three scheduled hours of dance classes combined with nausea, so adding more physical activity to my schedule would hopefully bring my appetite back. While this was effective in getting my appetite back and making me feel more physically normal, I found that working out was even more beneficial to my mental health. I loved the routine of getting up, getting ready, and hopping on the treadmill, and I especially loved how relaxed I felt afterward. I started working out early in the morning before everybody was awake so I would have time alone where I could just focus on myself. Now, nearly two years later, I have expanded from my freshman fall treadmill exercises to a combination of indoor and outdoor cardio, weightlifting, swimming, and pilates. Physically, my workout regimen helps me cross-train for dance, which is still something I love, when I don’t always have time or money to go take a class. Mentally, workout out helps me manage my anxiety and provides me with a sense of calm that other coping mechanisms have not been able to. My mindset has also shifted overall to be more healthy. By doing research on exercise science and getting into different kinds of workouts, I have learned that physical fitness doesn’t have to look like being stick thin and that food is imperative for fun and for fueling your body. I have been able to use skills like perseverance and hard work that I learned through dance and apply them to my new goal of working on my physical and mental health. Though my healthy lifestyle changes have mostly been focused on the physical, I’ve found that they’ve greatly impacted all aspects of my well-being.

I had my first anxiety attack at age 6 in a movie theater while watching “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” I lived in Arkansas during elementary school in the middle of tornado alley, where 75% of the world’s tornadoes occur. Multiple times every spring and summer, the sky would turn green, the storm sirens would sound, and I would help my parents close all of the shutters and blinds. For a few hours, I would sit in our interior bathroom tub with my dog, a book, and my iPod shuffle playing “Firework” by Katy Perry on full blast until one of my parents came in to let me know the threat had subsided. In one of the earliest tornadoes I remember, portions of our living room roof were ripped off. I remember leaving the bathroom, seeing debris on the carpet, shingles in the pool, and wooden fence shrapnel on the pavement as the green clouds parted to reveal an orange sunset. If you’d only seen that sunset, you wouldn’t have had any idea of the prior terror, with 15 homes in our town irreparably destroyed. We had been lucky. Every time a tornado alert would flash in the bottom right corner of our TV screen after dinner or a tornado happened in a movie, like in the “Wizard of Oz” or even the spaghetti tornado in “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, I would become extremely anxious, with uncontrollable physical symptoms. The only time I would not have this reaction was when the sirens went off, signaling that the tornado was nearby and headed our way. In these situations, I would remain calm, help my parents close the shutters, and evacuate myself to the bathroom with militant efficiency. I let the storm exist only outside of the house and in the pit in my stomach. I could never fall asleep those nights. Having high-functioning anxiety means that there is a tornado inside, but all anybody else can see is the tranquil, orange sunset that follows because clearly, there’s nothing to see here. In some ways, my anxiety is beneficial. It means I’ve never missed an assignment, forgotten a birthday, or pushed responsibilities to the last minute. However, it also means I can’t turn off my brain, making me exhausted and irritable by the end of each day. This has affected my relationships because, without explicit self-disclosure, even my closest friends cannot discern where I’m at internally. Since I’m the only one who sees the full extent of my anxiety, it’s taken me until now, 14 years after the onset of symptoms, to feel comfortable enough to begin seeking professional help. As stereotypical as it sounds, I truly believe there is no way to fully understand what someone else is going through. However, the best we can do to support individuals who experience mental health challenges is to listen, empathize, and do our best to provide everyone with resources for support, regardless of if they show signs of mental health challenges. I want to work in high school counseling because, with my mental health and other identities, I did not feel like my school offered enough support. I am passionate about ensuring that students, particularly those with marginalized identities like myself, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive by listening to and advocating for the needs of all students.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program, we all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate, because, you know, Asian, genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But of course, my entry test scores were not the cause of these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looks like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, when combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether one of them could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. The hardest part about growing up experiencing racism was feeling like no one was willing to listen. I was one of the only students of color at my elementary school and one of the only Asian students at my middle and high school, and I remember feeling helpless and powerless when it came to racism. In college, I still attend a predominantly white institution, but I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased self-education on race-related topics and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so that they do not have to associate schooling with racism and hopelessness like I once did.

