Children are the future. That is why I have always been so motivated to become a pediatric nurse. Nursing in general is an honorable way to make a difference in lives no matter their age. I am pursuing nursing as it provides me an avenue to spread my knowledge and be an advocate for my future patients. I have been interested in becoming a pediatric nurse since I started nursing school. I find working with children to be incredibly inspiring. There is never a dull moment as I see how resilient young children can be. That is why I want to carry that resilient attitude as a future pediatric nurse. I understand how scary it can be to be a patient receiving treatment, especially for a child. One day I came across the story of a young child named Holden. Holden was born in 2018 as a healthy baby. Then, his parents started to notice that he was seemingly not feeling well. They brought him to the emergency room at Children’s Wisconsin where the medical team figured out he was experiencing supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). This causes the heart to beat abnormally fast which led to Holden going into cardiac arrest. Luckily, the medical team were able to revive him, and Holden recently turned five years old. It is life changing stories like these that have inspired me to want to make a difference in children suffering from illnesses. From the time of hearing this story, I was offered the opportunity to become president of the student organization at Marquette University called Dance Marathon. Dance Marathon is a program that raises funds for pediatric illnesses. With being a part of this program, I am able to connect with families in the Milwaukee area and spread awareness toward improving the future for children that are faced with illnesses. I find being in this program has further sparked my passion for becoming a pediatric nurse. The opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives has already started for me as I fundraise for pediatric illnesses. The proceeds go straight to Children’s Wisconsin hospital. I see now how impactful supporting these hospitals can be as Holden is a living example of this as it has improved research, medical teams, treatments, etc. As I discussed earlier, children are our future. As a future pediatric nurse, I can be that advocate for creating healthy habits that can begin in early childhood. Just being that support system to a child and family can help to relieve some stress. I strive to be like Eric Maurice Brandon who was able to be that dedicated nurse to families during potentially life changing moments. As I continue through nursing school, I will uphold my plans to proceed with fundraising for pediatric illnesses and carry on with exploring my passion towards becoming a pediatric nurse.

After my grandma’s emergent gallbladder surgery, she needed help becoming reoriented into a world where being diagnosed with liver failure had changed her life. I remember pushing the wheelchair outside on a rainy day and helping her into the car to take her back home. We spent all afternoon going through her new prescriptions and learning together how she could implement diet changes. I spent time helping her organize her pill box and went over the proper ways to take the new medications. She had to add three new prescriptions to the other medications she was taking for her heart and blood pressure. Later that day, she explained to me how much it meant to have someone be by her side as she learned about the changes she was going to have to become accustomed to. Being with my grandma reminded me of my experience during my freshman year of college when I had the opportunity to volunteer as an English tutor. I volunteered at a place called the Adult Learning Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During my time there, I tutored students on the subject of English to enhance their writing and reading comprehension. All of the students there were working to get their GED since they had not graduated high school. The passion and enthusiasm these older adults had toward learning inspired me to continue spreading my knowledge that I was fortunate to be taught. I see now that being with my grandma taught me the valuable part of being that support for someone else. As well as the experience at the learning center taught me the importance of being that advocate for others to help them achieve their goals. All of the students in the class I was tutoring wanted a better life for themselves and by teaching them the proper use of the language I was making a positive change in their lives. Taking the time to focus on the needs of someone else is extremely rewarding and a great way to give back to your community. I found that helping my grandma and the students in my English class pushed me to continue to develop my skills and purpose as I continue to work towards becoming a nurse. I am a full-time student in my third year in the nursing program at Marquette University with a 3.98 GPA. With my time at Marquette, I have gained a multitude of experiences of providing care whether it be in my clinicals or as a certified caregiver. These opportunities have helped mold me into the person I am becoming that sees the value in treating the whole person as they go through their journey of life. Becoming a nurse is not just solely about understanding diseases and medications; it is about incorporating all the different experiences you have in life to meet the needs of your patients. I am so thankful for the chances I have had to explore other avenues whether that has been through my time volunteering or being with patients. I see now that every day is a new chance to learn from others and continue my passion for lending a helping hand in any scenario I am in.

