Hobbies and interests
Reading
Exercise And Fitness
Gaming
Fishing
Volunteering
Tennis
Travel And Tourism
Education
Coding And Computer Science
Business And Entrepreneurship
Research
Finance
Learning
Community Service And Volunteering
Food and Eating
Board Games and Puzzles
Beach
Reading
Academic
Business
I read books daily
Conner Cochrane
5,065
Bold Points53x
Nominee2x
FinalistConner Cochrane
5,065
Bold Points53x
Nominee2x
FinalistBio
I am currently a student in college at the University of Central Florida in which I have received honors for my grades each semester. My upcoming goal is to get accepted into the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. I am currently starting my senior year of college and I am majoring in the Health Science-Pre Clinical track and I am educating myself about financial education and how to invest into assets rather than burn my money on liabilities. I am currently recovering from an autoimmune disease called Eosinophilic Esophagitis where it had diminished months of my life and now I am striving to overcome the disease. I have started a podcast called "The Sleepless Bandits"! I am striving to be my best self now! I want to accomplish a lot in life to be able to help others that have struggled as I have. My number one priority is to eventually give back and help people that are in need, especially people that have an autoimmune disease. I will work as hard as it takes in order to achieve my goals because dreams come true with hard work and dedication.
Education
University of Central Florida
Bachelor's degree programMajors:
- Health Services/Allied Health/Health Sciences, General
Miscellaneous
Desired degree level:
Doctoral degree program (PhD, MD, JD, etc.)
Graduate schools of interest:
Transfer schools of interest:
Majors of interest:
Career
Dream career field:
Pharmaceuticals
Dream career goals:
Create businesses, Grow pharmacies, Real Estate, TV show writer
Driver
DoorDash2021 – Present3 yearsSales
USTA2017 – 20192 years
Sports
Tennis
Club2018 – 2018
flag football
Club2014 – 20162 years
Baseball
Club2005 – 201510 years
Tennis
Varsity2016 – 20182 years
Awards
- Most Improved
- Individual District Champion 2X
- Team Captain
Research
Community Health and Preventive Medicine
Advent Health — I am a current participant, as I am eligible to help provide my data by living in the community2021 – PresentResearch and Experimental Psychology, Other
ucf — I was a participant in over 10 hours of research study for my college.2018 – 2019
Arts
Individual
PhotographyIndividual2012 – PresentIndependent
Videographymorning announcemnts, mini videos,2015 – 2018Independent
VideographyThe Sleepless Bandits2021 – Present
Public services
Volunteering
Brighten a Day — Volunteer2021 – PresentAdvocacy
RHO KHAPPA KHAPPA — Was a the designer for the club2018 – 2018Volunteering
School Club — To help pick up trash around school campusPresentVolunteering
national honor society — An active member2017 – 2018Volunteering
Beta Club — As a member, taking part in different events, participating in many community events.2016 – 2018Volunteering
YMCA — Was a coach2016 – 2017
Future Interests
Advocacy
Politics
Volunteering
Entrepreneurship
Brady Cobin Law Group "Expect the Unexpected" Scholarship
Legacy is something that I want to leave behind for generations. Legacy is a concept that I take seriously, and I have already started piecing together how I am going to create that legacy. I have been struggling with an autoimmune disease, but I am proving to myself that I am stronger than the disease and can accomplish anything in life. In order to have a legacy that impacts you, you have to make a positive change in the world or provide a service to people that can help them with their life. Life gives everyone a certain amount of time on the planet, and my goal is to use that time to build my legacy. Having a legacy can be different based on the spectrum of how one approaches life. One may want to change the lives of their family or one may want to change the lives of the world. Having a legacy means that you brought a positive impact into the lives of people who roam the earth.
There are different kinds of legacies. For example, we have famous athletes that inspire people for years even after they pass away or we have Steve Jobs who designed a company in which his name is still represented by the products that are sold years after his death. Your legacy starts off right when you have people at your funeral that you barely even knew that looked up to you. Creating a name for yourself that represents such a powerful impact on people is the goal of a legacy. This is different for everyone, some people their parents inspire them, or even their neighbor. Truthfully, the legacy that I want to leave behind will impact people for the best and help provide them a service.