“Why don’t you want to play with him?” “I’m busy reading.” “He said he’s busy reading. Did you want to play, or are you lonely and want someone to hang out with?” “Just lonely.” “Would you want to read with him?” “Sure.” When I was 3, I created a contract called the “Plan for Peace,” settling a playground disagreement that stemmed from a child’s loneliness. After discussing the terms with the involved parties, I employed my daycare teacher’s help to write the contract out, with crayon signatures at the bottom. At this time, I underwent testing, determining that my intellectual and emotional capabilities were beyond what was typical of my age group. Growing up as a gifted child, I experienced social isolation from peers and a lack of attention from educators. Interacting with my peers was often challenging because I had difficulty fitting in, holding the playground nicknames of “teacher's pet” and “computer brain” throughout elementary school. As I grew older, I struggled with anxiety, depression, and eating disorders as I battled perfectionism and high expectations from myself and others. When I had these problems, school personnel did not support me. Because I was not falling behind academically and could cover any visible signs of mental health problems or social isolation, no one reached out. I was finishing my work before everyone else, rarely had homework since I usually finished it at school, and actively participated in my classes. Even when I finally asked for help, my needs were undermined because I was perceived as successful. I aspire to be a high school counselor. In my career, I want to ensure that all of my students are seen by interacting with each student one-on-one as much as possible, even if I do not see them having a hard time. I also specifically want to work towards supporting gifted students academically and personally since opportunities specifically for us tend to cut off before reaching middle and high school. Academically, I want to push any school environment I work in to provide more opportunities for growth for gifted students. Even within a typical classroom, there is room to provide gifted students with supplemental activities without providing busy work or isolating them from other students. Though the work I want to do focuses more on the mental health aspect, I still want to advocate for gifted students’ academic needs within my institutions. If I meet with a student who is bored with their coursework, I want to help facilitate conversations with their teachers to find a way to meet their academic needs. Especially with older and gifted students, I believe that assisting them in advocating for their needs rather than doing it for them is extremely important because they understand their needs best. I would assist as a counselor by facilitating the conversation, but having the student lead this process can also help them build communication skills that will serve them in the future. On the mental health side, I aim to expand access and teach gifted students that their needs are valued by building connections and creating spaces where gifted students can comfortably speak out about their problems without being told their issues are invalid because they are invisible. Being gifted is exactly as it sounds, a gift. However, it comes with the challenges of being different from your peers, needing to live up to higher expectations, and tending to burn out when these challenges inevitably happen. On the mental health side, I want to make a direct impact on gifted students' lives by seeing their struggles and being able to empathize with them or provide further support when needed. Based on my personal experiences as a gifted child, I am very invested in supporting gifted children in my career as an educator. Especially as a high school counselor, I believe that my role can expand access and inclusion in support services for gifted children where they do not typically exist today.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program, we all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate, because, you know, Asian, genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But of course, my entry test scores were not the cause of these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looks like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, when combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether one of them could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. The hardest part about growing up experiencing racism was feeling like no one was willing to listen. I was one of the only students of color at my elementary school and one of the only Asian students at my middle and high school, and I remember feeling helpless and powerless when it came to racism. In college, I still attend a predominantly white institution, but I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased self-education on race-related topics and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so that they do not have to associate schooling with racism and hopelessness like I once did.

