I have had a lifelong experience with mental health. The challenges that I have experienced within my own mental health has truly shaped who I am today. Since I was so young when it first became a part of my life, I was forced to become understanding and comfortable with this new feature of who I am. Now that I am older, I am much more open about mental health challenges overall. I am an advocate for those around me when it comes to the topic of mental health. My personal experience with mental health has shaped my current goals by providing a more mental health focused approach in my education as well as my future career. Growing up, I did not have much of a clear idea for what I wanted to do as an adult but as I have come to have more knowledge on mental health, it has become a passion of mine. Mental health has shaped my relationships because I am more understanding when those around me need any sort of mental health break. I am even willing to drop anything and help them in any way I can. I work to advocate for them and help them understand that their body might be telling them that it is needing a break. Then, by encouraging them to listen to their bodies, I can help them work to feel more calm. Mental health has shaped my understanding of the world because I am able to recognize that everyone has their own challenges in life and oftentimes, we are unable to visibly see them. With that understanding, I am sure to treat every single person I encounter with kindness and respect as well as encourage others around me to do the same. At the end of the day, you never know what someone else is going through and a simple smile can change everything.

I have been fighting with my father since I was seven years old. Since the day my parents got divorced, our relationship has never been the same. He is the reason I want to make a change in my life. I want to prove him wrong in every single way. I want to live a life that I built on my own with a person that makes me happy in a place that is calming. I want to live a life that is mine. Before I began college, one of the biggest arguments I had with my father was the major I was planning to study. Social work. I expressed how passionate I was and how that was more important to me than any amount of money. With that passion, I traveled 860 miles away to a university in a new state and became who I am today. I have continued to take steps every day to reach my dream including various courses that interest me and an internship that is directly related to the field I want to pursue in my future. This scholarship will help me continue to pursue those dreams and go on to help the greater community. Since moving away from home, I have become increasingly independent, specifically in the financial side of my life. This includes payments on my tuition and student loans. Due to this, aside from being a full-time student and having a part-time internship, I also have been maintaining a full-time job for each year I have been in college. This scholarship will allow me to have some weight lifted off my shoulders. I am grateful for every opportunity to relieve some financial stress, especially as a college student with as many responsibilities as I have. I plan to pay this forward to someone else through utilizing my education to the best of my ability. I will take the courses I have completed and the passion that has grown with me into my future career. I will strive the be the best I can be in my position and help as many children and families as I can. With my passion and education, I will focus on how best I can work with them while providing them with any support or advocacy that they need. That is what a social worker is. They help people; support them, advocate for them, empathize with them. That is what I dream of doing.

I am 21 years old and I have no grandparents. I was six when I lost my first one. Nine when I lost my second. And 17 when I lost my third and final grandparent. I know that there are a lot of people in the world who have no grandparents but for me, it really does not feel that way. It feels like I must be the only one to be so young without a single grandparent alive. Almost every single person in my life has at least one grandparent left and I hate to say it, but I am extremely jealous of them. I was close with each one of my grandparents in a different way and each time one of them passed away, I was changed in a new one. The first one taught me what death one. My grandmother on my father's side was the first person in my life who died. The first funeral I attended. The first person I truly had to say goodbye to. At six years old, that is a lot to take in. It really does not make sense to the small, rapidly developing brain that I had at the time. The second one was a little different. I saw it coming. It was cancer that took my grandmother on my mother's side away from me. That does not mean that it was any easier, but at least I was a little prepared. This changed me in a different way though. I was older. I had younger cousins that I wanted to be strong for. Along with that, I wanted to be strong for the rest of my family because that entire year was a mess for everyone in many different ways. I chose to speak at the funeral, which was something I never thought I could do. But I did it. For her, for my mom, for my brother, and most importantly, for myself. The third and final grandparent that I lost truly changed who I am today. My grandfather on my dad's side was my best friend. He was there for every important time in my life until he couldn't be anymore. He came to soccer games and school plays. He met friends and boyfriends. He told me stories and played games with me. He encouraged me to do whatever I was passionate about. His death numbed me. I had become so used to loss after all these funerals that I honestly do not even remember how I felt when I got the news. Sure, I bet I was sad. I mean I had to be, right? But, I was numb. What a feeling to have at only 17 years old. Now at 21 years old, I am pursuing my dreams, just like each of my grandparents would have wanted me to. I know that they are proud of me. I am proud of me. Proud but, numb.

A primary way that I have been helping others with their mental health is through my advocacy of it. I have become increasingly aware of signs and symptoms that the human body can demonstrate when it needs a break. With those in mind, I am sure to recognize them in myself as well as others and encourage everyone around me to listen to what their body is telling them. I plan to use my extensive education in my future personal and professional life to emotionally support others around me. I will be pursuing a career where I will be interacting with people struggling with all kinds of mental health concerns. With my knowledge from my college education, I can help them to understand what that means and what they can do to ease those struggles within them. Many people are unaware of what mental health challenges mean so being able to be that guide for them can be extremely supportive.

Mental health has always been something that is important to me. When I was a young child, I experienced many adversities that led to me having some mental health concerns. Since I dealt with these concerns so early in life, I was forced to get comfortable with them and understand what they meant. Due to that, I have grown to be very open and accepting when other people around me are experiencing various mental health challenges as well as when I am experiencing them personally. As a student, mental health is significantly important to me. College has been an entirely new experience and challenge all on its own and with it came unique responsibilities that I had to learn how to adapt to. One in particular is a level of stress that I was not originally used to. That higher level of stress eventually led to some mental health challenges within me. Since it had been so long since I originally was experiencing new mental health challenges, I was forced to relearn how to control and handle myself in these situations. I took it upon myself to start attending therapy again in order to work on the challenges I was facing so they did not impact any relationships or responsibilities I had going on in my life. I feel that I advocate for mental health within my community in a way that a lot of people do not. Our society today has become extremely accustomed to an unclear work-life balance. With that in mind, a large majority of our society works an overwhelming amount without allowing their bodies any time to rest. I voice my opinion on this very loudly and proudly. Despite how many responsibilities I have and how little time I have during the week, I still make sure to give myself time to rest every week. I have created a system within my schedule to ensure at least one day each week where I can do whatever I want, nothing I need to do. Within my personal relationships at school or at home, I express those thoughts. When a friend of mine was complaining to me that she overslept and was unable to make it to the gym that morning, I explained that her body clearly needed the rest and she could go to the gym the next day, or even just that same evening. When a family member expressed concern about not being able to see their friends throughout the week due to an abundance of meetings, I helped them recognize which day contained even a free hour for a coffee date with someone. I truly believe that everyone deserves to have time to themselves to do what they want to do rather than what they need to do. Even as a student with many responsibilities, I make this a priority and I intend to bring that into my professional life after graduation.

In 2021, my grandfather was diagnosed with brain cancer. After already having three people in my life who were diagnosed with cancer, the cancer part was not the part that shocked me. It was the brain part. I had only ever heard of brain cancer in tv shows and I knew how detrimental it really was. His experience with brain cancer truly influenced my perspective on this disease into a much more negative one than it already was. This is due to watching someone who I was extremely close with, someone who was as healthy as he could be, quite literally wither away right before my eyes. This experience influenced my motivation to raise awareness simply because this was not the first person that I have lost to cancer in my life. Cancer is a horrible disease to which there is still no cure and it is heartbreaking. Some efforts that I have made to be supportive of individuals who are affected by the disease are to simply be there for them. I understand how important it is to just have someone to be there with you to listen and provide moral support. From my own experience of needing this in my life, I strive to be that person for others. I feel that these efforts have made an extremely positive impact on my community because it is always nice to have someone who is there for you and only you. They have also impacted my personal growth because I think they have allowed me to become an even better person than I felt I already was. I will drop anything to be there for someone dealing with this awful disease. Receiving this scholarship will help me achieve my educational and career goals in a great way. Ever since moving away for college, I have become increasingly more independent, specifically financially. This includes payments towards my tuition as well as my student loans. With that in mind, I have faced some financial stress in the past few years. I am grateful for any opportunity, no matter how big or small, to alleviate that stress, even slightly. With my experience with brain cancer, I have strived to spread awareness in my daily life of the disease and will continue to do so throughout the rest of my education and into my future career. I envision my education and skills to contribute to this cause in the future through my advocacy. Advocacy is a major aspect of the social work field and this is a cause that will be a major part of my advocacy.

