USC's speaker series "What Matters to Me and Why" asks faculty and staff to reflect on their values, beliefs, and motivations. Presenters talk about choices they have made, difficulties encountered, and commitments solidified. Write an essay about an event or experience that helped you learn what is important to you and why it is important.
I think it all started when I was a little kid, about age six or seven. I would sit at my desk for hours meticulously drawing anatomically correct pictures of sharks being especially careful to label all the organs with the right names. I would draw the pictures that I saw in books over and over again until I knew them by heart and didn't need to look at the books. This is what sparked my interest in science and medicine.
My experience in the Health Science Academy at my high school only fueled that interest and has largely influenced what I want to do with my life. Prior to my involvement with the academy, during my freshman year, I had absolutely no idea of what I was going to do with my life. All I knew was that I wanted to go to college because my parents told me that I had to in order to have a good job and be successful. My parents told me I had to; that was my main motivation for doing well in school. This all changed once I joined the academy and figured out what kind of career I wanted to pursue in the future.
What's kind of ironic about the academy is that I almost never applied. Part of the academy was that it was a three year commitment and there was almost no way to get out of it. This really scared me because I was not sure that I would end up even being interested in a career in medicine. I even mentioned that in the essay we had to write for the application, saying "I think this will be a great experience for me even if I become disinterested in the medical field". After deliberating whether or not to apply. I finally decided to do it. I turned the application at the last second on the very last day you could do so.
One of the things in the academy that really grabbed my attention was the physiology class I took my junior year. At first I was kind of skeptical about physiology because I had heard it was hard, but I ended up loving it because most of physiology is knowing all the organs and bones in the body and labeling diagrams of them. This came very easily to me because I spent a good portion of my childhood doing just that. Later on in the year there was a unit on athletic training, where we had to learn how to tape ankles and stuff like that. When I learned that someone could make a living off taping ankles, I fell in love with the idea of being involved in sports medicine.
I've always been a pretty competitive person, whether its in football, basketball, or monopoly I've always liked to compete. Since it has become obvious to me that I will probably never become a professional athlete, I think that a career in sports medicine would be a good fit for me because I'm not ready to give up being around competitiveness that sports entail.
any kind of feedback would be great.
I think it all started when I was a little kid, about age six or seven. I would sit at my desk for hours meticulously drawing anatomically correct pictures of sharks being especially careful to label all the organs with the right names. I would draw the pictures that I saw in books over and over again until I knew them by heart and didn't need to look at the books. This is what sparked my interest in science and medicine.
My experience in the Health Science Academy at my high school only fueled that interest and has largely influenced what I want to do with my life. Prior to my involvement with the academy, during my freshman year, I had absolutely no idea of what I was going to do with my life. All I knew was that I wanted to go to college because my parents told me that I had to in order to have a good job and be successful. My parents told me I had to; that was my main motivation for doing well in school. This all changed once I joined the academy and figured out what kind of career I wanted to pursue in the future.
What's kind of ironic about the academy is that I almost never applied. Part of the academy was that it was a three year commitment and there was almost no way to get out of it. This really scared me because I was not sure that I would end up even being interested in a career in medicine. I even mentioned that in the essay we had to write for the application, saying "I think this will be a great experience for me even if I become disinterested in the medical field". After deliberating whether or not to apply. I finally decided to do it. I turned the application at the last second on the very last day you could do so.
One of the things in the academy that really grabbed my attention was the physiology class I took my junior year. At first I was kind of skeptical about physiology because I had heard it was hard, but I ended up loving it because most of physiology is knowing all the organs and bones in the body and labeling diagrams of them. This came very easily to me because I spent a good portion of my childhood doing just that. Later on in the year there was a unit on athletic training, where we had to learn how to tape ankles and stuff like that. When I learned that someone could make a living off taping ankles, I fell in love with the idea of being involved in sports medicine.
I've always been a pretty competitive person, whether its in football, basketball, or monopoly I've always liked to compete. Since it has become obvious to me that I will probably never become a professional athlete, I think that a career in sports medicine would be a good fit for me because I'm not ready to give up being around competitiveness that sports entail.
any kind of feedback would be great.