I had my first anxiety attack at age 6 in a movie theater while watching “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” I lived in Arkansas during elementary school in the middle of tornado alley, where 75% of the world’s tornadoes occur. Multiple times every spring and summer, the sky would turn green, the storm sirens would sound, and I would help my parents close all of the shutters and blinds. For a few hours, I would sit in our interior bathroom tub with my dog, a book, and my iPod shuffle playing “Firework” by Katy Perry on full blast until one of my parents came in to let me know the threat had subsided. In one of the earliest tornadoes I remember, portions of our living room roof were ripped off. I remember leaving the bathroom, seeing debris on the carpet, shingles in the pool, and wooden fence shrapnel on the pavement as the green clouds parted to reveal an orange sunset. If you’d only seen that sunset, you wouldn’t have had any idea of the prior terror, with 15 homes in our town irreparably destroyed. We had been lucky. Every time a tornado alert would flash in the bottom right corner of our TV screen after dinner or a tornado happened in a movie, like in the “Wizard of Oz” or even the spaghetti tornado in “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, I would become extremely anxious, with uncontrollable physical symptoms. The only time I would not have this reaction was when the sirens went off, signaling that the tornado was nearby and headed our way. In these situations, I would remain calm, help my parents close the shutters, and evacuate myself to the bathroom with militant efficiency. I let the storm exist only outside of the house and in the pit in my stomach. I could never fall asleep those nights. Having high-functioning anxiety means that there is a tornado inside, but all anybody else can see is the tranquil, orange sunset that follows because clearly, there’s nothing to see here. In some ways, my anxiety is beneficial. It means I’ve never missed an assignment, forgotten a birthday, or pushed responsibilities to the last minute. However, it also means I can’t turn off my brain, making me exhausted and irritable by the end of each day. This has affected my relationships because, without explicit self-disclosure, even my closest friends cannot discern where I’m at internally. Since I’m the only one who sees the full extent of my anxiety, it’s taken me until now, 14 years after the onset of symptoms, to feel comfortable enough to begin seeking professional help. As stereotypical as it sounds, I truly believe there is no way to fully understand what someone else is going through. However, the best we can do to support individuals who experience mental health challenges is to listen, empathize, and do our best to provide everyone with resources for support, regardless of if they show signs of mental health challenges. I want to work in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. I am passionate about ensuring that students, particularly those with marginalized and BIPOC identities like myself, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive by listening to and advocating for the needs of all students.

I had my first anxiety attack at age 6 in a movie theater while watching “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” I lived in Arkansas during elementary school in the middle of tornado alley, where 75% of the world’s tornadoes occur. Multiple times every spring and summer, the sky would turn green, the storm sirens would sound, and I would help my parents close all of the shutters and blinds. For a few hours, I would sit in our interior bathroom tub with my dog, a book, and my iPod shuffle playing “Firework” by Katy Perry on full blast until one of my parents came in to let me know the threat had subsided. In one of the earliest tornadoes I remember, portions of our living room roof were ripped off. I remember leaving the bathroom, seeing debris on the carpet, shingles in the pool, and wooden fence shrapnel on the pavement as the green clouds parted to reveal an orange sunset. If you’d only seen that sunset, you wouldn’t have had any idea of the prior terror, with 15 homes in our town irreparably destroyed. We had been lucky. Every time a tornado alert would flash in the bottom right corner of our TV screen after dinner or a tornado happened in a movie, like in the “Wizard of Oz” or even the spaghetti tornado in “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, I would become extremely anxious, with uncontrollable physical symptoms. The only time I would not have this reaction was when the sirens went off, signaling that the tornado was nearby and headed our way. In these situations, I would remain calm, help my parents close the shutters, and evacuate myself to the bathroom with militant efficiency. I let the storm exist only outside of the house and in the pit in my stomach. I could never fall asleep those nights. Having high-functioning anxiety means that there is a tornado inside, but all anybody else can see is the tranquil, orange sunset that follows because clearly, there’s nothing to see here. In some ways, my anxiety is beneficial. It means I’ve never missed an assignment, forgotten a birthday, or pushed responsibilities to the last minute. However, it also means I can’t turn off my brain, making me exhausted and irritable by the end of each day. This has affected my relationships because, without explicit self-disclosure, even my closest friends cannot discern where I’m at internally. Since I’m the only one who sees the full extent of my anxiety, it’s taken me until now, 14 years after the onset of symptoms, to feel comfortable enough to begin seeking professional help. As stereotypical as it sounds, I truly believe there is no way to fully understand what someone else is going through. However, the best we can do to support individuals who experience mental health challenges is to listen, empathize, and do our best to provide everyone with resources for support, regardless of if they show signs of mental health challenges. I want to work in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. I am passionate about ensuring that students are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive by listening to and advocating for the needs of all students.