Mental health has been a major aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. Facing mental health challenges simply because a normal part of my adolescence, something that I had to come to terms with and understand. This has impacted my life to be the way that it is today in a significant way. One specific way that these challenges has impacted my life today is from attended therapy from a young age. I am one of the first people that I knew who was attending therapy in elementary school. This was something that I had to get comfortable with and understand that there is nothing embarrassing about it. Another way that I felt impacted by mental health was due to the stigma that surrounded it. As I grew up and built new relationships, the topic of mental health would be somewhat common. In some of those relationships, I recognized a sense of stigma surrounding my mental health challenges. Some people would not understand the struggles I was facing and others would almost make fun of them. I cannot be mad at someone for not understanding the mental health challenges that someone is facing as long as they are willing to learn and understand. However, I can be mad that someone who I had a relationship with chose to make fun of the struggles I was facing. A final way that mental health has impacted who I am today is much more of a positive one. Since I have been experiencing mental health for the majority of my life, I have come to be more comfortable with it. I have made it a normal part of my life and it is no longer something that I feel embarrassed to talk about. Along with that, I have strived to become a huge advocate for self-care and mental health care. I recognize when my body is demonstrating various signs or symptoms that it needs a break and I do that when necessary. I also encourage those around me to recognize those signs and symptoms within themselves so they can respond accordingly. Along with that, I understand how significant preventative self-care is. Preventative self-care allows individuals to prevent burn out prior to feeling it. I use this knowledge within my daily life to take time for myself and just relax. I also encourage those around me to take rest days even if they think they do not need them.

I have never really thought of something I want to "build" that is not in a literal sense of building a product. But I have thought of goals I have in my personal and professional life. One specific thing that I would like to "build" in my future is a reputation of being good at my career. I have always been known as being a good student but all of that education is leading to one major life event: starting my future career. My career goal is to become a forensic interviewer. This is an extremely difficult profession to take on but despite that, every single person in my life believes that I am just the right type of person to take on that role. Being good at my future profession of a forensic interviewer will build my future because I will be making a drastic, positive change in the lives of my clients and their families. I will be able to be the person that they an count on to get their story and the person that will actively listen to what they have to say. Being a good forensic interviewer will make all of the stress of my education and training all worth it. This will make a positive impact on myself because it will feel extremely rewarding. Not just because I am doing well but because I am changing the lives of those I interact with. Forensic interviewers do extremely necessary work within their communities and it is something that I desperately want to be a part of. I want to be the person that those children and their families can count on to ease the pain of their situation, even if it is just slightly. I will be able to limit their trauma by only making them tell their story one time.

I have lost a lot of people in the short time that I have been on this Earth. It is definitely a difficult thing to accept and oftentimes I find myself comparing my experiences to those of my peers. A significant loss that I have experienced was the death of my best friend. When I was 18 years old, my childhood best friend lost her battle with cancer. She was only 15 years old. Despite all of the deaths I have experienced in my life, hers was one that really hit me in a distinct way. Part of it could have been how close we were. Part of it could have been how young she was. Maybe it's both of those things and a hundred other reasons. All I know for sure is that her life and her death has shaped me to be who I am today. To start, I am in social work because of her. I remember early in her diagnosis she expressed to me how much she adored her social worker. She said she was so nice and truly made her day every time she saw her. Although I am pursuing a different field of social work, she was one of the driving factors for me to look into this field. Along with that, she was always so bright, always so optimistic. She used to always say, "there is always something to be thankful for." This is something I strive to represent every day. It feels as though it is my little way to honor her. This experience with loss has influenced my goals in life due to the career aspirations I began to pursue due to her. I would not have looked into social work in the way that I did had it not been for her adoration of her own social worker in the hospital. This experience with loss has also influenced my outlook on life and society as a whole. Unfortunately, the extreme amount of loss that I have experienced in my short life has led to me feeling as more of a cynical, blunt person. Although I feel that is not always a bad thing, it is also important to look on the bright side of situations when possible. She has brought that more positive outlook into my life and I try to remember her way of thinking anytime I am feeling negative about a situation. Lastly, this experience with loss has impacted the way that I live my life overall because I feel less surprised about negative events that occur throughout society. I sort of take those experiences as a part of life, no matter how upset they make me. I am also more understanding of those who are actively experiencing loss since I have had so much experience in that area of life. Although I miss her every day, I hold her close to my heart and use her perspective to drive my life to be better.

Mental health has always been a significant aspect of my life. I have been a devoted advocate of mental health and self-care for as long as I can remember and I truly believe that it has influenced every part of my life to get me to where I am today. Mental health has influenced my beliefs because I have come to understand that every individual in our world has experienced some kind of mental health struggle. Of course everyone's perception is their own reality so some people might have felt that it was a greater struggle than others, but despite that, every one has experienced some form of a mental health challenge. This has influenced my beliefs because it can often be hard to understand why someone must go through such difficult challenges. It can be difficult to understand why life cannot just be simple and why we have to have these internal struggles that are so tough for us to understand on our own. Mental health has influenced my relationships in a few ways. One way that could be perceived either positively or negatively is my devotion to self-care. Although self-care is extremely essential to the life of each individual in our society, due to how many responsibilities I already have, taking time for self-care can make it difficult for me to maintain certain relationships in my life. This can be due to me simply not having enough time to see those people or recognizing that those relationships are not the best for me and I am choosing to distance myself. Another way that mental health can impact relationships are if you are struggling. About a year ago I was struggling quite drastically with my own mental health and I began to recognize how my challenges were putting a strain on my relationship with my boyfriend. It pained me to see that strain so I made an effort to get to the root of those challenges to better myself and that relationship. Mental health influenced my career aspirations because I have chosen to take more college courses surrounding the topic of mental health. This is due to it being such a passion of mine, I want to include it in my education so I can then include it in my future career. On top of that, the career field that I am going into, social work, is known to be a significantly mentally draining field to work in. This is why self-care is so immensely important and understanding that before entering the field will only make it easier to continue in the future. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through my career as a forensic interviewer. With this career goal, I will be impacting the lives of many children who have already undergone some traumatic situations. Being a strong advocate for mental health when working with these children and their families is extremely important because they may not understand the struggles they are facing or what they can do to help themselves.

I was raised in a single parent household and I truly think it is one of the best things that could have happened to me. My mother raised my brother and I primarily on her own. With the minimal help from our father as well as the support from her family, I strongly believe that my brother and I have grown to be some amazing members of society, even if we are only 20 and 21. I truly believe that the adverse childhood experiences that I faced, including living in a single parent household, have led me to where I am today and I am certain that had I not gone through adversity within my family life, I would not have had the courage to move halfway across the country to pursue a degree that many people in my life do not have faith in. I feel that this strength and courage within myself is a great accomplishment. This led to a new understanding of myself, an understanding that has truly changed my life. I dream of a future where I would be able to do good and help people. That is why I have been taking on a major of social work. My career goal is to become a forensic interviewer. Within this career, I will be able to significantly help and provide justice for children who were vulnerable and were forced into these situations against their will. I feel that I have some incredible talents that have come from both my upbringing as well as my recent education at my university. My upbringing has provided me a strong sense of strength and courage to go after what I want and what is best for me. It has also provided me with the ability to believe in myself. My college education has provided me with an understanding of my traits that are beneficial to a career in social work. These include empathy, compassion, and active listening. I feel very strongly about each of these traits as well as the many others that are necessary when pursuing a social work degree. These talents will allow me to do good in my future and help as many of my clients as I can because I have discovered that I am a great person to pursue a career in social work. I am someone who is passionate about this field and I carry many necessary traits within me to do well.

