"You have cancer". Those three words flipped my world on its head during my freshman year of college. I had just gotten to the University of Rhode Island to start my education in Biomedical Engineering in hopes of one day going into medicine one day. I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer in 2022 and it has become the journey of a lifetime. Since my diagnosis, I have undergone 2 major surgeries, Iodine-Radiation Therapy, and am due in February of 2025 for targeted chemotherapy followed by more radiation. All of this has made it very difficult to "show up" to school. While my peers were sitting in lectures, I was sitting in a hospital gown. The physical toll that cancer took on my body has made it very difficult to get to my classes, or even have the energy to focus when I can make it to them. When I get treatment, I am forced to miss my classes for weeks at a time, leaving me even further behind. While it sounds counterintuitive, I had to focus less on my academics for them to get better. At the beginning of my diagnosis, I held on very strongly to the idea that I was going to graduate on time with my degree instead of focusing on what was important; my health. I have since done a lot of personal work in my journey to accepting my diagnosis and its impact on my education. I have chosen to focus on personalizing my education to cater better to my treatment plan and my future. Next week I will be starting at the Community College of Rhode Island where I will have more flexibility as a patient and student and I will be studying Nursing. I have shifted my focus away from "the traditional college experience" because my cancer has made that impossible, and that is okay. It was very difficult to come to terms with the fact that my life's path was going to look different than what I wanted, but it is still my path. Now that I will be at a new school, I have been able to start from the ground up. I am working closely with my professors to make sure I can be a full-time student as well as a full-time cancer patient. Since becoming a cancer patient myself I have realized that I want to become a pediatric oncologist, and I am working on individualizing my educational experience so that I can achieve my dream one day. Though my journey will continue to be filled with hardship as I navigate life with cancer, I will not give up on my dream to become a doctor. I have shifted my focus to accept that while my path looks different than what I had imagined, I need to give myself grace as I move through my education.

My passion for engineering started when I was a young girl. I had been surrounded by it all my life. I watched my mom's team work on all these incredible projects and saw how anything they dreamed could become a reality. Engineers are responsible for every aspect of the world around us and that sparked a curiosity in me. When I was a kid one of my favorite things to watch with my family was HGTV's "My Yard Goes Disney". I loved the way that things that seemed only plausible through magic came to life through math, physics, and engineering. None of which I would ever particularly excel in until college. I would tell my parents that I wanted to be a Disney Imagineer. They'd respond by telling me that engineering is the future. While I have fallen out of love with my Imagineer dream, I have not fallen out of love with the engineering world. No matter where you look, engineers are needed for everything. Now that I've grown out of wanting to make princess-themed roller coasters I've thought about the practical ways that I could better the world through engineering. I am now majoring in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. Though I have wanted to be many things growing up, I have always intended to make a difference in the medical field. While researching colleges and majors I realized that I could easily combine my love of engineering and medicine by creating medical technology. It was not until recently that I grasped just how amazing medical technology can be. In December of 2022, I was diagnosed with cancer. I have undergone surgeries and radiation treatment and am anticipating chemotherapy this upcoming fall. None of this would be possible without the engineers who are backing the medical industry. From the people who designed the UltraSound technology that noticed a tumor in my neck to the CT machine that was able to capture it in insane detail, I am grateful to all of them. I would be honored to ever make such an impact in someone's life. That's why I study to do what I hope to do. I intend to study Pediatric Oncology after I finish my Masters in Biomedical Engineering. I want to be able to give back to kids like me, the way engineers have done for me. Engineers have saved my life and challenged how I view the world I live in. I am beyond excited to become one of the people that make this world so unique.

On the morning of December 13th, 2022 I celebrated Taylor Swift's birthday. That evening I got the news that I was diagnosed with cancer. My life became a whirlwind of doctor appointments and visits from my very scared family. When I prematurely moved out of my college dorm to get treatment I cried the whole way home to "Soon You'll Get Better". Little did I know Swift's agonizing line "holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you" would become something to live by. Though my calendar was filled with surgery, radiation, and oncology appointments, the only date that mattered to me was May 19, 2023. That was the day I'd be seeing Taylor play at Gillette Stadium. I needed to fight to stay healthy so I could make it to that concert and then I did. Within the months leading up to my Era's Tour date, all I did was listen to her. I listened to "Bigger Than the Whole Sky" and "Ronan", frightening myself with what it might be like for my parents if my treatments didn't work. I played "Right Where You Left Me" for hours thinking of the perfect college life that was torn away from me. I could've easily been convinced that "This is Me Trying" was written for me. It wasn't until just around February that I started to feel like myself again and Taylor had music for that too. I have listened to every single song she's ever written but they all gained new meanings this past year. "Long Story Short" meant the most to me. I remember after one particularly long day of appointments I shuffled her discography over my car speaker. I knew I couldn't listen to the same rotation of sad songs again so my fate was at the hand of Spotify's shuffle feature. The song "Long Story Short" came on. It was one that I loved but, to be honest, would have skipped. That was until I remembered the opening line. "Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles til' the battle picked me". Immediately I started crying. Finally a song with a happy ending. A song that could not have described how I felt more accurately. I had been fighting for my life all alone and somehow Taylor Swift was the one person on the planet who I felt could understand me. Nothing about this has been easy. Of all the things I imagined I'd be at 19, a cancer patient was never one of them. After letting myself feel all the hurt that accompanied this diagnosis, I have decided to realize just how resilient I have been this whole time. I have done nothing but impress myself. I survived an 8-hour surgery that had almost left me paralyzed. I survived radiation treatment. I survived everything it took me to get to where I am now, healthy enough to have attended the Eras Tour. That concert was everything to me. I brought a sign with the line from "Long Story Short" hoping Taylor might for even a second see just how important she's been to me. I screamed at the top of my lungs to "Fearless", showing off my new "fearless" tattoo to remind myself that I am nothing but that. I cried, and I danced, and I laughed, and I remembered that I fought to be there. Taylor Swift has taught me about growing up, about love, about loss, but most importantly she taught me that in everything I have faced with this diagnosis, I truly have gone in "head first, fearless".