The song that resonates with my high school experience from 'GUTS' is 'The Grudge' because the song expresses how it feels to be betrayed and hurt by someone you thought you could trust. I feel that this is a common occurrence throughout high school and that many teenagers go through this lesson, whether it's through a bad breakup or with someone you thought was a friend. The lyrics that capture the challenge of this experience are ' Hurt people hurt people' because when you're betrayed or bullied by someone you thought you could trust, you often don't know why and blame yourself, when in reality, the person hurting you is just insecure or hurting themselves. In my high school experience, I have been hurt by multiple people I thought of as friends, and have also been hurt by my ex boyfriend. The song 'The Grudge' expresses the feelings I had after being mistreated by my ex boyfriend and how I realized it was not my fault that I was being treated this way. Throughout my teenage experience, I had two boyfriends, both of which caused hardship and pain for different reasons. My last boyfriend I was with for two years and had fallen in love with him. When we broke up, it was difficult for me, because I had made the decision to leave, even though I still loved him, because of how he was choosing to act, and because of the mental toll the relationship placed on me. The relationship ended when I left him, but the mental struggles that I had during the relationship from what he had done to me never went away. I often heard that forgiving helps you to moving on, but never could bring myself to do so. This song talked about this same struggle in the line "It takes strength to forgive, but I don't feel strong". I related to the lyrics so deeply because they expressed the feelings of trying to move on and forgive this person that hurt her, but not being able to. The song delves into the feelings of confusion, disbelief, and hurt that follow after being betrayed by someone, which was exactly what I was dealing with at the time. Her lyrics "how could anybody do the things you did so easily" impacted me because that was something I thought to myself about my ex multiple times. It made me feel less alone. I relate to this song so much because of how she processes the hurt and confusion. She eventually realizes that this person must be unhappy and insecure about themselves and that 'hurt people hurt people'. I think this was what I needed to realize about my own situation. My ex was an unhappy and insecure person and he took it out on me and became controlling and hostile. I eventually realized that it had nothing to do with me or my actions, and was happening to me because he could not control his insecurities. 'Hurt people hurt people' is one of the common realizations teenagers have in high school. It can explain so much, from why a kid is bullying you, to why your friend is suddenly betraying you, to why your boyfriend is toxic and controlling. Oftentimes, people that are in these situations blame themselves, especially as a young teenager, because they don't understand that the other person is trying to feel better about themselves by hurting someone else. While this doesn't justify people's behavior, it helps us understand that we are not the reason for it and that others could be struggling too.

The songs that Billie Eilish writes that resonated with me the most were the ones that captivated the different stages of my time in high school, from first falling in love, to going through a bad relationship, and finding myself afterwards. I was 15 when I first fell in love and remember the feelings of both excitement and fear because I had never experienced this feeling before. Her lyrics from Ocean Eyes mentioned being hypnotized by her crush and falling into their eyes. I began to feel the exact same way whenever I spoke to my boyfriend. In the beginning of the relationship, I related to her lyrics about “never falling from quite this high”, because I hadn’t fallen in love before. The feeling was euphoric, until it wasn’t. Her words “fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes” finally made sense when I realized just how easily he could hurt me and how scary falling in love could be. As much as being in love can be hypnotizing, it is also just as scary, and I felt that Billie really captivated all of those feelings into one beautiful song. As I grew older, I began to explore new things and meet new people. This led to a relationship that was toxic and unhealthy. At first, I didn’t realize it was an unhealthy relationship, but after about two years of feeling trapped and suffocated, I realized how detrimental it was. I could relate to the song Lovely because it represents battling through depression and the dark things inside your head. Oftentimes, I was so depressed I pushed everyone else away because I didn’t know how to explain my feelings. I felt trapped not only inside my head, but in my relationship, and I didn’t know how to escape. The lyrics about getting out no matter how long it takes made me feel like I could get out of this phase in my life and that I would be okay eventually. The part of the song that connected to me the deepest was the lyrics “Hello, welcome home” because these feelings I had during my relationship lasted for over a year, and I began feeling like it was normal. I felt like it wouldn’t change at times, like I was stuck. Even after my relationship ended, I still get feelings of depression and fear from the things I went through during that time, but having these songs to listen to helps me to process these moments in my life. After I ended this toxic relationship, I began to find myself again and realized how happy I could be on my own. I found peace and tranquility in the moments when I was alone. Billie’s song Happier Than Ever makes me feel seen. I often felt guilty and wrong for wanting to be alone more than with him, but her song made me feel like it was okay to feel this way. Her parting lines to the audience are about how this person ruined everything good and made everything about them instead of her. I related to this so well because anytime I had something good happen to me, my boyfriend would find some reason to complain or see something wrong with the way I handled the situation. It was an exhausting time in my life and her final line of wanting to be left alone described exactly what I wanted from him. This song expresses feelings of being happy again after a bad relationship and helped me through a confusing and difficult time in my life by making me feel less alone.

