Sameya Begum
September 8, 2020
Kristine Slentz
160 Convent Ave
New York, NY 10031
kslentz@ccny.cuny.edu
Dear Professor Slentz,
My name is Sameya Begum and I would like to take this opportunity to formally introduce myself and my interests as I take the path towards my career. I am a 17 year old girl with an aspiration to become a cardiac surgeon. I was born in Bangladesh and came to America when I was around 8 or 9 years old. Coming to America was a big change for me because the change in society, beliefs, and language was like a big roller coaster ride for me as I faced and overcame copious adversities. Through my adaptation to my new life, I learned a new language and adapted to a new educational system that influenced my hobbies and career path tremendously.
Since I came to this country at an early age, I had very little influence from the Bengali education system, which made it a little easier for me to adapt. The first few hobbies that I drew close to when I came to America were drawing and traveling. I was fascinated with drawing during Elementary school when I used to take art class. I also believe this was due to the struggles I had with learning English that made it hard for me to like any other subject. Art was a class where language barrier wasn’t an issue and it was a place for me to express all my feelings through artworks. My fascination for traveling was simply due to the beauty of America and the mesmerizing views it withholds. Through my hobbies, I slowly started to communicate with more people which was a large asset behind my improvement in English.
As I have slowly become more social, my language seemed to immensely improve, which drew my interests towards other classes while moving onto middle school. Science was one of the subjects that I had strong animosity towards during elementary school because of my language barrier. However, as I joined my Science class in 6th grade, I was astonished to know how fascinated I could be for the subject that I had aversion towards. I used to participate and answer the most in class and my academic record in science was flourishing. This enticed me towards my dream and my major which was biology, as I wanted to become a cardiac surgeon. I continued to perform really well in science and math during middle school and also ended up receiving the Science Academic Award when I was graduating, which was a big “YES” for me to pursue my career as something related to medicine. Then, I moved to a high school named Information Technology High School which was paradoxically the opposite of my intended major. My high school was mainly about technology and had very few resources towards the medicine area; therefore, I tried to expose myself to newer things which included the Web Academy. In this academy, I learned graphic designing and website building which slowly made me consider my minor as a Graphic Designer, since I was fond of art and graphics. I was quite fascinated with this academy that people used to suggest me to pursue Graphic Designing as my major, however I always stood strong towards my aspiration to become a doctor.
Although my high school and the academy I was in was a distraction towards my major for awhile, my vision of seeing myself as a doctor unceasingly grew stronger. I found myself struggling a bit in my science classes in high school, however I again seemed to receive a Science Award before my high school graduation, which for me seemed as a “sign of destiny”. I was completely sure now that I will have biology as my major because the two big contributing factors to me pursuing my major matched. The first reason I wanted to become a doctor was due to my parents’ dream of seeing one of their children become a doctor. I wanted to be the one to fulfill their dreams and to make them proud. The second reason obviously has to do with my academic performance towards math and science which mainly seemed to be my strongest from all my subjects. As these two reasons collided, my drive became stronger and my mindset was completely firm!
I am a person who not only believes to have an impact on myself and my family, but also believes to have a huge impact on the rest of the world. As a Science student, I was also a big fan of Albert Einstein and he once said, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile”. The spark in my eyes that made me envision myself as a cardiac surgeon was due to the power a doctor holds as they are the ones to save millions of lives. Since I was little, my vision was always to help others and especially poor people who don’t have much facilities when it comes to their health. I wanted to become a doctor and study in America for a few years and then go back to my country to serve the poor people. My desire was to be a person who could see herself as a helper towards others and to me the best way to help is by saving lives. As this global pandemic occurred, I saw millions of people losing lives and their loved ones, which truly increased my sorrow. I saw one of my friends losing his father and that moment honestly made me cry and pray that I truly become one of the doctors who will selflessly save others. My religion is also something that taught me the values of people’s life and I value its teachings, as Allah the Almighty (God) said “And whoever saves a life it is as though he had saved the lives of all mankind” Quran (5:32). This made me think that from every angle of my life, a major as a biology and a profession as a doctor seemed to be the best fit for me. To accomplish my dream, I decided to join CCNY and soon transfer to Sophie Davis for complete medical education and then NYU to complete my further education.
I joined the City College of New York due to its high resources towards the medical field and also due to it being connected to Sophie Davis. As a student of CCNY, I would always strive to perform high in all my classes. My first goal for this class is to maintain a high GPA and excel in all the areas that I find myself struggling. In high school, I’ve always been known as an excellent writer, however I believe a college writer would need to be much more sophisticated and formal than what I am. This makes my second goal to be to excel in writing at a college level, specifically improvements in research papers.
Education is an ornament that we all possess and by excelling in reading and writing, we will all be holding a weapon that would only bring flourishment towards our dreams. I feel honored to introduce myself and a spark of my dream to you and I would like to thank you for your time and effort to be one of the sources to help us accomplish our dreams.
Sincerely,
Sameya Begum
