My journey into the nursing world was unexpected after spending years dreaming that I would pursue medicine, but I have not regretted it since the day I changed majors the summer before my freshman year. I am a rising senior in the traditional BSN program at Seton Hall University, a journey I began after getting first-hand experience in the world of healthcare and seeing how nursing aligned with my greater purpose in the world. I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others, as my father has been involved in the field of education and has worked as an elected official for as long as I can remember. My mother pursued a career in healthcare to follow her passion of bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others and passed that drive onto me as well. After seeing both my parents do so much for others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of mine began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school I was blessed to have the opportunity to get my CNA and EMT licenses, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand. I was able to see that while many, myself included, dream of being a doctor, it was the nurses that spent the most time attending to the patients and developing a caring relationship with them. I realized that in order to pursue my passion for giving back to others and directly bringing wellness into the lives of people who need my help, I had to become a nurse. I hope to become a critical care nurse and pursue a career either as a nurse practitioner or as a CRNA, but my ultimate goal is to become a leader in the specialty I pursue to help improve the well-being of patients and grow the field of nursing. My first step on this path has been being inducted into Sigma International Nursing to help connect me to a large network of nursing professionals and leaders. I am now also working as a Nurse Extern at Saint Joseph’s University Medical Center on the Coronary Care Unit and Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit to gain more critical care nursing experience and further my education. I am also currently working to give back to the Seton Hall and College of Nursing community. I work as a tutor with the EOF program to help first-generation students pursuing nursing degrees. I am also a peer mentor for the College of Nursing, where I help teach underclassmen nursing students about our nursing program and how to succeed in it. I have also spent two years with the Student Nurse Association as an executive board member, where I helped run nursing-related educational events and the annual health fair. This scholarship is important to me as it would give me the opportunity to spend more time developing professionally and academically to excel as a nurse and give back to others, rather than worry about repaying large amounts of student loans after graduating. Thank you so much for your consideration.

My journey into the nursing world was unexpected after spending years dreaming that I would pursue medicine, but I have not regretted it since the day I changed majors the summer before my freshman year. I am a rising senior in the traditional BSN program at Seton Hall University, a journey I began after getting first-hand experience in the world of healthcare and seeing how nursing aligned with my greater purpose in the world. I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others, as my father has been involved in the field of education and has worked as an elected official for as long as I can remember. My mother pursued a career in healthcare to follow her passion of bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others and passed that drive onto me as well. After seeing both my parents do so much for others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of mine began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school I was blessed to have the opportunity to get my CNA and EMT licenses, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand. I was able to see that while many, myself included, dream of being a doctor, it was the nurses that spent the most time attending to the patients and developing a caring relationship with them. I realized that in order to pursue my passion for giving back to others and directly bringing wellness into the lives of people who need my help, I had to become a nurse. I hope to become a critical care nurse and pursue a career either as a nurse practitioner or as a CRNA, but my ultimate goal is to become a leader in the specialty I pursue to help improve the well-being of patients and grow the field of nursing. My first step on this path has been being inducted into Sigma International Nursing to help connect me to a large network of nursing professionals and leaders. I am now also working as a Nurse Extern at Saint Joseph’s University Medical Center on the Coronary Care Unit and Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit to gain more critical care nursing experience and further my education. Despite receiving multiple scholarships, I still have to take out large amounts of third party and government loans as well as work extra hours to make ends meet. This scholarship is important to me as it would give me the opportunity to spend more time developing professionally and academically to excel as a nurse and give back to others, rather than worry about repaying large amounts of student loans after graduating. Thank you so much for your consideration.

As a child of immigrants growing up in America, I had the choice of defining myself by many different identities. Was I an American first and foremost after being born and raised here, learning the culture and language of my family's new home? Was I a Syrian before anything else, staying true to the heritage of generations of my family? It was a difficult time finding my place in America while juggling these two identities until I realized that one label I had transcended any cultural or ethnic identities; my identity as a Muslim. Islam has been the guiding light of my life that has kept me grounded through all the times of turmoil and stress in high school, college, and my personal life. I learned from the example of my parents who never compromised their faith for their success in this material life. Like them, I wanted to pursue excellence in my religion as well as excellence in the worldly life without damaging my faith. My father especially taught me through his work as a Muslim elected official that as Muslims we must always be giving back to our local communities while not forgetting our communities back overseas. This resonated deeply with me in light of the hadeeth of the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessing upon him, “Whoever relieves a Muslim of a burden from the burdens of the world, Allah will relieve him of a burden from the burdens on the Day of Judgement. And whoever helps ease a difficulty in the world, Allah will grant him ease from a difficulty in the world and in the Hereafter." This drive to serve others and my community is rooted deeply in my faith of Islam and has driven my academic and career goals significantly. I first began to manifest this through my work in my local mosque in Paterson, New Jersey. I have been there for 6 years now, starting in 2017 where I worked with youth ranging from ages 8-18 in developing and running youth programs focused on developing children and teenagers spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally to be leaders in the Muslim community. This experience has allowed me to mentor youth from a diverse set of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds and has helped show me the value of giving back to the community hands-on. My experience in the mosque showed me the joys of servant leadership, and combined with my love of the sciences set me on my current path to work in healthcare. As it came time to apply to colleges, I decided I wanted a career where all my passions could come together. After getting direct experience working in healthcare I saw that nurses did the most to not only treat a patient's illness through physical means but also could provide mental, emotional, and spiritual care, which spoke to me deeply as a Muslim who wanted to relieve the burdens of others. I am now a rising senior in the Seton Hall College of Nursing and am working in a hospital in Paterson serving a large and diverse population, including many Muslims, where I hope to work after graduating. This scholarship would mean a lot to me as a student who regularly has to take out loans for school, so that I may focus more on my studies and volunteering than trying to make financial ends meet, as well as avoid taking out more interest-based loans. I hope this opportunity helps support my passion for helping others as the Prophet Muhammad advised us to, thank you so much for considering me.