My mental health has impacted my personal life since before I even knew what mental health was and how to prioritize it. I grew up in a family that was never emotional and never discussed mental health. I didn’t know what it was or that I had issues relating to it. As a child, I struggled with anxiety and overthinking about everything in my life and as I got older, I began to understand that it wasn’t something everyone had. It wasn’t until the pandemic that I realized something was wrong and told my mom. My anxiety gave me a lot of physical issues that mimicked COVID-19 at the time, so we made a virtual appointment, and this is when the doctor told me I had anxiety. This was the first time I had been told what anxiety was and how to cope with it. Anxiety never really affected my academic performance until high school. It caused me to have severe stomach issues each morning before school to the point where I wouldn’t eat. I ended up losing 20 lbs in my freshman year from not being able to eat. I was tired during school and always in a state of fight or flight, so I had to work harder to retain all of the knowledge I needed to know. I battled through each class, silently hoping I wouldn’t be called on, even if I knew the information, because some part of me still wondered if I was wrong. I was petrified of my classmates and what they thought of me. I was overworked, stressed, and slowly killing myself without knowing it. My parents eventually noticed and we devised a plan to help me eat enough and gain weight back. I never told them the reason why I couldn’t eat and felt like they wouldn’t be able to help me. I had already gone to the doctor before for anxiety and felt that it did not help me in the end. I continued on with school, and had anxiety daily, but this time I worked on managing it and trying to calm myself down. This tactic began to work slowly and I had less anxiety attacks during school. I researched different ways I could work on calming anxiety naturally and started to implement them into my daily routine, such as cooking with certain herbs and using essential oils. They worked for a while, but never fully got rid of the gnawing feeling in my gut. I decided in my senior year of high school that I couldn’t face this problem alone. I told my parents that I wanted to go to therapy to work through many issues that I had regarding mental health, especially my anxiety. Now, I go to therapy weekly and work on how I can feel safe in my daily life and how to quiet my mind from the constant worries. I actively work on changing my thinking and reasoning with myself when the overwhelming thoughts come, and I have found that these tactics and therapy sessions are helping me immensely. I still struggle with anxiety during certain situations, and I know that this will probably always be the case, but now I feel calmer in my daily life and find more joy in school and with my peers. In college, I want to continue to go to therapy to help me transition into adulthood and living in a dorm. I know this new chapter of my life will have its challenges, but I am equipped with the tools and resources to handle them as they come.

I have chosen my career field to be in medicine. I want to study biochemistry and then proceed to med school to become a doctor. I chose this career field for many reasons, but it wasn’t entirely clear to me until recently. During my junior year of high school, I took AP Chemistry and my teacher spent time after class telling me about biochemistry and what the career looked like. It fascinated me that using chemistry concepts, scientists and doctors could create drugs to help people and cure diseases. I knew this was what I wanted to study because I not only wanted to be able to create a drug that alleviated side effects, but also create something that could cure a disease entirely. I’ve seen first-hand through my family members how current prescription drugs fail to solve the underlying issues, such as in type 1 and 2 diabetes, cancer, hemochromatosis, and P.C.O.S. (a hormonal condition that causes infertility among many other health issues in women). All of these diseases do not have a cure, but have a myriad of drugs to treat symptoms. I want to be a part of the research that finds cures for the incurable, not only to help my family, but to help so many other people that suffer from these diseases and others. My introduction to this world was not an easy one. I was born at 24 weeks old and fought for four months to stay alive in the N.I.C.U.. The concept that I was alive and had very few complications, made me feel incredibly lucky. I decided at a young age that I wanted to do something meaningful with my life. It never occurred to me that I would want to become a doctor, but as I learned more about biochemistry and volunteered in the E.R. at my local hospital, I realized it was something I was interested in pursuing. Because of this, I chose to do a senior project on the history of N.I.C.U. technology and care. I am able to shadow nurses and doctors in the family birthing center to see how current technology is used, as well as interview them about their own experiences and opinions on how the field has grown. Because of these hands-on experiences, I have realized that I want to become a doctor and conduct research in college and in my career. I have always been interested in science and research, and now that I have the ability to conduct my own, I know that it is something I want to continue to do. I’m a hardworking, dedicated student, and I hope to make the world a better place and live each day with purpose, which is why I believe I will succeed in this career path.