When I leave my legacy behind, I want people to use my name in such a thought where they are happy. I want to be able to create an app, product, and medication that changes people's lives. When I was severely struggling with my disease, I didn't know if I would ever get back to a sense of normal because of how much of a struggle every day was. The person who created the medication Budesonide ultimately changed my life and I truly thank them for that. In my lifetime I would love to be able to provide the same concept, in which I am able to give someone their life back who thought they completely lost the life they had. I want to bring a positive change into this world, that can inspire others to do the same as me. When I think, I love to think big picture because I want to change the lives of people in the world. The world is a difficult place to live in, everyone has their own issues, but I want to be someone where people can say my name and actually smile. I hope to bring joy to people and innovatively create systems that can better our future.
JuJu Foundation Scholarship
The greatest inspiration in my life is the gift of my time on earth. Every single day I am learning to not take anything for granted and to take risks because we have only one life on this planet. Life is so precious and I have experienced more than I could have imagined in my twenty years on the planet. My life has completely changed in the past year and I hope to strive to improve it.
Over a year ago I only really took school seriously and literally worked my life away like it was the only part of my life that mattered. Last year, in October I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis in which I had already been struggling with the disease for most of the year. This literally drove me to rock bottom where I was pretty much on a full liquid diet for a month and had a temporary depression.
As I have begun to heal from EoE, the thought of living and being happy drives me. I want to do more than just school and learn to love my life because I only have one life. I have the desire to go to pharmacy school, but now I realize how expensive this will be for the upcoming years. I still have the desire to go to pharmacy school but I have other interests such as learning how to code, growing a business, and controlling my own life. The idea of being financially free and living healthy drives me to be my best self. I have done my best to put the past behind me and work on my goals. I am working as hard as I can to make myself confident in myself and to be able to strive to accomplish great achievements in life.
I have learned not to take anything for granted because I lived what it was like to literally feel lost and have almost no control over your body. Being in control of myself and making decisions that will keep me healthy is my greatest asset and I plan to continue this mindset as I live on the planet. Any decisions that I make could affect my health and I plan on living a long and healthy life. I now keep my mind in control, focus on my goals, make sure I balance my time, and do not let my autoimmune disease control me.
Nikhil Desai "Favorite Film" Scholarship
I think that I have only cried during a movie once, and during this movie, I cried multiple times. This cry was a happy cry, one where the hairs on my arms stood up. I fell in love with the movie and I even named my video game account after it. I have watched it multiple times, and on a day when I am feeling down, I will just turn it on.
The story in this movie will bring anyone to tears, and it moved me as I watched it. The movie portrays two stories that combine to form the most beautiful ending I have ever seen of a movie. The creator of the story, Nicholas Sparks, is one of my favorites story creators and he absolutely took my breath away for this one. It focuses on two kids who fall in love and the difficult path that they have to follow to end up finding themselves. They learn lessons about love and sacrifice, from an old man who they rescued out of a burning car, by reading the letters he wrote to his wife during early adulthood.
The overall message that I received from the movie is that no matter what hardships you face, there is always a way to overcome them and discover love and hope. What really moved me is that they created the power of love through the work of art. The main character had a love for art and they were able to create love through art. The movie allowed me to see the world in a completely different way and how to respect the love of art. I want to continue using the lessons this movie has taught me for all of my life. The movie is called 'The Longest Ride'.
Fleming Law College Scholarship
My phone has allowed me to thrive this past year. During the pandemic, my family has taken It very seriously to try and reduce the spread of the virus. At first, I really did not know what to do because every day I was pretty much stuck at home. In the middle of the pandemic, to make the situation even worse, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that pretty much sucked the life out of me. Instead of using my phone as something to kill time, I used it to drive my mental health and use the smartphone as an asset to my future.
After I started recovering from my autoimmune disease, I knew that I needed to get my head on straight but I honestly did not know what to do. Since I had lost over thirty pounds and was still struggling to eat I decided it would be best to pretty much stay home all day long to try and reduce the risk of acquiring the virus or any sickness on top of what I had. I decided to talk to one of my lifelong friends to see if he had any ideas for how I could grow myself as a person. We decided to call each other every single night to check in on one another and then ideas started flourishing. I finally found a way to use my phone to my advantage in order to keep me interacted with the world and put my knowledge to use.
