The Unwelcoming Educational and Social Milieu - Scholarship Essay Example

I believe that I qualify for scholarship support due to my current financial needs and upbringing. I grew up in a family of five that lived in a one-bedroom apartment and overcame being disadvantaged by an unwelcoming educational and social milieu. Also, I recently overcame a sudden and life-changing physical disability, and I have devoted much of my time and energy to volunteering and community service. Despite these hardships and the harsh realities of my situation at various times in my life, I have always believed that the purpose of my life was to use my talents and strengths to help others. Through adversity, I pursued my desire to help others, learned all that I could from each of my healthcare experiences, and made positive contributions to society through community and volunteer work. Until the end of 1st grade, I went to a public school located in a part of Queens that was extremely diverse—most of the other children had immigrant parents. It was a great environment to grow up in; however, I went to a new public school for 2nd grade through 6th grade because my family moved to part of Queens where my neighbors turned out to be racist and unwelcoming. For the first few weeks in our new neighborhood, eggs were thrown at our house daily. The teachers at the new public elementary school did several things to prevent me from succeeding and receiving the credit I was due for my hard work and talents. According to report cards and other criteria, I was supposed to have been the valedictorian, but because that honor was normally given to a white student, I was passed over. In 6th grade, my English teacher gave me a report card grade that did not match my test and class performance. So my mother, with her limited language skills, brought it to the teacher’s attention. The teacher and principal both ignored my mother, and so my mother spoke with the district superintendant, who investigated and corrected my grade. In retaliation, however, the vice principal of the school barged into my French class one day and asked me to step out in the hallway, where he proceeded to tell me in a hostile manner that my teacher never wanted to see me again. As such, they had decided to pull me from the honors track mid-semester. Because my mother felt that I would further be harmed academically if she reported this, she decided it would be best for me to attend another public school. As a result, I had to move in with my paternal grandmother, who lived in a more diverse part of Queens, on the provision that I would provide part-time home care for my grandmother due to her ailments. Her doctor wrote a note to the school in that area so that I could attend it even though I was not zoned for it. Thankfully, I met wonderful, caring, and fair teachers at my new public school, and they treated me fairly, saw my talent and gifts, and acknowledged them. There, I was awarded the Principal’s Award and eventually tested into one of the top high schools in the nation: Stuyvesant High School, where I entered with the 20th highest test score in all of New York City. Despite dealing with personal hardships and discrimination throughout my teens and twenties, I devoted much of my time and energy to volunteering and community service. Since the age of thirteen, I have volunteered in my local nursing home, prepared and served food at homeless shelters, was an intern in the Project Health Care program at Bellevue Hospital Center, volunteered in the pediatric day room at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, helped educate youth and the broader community about preventive health care through community outreach events with the AMSA Public Health chapter at my school, and served on the Executive Committee and the Provost Advisory Committee at my school. In addition to the educational and social disadvantages I endured, another area in which I have had to overcome obstacles occured just a few years ago. In 2009, I suffered a stroke after a PA injected the wrong serums during allergy testing. Instead of administering the allergens intradermally, she administered them intramuscularly. The doctor was not in the office that day, and the PA did not know how to handle anaphylactic shock. The allergist’s office did not have epinephrine and Benedryl readily available, and the PA failed to call 911 while I was left in an upright position in a chair, so I was not tended to in the proper manner when I had a sudden and precipitous drop in blood pressure, resulting in a watershed ischemic stroke. This initially affected my brain globally and ultimately left me with mostly right-sided sensori-motor dysfunction. Due to the hypoxic event, I lost my sense of touch, had a seizure, developed a terrible pain syndrome on the right half of my body, had right-sided muscle weakness, had difficulty speaking and swallowing, myoclonus, muscle fasciculations, experienced spasticity, and developed focal dystonia, among other neurological problems. I had been planning to apply to the MECN program to enter the class of 2010, but because of the stroke, I was forced to stop school mid-spring semester, stop my job search, and devote every day to stroke rehabilitation. The experience has been very stressful and painful, not only because of the physical issues I had to overcome, but because of some of the unethical and hurtful attitudes and behaviors I encountered in professionals who I met along the way. I am happy to say that I have made great improvements over the past three years. I was determined not to have my hopes and dreams squashed by a negligent physician and PA, and so I have tried my best to resume a normal life as my body recovered from this trauma. I started working part-time in October last year, but I stopped working this past March. I do not plan on working while I am a full-time student, and so I will not have an income. Therefore, scholarships, fellowships, and grants would aid in the costs of the MECN program. I am attracted to the nursing profession because it will give me the chance to use my skills, passion, experience, and talent—all of which were sparked and cultivated while volunteering in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics for almost twenty years. I have had a long-standing dedication to healthcare and serving others, and I look forward to becoming a professional in the field so that I can truly impact the lives of the people I meet. I look forward to gaining the important clinical knowledge I need to know and being an advocate for my patients since I know personally what it is like to be in a vulnerable state and to be forced to trust those charged with your care. There is a special place in my heart to serving communities that are medically underserved because I grew up in a highly populated, immigrant-dense region of Queens, NY. I truly understand the need for quality care that is accessible to those that are underserved and I hope to contribute my skills and talent to those populations. In terms of clinical focus, I have an interest in working with the older adult population as well as in neurology, but I think this will become clearer once I start nursing school and clinical internships. Since I was little, I have had a penchant for trying to understand and solve difficult cases. I like to think on my feet, feel secure in handling emergencies, and possess exceptional patience, so I hope to find a clinical focus that will be a good fit for my talents and areas that I like. After nursing school, I hope to work at a hospital or clinic in my clinical focus and eventually complete a program to become a nurse practitioner so that I can provide advanced care. These are my long-term goals at the moment. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to live and work in Los Angeles a few years ago. I grew up in New York City, which is very much like Los Angeles in terms of diversity, so I felt right at home. My time in Los Angeles opened my eyes to the UCLA MECN program, which was recommended to me by my physician friend doing residency at UCLA and also a nurse at Cedars Sinai. After attending the MECN Open House, and speaking with those in the program, I knew I wanted to apply to the program. I am confident I have the qualities and academic qualifications to be a successful nursing student, and there is no better place than UCLA that I would like to spend my years learning and training as a nurse. However, I have been concerned about the cost of this education as an out-of-state student. Scholarships, fellowships, or grants would surely alleviate some of the financial burden in completing the MECN program. It would help to lessen the worries of being able to afford school so that I could focus completely on my studies. Read More