I had my first anxiety attack at age 6 in a movie theater while watching “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” I lived in Arkansas during elementary school in the middle of tornado alley, where 75% of the world’s tornadoes occur. Multiple times every spring and summer, the sky would turn green, the storm sirens would sound, and I would help my parents close all of the shutters and blinds. For a few hours, I would sit in our interior bathroom tub with my dog, a book, and my iPod shuffle playing “Firework” by Katy Perry on full blast until one of my parents came in to let me know the threat had subsided. In one of the earliest tornadoes I remember, portions of our living room roof were ripped off. I remember leaving the bathroom, seeing debris on the carpet, shingles in the pool, and wooden fence shrapnel on the pavement as the green clouds parted to reveal an orange sunset. If you’d only seen that sunset, you wouldn’t have had any idea of the prior terror, with 15 homes in our town irreparably destroyed. We had been lucky. Every time a tornado alert would flash in the bottom right corner of our TV screen after dinner or a tornado happened in a movie, like in the “Wizard of Oz” or even the spaghetti tornado in “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, I would become extremely anxious, with uncontrollable physical symptoms. The only time I would not have this reaction was when the sirens went off, signaling that the tornado was nearby and headed our way. In these situations, I would remain calm, help my parents close the shutters, and evacuate myself to the bathroom with militant efficiency. I let the storm exist only outside of the house and in the pit in my stomach. I could never fall asleep those nights. Having high-functioning anxiety means that there is a tornado inside, but all anybody else can see is the tranquil, orange sunset that follows because clearly, there’s nothing to see here. In some ways, my anxiety is beneficial. It means I’ve never missed an assignment, forgotten a birthday, or pushed responsibilities to the last minute. However, it also means I can’t turn off my brain, making me exhausted and irritable by the end of each day. This has affected my relationships because, without explicit self-disclosure, even my closest friends cannot discern where I’m at internally. Since I’m the only one who sees the full extent of my anxiety, it’s taken me until now, 14 years after the onset of symptoms, to feel comfortable enough to begin seeking professional help. As stereotypical as it sounds, I truly believe there is no way to fully understand what someone else is going through. However, the best we can do to support individuals who experience mental health challenges is to listen, empathize, and do our best to provide everyone with resources for support, regardless of if they show signs of mental health challenges. I want to work in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. I am passionate about ensuring that students, particularly those with marginalized or BIPOC identities like myself, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive by listening to and advocating for the needs of all students.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program, we all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate, because, you know, Asian, genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But of course, my entry test scores were not the cause of these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looks like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, when combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether one of them could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Now that I’m older and more experienced, I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased resilience and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. By studying psychology and education at Chapman University, I am learning how to better assist students with mental health issues, building resilience, and navigating the challenges of the education system. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so they do not have to associate schooling with racism and hopelessness like I once did.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program, we all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate, because, you know, Asian, genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But of course, my entry test scores were not the cause of these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looks like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, when combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether one of them could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. The hardest part about growing up experiencing racism was feeling like no one was willing to listen. I was one of the only students of color at my elementary school and one of the only Asian students at my middle and high school, and I remember feeling helpless and powerless when it came to racism. In college, I still attend a predominantly white institution, but I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased resilience and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so they do not have to associate schooling with racism and hopelessness like I once did.

