Being a leader means allyship. It means being empathetic, self-aware, and possessing the ability to put yourself aside to help those in your school, community, family, and those around you. When a leader steps up, they have the ability to see a path ahead of them and charge forward regardless of the obstacles that may be placed in front of them. The path is never straight but through hard work and dedication, a true leader can accomplish anything within their community. In my community, I have demonstrated leadership through my positions in student organizations such as Vice President of Active Minds, Co-chair of Luther Disability Alliance, and a member of the Council for Equity and Inclusion. Within these positions, I have had the opportunity to advocate for the accessibility and recognition of disabilities within my college’s community. The most recent opportunity I have had to lead was through the participation in a focus group with a firm my school had contacted to create a master plan for campus renovation over a five to ten-year period. The communicative process allowed me to reach a wider audience and bring awareness to the accessibility issues that students face on a daily basis. Being able to lead the conversation to uplift my fellow peer’s voices allowed me to ensure their concerns were heard. Ultimately, as a leader, it was important to me to be able to bring awareness to the community I am a part of. Accessibility and disability are often left out of the conversation when considering diversity, equity, and inclusion, so being able to show that a conversation is being had to include disability is important. Disability is everywhere, even if it isn’t obvious to the naked eye. As a disabled person myself, I have seen discrimination occur just because someone doesn’t look disabled enough or it is an inconvenience to them, but I hope to lead my peers in a direction of change. I want to be able to be supportive and encouraging to my peers who are also disabled as I advocate for inclusivity and accessibility. Finally to me, it is also important to lead to ensure my peers have the accessibility they need to best support them and succeed in their academic goals.

In The White Coat Investor by James M. Dahle, one investment tip that I have taken to heart is diversifying the methods of investing between stocks, bonds, and even real estate. This tip is important when an investor must consider the risks, expenses, and tax efficiency of investing as the diversification of investments and your behavior towards investing can be a game-changer. When you change your mindset to look at investment positively you become more confident and can make healthy financial decisions by freely setting investment goals. Though the risks can be daunting, this does not mean you should not invest. In the book, Jack Bogle was quoted saying, “you get what you DON'T pay for when investing.” This quote was a huge persuasion tool for me to conquer my fear of investing and begin to apply healthy behavioral changes. I changed my behavior by educating myself about what I am investing in and creating an investing plan. Ultimately, the risks can be a constant battle against inflation, expenses, and taxes, but understanding that being financially proactive and portraying healthy financial behaviors can help you to overcome this battle.

One of the most important personal finance lessons I have learned is that it is never too early to start thinking about your financial future and it is best to do so now before it is too late. Though many individuals dream of having financial stability and security, most do not know how or when to start going after that dream. At a rather young age, I witnessed my parent’s financial decisions that occurred early in their life affect them for years as I watched them struggle with their own financial wellness. Within this lesson, I realized that you must make healthy financial decisions and goals to achieve this vision of stability and security. Beginning the journey towards stability and security, I learned to start simple and make a budget. I downloaded a budgeting app to hold myself accountable for my financial decisions and to understand how my actions were affecting my future. Next, in learning how to be financially proactive I set short-term and long-term financial goals. I began by designating 20% of my income to reach my goals to study abroad without having to take out another student loan. Furthermore, by putting a little bit of your money aside each month I learned that if I used the zero-based budgeting method by assigning each dollar a ‘job’ I could succeed in securing my financial future. Ultimately, I learned that it is never too early to think about your financial future and in doing so, you can achieve financial stability and security. This is a vastly important lesson that can set you on the path to financial freedom. Being financially free can ensure that you have money to reach your goals whether that be buying a car, house, or taking that trip that you have always wanted.

One practical solution for helping people who struggle with mental health is connecting to the individual in a way that they feel understood and heard. When you connect with someone it can allow them to feel understood and heard at a time when many feel that no one could begin to understand what they are feeling. Simply being present and listening to what they are going through can kickstart the process of healing. Moreover, it is important when connecting to someone that the environment you are in allows for no distractions. Having no distractions— listening with your whole being— allows for the person to have your undivided attention. While listening to the individual, be transparent so they can understand how much you genuinely want to connect and build a relationship with them. However, most importantly, while trying to connect with the individual it is important not to panic and stay calm while they are explaining what they are feeling. When you panic, it takes away from their experience as they are not only trying to describe to you what they are feeling, but trying to understand it themselves. Ultimately, establishing a connection with an individual can be not only a practical solution for helping someone who is struggling with their mental health, but it can be healing. As Carl Rogers said, “We think we listen, but rarely we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.” Listening empathetically with transparency, genuineness, and your undivided attention the person can begin to heal.

