A life well-lived is a life where someone feels good about the career they have chosen and is committed

to it all the way until the end. It does not matter when the decision to have the desired career is thought
of, as long as it is what he/she wants to do. For me, my decision to be a pharmacist in general started all
the way back in high school.

Ever since beginning of freshman year in high school, I have always wanted to do pharmacy as a
career. I did not know exactly what kind of pharmacist I wanted to be but eventually, as I started college,
I have decided that I want to do research with pharmacy. During high school towards senior year, I took
a pharmacy technician class at our local career center and I learned a plethora of terminology and
practices that pharmacy technicians do. Part of the class was to do an externship at a local CVS to get an
experience on how it is like to be a pharmacy technician. I am also already licensed as a pharmacy
technician so I could work in any retail pharmacy. As much as it was interesting on how the whole
system worked, to me, it seemed very routined. All that happened was reading doctors' messy
handwritings, filling out the medicine, and distributing the medicine out to the customers. I wanted
excitement and adventure in research that deals with 3rd world countries and the zoonotic diseases that
are affecting them. I am interested in creating vaccines that could prevent a major outbreak.

In having this goal in mind, I am planning on traveling to these 3rd world countries in the future
to widen my knowledge of how these people live and what we can do to help them in the pharmacy
department. One of the opportunity I intend to do is the Texas A&M Global Medical Brigades in which
specialized doctors and pharmacists bring students to help them to countries like Nicaragua and Ghana
to better communicate with the natives of these countries where there is limited access to healthcare.
Public health workshops are provided as well to teach the natives in healthcare and how to sustain a
better environment in their community. This trip will occur in August before school starts. This kind of
experience is interesting to me and will help me further know if pursuing something with zoonotic
disease is right for me.

Since my long-term aspiration is to be a research pharmacist, I know that I would have to

experience hands on doing research with professors here on campus. I am currently looking for an
opportunity for the summer before my senior year and following into senior year. In doing research,
working with a team is the biggest part. A pharmacist had once told me that when a pharmacy school is
deciding if they want you in their program, they put you in groups and give an almost impossible
scenario that needs to be solved. They do not care what your group comes with, they are just looking to
see if you are working with a group with good communication and no conflicts.

I have so far taken two classes relating to entomology, ENTO 208 Veterinary Entomology and
ENTO 423 Medical Entomology. I have a background knowledge of zoonotic diseases and what are
the vectors and whether they affect humans or not. I am aware that there are some zoonotic diseases,
that if humans encounter it, there are no vaccines for it or that it has not been figured out yet. When I
took ENTO 208 in the Fall of 2015, I counted it as an honors class so the extra assignment our group had
to do is to do research on a type of insect. My group conducted a research project about ants. We used
bait such as sausages, peanut butter, and corn starch to collect the different type of ants. Our findings
concluded that fire ants are dominating especially in College Station; however, we had actually come
across a whole new species in College Station in which they are able to kill fire ants called the Tawny
Crazy ants. Even though this research had nothing to do with my goal in being a research pharmacist,
the whole part of this project being a research based project was an experience. It took about 4 weeks
to collect the insects. Some of the ants were difficult to identify so we had help from Dr. Robert Puckett
who is an employee at Texas A&M University. Once we had submitted the paper to our professor, we
decided to go the extra steps and get the paper published. Two years later, our paper was published in
the Instars Undergraduate Journal in 2017.

I am currently in the Texas A&M Pre-Pharmacy Society, a club that is designed to prepare
students for applying to different pharmacy schools, taking the PCAT exam, or even finding a job in
pharmacy. Students can interact with other students with the same goals in mind and with guest
speakers who come to lecture about their pharmacy school or their pharmacy career. Every meeting
starts with an MMI (multiple mini-interviews) example because most pharmacy schools are now
requiring this as part of the interview. Currently, I am a social chair officer so I am in charge of creating
social events so that students can get to know each other during these events.

Research pharmacy will be a good career for me because I am excellent in working with other
people and I love the excitement when a new discovery has been made. Research in any type of
zoonotic diseases that have no vaccines for humans interests me and I hope to be on a team in the
future that can resolve this issue.