Gifted And Talented Scholarship Essay

In the fifth grade my teacher introduced me to the value of being prepared. Since then I have been step ahead of many of my peers by preparing before class, being punctual, and staying engaged. I attribute most of my success to hard work and those three simple steps. According to my mother, that was also the year I first said I wanted to be a doctor. At the time, I did not really understand how it would happen, but I knew I was going to do something big with my education. My achievements in elementary school propelled me into the Gifted and Talented Education Program. I can still remember many lessons from those years; those were the years I fell in love with science. My parents also rewarded curiosity and thoughtfulness at home. Earning quarters …show more content…
UCI took my love of science and molded it into a love for medicine. Supportive faculty and the Campuswide Honors Program encouraged me to find my unique path and pursue a career in pharmacy. After joining the National Society for Leadership and Success, I was inspired to use my strengths to help others. One of my greatest accomplishments in college has been coordinating Compassion in Healthcare for the nursing science program. It is a class created by students who won the XIV Dalai Lama Endowed Scholarship. The course planning, execution, and grading is all completed by a team of students. Each year we develop the syllabus and invite several speakers with expertise in our areas of focus. Our goal is to cultivate compassion in pre-health students and emphasize its importance in patient-centered care. Compassion in Healthcare has been an amazing opportunity for me to reach out to my peers and professionals with a variety of roles in healthcare. The class introduced me to VITAS hospice where I volunteered my time and Students for Integrative Medicine (SIM). SIM is an organization for undergraduates and medical students. One of our main goals is to educate students about modalities of complementary and alternative medicine. SIM has made me more open-minded about many therapies and has motivated me to advocate for a holistic approach to evidence-based medicine. Being