Personal Statement
Growing up my mother was a single parent and a teacher. A lot of the time, she would bring me to her school, and instead of sitting around, I would help others who worked at her school. I would help the teachers set up their classrooms, help create the first day packets for students, help the librarian get organized, and, once I was older, I would also help the front desk staff with parents/students. From a young age, I knew that I wanted to help others. Throughout my childhood, I would do different volunteer events such as volunteering at Target to help promote learning, volunteering at my local animal shelter, volunteering at food banks, and volunteering to help clean up my community. However, the most life changing volunteer event happened in high school.
In high school, I had participated in my school’s mini Dance Marathon program (Chargerthon) as a way to gain community service hours. With this program, students fundraiser money for our local children’s hospital and at the end, hosted an event to help raise awareness of the importance of donating to your local children’s hospital. I participated in this program until I graduated high school in May 2017. When I went to college at the University of Central Florida (UCF), I had noticed they had their own Dance Marathon program (Knight-Thon) and I was ecstatic. It was the perfect way to combine my leadership skills while also getting involved on campus. Freshman year I had applied and gotten into the Marathon Relations committee, which meant I would be going to local high schools and helping them set up their own mini Dance Marathon programs. The more that I worked with the mini Dance Marathons and the more I got to know our miracle families, the more I realized I wanted to help our miracle families in a hospital setting. So in the middle of my spring semester of freshman year, I switched my majors from computer science and mathematics to nursing pending. In my sophomore year, I had decided to pick up a Health Science minor while I working to get all the necessary credits to apply to nursing school. After a year went by I ran into a slight issue. My scholarships would not allow me to stay in a major that was pending for more than a year, however, I hadn’t completed all the classes needed and my GPA was still too low to apply to nursing school. So at the end of my sophomore year, I switched major again. I changed from nursing pending to health science. At the end of my junior year, I had completed all of the required classes however my GPA was still too low to apply. So I made a plan to graduate with my health science degree, this way I could increase my GPA, and then apply to nursing school and earn a second degree. This is exactly what I did. I will graduate in December 2020 with my first bachelor's degree in health science. Starting in January 2021, I will attend Seminole State College of Florida’s concurrent Nursing Program. This means as I earn my associate's degree in nursing at SSC, I will also be attending UCF part-time to earn my bachelor's degree in nursing. I will graduate from SSC in July 2022 and UCF in December 2022.
On top of figuring out what I wanted to do in life, I had also gained valuable work skills in college as well. Freshman year I wanted to start working to gain job experience. In August 2017 I started working my first job at my school's football stadium. Specifically, I worked in the VIP sections of the stadium to ensure guest satisfaction. With this job, I encountered a variety of new people and experiences. I not only grew my skills with guest services but I also grew my problem-solving skills as well. In addition to working at the football stadium, I also worked in my school’s housing department as a RHAP. With this job, I worked in different housing offices to ensure student safety throughout the night. I not only grew my skills with guest services, but I also learned to adjust to working a nighttime shift. Unfortunately due to having in-person classes during the day, I ended up having to leave my RHAP job in order to focus on my schoolwork. While I have not had a paid job since I had earned leadership roles in different organizations to still grow my leadership skills. In my junior year, I had become a co-captain for Knight-Thon, which meant I lead my sorority Knight-Thon team to help fundraise the most we could for Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital and Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies. In January 2020 I had become Recording Secretary for my sorority, meaning I took care of notes, attendance, records, and announcements for my sorority. With both of these positions, I learned organizational skills, grew my social skills, and learned to develop a great work/life balance. On top of these major positions, I have also had minor positions that helped me develop different work skills, such as participating in different committees with my sorority, Knight-Thon, student government association, and housing.
Everything I have experienced has not only helped me continue my passion for helping others but has also helped me become one step closer to becoming the best pediatric nursing I can possibly be.