Using my phone now, I touch base with my friend every single day, whether we discuss a new book to read, a stock to research, a company or innovative idea plan, or just to help each other get through mental stress. My phone is always by my side and it holds the knowledge of what I plan to do and create in the future. If my phone did not exist I would not be able to communicate with my friend and adapt to the new world that is growing. New self-driven cars, new energy, and new networks. The smartphone allows me to be in touch with the current world even if I am purely stuck at home. This device solely allows me to keep updated with new world trends and strive as if I were able to be out and about like others.
My phone has been super important to me for quite a while now. When I am behind the wheel I only use my phone for listening to music as well as navigation. I typically will put the do not disturb on while I am driving because if the phone buzzes or dings, typically it is a natural instinct to check and see what came through. In my opinion, being on the phone while driving is putting people at risk besides myself and I do not want to be the cause of someone else's injury. A text message or a phone call can wait until I get back to my house or wherever I am currently headed. Reducing the amount of dangerous risk is absolutely necessary and is a step in the right direction for a better tomorrow. The fewer people that are distracted behind the wheel, the more safe society will be and the more confident younger people will be when driving.
Therefore, my smartphone has been put to good use and has fueled me with the knowledge that I need to help grow myself. I want to keep learning and discovering more about myself and how I can better educate myself every single day.
First-Gen in Health & Medicine Scholarship
Last year I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. This ultimately changed my life for the worse and for the better. For years, I always knew that I wanted to get a superb education and a well-paying job. I have always been in the top percent in my class I just never discovered my true self. I just never knew exactly what I wanted to become in life. I had different thoughts about becoming a lawyer, doctor, pharmacist, or accountant. I used to think to myself which one would just pay the most without really having a perspective on it. Well, EoE pretty much cleared my mind and made me want to pursue pharmacy. I have decided that I really want to attend the University of Florida Pharmacy School. This would be one of my most outstanding achievements. I am feeling more alive now than I ever have before in my twenty years on this planet. Why you may ask? A medication called Budesonide gave me the desire to live again. This medication took a few weeks but it actually cleared all the eosinophils from my esophagus allowing me partly to eat normally again.
Ultimately pursuing pharmacy has been my priority since recovering. Keeping up with school work and consistently learning about myself and how to keep a balanced mindset. Being able to produce medicine to help people recover from their disease would be my priority. I feel I would be benefiting myself as well as providing for others by pursuing this field in medicine. I know what it feels like to not be able to literally do anything and just feel pain. I want to be able to create medicine to help people that have suffered similarly to what I have gone through.
I want to expand my knowledge and learn about as much in the field of medicine as possible. I can control how much I want to dedicate my mindset to the field of pharmacy. I have been taking medical courses ever since I started college and have decided to completely stick with it. Once I get in and start working, I definitely want to participate in research for developing new therapies of medicine. I want to spread my knowledge to others and teach people about the power of medicine and the future of the world. The world is growing at a rapid pace and the amount of new pharmaceutical trials is increasing by the day. I hope to be a part of these trials in the near future and dedicate my time to helping the world.
Liz's Bee Kind Scholarship
I finally smiled for the first time in weeks. Yes, back in October last year I was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis and I had a few horrible months of my life. Every single day I just felt down and honestly miserable. Really I couldn't do anything at all because I lacked energy and was severely social distancing to make sure that I did not get sick at this time because I lost thirty pounds and was susceptible to the virus. I was drinking about three ensures a day in order to try and hit the minimum calorie requirement as I ended up dropping thirty pounds because I was not able to eat. I had this horrible tightness that has thankfully gone away now, and I am technically in remission. One of my friends knew I was severely struggling during the time but he was away at college.
My friend Facetimed me and always checked up on me just to make sure that I was hanging in there. We had a few talks and I could tell that he was worried because I was getting worse every day. I was always trying to keep my head on the positive side, but it was hard and my friend would always tell me to hang in there and get better. Out of the blue, he texted me asking me if I was home and at this time I haven't seen anyone in months. I figured that he needed me to check on a package or if he was delivering something to the house. Surprisingly, neither of those two scenarios was the reason why he was at the house! He knew that I absolutely love puppies and they just put a smile on my face. I am really a dog person and since my mother is allergic we can not have any pets in the house with dander so sadly I have never actually had a puppy.