My experience with mental health has influenced my relationships, career, and beliefs in many different ways throughout my life, and specifically, throughout high school. I have struggled with anxiety since I can remember, and this caused various struggles for me socially and mentally when I began high school. These struggles led me to develop new beliefs about mental health and to learn how to cope with these issues that were affecting my daily life. During my freshman year of high school, I had severe anxiety that caused stomach issues and eventually led to me having an eating disorder. I had lost around 20 pounds by December and was becoming frail and weak. I wasn't sure how to cope with this issue because it stemmed from my anxiety, and I had no idea how to calm it or why it was affecting me so harshly at the time. I reached out to friends and family for help and eventually fixed the eating disorder, but never truly learned about how to deal with anxiety. Over the years, I have grown and gained self confidence and found coping mechanisms that help me to control my anxiety better. Throughout this process, I've developed beliefs that mental health issues such as anxiety, are not just a mental illness, but a physical one that can severely affect someone's daily life. I also decided that I don't want it to affect my daily life so harshly to the point that I can't do things in life that I want to do. As for my relationships, my mental health has always been something I pushed aside for everyone else in my life. I struggled with prioritizing myself and my mental health in all types of relationships. Because of this, I was frequently allowing myself to be manipulated and talked down to in multiple aspects of my life. This led to me feeling worthless and inadequate, which only increased my insecurities and feelings of anxiety. As time went on, I began to realize my own worth and cut people out of my life that were causing me harm. However, it took many years for me to accomplish this and was very difficult to do because of how close I was to some of these people. Ultimately, I realized that my mental health and well-being is more important than having other people approve of me or being around people that did not care about the negative effects that they were having on my mental health. As a result, my relationships have become sparse, but the ones I still have and are creating have been healthier, and I can trust that they are truly looking out for me. I have also become more open about my feelings and how I express them, because I know now that I do not want to be taken advantage of or put faith in someone that does not have my best interests at heart. I am choosing to put myself above others when it counts the most in order to maintain positive mental health and be happier in my life. In my future career, I hope to make an impact on the health industry by becoming a doctor or doing biochemical research because I want to help people. I feel that in the healthcare industry, many doctors tend to ignore patients' mental health when they are evaluating their physical health. Oftentimes, a patient will even bring up mental health issues to a doctor, and they will either ignore them or say they can't help them. I want to change the stigma of mental health issues in the world and be a safe space for my patients to open up about all kinds of issues they may be facing. I know what it is like to face mental health issues alone or feel that they are not real because of others in my life that have told me it is just in my head. I also know that a mental illness can also cause physical symptoms and that they are interconnected. This is why I believe it is important for doctors to understand mental health issues and create a space for their patients to express them. I hope to use my own knowledge and experience with mental health issues to become a better, more accepting doctor for future generations, and I hope to encourage people and other doctors to do the same.

In my life, I have been the most passionate about medicine. When I was born, both my mother and I almost died. I was born at 24 weeks old to save my mother's life. I had numerous complications and we both had to fight to stay alive. I was in the N.I.C.U. for four months before I could go home, and when I did go home, I was on oxygen and heart monitors. I don't remember any of this, because I was less than a year old, but my mom has pictures and journals detailing my journey from the N.I.C.U. all the way until I was about two. She told me stories about my time in the N.I.C.U. and of nurses and doctors who operated on me. I have always been told that I am a "miracle baby" and for the longest time, I never truly understood what that meant, but as my interest in the medical field grew, I started to realize that I should not be here today, much less have as little long term problems from being born premature as I do today. This realization gave me a drive to do something great while I am here and because of my interest in the medical field, I decided I want to become a doctor and medical researcher. I grew up in a single parent household and my mom struggled to make ends meet. The only reason we got by is because of the help of my grandparents. They helped my mom so we could afford to pay for the medical bills that I had from going to check ups and having specialists that helped me catch up to kids my age both physically and mentally. My mom has worked hard to provide excellent medical care for me and when I no longer needed it, she continued to work hard to make sure I would have anything I needed. She taught me never to give up on what you want and that hard work pays off eventually. I have this same mindset when doing school work, which is why I have been so successful in academics. I even chose to take on the extra work or a senior project during my senior year to do a research project about the history of neonatal care throughout the past century. I am able to collaborate with nurses that I met while volunteering at our local hospital, and do individual research to make my project successful and learn more about the industry in which I plan to go into. This scholarship would benefit me on my career path because I am trying to pay for college without the help of my parents. I intend to obtain a bachelor's degree in biochemistry before continuing on to medical school and then eventually residency. This career path will take immense dedication, hard work, consistency, and money. I know that I have the skills needed to become a successful student at a university. I know that once given the opportunity and resources of a university, I will be able to learn and hone in the skills I will need to become a doctor one day. This scholarship will benefit me by helping lower the cost of my education.