I consider myself to be a very strong person. Not physically, but mentally. I recognize that everyone has faced their own types of adversities throughout their lives and I understand that it is impossible to compare one trauma to another, but for myself, I feel that I have endured a significant amount of loss and adversity throughout my 21 years. However, I do feel that I would not be the person I am had I not experienced these events. When I was six years old, I experienced my first form of loss. The death of my grandmother. I was young so it is difficult to remember but I remember how everything seemed to change that day. Everyone I had known was different starting that day. Just a couple short years later, I endured the messy divorce of my parents. This is the first experience in my life that truly changed who I am as an individual. For the 10 years to follow, I experienced four more losses within my family eventually leaving me with no grandparents by the time I graduated high school. Each loss changed who I was more and more. Made me more aware of the harshness that is present in society. I endured friendships that turned into bullying. I endured difficult family dynamics. I even endured the death of my best friend. Each of these things led me to where I am today. And that is halfway across the country from where I was born and raised, pursuing a degree that many people in my life continue to not have faith in. I am doing what I felt was the best choice for me despite all the adversities that I have overcome. I am following my passion to ensure that I love what I do and I am bettering myself on my own. This scholarship would benefit me in a way that I could not even explain. I have been increasingly independent since I moved away, specifically financially. I have been working each year that I have been in college, including a recent transition from being a part-time employee to becoming a full-time employee to better reduce any financial stress I have. I support myself on a daily basis including payments for my college education. Being able to have some weight lifted off my shoulders would reduce my personal stress immensely. I am extremely grateful for every opportunity that I am given and this is one that would truly help me.

During my time at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, I have encountered many mental health challenges both within myself and my peers. I have always been a major advocate for mental health and self-care so it was important to me, when I noticed some challenges within myself, to seek help as soon as I could. About a year ago, I noticed some drastic changes in the way that I was handling certain situations in my personal life. In situations where I maybe would have not been effected or been effected very minimally, I noticed myself having emotional breakdowns and feeling a sense of extreme anger. This was all something that was very new to me as I had always been able to handle any difficult situations in my past in a much different manner. The way I realized that it was time for me to seek help to get to the root of the problem was when I felt a noticeable strain on my relationship with my boyfriend. Unfortunately, due to us living together, he was the one who had to witness these outbursts the most and he was often on the receiving end of them as well. It pained me to see how my challenges were effecting my relationship with the most important person in my life so I immediately took charge and set up an appointment to return to therapy where I was able to talk about and determine what had changed within my life. I will strive to support others with any potential mental health challenges that they may face by continuing to be an advocate for self-care and mental health. It is important that individuals learn to understand their bodies and are able to recognize when their body is telling them they need a break. I will encourage anyone I encounter to take time for themselves when their body is showing them that they need one. I will also promote preventative self-care within my relationships with others by encouraging time off, even when they think they might not need it. This can prevent burnout in the future and make it easier for them to live their daily lives. I will generate awareness for mental health challenges moving forward by not being afraid to speak about them. I have never had any concerns speaking about mental health with those around me and I think it is important to continue that. The more we speak about it, the more we will be able to spread awareness throughout our communities.

My dream career goal is to become a forensic interviewer. This is not a career that I knew much about prior to college. It is not a career that I knew much about even just two years ago. Once I heard of this career and had a guest speaker in one of my courses who is a local forensic interviewer, I began to look into it on my own. I recognized just how significant this role is to our society and how needed the profession is. I have always had a desire to work with children in my future and I determined social work was the best way for me to do that. I have a passion for helping children, especially those who were unwillingly involved in situations that put them in danger. A forensic interviewer is a specifically unique and necessary role when helping those children. The reason that I find to be the most significant has to do with why a forensic interviewer is used. They work alongside police detectives, but are not officers in any way. Police officers and detectives are trained more specifically in how to talk to adults and what many people do not seem to realize is that children need to be talked to in a vastly different way. It is important to allow children the space to tell their own story. This means there must be very limited closed-ended questions and clear sense of active listening from the interviewer. A forensic interviewer is specifically trained in how to communicate with children and how to let them tell their story while also getting all the pieces that are significant. Another important reason that forensic interviewers are needed is because it allows the children to only have to tell their story the one time. Each interview is recorded via video which limits the amount of trauma that is placed onto the child. These children already went through the traumatic experience and each time they have to tell that story, the trauma is reintroduced. This limits this to the best of their ability. Some sacrifices that I have made to accomplish my personal and educational goals include moving out of state, away from my family, and taking on a lot of responsibilities. I chose to move halfway across the country to attend a university that was known for having an excellent social work program. Due to that, I unfortunately had to leave my entire support system behind. It is difficult but I also know that it was a decision that has benefited me tremendously. I have also been working while in my college courses for each year that I have been a university student. More recently I have switched from being a part-time employee to a full-time employee. On top of that, I have taken on an internship that relates more towards my future as a requirement of my university. These responsibilities have forced me to make some sacrifices such as not seeing friends as frequently as I would like, but I also know that it is only temporary that I will have this much on my plate and it is helping me get to my future goals that much quicker.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work with children in my future. After discovering the social work field, I determined that was the right path for me to take. I have become greatly passionate about my future career of helping children who have been unfairly involved in situations beyond their control. Through my education within the social work program at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, that passion has only grown. Now, for my senior year of my undergraduate degree, I have taken on an internship with our local police department. This is not directly the role that I want to pursue in my future but I can see significantly how the two are related. My role at the Colorado Springs Police Department is an intern with the Victim Advocacy Unit. Throughout my first four months with the unit, I have learned so much about our society and the clients that I may encounter in my future. I have had the opportunity of working with some of these clients within our community and providing services to them following crimes they were victims of. One specific time when I made a positive impact on my community through my servitude was when I called an elderly victim who had her wedding rings stolen from her. It was a very unfortunate situation that she was involved in, one that definitely made me sad to hear about prior to calling her. We ended up having around a 30 minute phone call, one of the longest calls I have done since my start with victim advocacy. The woman had a lot of questions for the police department, unfortunately not many that I was authorized to answer but I was able to provide her with an ear to listen to what she had to say. I was also able to direct her to the people that would be able to answer the questions she had that I could not answer. At the end of our call she expressed multiple times how grateful she was that I had reached out and that I was able to provide her with at least some of the information that she was looking for. She expressed that my call had made her whole week, which in turn made my whole week. It made me feel proud that even though I was not authorized to give her a lot of the information she was wanting, I was still able to brighten her day a little bit simply by calling to check in on her.

My values all simply fall under being a good person. I believe that you should treat people with respect and fairness no matter what. I believe in having empathy for others and being there for them in times of good and bad. I believe in letting people be excited about things, even if it is something you are not excited about or something you already know about. I believe in letting people be who they are and not trying to change them. I believe in letting yourself be who you are and not letting others try to change you. I believe in being grateful for what you have and the people around you. These values are significant to have when working in mental health fields because it is very common that we will be encountering people during the worst situation of their life. In the social work field, compassion and empathy towards others are both significant traits to carry within yourself. I believe that it is very difficult to be successful in a position where you must care for people no matter what they are going through if you are not naturally that kind of person. An individual can only fake those traits for so long. These values that I hold close to my heart simply represent the type of person I am. Growing up, I was bullied and judged for being who I am. That led to me becoming significantly introverted and insecure across a majority of my childhood and adolescence. However, as I have grown up, I have realized that having the courage to be simply who you are requires an amazing type of strength that not a lot of people carry within them. I have been able to take my childhood adversities and used them within my young adulthood to grow. I have used them to become proud of myself for being authentic and vulnerable even as a young child and I have strived to continue to be authentic in my daily life. Another way that I know these values are significant to the social work field are through the courses I have taken over the last three and a half years of my college education. The conversations surrounding how to treat clients in our professional setting signify to me just how important it is to be a truly caring person in this field. Authenticity is another value that is significant to social work. It is important to be authentic when working with clients because that represents a form of vulnerability. If we are expecting our clients to be vulnerable with us, then it is only fair that we give them the same respect.

