My Favorite Experience In My Life

At 17 years old, I had the grueling task of deciding how I wanted to spend 40 plus years of my life. I always aspired to land a career in the medical field, so I majored in biology like most pre-med hopefuls, but during my junior year, I no longer desired to become a physician. The medical field was calling out to me, but the specialty of focus was incorrect. After graduation, I went back to the basics and put my nursing assistant certification to use.

When I returned back to Tuscaloosa around the beginning of January, I sensed a noticeable change in the pace of my courses. For my second semester, my schedule consisted of two 102 classes as well as a 300-level course in my major. Although I assumed these courses to simply be like a sequel to the 101 classes, I was utterly mistaken in that regard. As a pre-medical student, I knew that several of my classes would be so called “weeder courses,” that is, those made to be unnecessarily difficult. Even as challenging as these courses were, I knew that I had to keep a positive and forward-thinking mind in order to survive them. I realized that life would certainly pose great challenges, and it is up to my own will power to overcome them and be better for it. Furthermore, I began to understand that some things in life are unfair, and my ability to cope with them are what build character. If I wish to become a physician, I must learn that life does not always go the way one expects it to, and that failure is merely a part of the

I was raised in Nacogdoches, Texas, which is known for its small-town atmosphere and Stephen F. Austin State University. Due to being a small town, Nacogdoches lacked advanced placement courses; therefore, most my time was spent in non-challenging course work. When I attended SFA as a dual-credit student I experienced a minor shock, SFA was a step up from Nacogdoches High School; however, I quickly adapted and worked harder to maintain the pace of my peers. When I finally got accepted to Texas A&M University I again faced the same academic obstacle, and experienced major setbacks and failures. After my first semester of college I received a 2.7 gpa and received my first C in a class. Feelings of defeat and confusion overcame me—my goals of attending medical school appeared to diminish before my eyes. I questioned my work ethic and intelligence. Despite the feelings of failure, I never let myself fall into despair, and I moved forward. Every semester following my first semester at A&M I improved over time; however, the in the Spring 2016 I finally overcame my academic hurdle and made my best grades to date. It has taken time to develop qualitative techniques to retain information for difficult science

I started playing volleyball in 6th grade. My friend Abagail had wanted me to play for our school, so she would have one friend on the team. From there I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play volleyball. I had never watched volleyball and never played it either.

Throughout my high school education, I have taken a variety of honors and advanced placement science courses due to my strong interest and talent in this field. In all of these courses, I have enjoyed being in class and have excelled academically. I have received a 5 on the AP exams for both of the AP science courses I have taken thus far, biology and physics, and I strive for nothing less than a 5 on my AP Chemistry at the end of my senior year. Due to my enthusiasm and talent in science, I plan to study pre-medicine in college, hoping to be admitted into school of medicine and becoming a neurosurgeon. This has been a life goal of mine for some time now, and I have been taking the initiative to put myself in a position to achieve this ambition. As I have already stated, I have loaded my high school schedule with difficult science classes to prepare myself for the rigors of pre-medicine and medicine school. In addition, my AP Psychology course I took last year further peaked my desire and readiness to study the brain and its functionality. I am also currently working with Riverview Hospital in a volunteer/job shadowing position once a week in order to get experience and to create valuable contacts that will prepare me for medicine school as well as getting a job or residency after completing college. This individual drive to achieve such an immense life goal sets me apart from my peers and is a catalyst to achieve my life

My next serious encounter with medicine was when my father became ill. We were having dinner when all of a sudden he complained of chest pains. As he stood up to go "sleep it off" he stumbled and leaned on a wall out of breath. Scared, I scream for my mom who ran down and called 911. Watching my dad get loaded into an ambulance brought back those memories of fear and uncertainty that I had felt when it was me being rushed to the hospital. During this time, a physician came to my family and reassured us that

At the beginning of junior year, I had a difficult time with AP Biology. Even though I completed all the practice assignments, I did not do well on the first few lab write-ups and tests. The class was so hard for me that I contemplated dropping. I convinced myself to stay in the class and worked extensively with my teacher outside of class. I tried different studying techniques and methods and found the most effective one for me: pre-reading the textbook sections before my teacher introduced the concept. As this was the first course truly had difficulties with, I recognized that failures in life are inevitable. I embrace a new mindset now that incorporates these challenges into my personal growth. I now use each new obstacle as stepping stones