All throughout high school I found myself falling behind my peers in terms of my health and athleticism. I first noticed a difference when my friends and I were unable to spend as much time together after school because they were tied up in sports teams. Despite feeling a little left out, I continued my unhealthy eating habits such as binge eating, snacking, and overeating throughout high school, and went up to over 240 pounds by the time of my graduation in 2020. My pediatrician would remind me every year that I had to lose weight for my own health's sake, but I was afraid of the sacrifices I had to make. Even with my mom pushing me to be healthier with her experienced background in health care, I did not want to give up my sedentary indoor lifestyle and the instant gratification of snacking heavily all day long. However, many things began to change in 2020, and by the spring of 2021, I realized it was really time to take serious change. After graduating high school in the peak of the COVID pandemic I began to see how unhealthy lifestyles and poor diet affected those infected, as morbidity was much higher in those obese and unhealthy patients. I also began to pursue my studies as a nursing major and began to question myself and the double standards I would be perpetuating to my patients. If I was pursuing a career where I want to encourage others to cut bad habits and live a healthy lifestyle for their own sake, should I not be striving to do so for myself as well? I also began to become more conscious of my close friends when we began to regularly do recreational activities like playing sports outdoors. I realized they were much more athletic, not because they were gifted with genetics that I was not, but because they put in more effort and had more discipline than me. I did not want to keep falling behind, and I also realized if it was in their own hands to choose to live a healthy lifestyle and build their physique, it would be in my own hands to do the same and abandon my unhealthy habits. My journey would officially begin in the Spring of 2021 when I would carefully track my calories via mobile apps. It was also around this time that gyms began to re-open following a long quarantine, and with the encouragement of my mother, I signed up. As a college student now I was able to operate like an adult and wanted to take advantage of the independence granted to me by my income and new car to improve my health, not indulge in more unhealthy habits. I would eventually get into the world of judo with the encouragement of my friends as well, where I saw the most results. I fell in love with the sport and would regularly train for over 10 hours every week. I began to see results around this time when my family members commented on my figure and I noticed my clothes get loose. Now that I saw I could do it, I felt even more empowered to lose weight. After months of effort, I was not only able to compete in a judo tournament and place 3rd, but also found myself down over 60 pounds, my lowest weight being 178. I have thankfully maintained my healthy habits, and I owe it to the discipline I developed through my health journey not only for my weight loss but my positive academic and career habits.

I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others by following the example of my parents. Both my parents are Syrian immigrants who have made it a point to both adapt and fully integrate into American society and who want to give back to the nation that supported them as new Americans. My father started his journey by giving back to his community first as a firefighter, then through local politics. Through his hard work and sincerity in serving the people, he was not only elected as mayor but re-elected enough times to be the longest-serving Muslim elected official in New Jersey. In watching his journey through civil services I realized that his success was not due to having special connections or through being especially charismatic, but rather it was due to his passion and desire to give back to the community that gave him so much as a new immigrant in America. I also learned that service to others is not limited to just those around us. He truly acts upon his slogan, "Act locally, think globally", such as when he began fundraising and supporting humanitarian work in our war-torn home country of Syria, where he took several trips there to deliver humanitarian aid. It is through my father's example that I learned to do justice to the community that gave so much to support my growth, I would need to spend an equal amount of effort returning that service to its people. My mother also embodied the values of service to others by pursuing a career in healthcare to follow her passion for bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others. Despite having to struggle with balancing her graduate education and raising me as a young child, she pushed through doing her best in both knowing that helping others was just as important as raising her son. After seeing the efforts both my parents put out to live lives helping others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of serving others began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and I began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school, I was blessed to have the opportunity to work in healthcare, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand and the joys of providing healing not only physically but emotionally and mentally. After spending much time working alongside nurses, I realized that like my mother, a healthcare career where I could bring wellness and support into the lives of those in need was for me. I could now help others not just through volunteering outside of work, but within my career itself. I realized that to pursue my passion for helping others, I had to become a nurse. This scholarship would mean a lot to me as a student who regularly has to take out loans for school, so that I may focus more on my service to others than trying to make financial ends meet. I hope this opportunity helps support my passion for caring for others like Dr. Alexanderia Lane did, thank you so much for considering me.

