During the summer of 2010, the summer before my junior year, I participated in a program known as the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine (NYLF/MED) (http://www.nylf.org/med/). It is a program that explores health-related career options, which I am interested in pursuing. I participated in the one at Waltham, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston) at Bentley University, approximately four hours from where I live in New York. This was my first trip alone, as I spent ten days residing in a dorm at Bentley University, away from my family and friends. Although I was nervous, I was excited to visit a town I had never been to. Months prior, I had also expressed an interest to my parents about visiting Boston, Massachusetts as I had heard from friends about how unique and interesting it was.
During this program, I got to experience what living on a college campus is like, as I will be attending a college in Fall 2012. On the drive up to Massachusetts, I admired the scenery, which consists of trees and other nature related objects. Besides hearing lectures on different professions in the health-care field, I also got to visit to places in Boston, such as Harvard Square and Quincy Market. I loved both of these places because they both offered a variety of wonderful shopping and restaurants, but were a toned down version of the louder, more crowded New York City. I also got to visit different medical colleges, including Harvard University (http://www.harvard.edu/) and the University of New England-College of Osteopathic Medicine (http://www.une.edu/) in Maine.
This trip to Massachusetts has impacted my life greatly as it has helped me narrow down which occupation I would like to pursue in the future, which is being a speech therapist. Before attending this forum, I wanted to be a pediatrician. However, this trip triggered this realization as at the Forum, I listened to an audiology lecture, which prompted me to research more on this major when I returned home. After discovering how audiology is often combined with a speech pathology major at an undergraduate level, I decided to research speech pathology also, and discovered that I am slightly more interested in communication than just sound. This trip also impacted my life as it augmented my confidence in being away from home, knowing that I am responsible and independent enough to take care of myself. This is important as those are some of the traits I will need to have if I decide to dorm at college, and eventually later on in life when I will live on my own. I also met a diverse group of friends, who share similar career interests to me, and still talk with today.
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