When I thought about the career I would pursue I knew it would be something where I could leave an impact on others. When I was younger my grandpa had a stroke which caused him to have to relearn a lot of things like how to walk as well as navigate a world with vision loss in his left eye. I remember, as time went on, helping him organize his medications and watching as he went to therapy like with an occupational therapist (OT). I was young at this point in my life, but I remember being curious about his journey and if he would ever get back to his baseline. The healthcare workers that spent countless hours with my grandpa will forever be cherished by my family as he is now able to walk and be independent with most daily activities. From that moment on, I found myself being interested in activities that required me to be a problem solver, compassionate, and flexible. Currently, I am in the nursing program at Marquette University. I am majoring in nursing while minoring in family studies with a cumulative GPA of 3.9. From all my different roles, I knew that becoming a nurse fit my personality and my goals that I have in life. While a full-time student, I am also working two jobs on campus as a Residential Assistant and Peer Writing Tutor. The reason I started tutoring was after volunteering a semester at the Adult Learning Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I had the opportunity to work with underrepresented populations in tutoring them on the subject of English. Specifically, I would help those seeking their GED with their reading and writing comprehension. Being a part of that experience made me realize the impact that helping others has. I am sure Christina Singh also knew about how much of an honor it was to be that person that is helping others strive for greatness. As a future nurse, I see that the biggest part of my job is being that support and educator to my patient on how to live their life with quality. I feel I was called to learn about Christina’s story as it reminded me of the OT that helped my grandpa through the hardest time in his life. After that, it became a thought later on in my life about going to graduate school to become an OT, but I knew that nursing was my first calling as it would allow me to gain experience and become an even more well-rounded individual. As a future nurse, I plan on taking my studies in the route of preventative care as I believe there can be more awareness taught to people about diseases or healthcare in general. I grew up in a family not very knowledgeable about health and wellness until health started failing with some of my family members. In the future, I am planning on starting a wellness program geared toward helping people become more knowledgeable about their health and spreading awareness of better living in general.

My grandpa loved living life and spent many summers in Wisconsin going on fishing trips or enjoying being out on the lake. I remember one summer when we went to Wisconsin with grandpa, instead of getting up at five a.m. every day to go fishing, he slept instead. One night, after we had spent some time by the water, I walked back to the cabin. Before grandpa could get back inside, he fell which again was very unlike him. From that day forward, he continued to sleep most of the day, lose weight, and had many bruises forming over time. My family started to notice his peculiar behavior but did not think much of it as we blamed it on him getting older. My family has never been well-versed in health-related knowledge so my grandpa had been suffering from leukemia symptoms for a while before he finally sought medical treatment. One day, my grandpa fell and hit his head which caused him to bleed a lot. My grandpa went to the hospital and would have never been able to live out his remaining years without the help of the medical team that day. The nurses he met were so caring and knew there was more going on with him besides a minor fall. From that point on, due to the advocating from the healthcare team, my grandpa went on to face hearing about his new diagnosis and began his battle against leukemia. Witnessing and learning about all the life changes my grandpa went through inspired me to want to get into healthcare. I eventually figured out that my passion stemmed from wanting to prevent that type of situation my family went through. Knowing what it is like to be on the other side of the situation as the family member instead of the nurse has helped me through my classes and clinical as I know the importance of being empathetic. I find myself relating to the mission that Cindy Visser had toward giving back to her community. Nursing gives you the chance to give back and carry out care for a vulnerable person in potentially the scariest moment of their life. I started my nursing journey in August of 2022, and have found my calling of working in the realm of preventative care. I spent a semester in a memory care facility connecting with patients that have mild to severe forms of Alzheimer's disease. This experience helped relight the inspiration I had originally had from witnessing my grandpa’s situation. In my clinical, I had the chance to be with the families and the patients to see a glimpse into their lives. From all these experiences, I find that I hope to utilize nursing as a way to help others live their life better in ways of teaching about preventative measures like keeping up with regular doctor visits. My grandpa passed away back in 2020 and ever since then, I have carried with me the mission of helping spread awareness toward horrible diseases like leukemia. Through more awareness and research, I believe that people can become better educated on devastating diseases like what my grandpa and Cindy Visser faced. So far, I have done this by taking the step of educating others or taking part in research about these certain diseases. I hope to accomplish care that promotes preventative measures that focuses on not waiting till a person’s symptoms are too late to come back from. In honor of my wonderful grandpa, I hope that I can have that impact on my community who works to advocate for themselves and others.

