The argument over nature versus nurture is very much applicable to my situation. From as early as I can remember I wanted to help people. The very first career that I was adamant to become at about six years old was a veterinary. I chose this because I wanted to help all of the fluffy creatures that I loved so much. This shifted to wanting to be a biomedical engineer to after many science classes and the want to make the life saving devices doctors use daily. Now we near my final decision to become a pharmacist. This journey started in my AP Chemistry class in my junior year of high school. I fell in love with the topics and enjoyed going to that class every day. At this point I started looking into careers that use chemistry. This is also when the nurture aspect comes into play. My parents have always been a strong supporter and role model in my life. They both have fulfilling careers as a teacher and pharmacist respectively. They could have nurtured me into perusing the same careers but continuously supported me doing what will make me happy. What ultimately led me to my decision was my dad and all that he did for my friends and family. As a pharmacist he was the one that people in my life and his patients would turn to when the medical path in their life was not clear. He was the one to say that it would be alright in the end at a daunting diagnosis. He supported the people who mattered most and looking back that is always how I saw him. I think this is what made me realize that that is what I wanted to do as well. I wanted to help my friends, family, and future patients through times that might not be easy. As a pharmacist I can combine my love of chemistry, science and helping people. This is something that I have always wanted and continue to strive to achieve. It has only become more evident as I continue through schooling and volunteering that this is what my end goal is. My volunteer work at my university’s outreach pharmacy has shown me how many people slip through our healthcare systems cracks and how much I am helping them by giving my time so that the pharmacy can give them quality care. Pharmacy school will help me get to the point that I can help as many people as I can. Only through my education and experiences like my volunteer work can I learn the necessary skills to continue what my dad instilled in me of helping others who need help.

As I navigate my way through schooling I learn more about who I hope to become with every year. In high school, I wanted to study engineering and make the life-saving medical devices that doctors use daily. As I approached college my interest in chemistry grew to the point that I wanted to pursue a career in something that pertains to it. Chemistry is the building blocks of life. I fell in love with it with every exposure I received. It was AP Chemistry that solidified my interest. To me, it was one large puzzle that needed to be solved. The best part was that I almost always had the answer and I had to solve the middle portion. Unlike my physics class where I was taught to find the answer from little information and to question why that was the answer because of gravity or other forces. In chemistry, there was one answer because it was left to little variances in solutions. After all, that is how the world works. At the time questioning the answer felt silly and I was constantly worrying and backstepping to make sure that I was somehow mistaken. In my chemistry class, there was usually one correct answer and I loved it. This is the point where I asked my dad what he did at his job. My dad (now looking back) went into pharmacy for the same reasons I had of wanting to help people and that he loved chemistry. This is when I applied to go to Ferris State University for my associate's degree in Pre-Pharmacy. Over that first year, I reflected on why I too wanted to study pharmacy. I looked back on my life and my relationship with my dad and saw how much he helped our friends and family as I grew up. He was the person they came to when they had a recent diagnosis and needed help going through their new medication to feel better about the outcomes. He was the one assuring our friends that their son would not die after they ate what he was candy but in reality antiseizure medication (poison control was called as well for further instruction). The more I thought about his impact at work and all the people he helped there too. In that year I knew I wanted to be that person to help people navigate what can be a scary world. During my second year of undergraduate schooling, I joined the professional organization of Lambda Kappa Sigma. This connected me with other women in pharmacy and grew relationships with my future classmates. I was accepted into Ferris State University's College of Pharmacy that fall. Through this year I learned more about the different careers in pharmacy and how they help people at the many events hosted by the College of Pharmacy. Through my education, I will be a licensed pharmacist and eventually go into one of these careers. This path leads me to where I can combine my love for science and helping people. This path leads me to where I can be the person in my friends', family's, and future patients' lives that they feel they can turn to in their time of need.