While in college, I developed an interest in health. I must say that my interest for health did not prepare me for the unforeseen health obstacles that I had to go through in order to complete my bachelor’s degree. My journey was rough. Especially, when I had doctor visits along with paranoia. Then there were the biopsies of the breast and this was my last year attending EIU. I commuted to school everyday, worked two jobs, and took care of my motherly duties to my two kids by myself. I was

When I first started college, I had several questions I asked myself regarding my future. I thought about what my major would be and what my living arrangements would look like post-grad, but I never questioned what my future career would look like. While I had an overwhelming amount of options, I always had a fixed certainty that I would be in the medical field. The only question was in what capacity? Coming in as a freshman, I could have studied to be a surgeon, a doctor, or even a medical lawyer. Ultimately, I knew that changing people’s lives through medicine was my passion—I just needed to find an outlet. However, not once did my 18-year-old self think that I would find my way into a nursing career. As I’ve come to find, life rarely works out as planned. What lead me on the pathway to becoming a nurse is all but conventional, yet I would not change any

Stranded in the pacific ocean in complete darkness and no certainty of success, my father, Danh Nguyen, was only at the beginning of the journey to freedom. After the Vietnam War, the repression of Southern Vietnamese people began. Being a young boy from south Vietnam, my father decided that he wanted to leave Vietnam for a place where he could obtain a better life for himself. Even through all the obstacles that were thrown at him and at his many attempts to escape to a better life, he persevered through all his trials and failures. Without a doubt, my father is the most remarkable and influential person I have ever met in my life because of his resilience and determination in times of all his hardships.

Being a Vietnamese-American girl has given me the opportunity to learn about, not just one, but two different countries’ histories. In Vietnam, my mom had to undergo several trials and tribulations because of a communist government overtaking her country. At 8 years old, she and her family were forced to flee their home and face, what seemed to them like, a completely unknown world. My mom had to live on a boat, without

During the last two years attending Miami Dade College, faculty and staff members have taught me to grow academically and personally. I am currently one semester away from obtaining my Associate in Arts degree and the time at the college has been a very rewarding experience. As a pre-medical student, my first choice was to major in Biological Sciences. However, after taking the 2000-level sciences courses I decided to pursue an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry as part of the preparation for Medical School. Although a career in healthcare is very challenging, I strongly believe that with hard work and dedication everything can be achieved. I consider myself a very studious person and I'm committed to my professional goals.

One of the most exhilarating moments of my entire life was my very first time at a roller coaster theme park. Growing up I would always see commercials on television of children and adults alike having a sparkling Colgate smile on their faces and enjoying themselves, so when my family decided we were going to Islands of Adventure for vacation. I was like a child who just received a cookie out of the cookie jar. Even though I was 21 years old at the time, I was extremely trilled. I packed my luggage like a stuff turkey on Thanksgiving Day and I was ready to take on this adventure.

Over the weekend my family and I and Maddie went to the AT&T Park. I enjoyed this experience a lot and would definitely go again. At first we walked around the first level to see what this was all about, but we got there right at 10 (when it started) because we had to get to a soccer game, but all the booths were still setting up so we couldn’t really do that much so we decided to go down to the field where big booths were set up. The first booth we went to was where a man was setting up a long tube and he said that it was like a huge vacuum and that he is going to shoot a ping pong ball against the wall. This was a lot louder than I had expected it at first, but it was really cool to see that something I would think sucks things in (a vacuum) could shoot things out. Then we moved on to a booth where a man had laid out metal items(a spatula, a spoon, and a slinky) with two strings ties to them. The man there told us to take the string and wrap it around your fingers and put your fingers in your ear and then bang the metal against something hard, a table or the round. At first I tried this with a spoon and I heard a cool sound and he explained to us that the vibration from the spoon hitting the table went up the string and directly into my ear. Then he told me to try this with the slinky, by brother tried it before and told me that was the coolest thing he had ever heard and that I should definitely try it. And it was the coolest thing I have ever heard. It is really hard to

Have you ever had an amazing or scary experience? Well if you have not then I will tell you an amazing experience I had when me and my family went to key west, Florida. Going to Key West was my best experience because. I always heard a lot of good things and bad I had my doubts about the bad things because I remember researching about Key West, Florida and looking at scrolling through the beautiful beaches with crystal clear water. And also all the many activities you could do like scuba diving, night paddling, and they also had a helicopter ride which looked cool. Another thing that I saw was the deep sea fishing. After seeing all the pictures a week later it was time for us to go I remember seeing the big bridge that connected the two