Me being an African American was a major factor that cause many challenges I had to overcome in my life. In addition to that factor, I used to have speech problems due to my tonsils not being removed which caused plenty of challenges for me. Starting in my toddler years being in daycare, I was shunned quite often because I would speak gibberish since my tonsils prevented me from speaking properly. The kids there would make fun of me, or whenever I tried to approach them trying to initiate some interaction they'd run away from me and talk about me. I felt neglected and misunderstood so I spent most of the time by myself in my own little world. Fast forward to my teenage years, I was often overlooked in my late middle school years and early high scool years when it came to my academics. I was mostly on honor roll and whenever the school would recognize people who made honor roll, the people were Caucasian most of the time and it would be very few Black people who got recognition. Even me being in high school from 9th to 12th grade I never got recognized which was very surprising because I thought it would've happened eventually in the matter of 4 years there. Continuing, I've also faced recent challenges in college as far as my confidence in my academic performance. My freshman year I attended University of Cincinnati in Blue Ash for Nursing, and I felt confident in my success until the instructor for my Health Professions class told the whole class something very discouraging. On the first day of virtual learning, the instructor told us to have a plan B as far as a major because we shouldn't get our hopes up about making it into the Nursing program. We were also told only 2 people out of the entire class would make it and not to be so sure we'd be one of those people. It deeply discouraged me because me and 5 other classmates were the only Black students in the class while majority of the class was white. Also, the university was a PWI (predominantly white institute) and mostly white people would make it into the Nursing program, and small number of "cultured" people who made it were of different races and not Black. This incident played a role in me deciding to transfer to an HBCU, and I'm honestly glad I transferred to a school where I feel welcomed and accepted. As far as how I plan on using my education to give back to others who're underserved and underrepresented is to reference myself as a psychologist for people in the Black community. Our people go through a lot of daiy struggles and traumas and I would love to know my role could help everyday people overcome their personal struggles in life. As someone who has had some traumatic experiences in life, I can attest that a therapist is needed to maintain your mental health even if you don't think you need one.