I Control My Future by Hannah

I Control My Future by Hannah - February 2019 Scholarship Essay

As a student who is female and of a mixed ethnicity, I take ownership of the fact that I am the sole person responsible for my future successes and failures. There have been points in which I did not give my all and while I did well, I know that I could have done better. Like many teenage girls I often got caught up in teen relationship issues and allowed those issues to dictate how I performed in and out of school. Thankfully during these rougher periods I had a forceful mom who told me to take ownership
and to not allow outside influences to determine my own outcome. With this advice I took reins of my future and set on a path that began to further my career.

The summer before my junior year of high school I decided that I wanted to become a nurse and that nursing would allow me to advance in most areas of the medical field. I love and admire what nursing do from the compassionate focus on people to the science related to the job that they do. Nursing takes great skill and effort and it ties into my personality. I want to become a nurse and then advanced my education so that I can become a certified genetic counselor. I love health related issues especially in relation to fertility and pregnancy. I find it amazing what we can tell about genetics and how we can have positive impacts on the lives of many families who are often faced with devastating prenatal news.

During my junior year of high school I buckled down and blocked out all of the external "noise" that is high school. I elected to take a biomedical engineering class because I am fascinated with how biomedicine how impacted our lives. Along with taking a different type of science class, I also applied for the nursing apprenticeship program at our local community college. Unfortunately, I not selected as a student for the apprenticeship program, but I refused to let that hold me back from what want to do. As I continued on with the biomedical course I began to realize how much I love bioengineering and how it ties in with the medical field. At the end of my junior year I had completed the biomedical class as well as an AP Psychology course in which I received a high enough grade to get college credit. During my second semester of my junior year I also took the college placement test for the community college and scored well enough to be accepted for dual enrollment.

At the start of my senior year of high school I began volunteering at a local hospital and enrolled in a college math class. I maintained my grades at school and developed a Dungeons and Dragons club for an after school activity as well. I continued to push myself so that I would have the work ethic necessary to push myself though college. As a student who had all of the high school diploma requirements fulfilled prior to my senior year, I had the opportunity to take several dual enrollment classes. When I graduate from high school I will have around 24 college credit hours completed towards my Associate Degree for Nursing. Once I am done with the nursing program I will enroll in a four year program so that I can be eligible to apply for the graduate degree program for genetic counseling. I feel that I am on the best path of my life and am excited about the future. I was able to get here because I learned how to block out all the unnecessary drama and focus on what's next.