Lunch is in just a half hour all I have to get through is the Weekly Reader and then I can go to lunch with my friends. This was the thought I had in fourth-grade minutes before my first panic attack. One of the latest topics in this addition to the small scholastic newsletter was bullying. I remember the story like it was yesterday. The poor kid had a severe peanut allergy and was being chased around by classmates with peanut butter on their hands on the playground. This lead the class conversation to how doctors test for allergies. Within seconds I felt this wave of heat and suddenly did not feel very well which made me at age 10 scared. I was extremely lucky that my teacher knew what was happening and told me to sit down and breathe. She calmly explained that I was having a panic attack and that it would be okay. In the minutes following my mom who was also a teacher in the building was there and gave me a hug. This was just the beginning of the next 10 years that I have both struggled with and triumphed over anxiety. On most days now in college, my daily goal is to not cry by the end of the day and most days I am successful. But in reality, my goals are much larger than that. I am going to school to be a pharmacist and help as many people as I can that way. There will be some anxious moments along the way and through years of therapy I have learned ways to prepare for this. My goals are to spite anxiety and not let it win but for me to win. With every year I can look back and go wow I did that. Knowing that two years ago I could never fathom attempting that "scary" thing. Because of anxiety goals are not the end all be all, they can change to fit the point in life that you are at. A goal is something to look forward to, and can change if needed. A goal does not have to be written in stone. Relationships are a tricky thing that I am still trying to master. I have been lucky that I have understanding parents who know that some things are hard for me but still push me to challenge my anxiety. My wonderful boyfriend assures me that he will be there for me with and without my anxiety. It is with my peers that I tend to run into problems. I have found that my mental health gets in the way of making close connections and making friends. I know that others do not judge me nearly as much as I judge myself and that in reality, they want to be friends with me too. But the "what ifs" always are there. I am constantly looking back at what I said, what they said, what if they just tolerate my existence. This often keeps people at arm's length and shapes a relationship before I get to. The world is a big and scary place for the anxiety in all of us. I have only recently started to see my anxiety as a weird little creature and not a scary monster out to get me. This weird little creature lives with all of us. Some creatures are enormous and some are the size of a flea. The important thing to realize is that everyone lives with some form of anxiety and that I am not alone. People react to how they feel and often times it is not a true representation of how others feel about you. As I get older I see this in others and can more easily identify it in myself. My journey with mental health has been a long one. From the scared little girl not knowing what or how to identify what I was feeling during a panic attack to navigating the world on my own I have triumphed over my anxiety and have lived life despite it.

The big screen actors of the fun-loving, quip-slinging, beloved character Spiderman all started with Toby Maguire, followed by Andrew Garfield, and most recently Tom Holland. Each actor has brought something new to the role over the years but they always pull off the character flawlessly in their own way. Personally, my favorite Spiderman is Tom Holland, from the moment I saw him in Captain America: Civil War, I was hooked. He just brought a breath of fresh air to the character and captured the nervous teenager that most of us have been at some point or another. The main reason I love Holland's portrayal the most is that he is the Spiderman my sister and I bonded over. For years my sister held the opinion that superheroes were, and I quote, dumb. Then I was brought into the Marvel Universe and loved it. I was soon begging my sister to give it a try with no success. Later her friends managed to get her into it and guess what, she loved it. this opened the floodgates to hours of conversation and debates over our favorite characters. Throughout those conversations, there was always one character we could both agree on and that was Spiderman and more specifically Tom Holland's Spiderman. This common interest always brought me great comfort that even with us being very different people we always had Spiderman to talk about. I have no real connection to Tom Holland other than the characters he has brought to life, but because of the new bond that I can share with my sister, I will always say that he is my favorite Spiderman.

At six years old I did not think that a loved character on an avidly watched Disney Channel show would lead to a role model that would come to admire. Disney Channel is when I started watching Zendaya. It was Spiderman Homecoming that made me fall in love. Zendaya has a great array of roles but it is what she does off the screen that I really admire. In the simplest terms, she stands up for herself. In her Disney Channel days, she pushed for her to be a producer on K.C. Undercover and for there to be a family on screen that looked like her and this was only the beginning. Since then Zendaya has had many roles now shifting to mainly the big screen but when she does make an appearance it is truly a role that defines a strong woman. As a woman going into a male-dominated field myself, I admire the role model Zendaya has become to girls all around the world. Sending the message that girls can do anything has always been a message that I push for and admire when anyone in a place in the public eye pushes for it too. This message has often been swept under the rug and forgotten when it comes out when it is good for certain people. What Zendaya does is she often pushes for women and herself no matter the situation. This is just one of the many reasons that Zendaya is loved by hundreds of thousands of people but this is the reason that she holds a place in my heart.