I was raised in a single parent household and I truly think it is one of the best things that could have happened to me. My mother raised my brother and I primarily on her own. With the minimal help from our father as well as the support from her family, I strongly believe that my brother and I have grown to be some amazing members of society, even if we are only 20 and 21. I truly believe that the adverse childhood experiences that I faced, including living in a single parent household, have led me to where I am today and I am certain that had I not gone through adversity within my family life, I would not have had the courage to move halfway across the country to pursue a degree that many people in my life do not have faith in. I feel that this strength and courage within myself is a great accomplishment. This led to a new understanding of myself, an understanding that has truly changed my life. Growing up with all of the adversities that I faced, I was always known as the quiet kid. I never spoke up, I never caused problems, and I did not have many friends. I was fully prepared to stay home for a couple years following high school and simply attend the local community college. However, in my later high school years, I began to develop a new version of myself. One that was not as introverted or insecure. One that was willing to take more risks and it led to me taking one of the biggest risks in my entire life. I uprooted my life, left everything I knew for the last 18 years behind, and started a new life in a new state with new people. This accomplishment has truly changed who I am in a significant way and I strongly believe that I would not have been able to do it had it not been for my view of having such a strong and independent mother. She encouraged me to do what I felt that I needed to do to better myself. She encouraged me to move somewhere new and experience new things while I was still young, despite how sad it made her for me to leave. This accomplishment has continued to drive my strength and courage in my everyday life. I speak my mind more frequently. I do not let people walk all over me. I remove myself from situations that I do not feel comfortable in. I take trips and breaks if I feel that I need them. I do what I need to do in order to better myself.

When I was 18 years old, I lost my best friend to cancer. She was only 15. After fighting her battle for three years, she died at home with her family surrounding her. This, unfortunately, was the fourth person in my life that I have lost due to cancer. Although loss is not something that is new to me, it still hit me like a truck. I lost my best friend. She's gone. Her death impacted so many people throughout our circle. Selfishly, I could not believe that it was happening to me. Why did I have to lose another person? It just was not fair. All I could focus on was how could this have happened? After recognizing that I was not the only person that lost her, I realized there were things that I could be doing for myself and the other people in my life that lost her to help all of us. This created my plan of action following this adversity. I made sure to talk to those that are close to me right when it happened. This felt important to me so I would have people that I could lean on in the event that I was not doing okay mentally. Since this situation occurred early in my college career, I was away from home. Away from my family and my friends. With that in mind, the silver lining of this tremendous loss was that I realized that the friends I had made in college were there for me. Many of them dropped everything to be there for me that day and the days, weeks, months following. This greatly helped my mental health because I never felt alone. Along with my friends who were in close proximity, I made sure to talk on the phone with my family back home. Hearing their voices truly made me feel like everything was going to be okay. This adversity impacted my perception of life in similar ways that my previous experiences with loss have. They say "everything happens for a reason," but sometimes I would just like to hear what that reason is. Why did all of these people have to die so young? Why did they all have to die from such an awful disease? In my mind, there is not a single reason that could justify their deaths to me. Unfortunately, I think that these experiences, specifically this one, has changed my perception of life to be more of a negative one. I am often not surprised about horrific events that I hear about because I have simply taken it as a part of our life. But I always try to hold my best friend as close to me as possible because as she would always say, there is always something to be grateful for.

Growing up in a household that experienced many drastic life changes, mental health became a significant aspect of my life. I had to go through the change of my parents messy divorce, I lost all four grandparents before I even graduated high school, and then I lost my best friend at the beginning of my college experience. Each of these experiences have changed who I am in a major way, but the thing that never changed was my devotion to my own mental health. This is what led me into the career path that I am on. As a social work major, we have conversations every day about mental health and how we may come across it in our professional lives. We may encounter it within our clients, our peers, as well as ourselves. This is why it is important to be aware of mental health and understand why it is so important. I chose to pursue a degree in a mental health related field because I have been such a strong advocate for mental health and focusing on yourself for as long as I can remember. It is important for every single person to be able to recognize when their body needs a break and take time for themselves to have that break. I want to help clients in my future by advocating for them and their potential mental health concerns, letting them know that it is okay to not be okay and that every one needs a break every once in a while. A big stigma in our society is that mental health struggles equal weakness. I want to push the opposite idea onto my clients. I want them to understand that recognizing their bodies need to relax and taking that time to relax is actually very strong. It is strong to admit that you need a break, especially in our society where a work-life balance is not typically recognized. I want to make a difference in the lives of my clients as well as my peers through my education and passion for mental health. I will strive to be the person that they can count on and trust so they can open up about any concerns they may have. Following that, I want to be able to direct them to any resources that they may need to help their mental health and get back to a safe and comfortable place in their lives.

I have always been an extreme advocate for emotional and mental health both within myself and those around me. Even though it can be hard to take a break from life and responsibilities in order to take care of yourself, I have definitely made sure to focus on myself. A specific time when I made my emotional and mental health a priority would be when I lost my best friend to cancer. This was in the middle of my freshman year of college and it was something that I could've never anticipated happening when it did. After hearing the news, despite it being the first day back to class after winter break and me being scheduled to work that day, I did what I had to do in order to take care of myself. I took work off the rest of the day and made sure to email my professors immediately to inform them that I would not be able to be there for that day. In that moment, even with the responsibilities that I was supposed to have that day, I knew that it was better for myself to take a break rather than putting myself through more stress. Just taking that one day to focus on myself changed everything for me and I was able to wake up just the next morning feeling better. Although I was not over the experience, I was able to get back to the responsibilities that I had. From this experience, I learned how much just taking a little bit of time to yourself can impact everything. Everyone goes through tough experiences in their lives and it can be hard for a lot of people to be able to step back from our lives to simply just focus on ourselves. However, taking action and making a point to focus on myself after facing such a hard loss proved to me that no matter how hard it is to step back, holding onto that trauma while also taking on responsibilities is much, much harder. This has shaped the way that I am preparing for my future work life because I know that the career I am hoping to go into will be extremely mentally draining. Due to this, I am extremely aware of how important it is to take time for myself. I will ensure that I have a good work-life balance and for the situations that are more one-off and unexpected, I will make sure to take extra care of myself if it is needed. This is important because I cannot take care of my clients in the future if I am not properly taking care of myself.

I have experienced mental health in various aspects of my life. One being directly experiencing it and another being witnessing my mom experience it. I feel that my multiple experiences with mental health have impacted my life and my vision for my future extremely. If I did not go through the experiences I did with my mental health, my goal for my future would not be what it is now. I am gaining my education so I can help people through social work and work within mental health awareness. I also believe that my experiences with mental health has shaped my relationships because I am able to understand my significant other or my friends in terms of possible or definite mental issues they may be facing. I am able to be there for them if they need me and through my own personal experiences, I have knowledge of what needs to be done in certain circumstances. In terms of my understanding of the world, I believe that my experience with mental health has allowed me to see the world more clearly. I see the signs of mental illness in others quicker than others might. I have always lives my life by treating everyone with respect, but this knowledge of mental health really makes that idea of respect more crucial because you truly never know what anyone is going through. Experiencing mental health, although it was and still can be very hard, has truly changed my view on everything in the world. I understand more clearly why people may act the way they do. I know how I can help them. And I know what I need to do to help make everyone around me feel like they are a human, not that they are their illness.

