During my junior year of high school, I volunteered at Phillippi Shores Elementary as a tutor to Kindergarten and 3rd grade students. I worked in a Spanish class every other day tutoring individual students or teaching the class as a whole. I spent over 25 hours in the classroom and it was truly one of the best volunteering experiences of my life. I loved developing relationships with students of different ages and personalities as well as helping them learn and discover new things. Learning a foreign language is difficult in itself, but trying to teach it to very young students proved to be a whole new feat, especially when they became frustrated because they didn't understand something. While working with these kids I started to realize some of the common issues that they all shared: memorization and pronunciation. I thought of fun and effective ways to orally quiz them all and I also made sure that everyone got their share of one on one attention. At the end of the year when I was able to teach the class by myself I was so happy at the progress that they had made. The excitement in their faces when they got a question right made all of the hard work worth it. I could tell that these kids really enjoyed learning Spanish especially when they all would tell me that they showed their parents what they had learned. Even though I hardly knew these students at first, they looked up to me for not only guidance in school work but also seemed to look at me as a role model. Having this experience made me really realize what an influential and positive effect I could have on children. It was this experience working with these kids that made me realize what I wanted to do for my future career: work with children. I feel that reaching out to and educating children is one of the most important thing one can to because it is the best way to create a foundation for a more efficient, healthy, educated, and successful generation.

"Not to live for the day, that would be materialistic -- but to treasure the day. I realize that most of us live on the skin -- on the surface -- without appreciating just how wonderful it is simply to be alive at all"

--Audrey Hepburn

My experiences in high school are really what began to develop my ambitions and goals in life. In terms of academics, I had the opportunity to take numerous classes such as biology, chemistry, calculus, and physics that significantly increased my interest in the science and math field. In addition to this, my community service projects and activities reinforced my desire to work with children. Working with children in my future career was an easy decision for me to make, however choosing the occupation that would facilitate this is still a decision yet to be made. There are two very different yet equally rewarding careers that I have taken great interest in: teaching and medicine. I would love to be a teacher to not only educate our youth academically speaking, but also to motivate and inspire students to achieve the most they can in their lives. I want to empower struggling students to learn to like school and appreciate the benefits it will provide them throughout their lives. I would like to become either an elementary, math, or science teacher that challenges students yet makes learning enjoyable. In terms of medicine, I would aspire to become pediatrician, possibly focusing in neonatology. With this career, I have the ability to not only work with children, but also help create a healthier generation. Having the ability to help cure critically ill children or just keep them healthy is significant because I would have the power to give a better chance of life to children, giving them the ability to prosper in the world as adults. In general, saving a child’s life or merely giving them the tools to stay healthy and safe would be extremely wonderful and gratifying.