Hello, my name is Sofia Pfisterer I am 20 years old and live in Anchorage, Alaska. I was born in Anchorage and have lived here for most of my life. I enjoy fishing, kayaking, and traveling around Alaska during the summer. In the winter, I love being outdoors in the snow and relaxing by the fire inside. Winter is my favorite time of the year, especially in Alaska, where the snow makes almost everything look beautiful. Some other of my hobbies include reading, drawing, and studying. I have also been trying to learn how to paint, but it is a work in progress. I am a nursing major entering my third year at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I currently work as a barista, and love making coffee and seeing people smile. For a long time, I did not know what I wanted to do for my career. I always knew I wanted to do something where I could help people, but there are so many jobs where you can help people. My stepmom is a nurse and a great one. She has inspired me to pursue nursing by staying strong when things get tough. During COVID, she worked long hours and put herself in danger during times of uncertainty. I have always admired her strength in helping others and supporting my family and me when we need it most. Her character has inspired me to be a nurse. When I am a nurse, I will help others by providing care to those who are going through a rough time in their life. Everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and respect, and I hope to be of as much help as I can to those who need it. Being a nurse is about more than providing medical care, it is also about being a kind person in people's lives and advocating for your patients. Nurses need to be the ones to understand and empathize with people and provide the best care they can. When I am a nurse, I hope to go above and beyond to provide the best care possible to my patients. I hope to be a good memory of the patients who were in the hospital and make sure that their stay was pleasant, in the sense that their nurse provided them with excellent care and made sure their problems were addressed while being kind to them.

Multiple factors in my life have steered me towards the path of nursing as a career. My stepmother is a nurse. She has been a huge supporter of me during my childhood and has become my biggest inspiration, she is the most intelligent person I know. I am inspired by her and the care and dedication she puts forward as a nurse. She works two jobs as a bedside nurse and stays overtime when patients need her. She has inspired me to be a nurse so I can follow in her footsteps and hopefully become as good a nurse as she is one day. She has been a nurse for 18 years and continues to inspire me every year. Another reason that I have chosen to pursue nursing as a career is I believe nurses are the true heroes in hospitals. When I was young, my younger sister developed an infection in her neck and was hospitalized for over a month. It was a hard time for my mother and me, but I remember the nurses on the floor supporting my sister when she had to have work done and also the way they supported me. One particular day, my sister had to have a small incision in her neck, and I was distraught. I cried and was scared for my sister because she was only two years old. A kind nurse took me into the hall, hugged me, and told me it was going to be alright. She explained to me what was happening and was able to calm me down. I am thankful for it to this day. That woman has inspired me to be a nurse by showing me compassion when she did not need to. The final reason I want to become a nurse is because in general, the healthcare field has a problem of not believing women and minorities about their health problems or pain. There are major disparities in the healthcare field that I believe must be addressed. I would never want a patient to experience a healthcare provider dismissing their problems or not taking their pain and symptoms seriously. This issue cannot be fixed by a single nurse such as myself, but I will strive to do so. More and more nurses are standing up to this injustice, and I want to be a part of the change that needs to happen. Advocating for patients who cannot advocate for themselves and calling out those who blindly dismiss their patients is something all nurses should strive to do. I know that when I become a nurse, I will take my patient care seriously and make sure that all patients, especially women and minorities, feel seen and heard in the hospital.

I have watched many different anime over the last six years, and I have developed a love for many different genres. One particular anime that I feel as though I can watch over and over again is Fruits Basket. I believe I have rewatched it fully four times and rewatched certain arcs and episodes many more than that. What makes it so captivating to me is how relatable the show feels. Not the fantasy aspect where people turn into animals, but the emotions and relationships the characters develop. In particular, the main character, Tohru Honda, has unresolved trauma from her childhood that translates into how she behaves and interacts with others as a teenager. She is a kind girl and will go to any lengths for anyone, but unlike other animes, she has raw emotion that stems from her father dying and her mother a few years later. She can connect deeply with the members of the Soma family who are affected by a curse, and Tohru helps them in multiple ways through her kindness and willingness to support and accept them. She is not the typical weak female anime protagonist you see in most other animes. She is strong because of her life and her experiences. She can develop deep relationships with others through her love and kindness, and she helps free the Soma family from their curse. Tohru is a strong female character who holds a special place in my heart, and I think of her and the show often. I believe there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this anime, and I thoroughly enjoy rewatching it every time I decide to pick it up again.