School counselors are essential because they allow students to seek support regarding their mental health, college applications, career planning, and any other needs. Attending a lower-income high school with a large population of students of color and holding these identities myself, I have experienced firsthand how important it is for students’ futures to have accessible student support services. While teachers can provide day-to-day support in the classroom, counselors can provide the specialized support that teachers may be unable to deliver due to their other responsibilities. Attending Chapman, a wealthy, private university, I have also seen what students with more access to college and career resources can achieve. Students who can afford high-end counseling and advising services are connected to exclusive internships, jobs, and higher education opportunities that can lead them to even more prospects for the future. Through high school counseling, I plan to use my education and personal experiences to help students in underprivileged groups access these opportunities not typically afforded to them. My high school counselor could have been more supportive of my college goals, constantly reminding me to lower my expectations and advising me against applying to challenging schools because it was likely a waste of time. Even if I were admitted, he said I would probably be unable to afford it. I understand his concern because I know I cannot eliminate systemic barriers like race, class, or academic achievement for myself and my students. Still, I want to inspire youth to find ways to push beyond their existing societal positioning and reach for opportunities they are interested in. Personally, I have been able to push past these barriers with the help of a strong support system at home, an intrinsic motivation to research college admissions, and lots of scholarship applications. Now that I’m attending Chapman, I work in student affairs at Residence Life and use the career resources I have the privilege to access so that I can gradually attain skills that will help my future students. I knew I wanted to be a school counselor when I began taking these steps toward achieving my educational goals, as I realized there will always be students like me who have a specific idea for the future but need more resources to pursue it. I aspire to be an advocate and resource for such students so they can achieve their dreams too. By helping underprivileged students obtain social mobility and push past their limitations, I hope to make the world more equitable for all people, especially low-income populations and people of color.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program. We all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate because, you know, Asian genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But, of course, my entry test scores did not cause these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looked like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether one could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Another challenge I’ve experienced in education is being lower income in wealthy environments. My entire childhood, I attended costly ballet classes on scholarships. Though my public high school had a low average income level, I felt unable to participate in social activities and conversations at the dance studio. I have a specific memory of shopping with my classmates from dance and being pressured to purchase a pair of jeans that I could not afford. When I finally caved and told them that they were too expensive, they looked at me with a look of wondrous horror, as if they couldn’t possibly imagine that fifty dollars for a pair of pants was too much. Now, I attend a private university, again, on primarily scholarship funding. This school year, I moved in with new roommates who had been my close friends the prior school year. We went to IKEA to purchase a few items we needed for our apartment that we planned to split the costs of. One of them became frustrated with me for “micromanaging” our spending. I had explained my financial situation before we moved in, but to wealthy students at my school, money never had to be a consideration. In these environments, I’ve found it isolating to experience financial stress because many of my peers have not gone through it in the same way. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. The hardest part about growing up experiencing racism and being lower income has been feeling like no one is willing to listen and understand. I was one of the only students of color at my elementary school and one of the only Asian students at my middle and high school, and I remember feeling helpless and powerless when it came to racism. In college, I still attend a predominantly white institution, but I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased self-education on race-related topics and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. However, I still often feel alone when it comes to financial challenges. In my career as an educator, I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as lower-income students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. Though I have found my own ways to cope that allow me to enjoy my educational experiences, I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so that they do not have to associate schooling with isolation and hopelessness as I did.