On that day my friend and his girlfriend showed up at my house and brought his brand new puppy. Appa was the cutest puppy that I had ever seen, a big white furball with beautiful blue eyes. This was the cutest mini Aussie I had ever seen. For some reason, no matter how sick or out of it I was, puppies can always bring a smile to my face. My friend doesn't know how much seeing him, his girlfriend, and the puppy really got me through the whole sickness. Couped up in the house and just feeling terrible every single day and one small kind gesture of seeing his puppy changed my mindset. I truly cannot express how good it felt to see them and just play with the puppy for an hour. He was the cutest little dog I have seen and he just wanted to just run around and sniff and play with everything. I really appreciate how he looked out for me and a time of need and I will remember it for the rest of my life.
John J. DiPietro COME OUT STRONG Scholarship
September of 2020 had to have been the absolute worst year of my life. In this month I started to feel the impacts of my newly acquired autoimmune disease called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. It started to completely turn my life in a negative direction. In this same month, my grandmother was found unresponsive and ended up passing away two days later. This was probably the worst month of my life and it affected me for quite a few months.
From a young age, I always remember my grandma would be taking care of me. My granda was like the one true person that I could always count on. She was always there taking care of me, picking me up from school, and hanging out with me when everyone was busy. My fondest and happiest memory of her was that every Thursday after elementary school finished, we would go and just sit at chilis for two to three hours and hang out and talk about my life. We would always pick the same table, the one in the corner in the center area right when you first walked in. Here we shared moments, memories, and everything there was to discuss life. She would teach me from a young age to work hard to do what I love. I did not realize all of the important information that she was portraying to me until she got sick with dementia about five years ago. I witnessed the most horrific disease possible happen to someone, and how it completely took control over her life. It made me just horribly sad and really just depressed to see her because I knew that it was pretty much like a completely different person.
After she was diagnosed, it became too difficult for my aunt to constantly take care of her as she would do things that she didn't actually know she was doing. She was moved into an assisted living facility, in which I would try and visit her as much as I could. This was difficult for me because I was in college five days a week, and working hours after I got home to make sure I finished my schoolwork to achieve the best grades. My grandma always taught me to work hard, focus on what I want in life, and make decisions that will take me places. What I always thought is that she would be right there with me the whole time, but sadly I had lost that a few years ago.
The memories that we shared are just insanely hard to describe and it touches me currently as I am typing this. Recently, my mom was going through our old computer after she passed and found me making mini videos with my grandma in them. You never ever saw her not smiling or having fun making the videos with us. It showed me that she devoted her time to me, believed in me, and knew that I could make something special of myself. From when I started playing baseball, it was her favorite sport and she never ever missed a single game of mine. She had supported me from the beginning and all along was showing me the strength of love and passion. When I got sick, if she were still here I know she would have always been supporting me and standing by my side.
I have learned everything about life from just being by her side and closely listening to our conversations. I learned what true friendship was, how to work hard for my achievements, and to never let anyone bring me down. What I have recently learned is that I want to work hard, but I also want to make myself enjoy an amazing life. I have seen what happened to my grandma and I want to make sure that I am able to obtain everything I want in life before I have the possibility of getting dementia in the future. In order to do reach my goals, I have recently learned about financial education and how I can try and make my money work for me. I learned that life does not last forever and if you keep letting it slip then you will never obtain exactly what you want to achieve. I have my life in my hands now and I have to decide exactly how I want to grow and pursue it.
I know that my grandma would be proud of me and supporting me as I enter the journey of growing my wealth. I plan to use everything that I learned from my grandma and use it to my benefit. She was always smiling and showing me that being happy will get you places. I want to live my life with a smile and do exactly what will make me happy. Growing my wealth and allowing me to be successful will be the key to growing myself. She also told me that I have to work hard to accomplish what I want, and for the last few months I have been working hard in school, financial education, and just learning about life. I will take all the advice she has given me since the day I was born, to pay respect to her as she was my role model.
