We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow? (650-word limit) While riding the school bus back home, I felt “eudaemonic,” the word with which I had just won the school spelling bee. Waiting to tell this news that I had won for the 4th time and would seek to defend my county title again to my parents, I entered the house to see my mom crying. She had lost her jobs. She had just been diagnosed with macular degeneration at 39 from working long hours on a computer for three different jobs for more than 80 hours a week for two straight years.
She had been on a dependent visa that prohibited her from working and earning money for as long as I can remember. So, when there was an executive action in 2014 when certain dependent visa holders were allowed to work, she started looking for jobs, and when she found it, she took on more than her health could withstand. I came to the United States from India with my parents when I was two and a half years old. In India, we were a family of 12 people staying in a small rented home. My dad decided to come to the United States to seek a better future for me. My family taught me from a young age the ideals of hard work and achievement. My family members have always helped me understand the importance of education in our lives. I could see my dad’s emotions, unknown that I watched him when he would stare at nothing, tears rolling from his eye’s countless times over the years, feeling helpless as his visa would not allow him to take on any part-time jobs. My parents tried to hide their emotions and their financial instability from me, but I knew, nevertheless. After searching and failing to find a job in Kansas, she moved to California as there were more opportunities there. My dad and I stayed back, and since my dad had never cooked complete meals, I took on that responsibility. I did all the groceries and followed a cooking channel that showed how to cook on a budget.
Through the increased responsibilities that I had taken on, I understood more of my parents’ hardships. As a result, it meant that I became more mature and more aware of the things that I eventually would have to do, so I prepared for the future ever since. But it wasn’t easy. All of the school dances that nearly everyone went to weren’t available to me because of juggling my schoolwork and home obligations. I was still a kid, and I wanted to live my childhood like everyone else, but I soon realized that my situation wasn’t like most people’s, and that meant that I had to be different and give up some of that beloved “childhood.” Learning how to persevere and evolve, combined with my new sense of responsibility for my actions, contributed directly to my debate career. My partner and I had just had our first winless tournament in my sophomore year, and we were dejected. Our morale was down, and I felt a sense of helplessness that I had rarely felt before. I knew that I couldn’t allow it to happen again, so the following week I spent most of my time improving my understanding of my mistakes, getting up early and pulling late-nighters, and eventually bore the fruit of my labors as the next tournament was a positive one. Debate also taught me how to be a leader. The experienced debaters will be “debate parents” and would-be mentors to younger novice debaters. By teaching the younger debaters, I learned how to lead and effectively communicate with people. Using the newfound flame ignited within me after seeing my mom’s breakdown, I pursued various academic opportunities since my dependent visa made it so I couldn’t work any jobs. I took as many challenging classes and partook in extracurriculars such as the debate team to make sure that I could eventually provide for my family that had done everything for me. I often had to spend all weekend caring for my parents and studying for school, so I turned down the invitations to go out, and I had to make do with the necessities. However, even though I was working hard, my mom’s condition got worse, and we really couldn’t afford to go to a specialist.
These circumstances led me to develop a passion for caring for and helping people, and I decided to become a doctor. Through my hard work, I unlocked the door to opportunities and am going to shadow a physician’s assistant in April. The experience is exciting as I have never had a chance like this before, allowing my understanding of the medical field to grow. Going to a good college would tremendously help prepare me for my career that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Going to college would allow me to achieve my goal much easier and blast open the doors to opportunities and becoming a doctor. Through the shadowing, I’m hoping that it will open my eyes to the life of a person in medicine and get a grasp on what a day in the life in a hospital looks like. My love for cardiology is also another driving force for my path into medicine. The intricacies of the heart and its interactions with the rest of the body are a fascination that has stuck with me ever since I first learned of it. But the fascination comes with another sense of responsibility as many of my family members have been ailed with problems of the heart and feel compelled to help them and people similar to their situations.
