My Future by Amy

My Future by Amy - March 2020 Scholarship Essay

As of March 2020, I am 17 years old. In ten years I will be 27 in 2030. That is hard to imagine because I have so many expectations for myself. I'm graduating from high school this May and it is already hard to comprehend the next few years in college. How am I supposed to look that far into the future? Although the future is unpredictable and scary I do have big plans for myself. Although I want to be married and be successful by then my goals are to become a industrial-organizational psychologist who can help create more unity in the community and workplace.

I intend to major in psychology and minor in business next year at the University of Iowa. After that, I plan to go to graduate school in industrial-organizational psychology. At first, I wanted to become a psychiatrist but after taking classes such as AP Psychology and AP Statistics I realized I wanted to help a community. Industrial-Organizational Psychology allows me to make more structural changes in society. Although I do value mental health and individual needs I think we can start off by focusing on what society needs. As our world becomes more fast-paced, organizations and companies lack the productivity and efficiency to keep up. I want to help these organizations become more advanced and create environments that help the employer but also pleases employees through focus on mental health and diversity.

This career is a small subfield of psychology that many people do not know about which is another reason why industrial-organizational psychologists are important. These types of psychologists use psychological principles and apply it to the workplace to create a great working environment for employers and employees. Again, I never intended to go into this subfield but the focus on research and solutions to a major part of society was appealing. It is different from a human resources career because you had more influence in the organization and a chance in creating programs. I believe I will be successful in this path because of my love for research in my classes at school as well as my experience volunteering at places such as my local church. I have gained the skills I need to solve problems and create solutions as well as the people skills needed from my involvement with my church board and church youth group.

Ultimately, my interest stems from how I see fellow Asians being treated in society but also how some people do not get recognition for the work they do. Psychology allows me to understand human behavior and how that influences certain things such as discrimination and mental health but also how to research a solution to it. I have heard and seen how racism and discrimination has affected my parents and how they view work. My parents’ mental health has also been affected and it hurts to see when they work hard to help my sister and I. In consideration of these situations, I want to help people who are discriminated against and train employees to reduce these biases in the workplace. I want to solve these problems in organizations by researching and creating a better environment for minorities and overall all types of people.

In the end, I want to make others happy as well as myself.