Breanden Beneschott Ambitious Entrepreneurs Scholarship
How many times have you met or seen a young adult that can barely afford going out to eat? The biggest problem in the world that I have seen lately is not educating kids in schools about financial education. Financial education could be a key factor in lowering depression, stress, and future poverty amongst the youth. Some college kids are working two jobs during the day just so they will be able to put food on their plate. They have not learned the value of money and how they can get money to work for them.
Growing up in school I only ever learned math, science and all the basic core classes needed to succeed in life. The issue that I am trying to cover is that what kids do not learn about is how to properly invest and use their money to their advantage where they can create financial freedom. This is a problem, because companies have been started by people that wanted to start something new, most of them learned the value of money. People that are working all day long for a minimum wage job and spending all their cash on liabilities most likely will be in debt or experience periodic depression as they stress themselves out because of money.
I suggest teaching young kids about the value and background of money to help them start learning from a young age. By high school there should be courses on how to invest money and what can help grow your assets so you do not have to rely on the government your whole life. Before I got sick with Eosinophilic Esophagitis I only knew that I wanted to go to school to be a pharmacist in order to make money from a salary. What I did not know was that there are many ways to make money grow and ways to start building assets long before a nice salary can be obtained.
This problem is worth solving because it would limit the amount of people living in poverty and limit the amount of people thinking that it is impossible to flip their economic class status. If someone was to truly understand the value of investing, there is a chance that anyone can grow their wealth. Another issue with not learning about money is that some parents will teach their kids what they know about money, and most parents do not even have the proper basis to be teaching about money. Listening to your parents is important but learning about financial education is the most important task to conquer in a lifetime.
This could change people's mindsets and could honestly help fund for research by growing the populations capital in the future or help people reduce stress or depression in their lives. This will help people climb out of their debt and help grow the market. Learning about financial education could literally change the world that we live in and would create vast amount of companies that I could not even imagine. This mindset could change the upcoming populations thoughts and processes, as most people do not really understand what it takes to become financially free. Winning a million dollars means nothing if it is all spent on cars and houses and any liability that could chip it away. Investing it to where it could last you the rest of your life is what I would love to teach my fellow peers.
Ethel Hayes Destigmatization of Mental Health Scholarship
During the last year, I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Even before I was diagnosed, the disease had been impacting me for months, as it had started to become difficult to eat back in June of last year. This ultimately led to consistent anxiety and depression about every single day. Every morning it was hard to get off the couch, because I was not even able to sleep in my bed because I had to sleep straight up to reduce the impacts of GERD, as I was dealing with the throat inflammation as well. The most stressful thing was trying to eat, at the beginning I could get a little bit of cereal in me, but throughout the day eating became almost impossible. No one in my family suffered from EoE so I was the first one to experience it as it is a rather new disease.
There was a point that I was not able to consume any food but have a full liquid diet throughout the month of November. This also came with multiple endoscopies with dilations, in order to enlarge my constricted esophagus. For a few months I was lost and did not know what to do. Every day was hard to live and I lost the meaning of life for a while. To fully explain the pain and mental strain is almost impossible in words, but more of emotion and constant trying to find anything to enjoy. I ended up going on a forty day steroid, which lasted about 45 days to completely heal the esophagus. This was also a brutal recovery process but I finally was able to mentally climb back to life. I started to realize that my life had so much more and I wanted to control my disease. I decided that every day I would need to keep my head on straight and fight for happiness every single day. I want everyone out there to know, that when they experience this they should reach out for help and know that there are medicinal therapies to help them improve their health.
Something that I did encounter was pretty much staying at home and losing interest in technology during the time period of being sick. What I realized is that I did not reach out to my friends as much and I had started to become anti-social. I realized that I may have improved my mental health if I were to reach out to my friends and explain to them what was happening to me. After I had finally started taking control of my life, I started a podcast with my friend to talk about life and everything that had been occurring the past year. What I realized is that people really do care and they want you to pull through to your best ability that you can. By opening up with my life it actually created new friendships and I found people that struggled with diseases similar to what I had to deal with.