“I demand that you take her out of the gifted and talented program, we all know she only got in because she’s Asian.” Both alarmingly and entirely unsurprisingly, parents in a small town in Arkansas were made irate by the fact that I, a 5-year-old girl of color, had tested into an elementary school gifted program. As part of my unearned privilege, I recall creating PowerPoint presentations about Labrador retrievers, participating in Quiz Bowl competitions, and representing the district in the county spelling bee, all activities curated to cultivate my innate because, you know, Asian genius. Speaking genuinely, while I am eternally grateful for the opportunities for academic and personal growth I’ve been afforded, from elementary gifted and talented to AP programs to Presidential Scholarships, I find it much less painful to discuss this incident in a sarcastic, lighthearted manner. One child being admitted to a gifted and talented program should not be cause for such anger and hatred. But of course, my entry test scores did not cause these negative feelings. Angry parents, bully classmates, and English-as-a-Second-Language testing are the memories I have from Arkansas. Growing up Asian in the South was being told the rice and shredded nori in your bento box looked like spiders, earning nicknames of computer brain and squinty eyes, and being wrongly placed into ESL classes based solely on your mom’s accented English. As I grew older and moved to the more liberal city of Portland, Oregon, these same ideas didn’t disappear as I had hoped, they just evolved. Angry parents turned into classmates who wanted to copy my homework because I must be great at math! Arachnid lunches to being asked at a high school lunch table to be a classmate’s “anime waifu” since I was the only Japanese girl he knew. The same squinty almond eyes I was bullied for, combined with my uncharacteristically curly hair, caused a couple at a grocery store to try to bet me twenty dollars on whether they could correctly guess where my “exotic beauty” originated. Though aggressions shifted between macro- and micro-, from childhood questioning of my cognitive qualifications to teenage fetishization, racism has been an unfortunate constant in my life. Though I am unsure in what exact capacity, I know that I want to be involved in student services within education, either in high school counseling or undergraduate student affairs at a college or university. The hardest part about growing up experiencing racism was feeling like no one was willing to listen. I was one of the only students of color at my elementary school and one of the only Asian students at my middle and high school, and I remember feeling helpless and powerless when it came to racism. In college, I still attend a predominantly white institution, but I have struggled much less with internalizing experiences of racism due to my increased self-education on race-related topics and my support system of peers and mentors who are available to listen to my experiences. I am passionate about ensuring that students with marginalized identities, such as students of color like me, are provided equitable access to educational environments that are safe and supportive to prevent experiences like mine from being reproduced. I aspire to be an educator who advocates for and listens to the experiences of students of color so that they do not have to associate schooling with racism and hopelessness like I once did.

School counselors are essential because they allow students to seek support regarding their mental health, college applications, career planning, and any other needs. Attending a lower-income high school with a large population of students of color and being part of these identities myself, I have experienced firsthand how important it is for students’ futures to have accessible student support services. While teachers can provide day-to-day support in the classroom, counselors can provide the specialized support that teachers may be unable to deliver due to their other responsibilities. Attending Chapman, a wealthy, private university, I have also seen what students with more access to college and career resources can achieve. Students who can afford high-end counseling and advising services are connected to exclusive internships, jobs, and higher education opportunities that can lead them to even more prospects for the future. Through high school counseling, I plan to use my education and personal experiences to help students in underprivileged groups access these opportunities not typically afforded to them. My high school counselor could have been more supportive of my college goals, constantly reminding me to lower my expectations and avoid applying to challenging schools because it was likely a waste of time. Even if I were admitted, he said I would probably be unable to afford it. I understand his concern because I know I cannot eliminate systemic barriers like race, class, or academic achievement for myself and my students. Still, I want to inspire youth to find ways to push beyond societal limitations and reach for opportunities they are interested in. Personally, I have been able to push past these barriers with the help of a strong support system at home, an intrinsic motivation to research college admissions, and lots of scholarship applications. I knew I wanted to be a school counselor when I began taking these steps toward achieving my educational goals. I realized there will always be students like me who have a specific idea for the future but need more resources to pursue it. I aspire to be an advocate and resource for such students so they can achieve their dreams too.

