“Surgery”. This is the seven letter word that fascinates me and grasps my attention with no effort. As I sat in the hospital room with my sick young cousin, this was the only word I heard come out of the neurologist’s mouth. My interest in becoming a surgeon began at the young age of seven years old. I was, and still am, amazed at how profound such an act can be. As a seven year old, I was always the clean and well organized girl who was always inside cutting open her stuffed animals and sewing them back together.
Growing up with a Middle-Eastern background, I was always lectured about being a proper wife. My family never cared about my education, instead they felt they needed to prepare me to act my role as a domestic housewife. This is the reason I have chosen to pursue a life that strays away from the path of domesticity. My academic goals are simple, I want to be the top of my graduating class at UCR. I dream of attending a prestigious medical school that will prove to the culture I come from that women are just as capable as men.
Attending a prestigious medical school will allow me to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a life-saving surgeon. If I do get accepted to a well renown medical school, it will make my family proud and will serve as living proof that education is in fact the best way to achieve lifelong success. Both of my parents lost the opportunity of a true education and with this loss, they lack hope. I have the drive to save lives and to help those in need. Growing up I watched numerous family members suffer in hospitals.
Rather than focusing on their suffering, I always focused on the operations they underwent. I watched them get healed or whither away. Of all the experiences I’ve learned from, my cousins brain surgery was the most fascinating to me. She had a brain tumor pressing on her olfactory bulb. As soon as I heard she was going to have surgery I went home and with anxious excitement I searched for videos that documented such surgeries. I watched these surgeries in awe and at that exact moment in my life, I knew I wanted to become a neurosurgeon.
When I heard about UCR’s FastStart program, it was an opportunity I did not want to miss out on. Ever since I was a freshman in high school I read about the FastStart program and all the opportunities it provided students with. My interest in FastStart gives me hope. As a first generation college student, I feel as though FastStart will lead me to where I need to be. Since I am the first in my family to aspire a career in medicine, I hope that FastStart will lead me towards what I need to do in order to become a successful surgeon.