Appeal Essay
Personal Statement
I was previously enrolled as a Dentistry student in my home country of Honduras, at UNITEC a Honduran university for two years. During this time, I overall did not feel fulfilled with my career choice. Most importantly, I felt that the width of the population that I was going to be able to help with my career was limited exclusively to patients with oral problems. I decided to switch instead to a career with a more extensive breadth of practice and population benefit, which is what mainly attracted me towards Health Management. After deciding to leave Honduras and pursue a degree in the United States, I chose to attend Tallahassee Community College where I could earn my Associate of Arts degree and then transfer into my desired major with a preference and goal to attend Florida State University.
In my first year at Tallahassee Community College, I was not aware of the possibility of transferring my credits from my home country university, since it was a completely different system in a different language. I was admitted to TCC through a Document-by-Document evaluation instead of a Course-by-Course evaluation, which is why TCC did not recognize or transfer any credits I had previously earned in Honduras. Under the guidance of career advisors and counselors, it wasn’t until my second year of study at TCC when I realized that some of the pre-requisites courses of my desired mayor, which I had already completed in my home country, were transferable.
I hope that I can transfer to Florida State University so I can fulfill my dream of studying Health Management. I am sure that Florida State University will provide me with the specialized knowledge and professional skills that I will require to become a successful health care manager either for public or private organizations. Furthermore, I believe that FSU’s IMS Health Management, Policy & Information program ultimately prepares its students to make a significant change in Health Care that will positively benefit a large amount of people who are in need of better and more efficient health care services. This is what I envision myself focusing on in my future career plans, since I transferred to Tallahassee Community College.
Being an international student from a developing nation like Honduras, has exposed me to the deficiencies of health care systems and their impact on people. I have witnessed severely ill people outside of hospitals or clinics desperately seeking their well-deserved health care and not being able to obtain it. I believe that this is a deserved right for every human being. My main focus with this major is to someday be able to help improve this sad situation that my country is currently living at a daily basis. I have performed several volunteer hours in this area at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and this reaffirmed the passion that I have come to develop for this area which is also one of the main reasons I selected this major.