There are a lot of people throughout my life that I have called my best friends and although they may have actually been my best friends, there was only one that was truly my number one best friend of my life. Cait Naylor. The strongest, bravest, happiest person I will ever know. Cait was only 14 when she passed away from cancer, but even with her gone, I know that there is no one in my life that will ever surpass her on my "best friend list." Cait and I knew each other for most of our lives. Our moms are best friends so we essentially grew up together. Even though I am four years older than her, she and I were always inseparable. She was just my little sister. There were so many things that we enjoyed to do together so we took any chance we could to spend time together. We both loved to bake and cook, loved The Office, loved arts and crafts, loved puzzles, and had a huge sweet tooth. With our moms being best friends, we took lots of trips together and got to explore new places. My favorite trip of all would be our giant group trip to Texas. I had never been to Texas but Cait and her family had so it was exciting for all of them to show my family and I around. We were there about a week and did nonstop activities. We went to a Texas Rangers game in the new stadium, we went to a trampoline park, we went axe throwing, we went to a Circus/Trapeze show, we had lots of food, lots of dessert, and lots of fun. I still remember seeing how much she was smiling each day. After coming home from that trip and for the couple years after before she passed, we still reminisced about that trip, frequently calling it the best trip we had ever been on. Even without going on big family vacations together, Cait and I were always hanging out. One of our favorite things to do was go to Color Me Mine. Since we both loved arts and crafts, this was the perfect place for us to go to. We would go and pick out whatever we wanted to paint and just paint it. Once we were done we would always go to get lunch or dinner after and that was often followed with ice cream, given our giant sweet teeth. Cait was always living each day to the fullest she could. She was almost never just sitting still; constantly wanted to do something whether that be around the house or out and about. I think of her everyday and I use her constant movement as a reminder to not waste a single day. Do what I want to do, when I want to do it because you never know what could happen tomorrow.

I feel that I have grown a lot throughout my life. More specifically, in the last three years. I have always been what people would call a "people pleaser." Meaning that I never really just said no; I would go along with things that I did not want to do, I would let people talk to me however they wanted, and I would be treated like I was lesser than people I thought were my friends. I am grateful to say that I have been able to break through that habit and become my own person. Although it took a lot of time, I have felt more like myself in the past three years since breaking out of being a "people pleaser" and I truly believe that is a skill that has helped me immensely. I believe that having the skill of being confident as my own person and being able to break away from just doing what everyone else wanted me to do has allowed me to find and gain relationships with people who are much better friends to me. I have developed extremely strong relationships with people I met only a year and a half ago and I feel that they are better relationships than people I considered myself friends with for seven years. Developing this skill has allowed me to provide others with advice that I feel could help them. I do not want to see others have to go through the same dreadful "friendships" that I had to go through so I do everything I can to have people that are going through it listen to me and understand that they do not have to put up with the disrespect from someone who is not a real friend. I had one specific "friend" that would constantly bully me, make fun of my family and my other friends, and always had to have it her way. When I allowed myself to no longer let her run my life, I felt so free. I later went on to meet one of my now best friends and realized that she was in a very similar situation with a friend of hers. Constantly was making jokes about her, making fun of her relationship, and always had to have things go her way. When I realized this dynamic they had, it was very hard for me to watch everyday so I provided some advice to my friend; I made her realize that I went through the same thing and it was awful, but now I am finally my own person that is not brought down by a "friend" everyday. She realized this unhealthy friendship she had and finally stood up for herself, making it known that what was happening to her was not okay. It is very important to me that everyone have friendships and relationships that strengthen them, not tear them down, so I have developed my own confidence and strength of being my own person and I use that excitement and passion to make sure that people I am around do not have to put up with what I had to in the past.

Helping children has been my passion for as long as I can remember. All I wanted to be as a child was a teacher. I wanted to spend every day with children. However, as I got older, I realized how many other careers there were out there that needed more people that would help children, even more so than a teacher could. Once finding out about social work, I decided that was going to be how I wanted to spend my future. With my degree in social work, I am planning to work to help those who need it. I primarily want to work with children. Since the day I decided I wanted to pursue social work, my plan has been foster care. I wanted to help those who were unfortunate enough to be taken away from their biological families. I wanted to be able to be the person that they could count on to be there for them, to take care of them, and to put them into a safe, loving home. The idea of being that person to young, vulnerable children is what led me to choose the major of social work in college. As I have now finished my first year of college in the social work field, my views have changed. I still am extremely passionate about social work and I know that is the field I want to continue. However, the destination in that field has started to slightly shift. My best friend just recently passed away from cancer. While taking on her constant trips to the hospital, she had a social worker there with her. She expressed to me how amazing her social worker was, and how helpful she was throughout her whole process. My best friend adored her social worker. This inspired me to think about switching my plan for my future. Although I still have some time to make final decisions with my life, my path has been narrowing as each year passes. I am eager to finish my degree and be able to get out into the world and finally start helping the children that need to be helped. Whether that be within the foster care system aiding the children who need safe homes or being there and providing resources for families of sick children in hospitals. Or even if I find a new path that I feel would work better for me. All I have ever wanted to do was help children and with my degree in social work, I plan to help my community by helping as many children as I can because as we all know, they are our future and that is extremely important.

There have been at least six people I know in my immediate circle who had to fight the hard battle of cancer. Unfortunately, only one of them was lucky enough to survive. Cancer is a brutal monster and I wish that there was more we could do for those suffering. My indirect experience with cancer has affected many parts of my life. When my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, I was heartbroken. I did not understand what the reason for it could have been. Why did my grandma have to be the one that was taken? And why so soon? When my great grandfather died shortly after of bladder cancer, I was still heartbroken, but this time a little less. When my grandfather died of a brain tumor, I was devasted. He was a hero but he died in one of the worst ways possible. He did not deserve the pain he endured. Finally, when my 14-year-old best friend died of rhabdomyosarcoma, I was defeated. She was only 14 and had so much life left in her. All of these people in my life who have passed from cancer have affected who I am as a person. They affected my beliefs because even with how confusing it may be, their cancer was there for a reason. Maybe with how tragic and heartbreaking it was, it was saving them from something worse. I wish there was a way for me to be able to talk to somebody and ask them why cancer was the choice. Why did they all have to pass after fighting for so long and so hard? But I like to believe that it was to save them from something far, far worse. Cancer affected my relationships because I realized how short life can be. It is important to spend as much time with those that you love. As cheesy as it may sound, people need to be with those that they love, especially when they are fighting for their lives every day. When every one of the people in my life was diagnosed with cancer, I made sure to see them as much as possible. I would talk to them whenever I could. It felt important to me to make sure that they knew that I was there for them, always. Cancer affected my career aspirations as well. I always had a specific pathway that I thought was perfect for me, but after my best friend got diagnosed, I realized that there might be another path for me that would be just as beneficial. I always wanted to be a foster care social worker but due to my best friend's hundreds of hospital visits, I quickly became interested in social work for children in hospitals. My best friend told me all the time how much she loved her social worker and how amazing she was to her. I want to be able to be that person for someone who is hurting as much as she was. As horrible as cancer is, and for as many people in my life that it has taken from me, I know that they are better now. They are not hurting and they get to be doing all the sports and traveling that they could dream of, without being in pain. And they are all looking down on me, protecting me every day.

