Dear Michael Grove,
The only thing that I remember that day is my mother’s worried face right before I lost consciousness. The next day, I woke up in a hospital. As a child, I was sick often and I was accustomed to being admitted in the hospital. However, when my family told me how the doctors saved my life after I fainted from such a high fever, my perspective on medicine changed forever. I was so fascinated with how the doctors worked with and treated their patients. After this experience, I knew I wanted to save lives just like the doctors had saved mine. Every time people asked me: what I wanted to do when I grew up, I always responded with the same answer: practice medicine. The first thing that people would tell me in response was that the career would take a lot of time, that I would not have a life, and that it is a very gruesome profession because doctors work with blood. However, this did not affect my dream of becoming a doctor.
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, I knew that my opportunities to study medicine were very limited. This is why I was so excited when my father told me that we would be moving to the United States. I knew that this opportunity would help to achieve my career goal. This was six years ago. What I did not know was how much I would struggle to learn the language. The most difficult part of learning the English Language was that I did not have someone to practice with at home. My family did not know English, therefore, everything around me was in Spanish. I was so afraid, and I still am, to make mistakes when speaking English. This is a fear that I think I will always have; however, I can appreciate the value of making mistakes now. I now take these mistakes as lessons, because I have realized that nobody is perfect.
One of my goals for college, now that I am an upper freshman, is to communicate fluently and confidently in English. Another one of my goals is, to network with different people. I would like to apply to different internships related to the fields that I want to pursue, which will help me with my networking. I also want to learn through the experience that I get from the internships in order to get involved and learn in the biology field and work on a minor in psychology. When I was in high school, I did not know that I had to major in one of the sciences, but when my counselor started asking me what major interested me, I chose biology because the fit was easier for my Pre-Med plans. Biology is the study of life and how different organisms interact with one another. This would give me the opportunity to study human anatomy, behavior, morphology, and physiology.
When my college counselor told me that I was required to take a Writing for the Sciences course, I did not know that I would learn different concepts that would help me in my major. I see this class as a tool that will help me gain writing knowledge to apply to my communication skills as a future doctor. I believe this class can help me to facilitate my goals because I will improve my writing skills needed for getting internships. Also, I will get the exact knowledge that I need when writing specific research papers. I would use all the skills that I will learn to apply it in my daily life and in my future career.
It is my pleasure to take this class and I look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Maria Jimenez

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