What does success mean? To many it means wealth or fame. But, to me it means only one thing — impact. To me, success would be improving access to affordable healthcare for my Hispanic community. Through my father’s long battle with lung cancer, I realized how language and financial barriers can keep people like myself from receiving proper care. There was no cure, no hope for a lung transplant — just chemotherapy. Even then, my parents were met with cold indifference when my father desperately needed treatment. A nurse refused to bring in a Spanish speaker and, claiming they had no more chemotherapy injections, turned them away. Were there really no Spanish speakers? No treatment left? Or was it just easier to dismiss a Hispanic man in need? When I heard this story, I realized my own struggles with belonging were part of a broader problem, one that affected the entire Hispanic community. This sparked my hope to change healthcare. It has been adversity like this that has formed my definition of success. It’s not degrees and salaries that measure my success, but the lives I change. Through the major of biomedical engineering, I aim to create affordable cancer treatments, improved screening technology, and advocate for compassionate care for everyone. Success is seeing a mother acquire treatment without fear of medical debt, a child receiving a life-saving diagnosis, or an elderly patient engaging in the healthcare system without language barriers. Even something as simple as speaking to a patient in their own language can make a huge difference. True success, however, goes beyond learning how to create solutions, it will mean ensuring that my work reaches the people who need them most. I want to develop affordable medical devices, collaborate with hospitals to apply accessible technologies, and advocate for policies that reduce healthcare discrepancies among people of differing backgrounds. Whether it is through research, innovations, or community outreach, I want my efforts to directly impact families like mine in order to ensure language and financial barriers no longer determine the quality of care someone else receives. That is all I want: to make affordable healthcare for my Hispanic community. The challenges I have faced — going through college applications alone, overcoming imposter syndrome, and balancing responsibilities at home — have molded me into someone eager to break barriers. I am not only pursuing a STEM degree; I am pushing for a future where no one is denied care due to their background or culture. This, to me, is success.

Sitting in the oral surgeons office, I remember vividly: 0.9% NaCl. Why 0.9%? It's so close to 1%, why not make the IV 1% to make it a nice, round number? I asked the two nurses, "Why is the IV specifically 0.9% NaCl?" They didn't know. I was disappointed. I wanted to know how the 0.9% solution of NaCl affects my body or rather how a different concentration would affect my cells. Biology is one of the most fascinating subjects I could study. It’s a subject that is seen everyday, yet most of the details fly over our heads. It is that passion that has led me to pursue a future education in this field. Starting with a disappointing performance in chemistry my sophomore year caused me to ponder whether this path was the correct one for me, but since my father pushed me to try again the next year, that’s just what I did. To my surprise, I flourished in both AP Physics C and AP Chemistry the following year. This revelation caused me to enjoy this kind of science. Taking AP Biology, I find the application of the Chemistry and Physics I studied feeds my intellectual curiosity. To discover and keep on discovering. That is what I want to do in the future. One day during that same year, my father desperately needed a chemotherapy injection, but he was missing something. He was met with a nurse who told him she had none, yet he begged for another option. Surely she’d offer at least comfort, no? No – she didn’t. She responded coldly; not even bothering to try because of his broken English. He was missing his translator – me. There aren’t many Hispanics in the medical field. Receiving sympathy in your own language can be medicine. I want to feed my own intellectual curiosity, but I also want to provide understanding for patients. No one has the right to assume. Due to the passion I have developed for science and the experience of my father, I want to pursue a career in the study of medicine. I want to be able to provide hope for people - men and women, Hispanics and Asians, of any sexual orientation - suffering chronic illnesses through the study and discovery of the human biological system. There is still so much to be discovered concerning human biology, and I will participate in the force that drives it forward.

The summer breeze running through your hair. The rays of sunshine, warmly glowing over your sun-kissed skin. The cool water of the pool: refracting in unique, ever-changing patterns, beckoning you after a long, tiring day. The perfect summer evening, right? This, however, is my reality everyday of the year. Through the coldest evening of winter to the early mornings of summer, I stand at the water’s edge. Being a student athlete is not always pretty or fun, but it is the people you surround yourself with and the lessons you learn that bring the most happiness and love to being a student athlete. It will not be the grueling practices and mounds of school work that you will think back on, but your own happiness in finding community, learning with your community, and sharing your own knowledge with that community. During my Junior year, having my head swim coach as my AP Calculus teacher changed my perspective on life and carved an avenue for me to integrate into my swim team further. In his classroom, my Calculus teacher taught me many valuable lessons that carried over to my ability to integrate into my swim team. He taught me maturity, critical thinking, discipline, focus, respect, and consideration. He pushed his students out of their comfort zones, and in doing so, he facilitated my ability to feel like an integral part of my community. Later on, I became more confident in myself and my abilities, which invited new friends, greater competition, and greater improvement. The sense of community my AP Calculus teacher fostered was a catalyst for new friendships, competition, and improvement. In becoming a more significant part of my swim team, I found myself befriending and swimming with the fastest swimmers on my team. The community I was now a part of pushed me to do better everyday. The constant push of encouragement – with hints of rivalry woven into it – gave the right amount of sting and motivation to work harder. That year, I dropped a tremendous amount of time in my best events: 8 seconds off my 200 free, 5 seconds off my 100 free, and 8 seconds off my 200 IM. The friends I swam with also dropped tremendous time that year, thus, proving further to me the impact of community on my love for being a student athlete. Now that I am a Senior in high school, being a student athlete became a tall order. With college applications, it became difficult to balance both school and sport, but the community I became a part of helped me through the tough times. The Seniors on my team frequently worked together reviewing our college applications. One of us was even admitted to Cornell University. Upon becoming team captains, a couple of the Seniors on my team and myself have emphasized the importance of academics to our younger peers, especially with the excitement that came with one of our admissions to Cornell. As team captains, it is our duty to make our final high school season as fun as possible, but we must also pass down our own knowledge to our underclassmen. In being a student athlete, I have found, learned from, and given back to my community. Through the cold, rainy meets of the spring to the warm, soothing swims of the summer, we've been there for each other without fail. It is my community, all that I have learned, and all I give back that fosters a love for being a student athlete within me.