Patience enables us to analyze situations beyond the superficial level of society. Individuals who are patient can be resourceful, calm, empathetic, and full of self-control allowing a person to be able to help other people. This characteristic is extremely important within myself and those around me to persevere through challenging situations despite the obstacles we face. Being patient allows me to be happy and cultivate enduring relationships and will be important in my future endeavors as a psychiatrist. As I strive to become a practitioner in the mental health field, a key trait to being able to communicate effectively is patience. Specialists who are kind and compassionate, allowing clients to work on their struggles, on their terms, and at their own pace can build the most trusting relationships. This is a crucial aspect of the mental health and medical field. Successfully treating clients involves patiently guiding them through the best regimen for their situation to reach an optimal outcome. If I were not patient, I would ultimately make poor and irrational decisions, have a harsh attitude towards others, and have an abundance of unnecessary stress which are attributes that no one wants in a practitioner. An inability to express patience with a client could result in withdrawal and worsening of their condition. Overall, if I did not have patience, I would be unable to do what I love and that is helping others through their hardships.

Playlist Name: College 360-The Ups & Downs of it All Artist Name: Casper 1) One Day More from Les Miserables 2) Graduate by Third Blind Eye 3) Clique by Kanye West ft. Big Sean & Jay Z 4) Home by Philip Philips 5) Mr. Brightside by The Killers 6) College Kids by Relient K 7) Help! by The Beatles

One investing tip that I have taken to heart is the five investing factors that are within your control which are outlined by James M. Dahle in the White Coat Investor. Within this text, it outlines (1) the risks of investing, (2) diversification of where you invest, (3) investing expenses, (4) tax efficiency, and (5) your behavior. These five tips have been exponentially important in my learning process to becoming a successful investor. Most particularly, it is extremely important to understand the risks of investing such as your investment going down, individual security risk, default risk, and security risk. Though these are all significant risks, it doesn’t mean you should not invest, but rather diversify the way you invest your money between stocks, bonds, and even real estate. In addition, Jack Bogle is quoted in the book when talking about investing expenses saying “you get what you DON’T pay for when investing” which can be a huge persuasion tool when considering investing. Furthermore, it is important to note that when investing it can be a constant battle against inflation, expenses, and taxes, but do not be discouraged as the outcome of your investment is based upon your behavior and money mindset when investing.

My favorite scientist is Marie Currie who was undervalued during her time as a scientist. Marie Currie was a famous scientist who is remembered most prominently for her discovery of radium and polonium which paved the way for the current treatment of cancer. One fun fact is that she was buried twice as she died of leukemia attributed to her radioactive work and was moved to be buried alongside her husband Pierre. She was also the first female professor at Sorbonne University!

As I walked into work one afternoon after school I stood in the kitchen contemplating my finances. At this point in my life, I did not understand what it meant to have a money mindset nor financial wellbeing and in the busy life of a student it is easy to simply swipe a card and not think twice about where your money is going. For this reason, I was confused about my own finances and I started to talk to one of my co-workers expressing my concern. I was depleting my income and I did not know how to save effectively. He asked if I was keeping a log of my expenses and seeing the confused expression I held he knew the answer immediately. How he responded next, by telling me to always be aware and document where my money is going, was the best piece of financial advice I have heard. The advice that I received from my co-worker led me down the path towards financial awareness to understand my income and expenses. As soon as I got home from work that day I decided to educate myself on what it means to be financially secure and what it entails. The first thing I did was download a budgeting app where I could input my income, expenses, and transactions including recurring bills. Next, I began to make financial goals to ensure that I had a financial future where I felt safe if I ever ran into an emergency. In addition, I made a plan to start to save for college and started researching scholarships and grants that would aid me in my quest towards being financially secure. This advice, though simple, led me down a whole new path to become literate in my own financial future.