Through middle and high school, I committed myself to the idea that I would be a professional ballet dancer. I spent over 20 hours a week at the studio, attended prestigious summer intensives across the country, and even auditioned for college dance programs as a junior in high school. I did everything I could to set myself up to either audition for companies or attend a serious college dance program after graduation. During the pandemic however, my dance classes moved to Zoom at home in my bedroom, and I became burnt out. I still loved dancing, but I attended class out of obligation to the dream that I once had, not out of my own desire to go. By choosing to attend Chapman University, a school I had not applied to as a dance major, I felt like I had left that dream in high school. During my freshman year, I took only three hours of dance per week. I found new passions that fulfilled me, like going to the gym, spending time outdoors with friends, and working with students at my on-campus job. While I do not regret minimizing the role of dance in my life for that year because it allowed me to find balance, pursue other interests I had never had the time for, and recover from burn out, I went into my sophomore year feeling empty. Though I still wanted to focus on my academic program as a psychology major and my job since those aspects of my life best align with my long-term goals, I realized that dance is what allows me to pursue those goals. I dance for my mental health, I dance as an escape, I dance to be happy, I dance to express myself, I dance because it is who I am. Without dance, I found that I did not feel fully like myself. That being said, the dance minor at Chapman is very limited in the number and level of classes students can take. Unable to add a dance major for financial reasons but not feeling fulfilled without dance, I began sending emails, talking to my professors after class, and meeting with advisors to see what I could do to dance more. I petitioned into a majors-only dance course during interterm, a period in January where students are enrolled in one class for four weeks. I was able to meet more dance majors and work with different professors than I typically do in the minor program. This has allowed me to continue working with these professors and students during the typical semester, auditing and dropping into classes beyond the level I can enroll in simply because they make me happy. I value my ability to advocate for myself, even for things that aren’t necessary but bring me joy. Asking for help or asking for more can be challenging, but I believe it is important to put myself out there because no one is handing out opportunities to people who do not communicate that they are interested. Especially because I want to have a career in education, advocating for myself allows me to have balance between serving my community and meeting my own needs. I also believe that this skill will enable me to be a better advocate for student needs within any educational setting I work in.

My first task when I moved into my summer apartment was to move the brown couch in the living room, revealing the built-up trash from students past - a Chips Ahoy! bag, vape cartridges, mismatched socks, and a small colony of ants living out of an old Ben and Jerry’s container. The facilities may have been a little less than ideal, but as a Resident Advisor for the summer, I had the entire apartment to myself for three months at no cost. Despite the generous financial and physical accommodations, my extroverted, insect-fearing nature made being alone with only my thoughts and some ants to keep me company an alarming prospect. I have always been an independent person when it comes to accomplishing my primary goals. I started commuting alone from school to my dance studio at 13, attended out-of-state summer ballet programs at 15 and 16, and moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown for college, only accompanied by two suitcases and a backpack. However, I had always fulfilled my “fun” needs socially. My free time was filled with spending time with friends or family. Since social activities made me happy and always seemed to be an option, my summer living alone and away from home was the first time I really needed to consider other options as most students were out of town for the break. While I still greatly value my relationships, the most important thing I’ve learned in the past year is how to find entertainment and joy with only myself. That summer, rather than eating at the dining hall, I tried out new recipes in my kitchen. Instead of going out with friends, I explored local coffee shops by myself. I started going to the gym almost every day. While I still felt lonely at times, I started to learn these simple ways to cheer myself up. Though this growth was prompted by my summer job, I have been able to apply what I have learned about myself to my year-round schedule of classes, work, and extracurriculars. This looks like finding time for independent hobbies I’ve developed like cooking, working out, and exploring local businesses alongside social activities, even within my busy schedule. Hard work needs to coexist with healthy downtime and regeneration, and living alone in a moderately bug-infested apartment was the change I needed to push me toward assessing how I want my rest time to be spent. My love for people has remained the same, but my sense of independence has grown in that how I approach spending time alone has completely changed. I’ve learned that I don’t need to look outside of myself for joy, but that I can also find it within myself.