Dear Me,
It’s the year 2023 now, and we’ve named it “the Year of Change and Transformation”. 2023, the year for me! You made, for the very first time, a vision board on Canva, and honestly, it came out much better than you could have anticipated! A colorful collage of all your dreams and goals for the new year illustrated in cutouts of cute cartoons and images taken from Google. Ranging from a letter that states “Congrats, you’re accepted!” to a flashy red car honking to the Scripture verse from the Prophet Habakkuk that reminds you to ‘write the vision down… so that one may easily read it’, these images capture what’s on your heart.
If I hadn’t told you before, I’m proud of you, you know? You have truly come a long way, thanks be to the grace of God. Four years ago, at 20 years old, did you know you were going to take the daring and bold step to transition to Nursing as your career choice? Bet you didn’t think that would happen, Miss I-Want-To-Be-A-Doctor-Since-The-Age-Of-Ten. Did you know you were going to attend Hunter, not having a clue about what you were doing, where you were going, but end up majoring in Human Biology and Sociology, and wind up loving them? Thank God for that advisor who told you that Human Biology was the best major for Hunter’s pre-Nursing students! You ended up loving your classes, and excelled in many of your classes like your Capstone Seminar, Microbiology, Nutrition, and Medical Sociology-kudos to you! Now, for Sociology I REALLY bet you NEVER thought you’d want to go into that field, right? Did you know that after the events that took place in the Summer of 2020, you became more interested in racial & criminal justice, which pushed you to venture into policy and criminology classes. It is interesting how when you joined more groups and met peers with fresh and new ideas, it awakened new passions you never knew you had! Right now, you are at a point where you know you want to go to Nursing school, but you also have such a huge interest in community organizing, food insecurity, prison justice and reform, public policy, student and youth activism- basically everything! You feel like you have a clear idea of what you want to do, but which avenue to take, that is the question. Do you take the traditional route and jump head-first into your career choice, or do you choose the “road less traveled by” as Robert Frost once penned down, and absorb all the experiences life can throw at you or gift to you instead? On top of that, you also have dreams of getting your Master’s in Public Health! Crazy, right? Who would have ever thought you wanted to go to graduate school, in hopes you could study health disparities to learn how to deliver better healthcare services to folks who look like you, communities that represent you. Hopefully you can go to CUNY (third time in a row, fingers crossed!) It feels scary but exciting, all these different pathways and new opportunities you’re trying out. You have been to Albany and Washington DC to advocate for the behalf of fellow students’ well-being, participated in life-changing internships and programs, made new friends, started your own advocacy project, met amazing mentors, leading your very own business, learning to appreciate your progress and simply having fun! If anyone hasn’t told you yet, I am proud of you and can’t wait to see the next steps for you!
XOXOX!
Love,
Onye
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