My journey into the nursing world was unexpected after spending years dreaming that I would pursue medicine, but I have not regretted it since the day I changed majors the summer before my freshman year. I am a rising senior in the traditional BSN program at Seton Hall University, a journey I began after getting first-hand experience in the world of healthcare and seeing how nursing aligned with my greater purpose in the world. I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others, as my father has been involved in the field of education and has worked as an elected official for as long as I can remember. My mother pursued a career in healthcare to follow her passion of bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others and passed that drive onto me as well. After seeing both my parents do so much for others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of mine began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school I was blessed to have the opportunity to get my CNA and EMT licenses, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand. I was able to see that while many, myself included, dream of being a doctor, it was the nurses that spent the most time attending to the patients and developing a caring relationship with them. I realized that in order to pursue my passion for giving back to others and directly bringing wellness into the lives of people who need my help, I had to become a nurse. My recent work and schooling experiences have opened my eyes to the beauty and the challenges of nursing. Despite the many difficulties associated with this job, being able to see I made an impact in the lives of others at the end of the day far outweighs the struggle on the path, and I know nursing is for me. Thank you so much for this opportunity and for reviewing my application!

My journey into the nursing world was unexpected after spending years dreaming that I would pursue medicine, but I have not regretted it since the day I changed majors the summer before my freshman year. I am a rising senior in the traditional BSN program at Seton Hall University, a journey I began after getting first-hand experience in the world of healthcare and seeing how nursing aligned with my greater purpose in the world. I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others, as my father has been involved in the field of education and has worked as an elected official for as long as I can remember. My mother pursued a career in healthcare to follow her passion of bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others and passed that drive onto me as well. After seeing both my parents do so much for others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of mine began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school I was blessed to have the opportunity to get my CNA and EMT licenses, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand. I was able to see that while many, myself included, dream of being a doctor, it was the nurses that spent the most time attending to the patients and developing a caring relationship with them. I realized that in order to pursue my passion for giving back to others and directly bringing wellness into the lives of people who need my help, I had to become a nurse. I hope to become a critical care nurse and pursue a career either as a nurse practitioner or as a CRNA, but my ultimate goal is to become a leader in the specialty I pursue to help improve the well-being of patients and grow the field of nursing. My first step on this path has been being inducted into Sigma International Nursing to help connect me to a large network of nursing professionals and leaders. I am now also working as a Nurse Extern at Saint Joseph’s University Medical Center on the Coronary Care Unit and Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit to gain more critical care nursing experience and further my education. My recent work and schooling experiences have opened my eyes to the beauty and the challenges of nursing. Despite the many difficulties associated with this job, being able to see I made an impact in the lives of others at the end of the day far outweighs the struggle on the path, and I know nursing is for me. Thank you so much for this opportunity and for reviewing my application!

My journey into the nursing world was unexpected after spending years dreaming that I would pursue medicine, but I have not regretted it since the day I changed majors the summer before my freshman year. I am a rising senior in the traditional BSN program at Seton Hall University, a journey I began after getting first-hand experience in the world of healthcare and seeing how nursing aligned with my greater purpose in the world. I have always been taught to do my utmost to give back to others, as my father has been involved in the field of education and has worked as an elected official for as long as I can remember. My mother pursued a career in healthcare to follow her passion of bringing joy and wellness back into the lives of others and passed that drive onto me as well. After seeing both my parents do so much for others on both a community and individual basis, I knew it was something I had a passion for. My first steps in pursuing this goal of mine began in the summer of 2017, when I started volunteering at the mosque I am still at to this day to develop and run programs and activities for the youth of our community. Here I began to learn about the importance of servant leadership and truly felt the sweetness of bringing positivity into the lives of others, and began to strive to be a role model for both the youth and other volunteers. In high school I was blessed to have the opportunity to get my CNA and EMT licenses, and it was then I experienced healthcare firsthand. I was able to see that while many, myself included, dream of being a doctor, it was the nurses that spent the most time attending to the patients and developing a caring relationship with them. I realized that in order to pursue my passion for giving back to others and directly bringing wellness into the lives of people who need my help, I had to become a nurse. I hope to become a critical care nurse and pursue a career either as a nurse practitioner or as a CRNA, but my ultimate goal is to become a leader in the specialty I pursue to help improve the well-being of patients and grow the field of nursing. My first step on this path has been being inducted into Sigma International Nursing to help connect me to a large network of nursing professionals and leaders. I am now also working as a Nurse Extern at Saint Joseph’s University Medical Center on the Coronary Care Unit and Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit to gain more critical care nursing experience and further my education. My recent work and schooling experiences have opened my eyes to the beauty and the challenges of nursing. Despite the many difficulties associated with this job, being able to see I made an impact in the lives of others at the end of the day far outweighs the struggle on the path, and I know nursing is for me. Thank you so much for this opportunity and for reviewing my application!