Sirens were wailing as the ambulance rushed my grandpa to the hospital. My family was so overwhelmed and not sure what was going on. The only thing that they knew was to not leave grandpa’s side. At this time in my life, I was very young and unaware of the severity of the situation. My grandpa just had a stroke, and I had no idea what that meant. After that day, my grandpa had many health problems and lost vision in his left eye. Eventually, he recovered, but never got back to his baseline. Growing up, I did not have a family that was well versed in healthcare and once tragedy struck it was hard to watch as no one knew what to do. Moving on from that time in my life, I began to become very interested in what had happened to him. I would ask him about the medications he was taking and what they did. He taught me about them and made a list of all ten plus medications he was on just to make it easier for when he had to go appointments. Thankfully, the nurses and doctors met along the way helped lessen the stress of his situation. I found that piece of my life shaped who I would want to become. This part of my history sparked my curiosity with how to better take care of your health. Witnessing and learning about all the life changes my grandpa went through inspired me to want to get into healthcare. I eventually figured out that my passion stemmed from wanting to prevent that type of situation my family went through. I started nursing school in August of 2022 and have fallen in love with it ever since. I am inspired by Mary Kramer and her ability to leave an impact on others. I am inspired by that mindset as nursing is a profession that gives you the chance to take care of a vulnerable person in potentially the scariest moment of their life. If there is one thing I have learned thus far from nursing school, it is that a book cannot teach you how to be empathetic or a “good” nurse towards a person going through something unimaginable. You have to be put in those difficult situations to understand what it truly means to be a nurse. From my clinical, I have found that I carry the values Mary had as I get to contribute to my community and care holistically for my patients. I spent a semester in a memory care facility connecting with patients that have mild to severe forms of Alzheimer's disease. This experience helped relight the inspiration I had originally had from witnessing my grandpa’s situation. I had the chance to be with the families and the patient to see a glimpse into their lives. From all these experiences, I find that I hope to utilize nursing as a way to help others live their life better in ways of teaching about health promotion. Next semester, I plan on joining the faculty at my school to promote more research about diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. Before nursing, I had no idea what a stroke was until it happened to my grandpa. I believe that while there are a multitude of things you cannot control, there are ways to better the quality of life of patients and spread more awareness to potentially save a life.

