My favorite Taylor Swift song on the album 1989 is This Love. I remember hearing the crashing of the waves. There was a soft breeze. As the moon arose from the horizon I sat on the sand in front of the Pacific Ocean during my trip to Hawaii and listened to This Love by Taylor Swift. In the tranquility of the environment, I found myself reflecting on the similarities I felt to the song. I related to the lyrics in a literal sense, as I watched the “Clear blue water,” and the “High tides,” but I also related to the song on another level. For years I have dealt with bullying. From elementary school and especially middle school, I constantly felt like an outsider as I just moved to a new area where I stood out highly due to things like my interest in country/rock music. During middle school, I felt like the part of This Love, where she says, “Skies grew darker. Currents swept you out again. And you were just gone and gone.” As the bullying grew, so did my depression. I felt like the confident girl that I once saw when I looked in the mirror… was gone. These feelings would continue to grow until high school when one day I sat by the window in my cafeteria. That day, I met five amazing people that I grew close to, as we finished our freshman years of high school. As we bonded over typical teenage things like our favorite artist or show, my mental health started to transform into the chorus of This Love. Suddenly, “love is alive, back from the dead.” Now and then I would worry that the bond I formed with this group of people was too good to be true. I was scared that something would happen and I would be back to being by myself with nothing but my solitude. The best way to describe these negative thoughts was as the flickers of the lantern burning Taylor Swift sang about. Before the thoughts could expand though, I was reminded by these five great people that I do matter. Then once again I was back in the chorus. I felt loved. This Love is my favorite song on the album 1989. Even though Taylor Swift wrote this song about one person, I love it because it reminds me of the five amazing people I met my freshman year. As I type this, I become emotional as I think about how they pulled me out of, “The high tide.” Though I’m not sure how the story with these five people will continue, I will never forget the way the ocean looked on the trip, the friends I made during my freshmen year of high school, or all that This Love by Taylor Swift has gotten me through.

Last year I went to my first therapy session, for my depression, and never went back. I didn’t go again not due to disliking my therapist or the practice as a whole, but because of how expensive it was. It was then I realized how hard it was to access mental health care. While there are over 18 million physical health professionals in America, there are only 1 million mental health professionals. To make mental health care more accessible we must break the stigma surrounding mental health. By breaking this stigma we not only encourage more people to talk about their mental health but more people to go into that profession. As the number of therapists and psychiatrists increases, the price will decrease. Also, by destigmatizing mental health and treating it the same way that we treat physical health care, we would encourage more insurance providers to cover it like physical health. Lastly, I believe that mental health care is more than therapy. It’s promoting a more positive self-image in the media. I plan to pursue my higher education with a focus on marketing so I can become a Marketing Manager. As a Marketing Manager I will make sure that no matter what one looks like, they can see themselves represented in the media. If I win the $1000, I would use it for my schooling to make this plan a possibility, so that mental health care not only becomes more affordable but accessible to all.

I love my wide nose. I love my wooly hair. I love my deep dark skin. I love all the things I was taught I should not. Growing up the daughter of two Nigerian immigrants it felt like there was a constant surprise in my life. I went to a predominantly school where it was more common to see people with lighter complexions and was surprised to find out that the contrast in my skin color versus most of the other students there would impact the way I was treated. I was surprised when I was in class in 5th grade and when I was asked a question, I was interrupted by a student saying, “She won’t know the answer because she is black.” When I moved to a predominately black school in middle school I was once again surprised to learn that there was another culture I didn't know about. As the daughter of Nigerian-born parents, one could say I was sheltered from certain things like the fact that I have never had a sleepover to this day or other things that were normal for other groups of people. In middle school, I no longer stood out due to the color of my skin but due to the cultural differences that followed me like a shadow. The constant bullying I faced taught me more lessons than my teachers did in elementary and middle school. Lessons like it's good to have curly hair but not "too" curly, don’t go in the sun because the darker you get the uglier too, big lips are nice but a big nose is not. I could either hold on to these lessons or I could unlearn them, and over time as I entered high school I grew to unlearn them. I have never been shy to stand up for what I believe in, like when I wrote a speech that I ended up reading to my city’s mayor about systemic issues, or to shoot for the moon, when I ran for Senior Class President in my school with 2357 students. I took the bullying that I faced in elementary and middle school and used it to motivate me to achieve those accomplishments. If I win the money I will use it to fund my higher education where I would major in marketing and ultimately become a marketing manager so people of different cultures can see themselves in the media while growing up. During all the bullying I faced I remember wishing I knew a famous Nigerian girl that looked like me and was praised as beautiful. I want to become a marketing manager so that kids have role models and see people that look like them in commercials and other forms of media. If I win this money not only would I thrive to create a better life for myself, but for the people that come after me. I want children of immigrants to know that you can embrace your culture. I want little girls, to know that they are not bound to certain careers because of their gender, I want children of color to know that their features are beautiful. So my name is Samantha Odaro I am Nigerian American. I love my wide nose. I love my wolly hair. I love my dark skin. And I want the next generation to love theirs too.

The dream version of my future self would be me interacting with all the people who appreciate my advertisements that show people of different cultures in settings where they usually are not welcomed.