A Change in Mindset After the Age of Six by Netanya

A Change in Mindset After the Age of Six by Netanya - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

As a young child I always wanted to be surrounded by animals; I absolutely loved them. I was very fond of cats but after my first cat I realized I was a dog person. My love for dogs grew after my cat was given away and I remembered the dog I spent a week with, when my mom and I went to Florida. Even though I had a negative experience with my first and last cat, my general love for animals never died. However, as I grew older the idea of dealing with sick animals on a daily basis scared me, and my dream died. Going through four years in high school I discovered that I enjoyed learning about people from different cultures and my dream to work in a forensics lab.
Spending a week in Florida is how I met my aunt Vida’s dog, Jack a really sweet Labrador. When I first entered her house, an enormous Labrador ran toward me and nearly knocked me over. In a terrible fright I yelled for my mother while my aunt insisted that her dog, Jack, was harmless. It did not take long for me to realize that she was right because all he did was lick my face, hands, and any other patches of exposed skin. That same night my aunt took us some houses down to feed some stray cats that always waited for her. It was at this point that I realized I wanted a kitten more than anything else. When I came back home I talked endlessly about kittens and some days later my parents and I went to a friend’s house because his cat had given birth to several kittens and he was looking for people to give these kittens to. After taking my new kitten home I decided to name him Jack, in honor of my aunt’s dog. Even though we looked fondly after the kitten, he grew to dislike us all, hating me the most. I would get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, which was not more than a couple of footsteps from where I slept, and Jack always managed to attack me before I even set foot in the bathroom. His attacks were a daily occurrence and always resulted in me crying and bleeding. After some time my parents gave him away, without my consent of course because they both knew I would never approve. While this experience dimmed my affection for cats it was not until years later that I would change my mind about being a veterinarian.
It was not until I grew older that I realized that my love for animals did not necessarily transfer into my desire to be responsible for saving their lives if the time arose. I realized that giving pets shots, or needing to do invasive procedures to determine if they were healthy was something that made me slightly queasy. My most basic fear was being responsible for the death of someone’s pet and up until this day I cannot stomach the idea of being a veterinarian. While my desire to become a veterinarian no longer exists, my desire to help others still runs rampant in my head.
Now, my desire to help others has led me to consider studying both anthropology and forensic science. Living in a country that is filled with such a diverse group of people, all with different cultural and religious traditions, I find it troubling that its difficult for all of us to get along. My hope is that by majoring in anthropology, my knowledge about individuals from distinct cultures, and backgrounds will allow me to create a peaceful environment for the people around me. My desire to study forensic science also stems from the concept of making the world a better place. After years of hearing about the tense situation between the United States and individuals who illegally cross the border, I realized that the plight of undocumented immigrants is something that resonates with me. While I am a native born U.S. citizen it is not difficult for me to understand what led my parents to move to this country. This allows me to feel for those who attempt to come into the country without papers. Many who do so, children and adults alike, die while on their way over for a variety of factors and many times they are left to rot with no one to inform relatives back home. While it is difficult to identify many of these individuals, a team of forensic scientists near the US-Mexico border is attempting to do just this. I hope to be a part of this project one day and bring peace to these families.
While my dreams to help animals by becoming a veterinarian no longer exist, I now dream to help people by majoring in anthropology and forensic science. Overall I would say that the innocent 6 year old that I was, believed that loving animals was all I needed to become a veterinarian, but I realized my mistake as I got older. Now, observing the world around me and thinking about what would bring benefits to the rest of society have a different goal in mind.