There are many things that make me happy. Comfort movies and tv shows, reading books, spending time with my family, and many more things. Out of everything, the thing that makes me the happiest are my friends. Throughout the majority of my childhood, I had different friends each year. That is, until eighth grade when I met my current friends. Now, coming to the end of my senior year in high school, we have been friends for roughly five years. Sure, like all friends, we have had our ups and downs; our disagreements, but no matter what happens we have always been there for each other no matter what. I am do grateful for my friends and every time we are together I am constantly laughing. Just being around them can make my day when I am feeling down. I feel extremely lucky to have been given a group of friends that make me as happy and make me feel as comfortable as my friends do. Thanks to them, I have been happy for a long time.

I think that a healthy lifestyle is different for each person. No human being is exactly the same meaning that not everything that works for me could work for my best friend. However, a healthy lifestyle is important to all people because it allows everyone to be able to live their best life and keep their bodies working properly. A healthy lifestyle is important to me because I want to live long enough to experience the future I have dreamed of. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle by eating right, exercising, and focusing on your mental health allows people to live freely and do whatever it is they dream of.

I enjoy creating art. I have been doing so for as long as I can remember. I would love for my art to be able to create an impact on someone's life, especially if it were to positively impact the world as a whole. I would use my art to illustrate the way that I view the world, as I do now. I am one to see everyone and everything as equal. I think that it's okay for people to have their disagreements, that's just what makes us human, but at the end of the day, no one is better or worse than the next person. I have created a piece that is meant to symbolize this. In politics, there are many different viewpoints. Two of the more common sides are democrat and republican. My art piece used stereotypes, as I learned in my government class, to show the stereotypical democrat side-by-side with the stereotypical republican. Behind both faces is one American flag. This flag is meant to symbolize that even though these two people come from different political sides, they are a part of one nation, making neither one superior to the other. I want to create many more meaningful pieces like this one in order to show people how I see the world and hopefully allow that to positively impact the world as a whole. (I do not have any links to provide.)

1. I deserve this scholarship because I have been dreaming of going away to college my entire life. I am working towards making that dream come true but the last step is to figure out my finances. I have been saving my money from work, recycling, selling my clothes, and countless other things to try to have as little student loans as I can. 2. My academic goals are to achieve a master's degree in social work. My career goals are to become a foster care social worker. I want to help children get the lives that they all deserve and make sure that they are safe at all times. I want to be the person that they can all count on. 3. Growing up, I had extreme mental health issues. My parents had a messy divorce at the same time that we lost my grandmother, my best friend, to pancreatic cancer. I struggled a lot with my everyday life. After two therapists and hundreds of hours of sessions, I managed to slowly get better. Of course my problems are still within me because I do not think they will ever go completely away, but I am proud to say that I am finally comfortable in my own skin.

Reading is by far one of my favorite hobbies. I have been reading almost every day of my life even before I could read on my own. I have read hundreds of different books throughout my life. The most inspiring book I have ever read would have to be "All Your Perfects" by Colleen Hoover. Colleen Hoover is my favorite author. She writes the exact genre that I love to read; young adult romance books. I have read countless of her amazing novels. Within this specific one, it goes back and forth between the past of two people in struggling relationships and the present with those same two people in their own difficult relationship. In the past, the two have to deal with their current significant others cheating and lying. In the present, those two people are in their own relationship full of struggles and secrets. This book is inspiring to me because these two people had to go through a horrible experiences both in their past and present relationships but all throughout the book they work to get through their difficulties to end up in a deeper relationship by the end. This inspires me to stay strong in my relationships because I know that there will be some problems but if it is meant to be, it will all work out.

Art has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. I would always be coloring or painting or making different kinds of pieces to give to my friends and family. I look at art as a way of comfort. A piece of art that truly inspires me would be "The Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gough. I love creating pieces of the sky which makes this piece one that is extremely beautiful to me. When I look at this piece, I feel a sense of peace. Van Gough's piece inspires me to do more of what I love because it makes me more motivated to create a variety of pieces. Vincent Van Gough created many amazing pieces throughout his life and I feel that each one is amazing in their own way. "The Starry Night" has always been a piece of his that I find fascinating.

My whole life, I have wanted to take on a career that helped people. I was never too sure what that career would be but I knew it was going to help people. About five years ago, I realized what I wanted to do and of course, it is a job that would help the people who need it the most. Foster children deserve everything good that the world has to offer and I want to be able to be the one to provide it for them. Being a social worker will allow me to do this because I will be able to be the person that those poor children can rely on to get them the help and safety that they need. Absolutely no child should be forced to be in a home where they are not wanted or not safe. Everyone around me has told me that this career will not pay well or it will make my life miserable but I don't feel like any of that matters to me because in the end, I will be doing exactly what I want to do; help the people who deserve to be helped.

Traveling is one of my favorite things to do. Experiences new places and seeing new things is so exciting that sometimes I cannot hold it in. I do not have a final bucket list but I definitely have things that I want to do and there are things that I wanted to do that I have been able to achieve. I am a huge Disney fan. Disneyland is by far one of my favorite places to go, so obviously I wanted to visit every Disney park in the world. I started that journey by visiting Walt Disney World in Florida just a couple months ago. It was such a fun experience to get to see all the other people from all over the world there to do just the same thing I was. My goal is to get to see all the other Disney parks around the world including Disneyland Paris and Disneyland Shanghai. Each one is similar to the others but is also its own experience that it makes it so much more interesting to see. As I got closer to the end of my high school career, the thought of my future became both more exciting and more scary. I knew for as long as I can remember something that I wanted to achieve was to have a real college experience; I wanted to move away from home and meet all new people and have a new life. Now that is so close to actually happening. It is so sad that I won't be near my family or my friends but I will get a whole new experience. I will get to achieve the thing that felt so far away but it is so exciting for me to get to do something I have wanted to do.

Growing up every time I learned about a new career, that was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a princess, a police officer, a teacher, a realtor, and just about every other thing I knew about throughout the years. After years of changing my mind, I realized what I wanted to do about five years ago. When I was in my 8th-grade history class, we were assigned to create a bill that would help to fix a problem within our country. I chose to research the foster care system. The foster care system is one of the most underfunded, understaffed, and unappreciated parts of our country even though it should be the one that is the most funded, most staffed, and most appreciated. The foster care system has a purpose that should be honored rather than disregarded. This seemingly unimportant part of our country works tirelessly to protect children of all ages, trying to give them at least a somewhat decent life. This project sparked my interest in the system and my lasting passion for wanting to help foster children. My parents went through a messy divorce. Although I was never put into the foster care system, there was a moment where I almost was. My parents were fighting constantly and neither one of them wanted the other to have custody of my brother and me. When my mom was gaining more custody, my dad would try to make stuff up to make it so my mom would not get what she wanted. But the courts also knew that my dad should not have custody either, which would mean that my brother and I would have been stuck in the system. I am very fortunate to say that we were not placed within the foster care system but my experiences have allowed me to come to a better understanding of what these children within the system could be going through. One of the reasons my parents had such a messy divorce was because my dad has a drinking addiction. For as long as I can remember, he has drunk beer from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed. It was hard to see because I knew that it was part of the problem. Every time he drank too much too fast, they would end up in a war. I was constantly in the middle of these screaming matches that would haunt me each night. Experiencing this made me want to make it so no kid ever had to go through what my brother and I did. I feel extremely passionate about helping people however I can, especially children. I went through multiple therapists and counselors and spoke to countless people about what happened with my parents but even through that, it felt like I was all alone. I want to be able to be the person that these children can rely on to keep them safe. I want to be able to give children the life they deserve with a family who loves them. I want to become a social worker to help the children who were far less fortunate than me and I want to do everything I can to better their lives at least a little bit.

