Health Science Made Me Who I Am Today by Courtney

Health Science Made Me Who I Am Today by Courtney - August 2016 Scholarship Essay

English, Math, Science, History. Each year in high school everybody takes these same four classes. I was never interested in history, never good at math, and in my opinion, english was a bore. Science was my only hope to finding a class that I didn't want to fall asleep in. After signing up for the four basics, it was time to get creative in choosing electives that I would enjoy ( which would be a challenge all in its own as I was not motivated to do any better than average in high school.) With my mother's stories from her background as a nurse and an unhealthy obsession with watching Grey's Anatomy every day, Health Science sounded like the best choice for my elective; and it most definitely was.

My high school health science teacher was Mrs. Hirsch and I know that her passion was what had the greatest impact on making me the student that I am today. Mrs. Hirsch taught her students not to memorize the information, not to just pass the class, but to understand and appreciate the information. In class, I would ask questions, I would write things down and look them up at home, I would study with my mother from the second I got home until I went to bed and look forward to taking tests to show my teacher what I had really learned. Starting as early as the first Health Science class that I took, health science made me a better student.

By senior year I knew the history of health care, I knew all of the bones in the body, diseases and their causes, symptoms, and treatments, and I was even CPR and first aid certified. I was making all A's and was disappointed in myself if I got even a B, knowing now that I had the potential to do better. The final Health Science class that my high school offered was an internship class. Everyday for a full semester, the nine students in my class would split up and leave campus to shadow health care professionals. This was my favorite part of health science. I got first hand experience being in a health care setting and I loved every minute of it. I watched a Physical Therapist, Dentist, Orthodontist, Optometrist, and many nurses. I got a chance to work with patients at an assisted living facility with different types of memory loss. My favorite experience was having the opportunity to shadow a pediatrician. At the end of the semester I earned a scholarship from the pediatrician that I shadowed. By this time I was almost ready to graduate and I decided that I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon.

To this day I am working towards this goal. I have since volunteered at a local hospital in the emergency department, gone back to volunteer at the assisted living facility from health science four, and I am currently in the process of applying to volunteer with the Make-A-Wish foundation. I have faced many situations in the past few years that could have put me down but I have pushed past them. Because of my First Aid certification in Health Science, I was able to recognize that my mother was having a stroke and knew exactly what to do. Because of my found passion for healthcare I was able to help my mother while we took care of my grandmother who was living with us while on hospice in her last six months of life. Because of my found drive to succeed, I did not let a torn ACL, a personal struggle with an eating disorder, or switching colleges twice get in the way of achieving my goals. I am now starting at UNCC this month as a biology major on pre-med track. I managed to finish my last semester of school with nothing less than 100% on any of my biology or chemistry tests all semester, and I am working every day to pay for school without accruing too much debt. I am working in every way towards my goal of becoming a pediatric surgeon and I truly believe that I could not have made it as far as I have in my efforts if I had never chosen to take that first health science class in high school.