After obtaining my degree in psychology and neuroscience my dream is to attend medical school at the Milwaukee Medical College of Wisconsin. The Medical College of Wisconsin is my dream institution as they are closely associated with the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin where I have been treated since birth. My plan to achieve this dream is to do a variety of volunteer and clinical work while completing my undergraduate degree and taking a gap year after graduation to build my experience within the medical field. During this gap year, I plan to take the MCAT and work full time, most likely as a caregiver in a group home in Wisconsin. In addition, I have already started working towards gaining more understanding in this field as I am mental health first aid certified, training to become a domestic abuse crisis line operator, and soon will be a volunteer at a free medical clinic in Decorah, Iowa. The mental health field is my dream as I have witnessed many people in my community fall victim to their mental health conditions, therefore, I want to advocate and destigmatize receiving help for an individual's mental health. My complete vision for the future after graduating medical school is to become a psychiatrist specializing in neurodivergent young adults. I want to be able to apply the diagnostic knowledge that I have learned in my undergraduate and medical school to clients while giving them the feeling of relief through a diagnosis that many may face after being plagued with symptoms for a long period of time. In the end, my goal is to become a psychiatrist who does not immediately jump to medication without figuring out an individual plan for each patient, but rather a psychiatrist who is invested in the particular needs of each patient. I am also interested in working with institutionalized neurodivergent patients. Working in this setting would be very fulfilling as I would be able to help would on rehabilitative care to help patients recuperate while developing a long-term care plan. Ultimately, it is my dream to learn how to provide medical psychiatric care to neurodivergent patients. I plan to gain clinical experience to be able to gain a greater understanding of the medical field while also volunteering at a variety of outreach organizations such as free clinics and domestic abuse centers. Receiving aid through this scholarship would make an extreme impact on my ability to continue my education.

Within my community, the country, and the world I want to be able to see a wider acceptance of the disabled community. Being a disabled student myself, I have witnessed the discrimination that individuals with disabilities face on a daily basis and the struggle that occurs to get access to the resources we need. Within my own college, this ableist mindset is a very prevalent issue as people are questioned and ridiculed for not looking “sick enough” to need accommodations or being called a disturbance when their disability is visible to those around them. One of my best friends in college who has neurological issues faced discrimination from the disability services of my college-- the individuals who are supposed to support and help the students with disabilities. My friend was actively called a “disturbance” and a “nuisance” when her condition would act up in front of others. As a result, I was angered by this treatment and decided to take action. I joined the Luther Disability Alliance at my school and later became the co-chair of this amazing organization my sophomore year of college. Luther Disability Alliance is a student-led organization that works to support disabled students on campus. We provide a safe place for students with disabilities to talk about their disabilities and the discrimination that they may face on a day-to-day basis. It is our mission to educate the members of our community about the vast variety of disabilities and show that every person is different. We teach that the word “disability” is not a taboo word nor something to be ashamed of, but rather something to embrace. This year we have led many activities and meetings with individuals with disabilities and their allies including movie and trivia nights, educational material, and simply support group meetings. In addition, we have been actively meeting with the administration at my college to improve the quality of care and support for individuals on campus. One of the projects we have been working on throughout the last couple of years is accessibility on campus. As our campus is quite old, a lot of the buildings are inaccessible, so I began to advocate last year for the accessibility of some of those buildings. One of the items we advocated for is the lack of braille on the room and bathroom signs as there are a couple of students on campus who are blind. Currently, the signs only have the room number printed on them and a print of the braille, however, it is not raised for someone to be able to read it. This is just one example of the many items we are advocating for as we are also advocating for bias reports, HIPAA laws, and more. Overall, I have been actively advocating for individuals with disabilities, including myself, to the administration to allow a safe and inclusive environment for everyone on campus. Ultimately, I hope to see that my community and the world turn away from the ableist mindset. I want others to understand that having a disability isn’t a terrible thing as having a disability just means that you are just a little different. In addition, I want others to realize that people with disabilities have the right to the same opportunities and treatment as someone who does not have a disability and that they have the same potential as everyone else. In the end, I want to make an impact and improve the quality of support for everyone.

Throughout the past year, I have been plagued with numerous financial issues regarding basic care and health needs. As a college student, I have struggled with being financially independent of my parents while working and going to school simultaneously. Despite being under the age of 26 I have become independent in many areas of my life where many of my peers are not. My parents though would like to help cannot afford to help me as my father lives paycheck to paycheck and my mother recently moved from Wisconsin to South Dakota. As a result, I have had to start maintaining health and car insurance, the cost of living, student loan bills, and unexpected expenses (e.g. dentist, orthodontist, and optometrist) by myself. In addition, my car recently broke down and I had to use my emergency savings to fix my car as it is essential for me to get to and from my doctor’s appointments which are unfortunately a long-distance away. Regardless of these circumstances and filing independently for taxes and paying my own bill I am still considered a “dependent” as I legally reside at my father’s place of residence despite being there only one month out of the year so I cannot get any additional aid from my college. Although I am conscious of my spending habits I have struggled to balance all of these expenses that have been thrown at me within a short span of time. Ultimately, this scholarship will help me to be able to put more money towards my tuition and/or textbooks decreasing the amount of money I will have to take out for student loans and put towards tuition.