I have known that I want to go away to college for the last four years. I was certain that I needed a change within my life. I was not 100% on where I wanted to go, but I knew it had to be somewhere different. Although that meant more money for me to have to spend on it, that did not matter to me because I knew that in the end it would all work out and I would get the life I had been dreaming of. I got accepted into my dream school, which would take me out of state into a whole new lifestyle. Now that my future is actually becoming a reality, the money is becoming more and more of a problem for both me and my parents. I have been saving for college since I was able to first get a job. I have worked very hard to be thoughtful about my money; where I spend it or what I spend it on. Majority of the clothes I have bought in the last two years have come from thrift stores throughout my city. I have found some of my favorite pieces for less than $10. I have also started keeping up with recycling. For the last four years, I have collected and saved recycling from my house, my dad's house, and my family friend's house. I try to go weekly to turn in the various bottles and cans I have collected and in exchange, I get little bits of money. It is not always a lot but the way I see it, every penny counts. Every penny. Even the ones I may find laying on the sidewalk while I'm walking out of a store. I make sure to pick up every coin I see because it all adds up. My mom and I save all of our change and roll the coins when our coin jar gets too full. All those coins get put into my account to help me save for my future. The very last thing I have done is scholarships. Since even before I applied for colleges, I have been applying for scholarships. Anything I can, I am applying. Now that I am accepted somewhere, I have been taking time everyday to write essays and apply for various scholarships. Being able to say that I did all this work just to achieve the future I want for myself is important to me. I do not know a single person who does as many things as I do to save money. Some people I know even try to throw away their change but I just take it if they do not want it. I want to be able to have the life I have been dreaming about for the past four years and I am doing everything I can to not have as much to pay back afterwards.

I have become very confident within my own body and I am proud of myself for being able to do that. As a young child, I was extremely shy and I would never speak up about what I wanted. I would never stand up for myself and on the rare occasions when I did, I would end up in tears within 30 seconds of starting. I felt weak; like I could not be there for myself even when I needed it the most. I hated feeling that way. My mom knew that it was hard for me. She would do all she could to convince me that I was stronger than I thought but it was hard for me to believe her if I could not even do such a simple thing for myself. As I have gotten older, I have managed to become mentally stronger and am able to speak up for myself. I have had repeated disagreements with my friends recently and it became known that I am the "sensitive one." Us simply just arguing about things made me upset. I would just go along with what they said until the conversation was over simply just trying to avoid having to say anything for myself. It was so hard because they would use that to their advantage just to get what they want. Everyone around me has tried to bring it to light that I deserve to be able to speak up for myself especially to the people who are supposed to be my best friends. Slowly, I have been working on it and I have gotten better at it. Having gotten stronger is the characteristic within myself that I value the most. It took me so long to be able to have myself to count on. I feel that having this new characteristic of mental strength will help me in my life journey because I finally feel comfortable in the fact that I will be able to take care of myself. Not just in the way that I will be able to keep myself alive by eating, drinking water, and keeping myself clean, but I will be able to make sure that the people around me are people who want to be around me. I will be able to express how I am feeling with words rather than just staying silent. It is important to be able to have yourself to count on because there is no one else who will be there 100% for you.

I believe that everyone should do what is best for themselves. This includes how they act or what they do. I have watched my father drink throughout my whole life. Each year I could see how bad it was. I could see how his hand always held some kind of beer or alcohol rather than water or soda. It made me worried. As I got older, I began to realize really how big of a problem it was. My dad would get drunk and that is when my parents would start fighting. They would fight right in front of my brother and I and it was heart wrenching to watch. When my parents divorced, I realized I needed to come up with my own plan for when my dad drinks. I made a plan for when we would go out somewhere and he would be too drunk to take us home. I constantly felt too scared to be in the car with him behind the wheel. I believe that everyone's personal safety should be their first priority because no one can know 100% how you feel except you. I have worked on myself a lot the past few years, trying to become stronger and better at standing up for myself. One of the main times I have used my new strengths is to speak to my dad about his drinking. It is very difficult to talk to someone who drinks a lot and tell them that it is a problem because they do not see it as a problem. I am very grateful to not have lost anyone close to me due to drunk driving but also I work everyday to keep it that way. My goal was always to get my driver's license as soon as I was able to and that is exactly what I did. I did this, so when I go out to dinner with my dad and brother or if we go to a friend's house to watch the Super Bowl, I won't have to worry about whether or not we will make it home safely or if the people around the outside of our car would too. Drunk driving is not something that anybody should do ever and I think it is important to raise awareness for this life threatening part of our world that has become an increasing problem. Without talking about it or helping people to change, driving will just get more dangerous.

Mental health is not something that a lot of people seem to understand. There are constantly people who are putting people down about their mental health issues rather than doing what is important, which is helping them. I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety throughout my daily life and although I have done a lot of work to get better, it is still a part of me. I understand that it is hard to fully comprehend why someone is the way they are if you do not experience the same things they do. It is much easier to understand something that you also go through yourself. And because I have experienced these things myself, I understand how hard it can be for a person to go through mental health issues without the help they need. There are many solutions to helping someone who is going through mental health struggles but a lot of them are hard to gain access to such as not being able to afford therapy. There are lots of things that people can do that are more accessible to the general public of people struggling with mental health. A practical solution I think there is for helping more people who struggle with mental health is simply just being their friend and being there to listen to them when they need it. The best thing any of my friends have done for me during my hardest times were to simply just let me rant and talk about whatever is going on in my mind. Being there for someone is one of the easiest and most helpful things you can do for someone who is struggling but does not have the resources they need to continue strongly.

A lot of the hobbies I enjoy are not many that a lot of people my age enjoy doing as much as I do. Reading has come my escape from reality. I have always enjoyed reading. Ever since I was a young child, I would constantly be reading. Once I was able to read and understand long chapter books, I was always reading them. Reading has helped me through extremely hard times in my life. When my parents were going through their messy divorce, I was finishing about one-300 paged book per week. I was always, always reading. It helped to keep me sane and comfortable through those hard times in my life. Even almost 10 years since my parents' divorce, I continue to read as often as I can. When I find an author that I enjoy reading, those books are the only ones I read until I have read them all. Reading is an important part of my life. I feel that it has allowed me to stay off of technology while still doing something that keeps me interested. I think it is important to continue to take part in hobbies that do not involve screens because it will continue to keep us connected to the physical world. Having a physical book is better to me than having something to read online because it makes me feel more connected to what I am reading. The feel of the pages and the smell of a book, new or old, is something that just adds to the experience of reading. Reading has always been one of my favorite hobbies and I am so happy that it has managed to continue to be a significant part of my life because I truly feel that it has helped me through the hardest parts of my life.

My mom has been a single mother since 2014. I watched her go through the messy divorce with my father and I could tell, it was not good for her. I watched her lose weight fast and I got stuck in the middle of their fights frequently. It was not a good experience for any of us. However, I believe that coming from a single parent household has allowed me to have a more understanding perspective on the world and has shaped how I want to help people. Divorce is a heartbreaking thing to experience. Whether it be your family personally or simply just someone you know, it is terrible. Unfortunately it has become an extremely common part of our world today. Because of this, there are many more people I am able to connect with on a different level about our personal experiences. Not everyone's divorce experience is going to be exactly the same, but coming from the home that I come from, I am able to better converse and care for people who may need help in their own divorce situation. Having gone through the experiences I have with my parents and their divorce has changed my personality greatly. Immediately after their divorce, I became extremely shy and sensitive over every little thing. It made it hard to go about my daily life because it seemed like every little thing set me off. I worked very hard to make it through these difficulties in my life. I spoke with multiple therapists and went through lots of personal work. After many years, I have become much better at speaking my mind and taking on things that I am passionate about. As I have gotten older, it has become more and more important to think about my future and what I plan to do with my life. I had many experiences when it comes to therapy and that has made me certain of what I want to do for my future career. My therapist helped me beyond words and because of her, I learned that I want to be able to help people in the future the way she so greatly helped me. I plan to use my experiences and want to help people to take on my goal career to be a social worker. I want to be a social worker to help foster care children who deserve much more than they have in life right now. Even though it is an extremely important part of our country, the US foster care system is very underfunded and understaffed. I want to be a helpful asset to that system and help as many young minds as I can.

