Mental Health & I by Liz

Mental Health & I by Liz - April 2025 Scholarship Essay

In this day and age, there are so many people struggling internally and not feeling as though they can speak up about it. I have seen people come and go from my life due to mental health reasons, the toll that mental health can have on teenagers, and how it affects relationships. I want to major in psychology focusing on adolescents and young adults to help the new generations learn how to cope, adjust, and manage their emotions.
Throughout my educational goals, I would like to contribute to erasing the stigma against reaching out and speaking out about your problems. To do this I want to learn different therapeutic tactics from various professionals and piece together my own method for handling crises. I want to become a reliable person who people look forward to seeing and talking to because they know I will help them release stress. I want to share experiences with other professionals in the field to further develop my practices, as well as provide ideas to others.
Additionally, in my journey to attain my degree, I want to learn as much as possible from my professors. I also want to engage with my peers studying the same topics to hear their ideas and input. I envisioned myself getting involved in research to learn more about the behaviors and cognitions present in our society and could contribute to the current problems. Furthermore, I would love to intern and continue volunteering in programs that help teenagers and young adults through this difficult time using alternatives like music, theater, and arts which are my favorite hobbies to reduce stress and distract my mind in tough moments.
I believe the reason I want to go into this profession is because I have faced many instances where my mental health has been affected, I have also been in many situations where the mental health of the people around me has been low. During my junior year of high school, I lost my drama teacher. She was my director and mentor, and most of all she was like family. Her name was Nancy Curtis, or as she had us call her Camp Counselor Curtis. Losing her helped me see that we are all vulnerable. Everybody in my theater program and even all over our city was shedding tears and mourning her loss. I discover more about being empathetic, loss, and resilience. You cannot get through everything alone, because you might do more damage in the long run. Reaching out and talking to people who relate to my problems helped me and I would like to be a haven for others.
Another example that makes me understand why I chose my major would be, when I was eight my mom told me that we were moving to the United States from Puerto Rico because she had gotten a better job offer. Ever since I was young, I have struggled with change. It was so strange leaving behind everything I knew, including my family, my language, and my culture. Everything in Virginia was so modernized and new to me. I didn’t know English, but I had to quickly adapt and learn because if I didn’t, I knew I would become too far behind other students. People at my school had other ideas, some of them believed it was strange for someone to speak Spanish rather than English. They would laugh at me not knowing something and call me weird for speaking more than one language. At the time I didn’t know that being bilingual was a unique thing, so it hurt and affected me. I turned to my mom for help, and she explained to me that their opinion of me didn’t matter. She gave me affirmations and ways to make my mental health and thought process more positive.
As a Psychologist, I can continue learning about the similarities and differences that create the human being and our society. I would like to help others to adapt and adjust to their situations as the people around me have constantly helped me. My biggest goal as a future psychologist is to help as many people as possible, but it isn’t just about the quantity, it is about the quality. I want to support my community, especially teenagers like me, to fully overcome their struggles, so that they can live their own lives to the fullest extent possible.