I completely understand my life in a much better perspective. I have realized that you are only alone in the world if you choose to be. You can be a small fish in the sea, but there are ways to become known and to build people that you can trust.
A Sani Life Scholarship
2020 completely changed my life. Towards the end of the year I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. This literally took the life out of me and pretty much tore me down for many months. This occurred on top of the coronavirus and it literally prevented me from doing anything. I really couldn't eat, go out, or realistically do anything but sit at my laptop all day long.
I learned that it was possible to overcome the disease, I stayed on my medication treatment and helped to mentally heal myself. I learned that I had to make my actual life mind over matter in order to make sure that my life would be trending in the right direction. I started to completely overcome my disease and I developed something called learning financial education. I started to learn that on top of school and getting a well payed job, there is more to life than sitting behind a desk for eight hours a day. I have began to read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos and listen to well known entrepreneurs on how to achieve a healthy life.
Every day I remember what life was like dealing with the worst of the disease and how terrible I felt and looked. I ended up losing over thirty pounds in a four month period and have finally put fifteen of those pounds back on. I am taking control of my life, and I plan to educate myself as much as I can on financial freedom.
If 2020, did not exist, I would probably have got a job working as a pharmacist for the rest of my life and to rely on a payment check from the government. What 2020 taught me, is that I have seen my life be taken out of my own hands and was controlled by a disease. I want to always have control of my life and I plan on doing that by becoming a pharmacist, I want to buy into investments that will grow my assets. While doing this I can continue to grow my knowledge and eventually create complete financial freedom.
The year also put into perspective that I want to help people that have struggled with something similar to what I have. I want to use my money to help fund research programs to help learn about cures or treatments for diseases that can help people live a more prosperous life. I first hand experienced what your own body could do to you, and I want to first hand take interest in learning how to prevent that and what medicinal treatments can be used to prevent it. One thing I have also learned is to never let one goal be enough, but always have multiple goes so you never stop focusing on accomplishments. I hope that one day I can be the reason why someone else survived their disease or why they do not have to live with it any longer.
Taylor Price Financial Literacy for the Future Scholarship
In October of 2020, I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. This absolutely changed my life for the worst, but also came with the new beginning.
Last year COVID-19 was a big impact on my life, but at the same time I discovered that I had an autoimmune disease that started impacting me as well that year. At the time all I did was focus on school and I thought it was the only thing possible in order to grow me a better life. By the time November hit, with the EoE becoming so bad, I went on a full liquid diet, where it was not even easy to drink liquids every single day. I struggled with temporary depression along with anxiety as this period in my life arose. I was having constant endoscopies and esophageal dilations in order to help me be able to eat. At the same time I discovered a lipoma on my arm had moved and started affecting the nerve of my arm. I was pretty much in my house from til December, with the only place I travelled was to my desk to focus on school. It was about January when I finally started to slowly get back on my feet, and something changed my life. I read the book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". This book completely changed my perspective on life and how I had to take control over my own life. Since then, every single day I am making sure I do not let my disease control me and I make sure that I strive to work hard every single day. I have realized that school education is super important, but more important is getting a firm grasp on financial education. I am still learning by reading every day, listening to podcasts, starting my own podcast, and learning from other investors. I have decided to take complete control where I can be financially free within ten years and I can provide my knowledge and wealth to people that are also struggling. I really want to help people that have gone through something similar that I have.
When I was younger I never expected to have something like this, and I have learned to adjust and have a completely different mindset. I want to learn how to make money, not for just myself, but to help others around me and give to those that may not have discovered what financial education is or how they can obtain it. I want to share my story with people in the future, to let them know anything is possible and that anyone can achieve something if they put their mind to it. Currently I have been researching the stock market, small businesses and have a desire on learning how to code. I want to gather all possibilities so I can achieve goals for myself and help teach people in the future. I look up to successful people and see that it is extremely possible, and I am starting at such a young age where i can use my school and financial education to get me where I want to be in life. One of my goals would be to invest into multi-family real estate in order to produce such a strong cash flow, where I can use this to help fund research trials for medications that can help people combat their diseases. One of the most important concepts in the world is mental health, three months ago my essay would be completely on how my life is depressing and how I am struggling to live every single day. Now I have adapted my mindset, learned to live with my disease, and have become aware how to use it to benefit me and the people living in the world around me.
