Why I chose Psychology as my major by Drew

Why I chose Psychology as my major by Drew - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

As a young child, I was interested in people, what they do and why they make the choices they make. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school when I took an online psychology class, that I truly became aware of my interest in psychology. In that class I learned about famous experiments involving nature vs. nurture and famous psychologists, such as Sigmund Freud who was known as the father of psychology. I also learned about career opportunities in the field of psychology, which sparked my interest even more.
During my sophomore and junior years, I dealt with typical teenage conflicts that involved struggles with friends who continued to disappoint and let me down repeatedly. I had a hard time dealing with this. For the first time in my life, I felt I was not in control of my thoughts and feelings. This led me to counseling where I discovered explanations for the way I was feeling and realized it went deeper than conflicts with friends. Counseling was helpful but it wasn’t enough. After several months of this, my counselor suggested that I see a medical doctor to discuss medications that may be helpful to me. I went through the steps and, although my experience with the doctor was quite disappointing, I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed an antidepressant. While this was very unfortunate, it only increased my curiosity and appreciation for psychology. Learning through memorization has never been enough for me; I need to understand how things work and why. Psychology has allowed me to see and understand how my mental illness affects me. In a way, that has provided me some comfort. After my diagnosis, I continually found myself researching the topic of depression. I learned the ins and outs of depression, specifically the science behind it. This gave me closure as I could understand why I am the way I am, and that I’m not just some broken mess.
Last year I took AP English Language and Composition. As the final assignment, my class was tasked with making a presentation on a topic of our choice. Can you guess what I chose? If you said depression, you are right! I was very excited to share all that I had learned about depression with my classmates, as it was a topic that I thoroughly enjoyed discussing. There was a research portion to the project, which I thought was pointless since I thought I already knew a lot about depression. I could not have been more wrong. In my research, I learned lots of new information about depression, specifically how antidepressants work, and the actual science of what happens in the brain. I was so excited that I was able to learn all this new information, and better yet, I was able to share all of it with my class.
After reflecting on the project and what I learned about psychology as well as what I learned about myself, I realized the degree to which it benefited me. All of this research, coupled with my own experiences with medicine and depression, have led me to the goal of becoming a psychiatrist. Becoming a psychiatrist will allow me to treat patients who are in the same boat I was, so they don’t have to deal with a doctor who knows nothing about who they are, or what their needs may be. More than anything I want to be able to help people, especially those with depression, because I know first-hand how isolating and challenging it can be, and I want to be for my future clients what I never had. I am still researching the topic of psychology, and I am even taking a second psychology class through the dual-enrollment program with the community college and my high school, with the hope of majoring in psychology in college and fulfilling my dream of helping others.