At a young age, I found myself struggling to keep up with my classmates when it came to reading, writing, and math. I had to start going to tutoring to be able to pass the grade I was in at the time. My mom started to be an advocate for me and helped me with my studies. She would stay up late with me helping me grasp multiplication and how to better comprehend the readings we had in class. Learning how to navigate the academic struggles throughout middle school and high school led me to instill a love towards learning. Eventually, the consistency and commitment I developed toward my education guided me to graduate at the top of my class with a 4.0 GPA. This foundation in my life led me on the path to ultimately choosing nursing as my future profession. When I thought about the career I would pursue I knew it would be something that I could leave an impact on others like my mom and teachers did when I was growing up. Nursing was not my first choice, and it was not until the summer before my freshman year of college that I enrolled in the nursing program at Marquette. I made this decision after my mom had pushed for me to think about nursing as a possible profession. She was what brought me to contemplating being a nurse. I knew becoming a nurse would challenge me in multiple different ways like getting through nursing school and then translating the skills I learned into professional practice. Nursing is a profession that gives you the chance to take care of a vulnerable person in potentially the scariest moment of their life. If there is one thing I have learned thus far from nursing school, it is that a book cannot teach you how to be empathetic or a “good” nurse towards a person going through something unimaginable. That is why I knew pursuing nursing would be an honor as I get to be that support for that person as well as be a part of their journey. Becoming a nurse is not solely about giving medications and doing assessments. It is about the moments you will have with patients that you will never get anywhere else. As a Marquette nursing student, you are taught the values of caring for all, addressing social justice, advocating for those that are vulnerable, being a leader, and critically thinking. As a future nurse, I will carry these values with me as a way to contribute to my community. Right now, I am able to practice these values in clinical and learn how to holistically care for my patients. As a future nurse, I will be that educator for my patients on living a healthy lifestyle. This can take the form of teaching patients how to better take care of themselves through eating nutritiously or teaching patients how to properly take the medications they are on. I think it is also important to have the patient teach me back what I taught them to see where they might need more help. Being a nurse is not just teaching your patients, but also learning along with them. That is why I plan to contribute to my community in the ways my mom and teachers did when I was growing up. Through commitment and passion, I can help make a patient’s quality of life better.

When I was younger, I knew that I wanted to choose a career where I could leave an impact on others. This mentality came from those that I grew up with as well as met in my life. Specifically, one impactful person is my cousin who started working as a nurse over ten years ago. I was inspired by her story and the journey she endured to become a nurse. Whenever she would come home from work, she would rarely complain and expressed how honored she was to help others. Her perspective on nursing made me see providing care in a new way as something I can be proud about doing. And it was not just the healthcare workers in my life that motivated me, it was also my teachers. I saw the value of learning and how an educator is that mentor that is there to help as you grow. I witnessed characteristics of drive and passion within the people in my life and it made me realize I wanted to pursue a career that I could be passionate about as well. I did not know I wanted to do nursing until the summer before my freshman year of college. Originally, I had committed to Marquette as an education major, but was not set on this choice. I was all over the place contemplating going into education, psychology, pre-med, business, etc. I have always had the mindset that I can do anything, so I considered all the possibilities. Then, one day I had talked to my mom about what direction I should take with my major. She mentioned nursing as something she could see me doing. I started to think about the profession and found myself seeing it as the only thing I thought I could never do. It was the first career choice that made me feel like I was not capable of completing considering how difficult nursing school is. After that day, it stayed in the back of my mind. I woke up one day during that summer before my freshman year and decided I needed to commit to the Marquette nursing program. What I realized after contemplating my options, was that being a nurse would challenge me emotionally, physically, and mentally. I did not want a career that I felt would be “too easy” and would not be something that would give me motivation. I knew this profession would make me a better person and help me complete the goals I had in life. That includes much more than being a caregiver, but having pride in the work I do, being a teacher, as well as a learner, an advocator, promoting the wellbeing of others, and so much more. Nursing is more than a profession and it is different from other health careers. A nurse has multiple roles including being an educator, case manager, an advocate, coordinator of care, and more. As a future nurse, I have the honor to care for the vulnerable and be committed to improving the quality of life of my patients within a community.