Mental Health Movement Scholarship
During the last year, I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Even before I was diagnosed, the disease had been impacting me for months, as it had started to become difficult to eat back in June of last year. This ultimately led to consistent anxiety and depression about every single day. Every morning it was hard to get off the couch, because I was not even able to sleep in my bed because I had to sleep straight up to reduce the impacts of GERD, as I was dealing with the throat inflammation as well. The most stressful thing was trying to eat, at the beginning I could get a little bit of cereal in me, but throughout the day eating became almost impossible. No one in my family suffered from EoE so I was the first one to experience it as it is a rather new disease. There was a point that I was not able to consume any food but have a full liquid diet throughout the month of November. This also come with multiple endoscopies with dilations, in order to enlarge my constricted esophagus. For a few months I was lost and did not know what to do. Every day was hard to live and I lost the meaning of life for a while. To fully explain the pain and mental strain is almost impossible in words, but more of emotion and constant trying to find anything to enjoy. I ended up going on a forty day steroid, which lasted about 45 days to completely heal the esophagus. This was also a brutal recovery process but I finally was able to mentally climb back to life. I started to realize that my life had so much more and I wanted to control my disease. I decided that every day I would need to keep my head on straight and fight for happiness every single day. I want everyone out there to know, that when they experience this they should reach out for help and know that there are medicinal therapies to help them improve their health.
RushOrderTees Young Entrepreneurs Scholarship
Last year in October I was only focused on completing my degree until I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. This brought me to literally rock bottom where I did absolutely nothing all day long and fight my depression. The Eosinophils pretty much limited me to a completely liquid diet for the entire month of November. I had countless endoscopies and esophageal dilations in order to help me get started back to eating and living normally. This year, in early January I started to recover from this autoimmune disease and I discovered financial education. I did not realize that this was even possible, and I would be able to take control of my own life and not let the government run my life for me. I have been constantly teaching and educating myself on how to learn how to make my money work for me. I have seen the countless opportunities on how to invest and what are possible options to grow my assets. How I believe I can contribute to the betterment of society by growing and producing my own pharmacy and being able to provide for people that have been in my situation. I want to be able to invest my time and money to grow my capital in order to create and grow pharmacies that can provide medicine for people that may need it. My ultimate goal is to use my profit and wealth to give back to the community by using my wealth and funds to do research and studies on how to find medicinal treatment for people with autoimmune diseases and other untreatable diseases.
I have also recently started a podcast with my friend to discuss life education and adversities to inform people about important information and stories in life to help influence them. I want to show someone that is struggling that anything is possible, and they can get back to their life with a full head of steam. I experienced this, and I desperately want other people in desperate situations that they can push through, and they will always find a way to get their head over their body. Sooner than later I would like to start my own business whether that is selling podcast product designs or t-shirts designs, I have a desire need to start producing capital in order to achieve my final goal. I will continue to grow my education both through school and through books and investments, which can really get my goals under the way. I just have been growing my knowledge and will continue to strive as I start to achieve my goals and let my money work for me.
Bubba Wallace Live to Be Different Scholarship
Recently in October, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that is called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. It got to the point where it hurt to swallow, food would get stuck and I ended up having a full liquid diet in November losing thirty two pounds. This led to depression and severe anxiety as I was in and out of the hospital as well as having consistent endoscopies to see how my tissue was healing.
This changed my life. For starters, the only thing I ever wanted to do was go to school and get an education and get a job. That is pretty much how society teaches you. What I have discovered is that I can use my talents and learn about financial education about how to invest and build my assets. Being super sick, I heard a podcast about a girl who also had something similar to me, and it took her years to recover. Fortunately, with my positive mindset and medicine therapies it was only about five months of a severe struggle for me, but this point in time I was feeling like I was barely alive. This podcast inspired me and my closest friend to start our own podcast called "The Sleepless bandits" where we talk about education and bring on guests to talk about their adversity in their life.
Being sick, was maybe the best thing that happened to me because I live every single day with a purpose in how I can achieve amazing success. I have been reading more books and educating myself on how I can achieve financial freedom at a young age to pretty much have myself set and be able to provide for my family.
