I had always considered myself someone who would be happy to stay on a desert island alone for years on end, as long as I had my phone and a library filled with books. It wasn't until some months into the pandemic that I learned how vital my interactions with friends and family were for my well-being, and how maybe reading one more chapter in my book wasn't worth missing out on a day with my friends or a game night with my family. Being an introvert, I prefer to stay in my room and work on my own rather than be around a bunch of other people. But as I spent weeks upon weeks in my room attending online classes during the day and doing my homework at night, I began to miss the fun conversations I would have with my friends about everything and nothing at all and talking with my family in the car when we would go on trips. Even though my family was right downstairs, they were now caught up with their work-from-home responsibilities, so we rarely found a chance to spend time together. So, once I returned to in-person school, I found myself treasuring all the best moments with my friends and voluntarily playing games with my family whenever we were free. I also began to realize the value of time spent with the ones we love. Now, don't get me wrong, I still immensely enjoy my alone time, and there's sometimes nothing I would rather do than spend hours escaping into the fantasy world of my books, but I also learned to enjoy spending time with the people that, if I had a choice, I would definitely bring to a desert island with me.

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” So Mr. Darcy says to Elizabeth Bennett when asked when he fell in love with her in the ending of the classic novel Pride and Prejudice. Romance has been my favorite book genre for quite a while now, which throws people off a bit when I tell them so, due to the stereotype of romance books being poorly written or even "trashy". However, I believe this couldn't be further from the truth, and I only have to point to the book Pride and Prejudice to dispute this idea. This book is considered a literary classic, but it has become my favorite book because of its portrayal of the romance between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. The couple start out as strangers, then find themselves increasingly disliking each other, and from there slowly become lovers. This progression from the other being the person they most hate to the person they most love has always made my heart melt. It has shown me the joy that can come from seeing a happily ever after play out right in front of your eyes, all through the words of an author like Austen that paints each scene in perfect clarity and makes the couple's love story come to life. But beyond that, in a world where horrible things happen every day, seeing love blossom from hatred has given me hope for the future. Finally, just as Darcy cannot say when he fell in love with Elizabeth, I cannot say when I fell in love with this book, only that it happened before I ever realized it had begun.

"I established the first private orphanage in New York City / I help to raise hundreds of children" Eliza Hamilton, played by Phillipa Soo, sings in the last song of the Hamilton musical. These words provide a glimpse into the legacy of Elizabeth Hamilton, a historical figure that I greatly admire. More than just a main character in the story of Hamilton's life, Elizabeth Hamilton was a philanthropist and advocate who fought for children's rights and continued to make her mark on the world long after her husband Alexander Hamilton died. As a woman living in America during the 1700s, Ms. Hamilton didn't have many opportunities available to her, but she used her position as a member of the wealthy Schuyler family to help those in need, showing her compassion at a time when little was given to those without land or a title. In honor of her husband, who was himself an orphan, she founded the first private orphanage in NYC and helped to provide education and care to the hundreds of children there. She also helped raise funds to create a free school that children could attend in the Washington Heights neighborhood. Although the Schuyler family did own slaves, Eliza's decision to become an abolitionist later on in life also illustrates her willingness to fix past mistakes, a mark of a great mind. In addition, Ms. Hamilton worked to ensure that her husband's legacy was not forgotten by collecting and preserving his letters and other priceless artifacts of history. This, along with her efforts to raise funds to build the Washington Monument, was not often recognized due to her position as a woman during the 18th century, a time when women had very few rights, but her impact on the narration of history will never be forgotten.

I’m sitting on my bed, watching an Indian movie when I hear one of the characters say to another character, “Oh, you’re a psychiatrist? So you treat crazy people then!”, and I immediately stop the movie. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that phrase thrown around, and it’s even been said to me sometimes when I say my dream is to become a psychiatrist. People are surprised and often uncomfortable when I say that I’m passionate about mental health. That depression and anxiety are not made up and mental illnesses are just as real and significant as physical illnesses. That seeing a therapist isn’t a sign of weakness and is just as important as seeing a family doctor when you have the flu. As an Indian, I have seen the topic of mental health avoided constantly and seen as taboo, and this has made me even more determined to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. In addition, after taking a psychology class in high school and being selected for a mental health internship, I've become interested in being a child and adolescent psychiatrist due to the growing need for psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners in the medical field. I hope that by studying to become a psychiatrist, I can assist in destigmatizing and changing the conversation around mental health. Besides my interest in mental health advocacy, I also aspire to become a psychiatrist due to my fascination with the human mind and its behaviors. I find it highly interesting how culture plays a significant role in the actions and decisions of various groups of people, and believe that learning about different cultures through the study of multiple languages and religions as well can help me explore that facet of psychology and become a more well-informed psychiatrist.

