My sister Sabina is infuriatingly perfect. She graduated with a 4.0 GPA and received a full four year scholarship for volleyball; and so, in her junior year, when she called our mother to declare her major it was expected that she would be as perfect as ever, but it stumped my mother. You see, my sister has a bachelors in business, and my mother asked, without any attempt to soften the blow, “Who in god’s name will that help?” Any other suburban family would have rejoiced, and not just because they had someone to do their taxes. But my family can only be described as… different. So, when asked the question of what higher education will do for me, my answer must follow suit.

Every member of my family has a job of service. Grandma Helen used to say it was from our Catholic roots but one way or another they serve. Uncle David is in the military, Aunt Jerry is a teacher, my mother was a Social Worker and is now a teacher, and my Grandmother was a nurse. In fact nearly every member of my family has been or is a teacher or nurse. And then of course my Great Grandmother who taught nursing. Nothing is respected more, and nothing is expected more, than helping those around you. My sister plans to use her business degree to manage a hospital. I suppose peer pressure takes a positive turn in this case.

I hope to become a paramedic; and from there, possibly, a nurse. Because when I was twelve years old, I was diagnosed with an incurable disease. I remember the people who took care of me, I remember their heart felt enthusiasm. The feeling that I mattered, that I was not a burden, I was a necessity. Your career does not need to save the world, to help one person is to help the world. Ecology is my second interest. To hope for people in the future, always a hopeless optimist.

So, why will I pursue a degree? The answer is simple: bees are dying. The earth is warming, glaciers are melting, one in seven children don’t know where their next meal is coming from, it is legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the majority of US states, and gun violence has now claimed more lives than all US wars. How do I have the audacity to look this world in the face and hope to change it? Because I remember the words my grandmother uttered to me in mass on Sunday: “The kingdom of heaven resides in the hearts of man.” It is my duty to do whatever I can to help other people, and the best way I can do that is to learn as much as I can.
So, if I am to spend hundreds of thousands on a piece of paper it better change something in the world.