Reviewing the end of the year last year, I was hit with EoE as well as COVID-19 on top of everything and I think it sky rocketed my anxiety to a point where I did not even want to leave the house. Now I am teaching myself how to combat that anxiety and how to build a future for myself where I am not scared to live but embrace life. I really appreciate you taking time to read this, and I hope that others that are dealing with the same thing I am, have been fortunate enough to combat the disease and take control of their life back!
Mechanism Fitness Matters Scholarship
Hello, my name is Conner Cochrane and I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in the fall and have a lipoma formed on my arm that causes my arm to lose feeling. I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and I ended up losing thirty two pounds in a two months period. Since the middle of January I finally got back up on my feet to get back into my shape.
What do I do?
Every single day I wake up and do push-ups, at least twenty five where it does not affect my arm because I am not lifting anything. Every Saturday and one day during the week, I play tennis with my dad at our neighborhood courts to increase stamina. I then in between my classes every single day from five to five thirty go outside for a walk mixed with a run. I listen to podcasts during the run and walk to keep my body feeling mind over matter.
I take staying fit super seriously, for starters I am a health science major. I want to be a pharmacist, but I know the key to living a long and healthy life is to constantly stay fit and eat healthy. Before I got sick I was working out five days a week with tennis in between. I took about twelve months off as my body struggled and I noticed the toll that it had on me. I knew that getting back to working out and keeping my body healthy would be the best thing to get me back into shape and get me on my feet. Now I am going to have a consistent schedule for the whole year to get back into my original shape and maintain my good health.
Rosemarie STEM Scholarship
My current degree is Health Science Pre-Clinical at the University of Central Florida. I am an inspiring pharmacist, but at the same time I am financially educating myself. I have been striving hard since elementary school to become a Pharmacist. Currently, I am in my senior semester of college, and I will be applying to graduate school very shortly. I have taken school seriously, finishing in the top 4% of my high school class in Orlando and performing in sports along the way. From day 1, I have always wanted to work hard to accomplish my goals and then be able to spread my knowledge to my peers. I have desperately wanted to help others that can learn the same way that I grew up with learning and high academic success. I want to bring that into my job, and then give people jobs.
I have started a podcast with my friend to help promote how life can be difficult for some people and others that push through it. I want to take my knowledge of pharmacy and be able to apply it to the podcast. I also want to learn so much about pharmacy, that in ten years down the road I can create and grow my own speciality pharmacy. I have been educating myself on how to grow wealth, and stay on top of my schooling. I am applying within the next few weeks to do research at UCF, in order to further my knowledge about medicine in order to help educate others. Starting and providing a podcast for people to learn about education is super important.
Furthermore, one day I hope to be able to train or provide pharmacists a job in which I can teach them about my knowledge. By keeping everything inside my head, that would be selfish and I want to provide everyone an amazing future like I hopefully will have.
Nikhil Desai Reflect and Learn COVID-19 Scholarship
I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has affected me because I am pretty much bound from going anywhere as I may be at a higher risk. I was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis, in which a point it got so bad the entire month of November I remained on a liquid diet. I only left the house maybe about four times during the pandemic. All of these times were to the doctor or hospital to have an endoscopy procedure done. It took three dilations to get my esophagus back to a normal size in which I have finally started being able to eat.
COVID-19 also severely mentally impacted me due to the fact that it took travel and getting out of the house away from me. I had a temporary depression due to the fact that I was stuck inside and literally could not eat or do anything. The disease took months away from my life and I am slowly starting to overcome the disease. I have finally cleared the Eosinophils as of my last endoscopy in February and I am starting an elimination diet so hopefully they will not return.
I have got into podcasting to use my time as a benefit to help me overcome my disease and help me strive. COVID-19 is still impacting me as I have a higher risk of being severely impacted from the disease. I hope that with all the medicine and trials the disease will no longer be able to impact me and I will be able to almost return to my normal self.
Over the last month I have been working on my mental health and readjusting to my classes as I suffered taking Organic Chemistry 2 and Microbiology while dealing with not being able to eat and pretty much pain every single day. I am striving more now and I hope to continue on this bright path.