It’s the month of August during my eighth-grade year, and I’m sitting in one of the rooms at the local temple, listening to an orientation for a program that over 100 people will join, and only 65 will end up completing by the end of the year. Sounds like a weird version of the Hunger Games, right? Well, it wasn’t nearly as high stakes as that, but it was definitely a difficult journey, considering that the end goal of the program was to be able to recite from memory all eighteen chapters, or seven hundred verses, of the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, with perfect pronunciation. Attending classes and assessments three times a week while also doing extracurriculars and schoolwork was difficult. However, while I may have initially joined the program because my dad wanted me to, I continued because of my own determination to see this through to the end. Even when my dad himself thought I should quit, I persisted, saying that I was going to end this school year being able to recite all of the verses from memory, no matter the difficulty. In fact, during summer break, I would end up spending two hours every morning reciting nine chapters, and in the evening another three hours going through all eighteen chapters with a group of ten other students. It took an incredible amount of dedication, but it all paid off in the end, as I ended up getting first place in the international competition for having no pronunciation or memorization mistakes in all eighteen chapters. Though I sometimes questioned whether I truly had the ability to complete such a massive undertaking, I persevered and reminded myself of how proud I would be once I finished, thus using persistence to overcome the challenge to the end.

I close my eyes, visualizing my room laid out before me, with my desk, posters, and even my clock surrounding me, a scene as familiar to me as my own name. "Cerebellum", I say as I imagine the word floating on the window sill. "Hypothalamus", I continue, placing the word next to my computer. I put 'Amygdala' next to my poster with the words "Follow your heart" on it and 'hippocampus' inside one of my shelf drawers. As I continue to place these vocabulary words about the brain all around my imaginary room, I start to make connections between the terms and their definitions, with the amygdala responsible for emotion, the hippocampus responsible for storing memory, and the cerebellum responsible for balance. It takes a while to get through all the vocab terms and arrange them throughout the room in my head, but by the end, it's worth it, because after studying for only about 30 minutes, I can recall in almost perfect detail the name for each part of the brain and what it does. To anyone else, this method of studying might seem strange, but to me, the Method of Loci, in which I place words that I need to memorize all throughout my room to connect the unfamiliar to the familiar, is often my best tool for memorizing a long list of terms for Psychology or the order of the digestive process for Anatomy and Physiology, for instance. Memorization has always been an important part of my studying process, but having to remember hundreds of different terms for 8 different classes can become difficult, which is why this study strategy has helped me to not only memorize terms but also connect them to things that I know, thereby gaining a better understanding of them in the process.

My former English teacher used to make it a point to tell us every day to “Grow in knowledge and wisdom”, but I never truly understood the meaning behind that phrase until he gave a speech on the last day of school to our class. His words that day resonated with me and reinforced my belief that a key pillar of success is education and the knowledge and wisdom one gains from it. I will always be grateful for the fact that I have access to a good education, and I wish to use that opportunity to help as many people as I can by becoming a psychiatrist. I would not be able to achieve this without years and years of learning, but the thought of being able to make a positive impact in other people’s lives motivates me to keep pursuing higher education, in hopes of achieving success in this area. In this pursuit, I have become a member of HOSA, a club for future medical professionals, as well as the Red Cross. Besides medically-oriented clubs, I am an active member of organizations such as Key Club and UNICEF, the latter of which I am the Advocacy Chair for. I have volunteered more than 150 hours these past two years alone on behalf of these clubs and others, and the experiences I have gained from this work have strengthened my resolve to aid people in my future career. Meanwhile, I continue to explore my other passions, besides medicine, as well, particularly languages. I studied my native language Telugu for five years, and now I have started a blog in order to help other Indians like me learn their native language and stay connected to Telugu culture even while living outside of India. I’m also working on publishing a book with the Telugu versions of popular English fairy tales, in order to encourage Indian-American kids to learn to read Telugu as well as provide them a way to connect their American and Indian cultural backgrounds, both of which are an equally important part of their, and my, identity. I strongly believe in the importance of learning one’s native language, but before I started delving deep into my language, I developed an interest in learning foreign languages such as Spanish and Korean. I began studying Spanish in 8th grade, and after learning it for more than three years and preparing now to take AP Spanish 4, I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of it. It was thrilling to know that this education would allow me to not just converse with other people in Spanish, but also treat a wider range of patients when I became a psychiatrist. This further motivated me to learn more languages, which led to me studying Korean for the past year. I plan on continuing to self-study Korean and Spanish and take ASL in college, as it is important to me to help more than just English speakers in my career. While I have many aspirations for the future, I have no doubt that pursuing higher education will greatly benefit me in accomplishing these goals, and therefore lead me to make a difference in many people’s lives for the better, which is my definition of success. Taking my English teacher’s words to heart, I hope that in this process, I will always keep learning and keep growing in knowledge and wisdom.

“Perhaps the reason this night looks so beautiful is not because of these stars or lights, but us.” As I sit in my bed reading this translated line from BTS’s song Mikrokosmos, I feel at peace with myself, realizing that all our existences are powerful statements in their own right because we are brightening up each other’s lives every day, just by being and loving ourselves. With this message of self-love and appreciation for myself in mind, I curated a playlist that revolves around songs that make me feel like the unapologetically optimistic and independent young woman that I am.