When I was younger, I was one of the quietest kids in my class. I never really spoke to new people in my classes and I never raised my hand to answer questions. I was simply too scared. But that has changed dramatically. As a senior in high school, I am much different than I used to be in elementary school. In my classes today, I gladly talk to the people around me and confidently answer questions within my class when I get called on. When it comes to speaking up for myself, it was the same when I was younger. I was never too good at it. When it came to confrontation, I would either break down in tears or avoid it altogether. Luckily, I have managed to work through that and finally am able to speak my mind when I feel passionate about something. I am confident that I can handle myself in the future thanks to the years of work I have put into speaking my mind.

I would feel so incredibly fortunate to have been gifted the opportunity to be a highly influential figure and I feel that the best way to use that platform is for good. If I were a highly influential figure, I would stand for helping any and all people whenever possible. One of my favorite things to do is to help people. My dream career consists of doing just that. If I were given the opportunity to have a platform to influence the public, I would want to use it to support things that need to be focused on and something that really needs to be focused on is the foster care system. I would use my platform to inform people about how much help all those young children need. If I can influence others to care about this system within our nation as much as I do, I would feel that I have done my job.

Ever since my parents got divorced, I have become extremely close with my mom and my brother. Viewing my relationship with them versus other people's relationships with their siblings and parents makes me feel very lucky. I have learned that lots of other people are not as fortunate as I am to have such a good relationship with the people in their household. My mom and brother are my best friends. I tell them basically everything that goes on in my life and they do the same to me. Even my closest friends seem to struggle to see how close I am with my mom and brother because they do not have the same relationship with their families. One of my best friends fights with her mom almost everyday about things that my mom and I can have a normal conversation about. It is very significant to me to have such a close relationship with those in my household because they do so much for me and I appreciate everything. If we had the same relationship as my friend does with her mom, I would feel horrible because I absolutely love my mom and my brother and they deserve everything I can do for them.

Being able to make other people happy makes me happy. I love being able to be the person to encourage others to do what they want to do. Whether it is my friends or my family, I am constantly trying to make people do what they want to do. I always ask my friends for advice on things I kind of want to do but aren't sure about and they help me with whatever random questions I have for them. When they come to me, it makes me so happy because I am able to help them the way they help me. I do whatever I can to make what they want happen. Whether it be offering to give them a ride or bring them something or simply just telling them I believe in them. Anything can help make someone's dreams come true and when someone's dreams come true they are happy. I love being able to help people be happy.

I have been a part of community service organizations within my school for all four years of high school. I have had the opportunity to help many different people within my community. I have helped elementary school kids and teachers, the city, my school, etc. Through these organizations, I have also had the opportunity to communicate with the elderly people within my community. One of the community service acts I was able to sign up for was to be pen pals with an elder somewhere in my city. I was so excited to take part in this because I love talking to elderly people; they always are so excited to tell their stories and I absolutely love hearing them. While talking to my elderly pen pal, she told me how happy she was to have received my first letter and how talking with me for a few weeks was something she looked forward to. I loved reading that from her and it made me very proud to be able to make her happy just by writing to her.

I love how much mentally stronger I have become. In the past couple years, there has been a lot of hard things that have come my way and although it gets really difficult sometimes, I have slowly but finally made it to a point where I am confident and not as emotional. I have been known to be extremely sensitive when it comes to situations with my family and friends. I hated how emotional I got over the little things. I knew that I was fine but I would still cry just because. Now, I have gotten so much better at not freaking out over the little things. I am able to manage my feelings more understandably and control how I react towards different situations. I love how confident I have become with myself. I am totally fine being on my own when before I couldn't imagine myself without my friends. I am so ready for my future and I know that I will be able to confidently take on whatever comes my way.

My dream career is not one that a lot of people want to do. In fact, it is a field that needs some of the most help it can get. I want to be a social worker. But not just any old social worker. I want to work with foster children. The foster care system is a part of our country that has been broken for a long, long time. With over 60,000 children in the system, our nation's future is being poorly treated too often and do not have the love or care that they deserve. Foster care children are probably the most vulnerable, broken humans within our society and not many people seem to care about them. Often times, they come from abusive homes where they were never loved by their parents or they were so unlucky as to never have gotten to meet their parents due to possible death. Whatever the instance may be, these children deserve to have the life that I was fortunate to have. By becoming a social worker for foster children, my goal would be to be able to be the person that all those young minds can count on to keep them safe. I want to be the one who can promise them that they will have good foster parents who will treat them with love and kindness and hopefully be the people they can have in their lives forever. All over social media, I see videos and pictures of foster parents and everything they do for each of their new foster children. People like them are the people who deserve everything good in life. Not only do they willingly take these heartbroken children into their homes but they take them out to stores to buy new clothes and personal hygiene products. My goal as a social worker would be to find those good foster parents out there and provide them with the opportunity to use their good to help save these children. One child at a time is all it takes to make a significant difference in our society. One person can give an entire group full of foster children the hope that the same thing will happen to them; that they too will be given the opportunity to go home with a fabulous foster parent and live the life they had been dreaming of their entire life. My dream is to be the one they can rely on to figure that out for them.

Some of my favorite hobbies consist of some that a lot of people I know are not as interested in as I am. For example, reading. I can probably count on just my hands the amount of people I know who enjoy to read as much as I do. I read to escape from my reality. Once I get my hands on a book that interests me, I won't be able to put it down for at least a couple hours. Another hobby I honestly can't get enough of is organizing. I have been more and more interested in keeping everything in my life more organized and put together. My room has always been the clean one within the house but now I focus on it even more. I go through my closet frequently to keep it with clothes that I actually enjoy reading, I keep a calendar hanging on my bedroom wall so I always know what is going on each week, I plan days if not weeks in advance whenever I can. Anything I can do to stay more organized and focused is something I will most likely do. Taking part in hobbies that other people are not as interested in makes me excited to continue doing them because I don't feel any type of "competition" within them. I can do what I want, when I want.

I work to help whoever I can, whenever I can. I have been involved in community service organizations within my school for all 4 years of high school. Through these organizations I have done a variety of activities including setting up for the local elementary school haunted house or helped elementary school teachers by grading and filing papers. Along with that, I work outside of school organizations to be the person others can count on. I babysit and even do what I call "mommy-help," where I simply go over to keep the childen occupied while the parents stay home to complete any work they may need to do. I happily do it for free just to be there for families who need the extra help. I absolutely love helping people whenever I can. If I can be the person that others can count on for help, I am feel that I am doing what I am meant to do.

As a young woman, I have witnessed and faced many situations that are hard on anyone. However, despite those negative aspects, women as a whole are able to handle such extreme expectations as to who we are and express ourselves fully. I am proud to be a woman because of the generosity that is spread throughout.

It’s always been really hard for me to be myself. For as long as I can remember I’ve never been able to stand up for myself or express myself without the worry that someone is judging me, because deep down I know that someone is. Whether it’s a random person on the street or even my own family member, there’s somebody. But as I’ve gotten older, I have slowly been growing out of that phase. Don’t get me wrong I am still petrified of a lot of things like that. However, I know how I want my life to go and because of that I am able to keep myself going and fight for what I want. Every single one of my goals and dreams for my life have been shot down, mainly by my own father. But I don’t let that stop me from continuing to go where I want to go and be who I want to me. I want to spend my life helping the children who were forced to love unfortunate and scary lives. I want to be the shoulder they can cry on, despite the fact that I may not make as much money as someone with a different career path. To me, doing something I am passionate about is far more rewarding than doing a job where you make the most money. I am fighting for what I want to do with my life and when I get there, everyone’s going to know that they definitely underestimated me.