I want to continue pursuing a higher education to give back to the medical community. In the past, as a person with many disabilities, the medical field has helped me enormously and doctors have always been a central focus in my life. They have taught me more in my 20 years of life than I could have ever imagined. One of the greatest things I have learned is to never take a breath for granted as you never know what may happen in the future. These doctors have shown me that my health issues do not define me, but rather I can choose who I am as a person and the path I take in life. As a result, I want to give back to the medical community by continuing my education even further at a medical college to become a psychiatrist specializing in neurological conditions which is a field that is currently in high demand. Currently, I am working on my undergraduate degree in psychology and neuroscience, which has amplified my love for sciences, further supporting my chosen path. The medical field has impacted my life in many ways by allowing me to live a healthy life and inspiring me to be the best person I can be. The subject of mental health is a field that I am highly passionate about as I have witnessed many people in my community fall victim to their minds. This passion has led me to become an advocate for individuals who cannot stand up for themselves. Over the past year, I have become mental health first aid certified and began victim counselor training to work as a crisis line volunteer at Helping Services in Northeast Iowa. Currently, I am also the co-chair of Luther Disability Alliance, a member of the Health Sciences Club, and a member of the Council for Exceptional Children. Luther Disability Alliance is a student-led organization on campus that supports and provides a safe place for individuals with a disability on campus to talk about the struggles they are facing on and off-campus. This past year, I took my advocacy further by becoming the co-chair of this organization to meet with the administration of my college to make the campus a more inclusive environment for people of all abilities. I have learned a lot from this organization and it has allowed me to understand the struggles an advocate may face which I will be able to use in the future as I meet with patients and listen to the needs and struggles they face. Ultimately, I want to continue to pursue higher education to increase my ability to pursue my passion in the mental health field and advocate for others.

A legacy is a trace of yourself that you leave behind even after you pass away. A legacy is determined by the way a person lives their life and is the basis for which others think about you. It is an embodiment of who you are as a person and who you are striving to become. Throughout the final stages of development everyone yearns for something to leave their mark on the world, for many a legacy is a child, others their life work, or it may be both. It is the foundation on which future generations will be built as the older generations set out examples for them to follow. Throughout my upbringing, I was influenced by many different legacies from those in the health industry. This influence was a result of the many health issues I had including Cystic Fibrosis, hyper chronic tension, and more. Therefore, I was always in the hospital for different treatments, studies, and physical exams. For as long as I can remember I was always told by my parents and doctors that I was going to die at a young age and that I would be lucky to even live past my teenage years, but if I kept doing my treatments I could maybe extend it by a couple of years. I was normalized to the notion that I would never have a future. As a result, I found it hard to imagine a life past high school and I would get sad every time I thought of things I would want to do in the future but might never have the chance to do. This became even harder when a school nurse told me that I don’t try hard enough to be at school despite being a straight-A student. However, this my mindset changed when I met Dr. Lynn Rusy who was the doctor at the pain clinic I went to. She encouraged me to look focus on the moment and not let my health issues be a barrier to my success. She told me to move past this barrier and plan for my own success no matter what anyone tells me because nothing is impossible when you set your mind to it. To continue this cycle I plan to continue the cycle of encouragement by pursuing a career in the medical field, most particularly psychiatry. I want my legacy to be the impact that I make on an individual’s life that allows them to realize they can do anything they set their mind to.

Throughout much of my life, I have been in and out of the hospital for several conditions including hyper chronic tension, Cystic Fibrosis, and numerous other conditions. This condition was a huge barrier to my education and lowered my confidence that I will be able to go after my dreams. At this time, there were many people who didn't believe that I would be able to continue my education nor graduate high school because I was always sick. My high school wouldn't even consider helping me until they learned I was college-bound and the school nurse would ridicule me for my absence despite me maintaining a straight-A record. I struggled to find the motivation to follow my dreams until I spoke to Doctor Lynn Rusy. Doctor Rusy was an inspiration to me as she encouraged me to pursue my dreams and to not let my health be a barrier to my own success. She is one of the only doctors out the many that I have seen that took a genuine interest in my life and tried to make a connection with me. She supported me through my struggles and is one of the reasons why I want to pursue a career in the medical field. I want to show people that no matter your situation you are the only individual that can define success in your life. I want to continue the cycle of encouragement and be the type of doctor that supports their patient and is not afraid to make a connection to give them the best care possible. Ultimately, the driving force behind my motivation to become a doctor is the help and support I have received from those that have treated me. This support is the reason why I was able to have the motivation to finish high school, get into a good college, and pursue a degree in the medical field.