James R. Hoffa Memorial Scholarship

I would like to spend the rest of my life working with special needs children. My father’s best friend has a daughter who is 6 years younger than me who was born with Down’s syndrome and I grew up with her. She sparked my interest in special needs. To this day I am extremely involved with special needs students; I take a course offered at my school called LINKS. Links is a class where you attend an hour every day with a special needs student in your school and work to increase socialization and independence. I have been involved with the links program for 3 years, and also take my links to plenty of activities outside of school. Working with special needs students has made me a better person; they put a smile on my face every day by doing the simplest things. It’s my dream to work with them, because they make me a better person and it’s impossible for me to be upset around them. Special needs children are so pure, honest, and innocent in a way that I believe everyone should be.On top of my interest in special education, I also am extremely interested in the field of psychology, specifically developmental psychology. My interest was sparked in this subject when I took AP Psychology my junior year. In college, I will be double majoring in Psychology and Special Education. After I receive my bachelor’s in both degrees, I plan on going to grad school for psychology. Ultimately, I want to become a psychiatrist and open my own practice focusing on children with mental disabilities such as Autism and Down’s syndrome.