Three... Two... One... Start! And the race has begun. Mario Cart has become a favorite activity with my boyfriend and me. This all started when we first started dating, Mario Cart was the first video game we played together. during this first game, I warned him to be prepared to lose. In the proceeding races, he proceeded to crush me game after game. I should have expected this as he is into gaming far more than I am but the competitive person in me had to win. The stakes were high during this game, I proclaimed that I was the best at Mario Cart and I couldn't look bad, especially as this was our first date. He proceeded to boast and make it a challenge for himself. He played with the remote backward, upside down, and even waited for him to be far into last place but this just didn't matter. It stoked my competitive side and messed with my brain about how was I losing, I am normally the Mario Cart Champion. Somehow I still managed to lose. As one of our first bonding moments together and now looking back it set the tone for the rest of our relationship. The races were full of laughter and comfortable competition. This was part of the moment that I realized I could just be me with him. That it was okay to let my competitive side out and that he even encouraged it. This experience also sparked a rivalry between us leading to many more memories that have been made since. I can also now say that this fateful game was indeed a fluke and that I have been the champion Mario Cart player in this relationship.

Books I feel often have resonance throughout life. I still find myself thinking back to books I read in elementary school and realize the depth that the message of a certain book had. This is why I believe that books have the power to continually provide lessons even years after the first read. Not all books have to be about lessons as just providing an escape from reality can make the difference too. Just one book I would suggest reading in a person’s life would be “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.” On surface level it provides a great escape from reality. Children going on great adventures and talking animals do make great stories. But by looking deeper there are also lessons to have there as well. These lessons provide messages of friendship, faith in others, forgiveness and more. As a small sixth grader reading this book for the first time I often did not pick up on these themes. It wasn’t until I had many conversations with my mom that these messages became apparent. The way Aslan the lion sacrifices himself to save others still resonates with me over half a decade later. Just one book will hopefully never be reality and one book can lead others to the next and so on. I value reading as an invaluable resource in life. Just one book can change things for the better. Books often have that ability to absorb the reader and give them so much more than just a fun adventure and an escape. While just this one book is something I would recommend it is also something I hope to lead others to the next great book to continue their reading journey.

I have always had a strong role model in pharmacy as my father is a pharmacist and inspired me to also pursue this path. In my years as an undergraduate student, I joined the professional organization of Lambda Kappa Sigma a fraternity based on supporting women in pharmacy. This organization has a strong stance on helping both current and alumni members in their pharmacy goals. some ways that the women of this organization support each other is through scholarships to help pay for schooling, job recommendations, and much-needed advice on school and career topics. I plan on staying an active member for many years to come helping my generation of pharmacy students and generations to come.

Looking back on my childhood I have always had a strong role model with someone in the science field as my father is a pharmacist. As I was growing up, I got to see him help our family and friends ease their worries when they were ill by giving them advice and telling them everything was going to be okay. When I stumbled across this field, I knew that was what I wanted to do too. I want to be able to help people and make them feel better not just physically but emotionally too. I feel that the field of pharmacy blends my love of science and drive to help people almost perfectly. By obtaining a Doctor of Pharmacy degree it will allow me to continue down the path of science that I love while helping people along the way. As a woman in a highly male-dominated field, I have already taken opportunities as an undergraduate student to make connections and support other women in pharmacy. In the fall of 2023, I decided to join the Ferris State University chapter of Lambda Kappa Sigma. This professional fraternity stands to connect and support women in pharmacy. This organization has already taught me the many ways to help support women not only as professionals but as patients as well. Our chapter had a professor at the College of Pharmacy come and give a lecture on a women's health issue and this year the topic was postpartum depression. The lecture covered everything from patient interaction to the new drug and non-medication therapies that are currently available to patients. Early exposures to tangible things that can be done to teach pharmacy students to help support others as patients and collegues can introduce new ideas and help make the medical feild more inclusive. Creating environments like the one that I am a part of essential to bringing more women into healthcare. Environments that make one feel that there are other people there to help and support you is the solution for inclusivity. Helping women feel included from the start and promoting the support of others is what will make a positive impact for women in health care. The combination of the influence of my father and the support I have received as an undergraduate student has only strengthened my draw towards the field of pharmacy. I feel confident that next four years as a first pharmacy student I can succeed and continue supporting other women in my field.