Merlin
Hello! My name is Merlin. I am a 17-year-old Filipino-American who just moved to California from Florida last year, in February of 2023. I was raised in a nuclear family. However, me and my family had no immediate family members nearby, so we associated mainly with Filipinos and non-Filipino family friends for our immediate support system. My father highly encouraged, practiced, and instilled his cultural Filipino heritage. However, my mother, despite coming from the same culture, did not follow traditional Filipino norms, and rather Westernized cultural norms and values. Previously living as an Asian in the southern part of the United States, I felt like a pariah. Other than my family, school life was my social life, and I was racially profiled and discriminated against for my Asian appearance.
In my free time, I like to make and create art. Ever since I was younger, I loved to draw, paint, and make arts and crafts. Towards the end of my sophomore year of high school, I flew on a plane with my family from Florida to across the country, to California. This relocation introduced me to a new house, school, and overall environment. It allowed me to embrace my Filipino heritage, be in closer proximity to my immediate family, make so many new friends, and be more passionate about making art! Although I am fond of creating art, I find an ideal career for me would be to become a pharmacist. The skills of being a pharmacist include analytical thinking, communication, and to be detail-orientated. To achieve this, I would like to go to UCSD which has a pharmacy school.
I believe that becoming a part of the ABFK program would help me tremendously. I would use the funds to buy my own personal laptop and printer that I can use for college, since I rely on the school-issued Chromebook for school. I would also use the funds to purchase more art supplies to improve my quality of art. Not only would I benefit from the financial aspect of the scholarship, but also the academic aspect. The academic support from tutors who could aid me in my education for the fundamental science courses I would need to study pharmacology. The ACT and SAT prep would also help with my college application to UCSD, so my family would not have to worry about the financial and academic support for my future education in the upcoming years after high school. Thank you for taking the time to consider me as an applicant. I
truly appreciate you taking the time to read my story.