Growing up, I knew I wanted to do something where I could make a difference. I struggled with choosing a career path, often taking career quizzes like the ones from BuzzFeed. Most of the time the results would come up with options of becoming a lawyer, teacher, counselor, etc. But none of those paths necessarily spoke to me and I felt discouraged. As my senior year of high school approached, I did not have an idea of what I wanted for my life. I felt there were many possibilities for me and that I had too many options to choose from. It was not until one day in my AP psychology class that I took a personality quiz and one of the possible career choices for me was nursing. I was shocked by the results because the idea of becoming a nurse rarely crossed my mind. I knew this was because I did not have enough people in my life that were in the medical field. I also never thought I would be capable of being a nurse as I did not think I was smart enough. These thoughts led me to eliminate nursing as a career choice. It was May 1st, 2022, college commitment day, and I proudly committed to Marquette University as an education major. I chose this major not because it felt right, but because I decided I wanted to be an educator. I have always had a passion for education and the idea of teaching brought me joy. Time passed and I felt anxious about my decision of choosing education. I thought about it for a while and went to my mother for advice on what I should do. When I asked for her opinion, she reminded me of times when I would be the first to step up in situations where someone got hurt. She advocated for me to choose nursing as she felt it made the most sense considering my personality. Some more time passed and then my “aha” moment came. I woke up one morning on June 8th, 2022, with an overwhelming feeling that I had made a mistake with choosing education. I will never forget this day as I immediately got out of bed and told my mom that we needed to change my major to nursing. We called Marquette and talked to the director of admissions. They seemed unsure at the idea of me being accepted into the program since it was last minute and a considerably hard program to get into. We then sent an email to the dean of admissions. The next day, my admission into the nursing program was approved and from there my life has been completely changed. Now, I am almost two years into the program and have learned so much about nursing and who I might want to be as a future nurse. In this way, now I take my passion of learning and can now be that teacher to my patient while providing direct patient care. My educational journey through the Marquette nursing program has proven to be challenging, but also rewarding. As a future nurse, I still have more to learn, but I am inspired everyday by my opportunity and privilege of becoming a nurse. I strive to be like Joseph Searor by being that dedicated nurse that continues to learn more about nursing. Just like Joseph, I plan to take that courageous step of going back to school a couple years after I graduate to become a Nurse Practitioner. As an aspiring nurse, I know there are no limits to learning.

Every Thursday for almost four months I tutored students who have not had the opportunity to graduate high school at the Adult Learning Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The students and I would work on their reading, writing, and grammar skills through reading comprehension tests as well as writing essays on specific topics. I never thought that I would be so impacted by the chance to tutor these students who gave me a new understanding of the importance of education. The time, sacrifice, and dedication that these students take to keep working toward a better life is so motivating and rewarding. They all were so enthusiastic about their education and would ask questions that would teach me more about English as well. I will never forget the day when I was asked to explain when to use apostrophes. While I have been utilizing apostrophes for a long time, I did not know exactly how to explain it to my tutees. My tutees and I got to learn together about apostrophes which taught me a new lesson that learning never stops no matter your age. Volunteering at the Adult Learning Center changed my mindset on the power of education and that learning should never stop. I have also had the opportunity to volunteer at other organizations like the Huntley Animal House Shelter, my school, my church as well as other churches in my area. One particularly impactful volunteering experience was the community service I did at Food for Greater Elgin which is a food bank that allows those who cannot afford to shop at grocery stores like Jewel to get the items they need. When I volunteered at this location, I had the tasks of greeting people, answering questions, stocking the shelves, or helping the shoppers load their groceries into their cars. I got to meet so many people who were grateful to get the items they desperately needed. I felt happy to be a part of something that gave back to those who needed help. The attitudes of the shoppers gave me a differing point of view on the weight that giving back has on people. The shoppers were so energized and excited to get the toiletries and food they needed. I felt humbled by this experience, and it taught me the impact of providing for those who need support. I first want to thank you for this chance to honor Lauren Czebatul’s memory and bring awareness to suicide. Honoring their memory helps us remember their impact and to stay motivated to share their stories and give back to those who are struggling. I am in the nursing program at my college which has aided me in fulfilling my goal of becoming an advocate for those who need someone to be their voice as well as support. This scholarship will financially help me afford to pay for my education. I have taken out loans, which I will be independently paying for, to cover the cost of tuition and attending the nursing program. This year, I will be attending clinicals which require me to purchase equipment and textbooks that increase the price of going to my college. I am very thankful for the opportunity to share my story and for the chance to potentially have my financial burdens lifted.