The greatest driving force in my life has been the fact that I am still here today. When I was born, it almost killed both my mother and me. In order to save my mom’s life, they performed an emergency c-section. I was born at 24 weeks, weighing a little over one pound, and could fit in my mom’s hand. My mom had preeclampsia, a condition that causes an expecting mother’s blood pressure to become dangerously high. The only way to treat preeclampsia is by delivering the baby. The doctors tried to lower my mom’s blood pressure so they could avoid delivering me, but her health became so dire, they were left with no other choice. My parents were informed that they could resuscitate me, but the odds of surviving at 24 weeks was only around 25% or less, and surviving with a good quality of life was slim to none. My parents were told that if I survived, I would more than likely be paralyzed, blind, deaf, have epilepsy, or have impaired cognitive ability, but they decided to try. When I was born, I had to have heart surgery to fix a congenital heart defect called Patent Ductus Arteriosus, so they could ensure I would stay alive. After this procedure, I went to a Newborn Intensive Care Unit (N.I.C.U.) where I stayed for four months. Doctors and nurses treated problem after problem that arose as I fought for my life. When I was released from the N.I.C.U., I had to be on oxygen 24/7 because I couldn’t breathe on my own. Once released from the hospital, I had to go to check-ups every six months until I was five. This included seeing a psychiatrist, nutritionist, speech therapist, and eye doctor. I also received in-home care. I was always behind kids my age, but for a premature baby, I was doing exceptionally well. I had very limited impairments. For this reason, doctors called me a miracle baby. Throughout my life, I have heard the term “miracle baby” over and over. As a little kid, I never really understood what that meant or why they were saying it. As I got older and began to understand my story more, I realized that it was a miracle I survived and was doing so well. I began to understand just how grateful I am for my life and the things I could do that others take for granted. I am grateful I can see and walk. I’m grateful that I can listen to music and play guitar because this is something that I have come to love throughout my life. I am grateful that I can learn and challenge myself mentally. I overcame immense odds and have continued to thrive throughout my life in school and academics. It is because of this experience that I believe I am here for a reason. I never want to take life for granted, and I want to do something important while I am here, which is why I am planning to go to college to study medicine and become a doctor. Not only am I interested in this field because of my own story, but I also want to make the world a better place and help as many people as I can. My motivation in life has been the fact that I should not be here today, but I am and I intend to make the absolute most out of the time I am given.

Technology in medicine is inspirational and makes the world a better place for people in many different circumstances. 3-D printing is a newer technology that is being applied to medicine, and through this collaboration, bioprinting emerged. Bioprinting is combining a 3-D printer and living cells to create tissue that can be used in reconstructive surgeries such as heart valve replacements, the making of artificial limbs, and biomimic blood vessels. These tissues are printed from a digital model and are able to grow and attach to the patient's body more effectively than older models, such as pig and cow heart valves or regular prosthetics. The biomimic blood vessels produced by bioprinting are layered to create and mimic the function of a human blood vessel. The outside consists of a supporting layer, a middle layer of fibrin gel infused with cells, and the innermost layer consisting of endothelial cells. By creating these working blood vessels from a 3-D printer, doctors can now treat conditions such as narrowing arteries, aneurysms, and trauma incidents more effectively than before. Through the use of technology, medical practices have become more advanced and are able to treat patients in ways that have never before been thought of. The fusion between 3-D printing and medicine allows doctors and surgeons to create materials for patients using their own cells to avoid rejection in surgery from a digital model on their computer. This emerging technology may eventually be able to create viable organs, eliminating the need for transplants and drastically decreasing the wait list for transplant patients for whom these new technologies are not an option. This technology inspires me because I am interested in going into the medical field and finding new and innovative ways to cure diseases.