As a part of various on- and off-campus organizations, I have volunteered throughout the state of Florida. One of the most influential volunteer opportunities I have had during my college career occurred in the summer of 2015. Before the Spring of 2016, I was a Pre-Professional Biology and International Studies double-major at UF. My volunteering experience in the summer of 2015 at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) helped me reevaluate my hopes for the future and eventually led me to change my double-major, my career goals, and the volunteer experiences I had in the last two years of studying at UF.

                As much as I enjoyed my experience volunteering with ORMC in which I helped cardiology patients have a more pleasant out-patient experience, provided information to and from medical staff and patients and their families, and helped make accessible vital products for the care of such patients, at the end of my 200-hour experience, I realized that I loved helping people but that being a doctor was not my dream. I constantly heard stories about the inability for potential patients to pay for life-saving treatment and it broke my heart. I decided that I wanted to help people have access to the treatments they could have and to be able to do that, studying politics would be helpful. However, as I continued in my International Studies classes, I began to understand the scope of the problem and made the next decision to set my current career goal: to help people improve their quality of life, all around the world, through an international organization.

                Since declaring an International Studies major in the spring of 2016, I have volunteered as an English Conversation Tutor with the Cultural Immersion Program at the English Language Institute at UF to help international students learn and retain English, I have volunteered at various events with the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Golden Key International Honor Society, and I have volunteered to help people outside of UF through organizations from my hometown, Oviedo, FL. The more I keep volunteering, the more passionate I become about improving peoples’ lives, even if I can only brighten their lives for a day.