From Princess Cop To Nurse by Shannon

From Princess Cop To Nurse by Shannon - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

On my first day of third grade, my teacher asked each one of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I confidently said I wanted to be a princess cop. I don’t know what was going on in my head. Maybe it was the cute uniforms, or I wanted to show how smart I was when I was solving crimes. Barbie movies definitely had a heavy influence on the princess part. The next year, on my first day of fourth grade, I said I wanted to be an Occupational Therapist when I grew up. This time, I knew what was going on in my mind, which was a bit selfish. My sister told me that they make a lot of money and work as their own manager. As somebody who was only nine years old, all I wanted to be was rich. Throughout the years this career stuck with me every time I was asked what I wanted to be. It annoyingly stuck with me, like gum at the bottom of a shoe. I would say I wanted to be an Occupational Therapist, but my heart was never in the career. In middle school I considered being a realtor because I liked looking around houses, but I was never good at math. It just seemed like all I could be was an Occupational Therapist, because what else could I possibly be?
This was until I began high school. I figured that if my sisters pursued the Health Science Program at Atlantic County Institute of Technology, who am I to break tradition. However, enrolling in this school was probably the best thing that happened to me. I felt naturally talented in the medical academy and it fit my identity perfectly. I finally knew that I wanted to pursue medicine, and it wasn’t until my Junior Year that I figured I wanted to enroll into college as a nursing major. This will just be the one of the many steps I’ll take to achieve my career goal of becoming a Nurse Anesthetist. This career was the perfect combination of everything I want: patient relations, medicine, and the ability to specialize. In the future, I hope to specialize in pediatrics because I enjoy communicating with children. Especially because they’re easier to talk to than adults! Though I may not be a princess, pursuing this career will make me feel as special as one.