Looking back on this year, the issue that really stuck with me is how much education impacts our ability to make our own decisions. We live in a time where personal morals and political views are getting completely blurred together, and honestly, they are really easy to manipulate. It is well known that when people lack access to a solid education or critical thinking skills, they become much more susceptible to outside influence. Without a good grasp of how the world works, our core beliefs can be easily reshaped by whoever is speaking the loudest, whether that is about politics or just everyday ethical choices.

     I started looking at this more closely as I got further into my classes and thought about my own community. I realized that when people are denied a strong educational foundation, they simply lack the tools to look at complex situations objectively. When people cannot critically evaluate what they hear, they rely on external voices to tell them what to value. I have noticed this kind of vulnerability a lot in religion. Sometimes it feels like beliefs are just handed down, shaped more by the crowd than by what we actually feel inside. For me, diving into learning, especially in science and math, gave me new ways to make sense of things I used to just accept on faith. It brought me a lot of clarity in a world that can often feel pretty confusing.

     My goal now is to try to push back against that vulnerability by promoting literacy and clear communication wherever I can. Since I am studying in the healthcare field, this issue is directly tied to what I want to do for a living. In medicine, you see the results of an under-educated public all the time. It shows up as people falling for medical misinformation, distrusting science, or not knowing how to advocate for themselves at the doctor's office. A patient who does not understand their own body or why a doctor is recommending a certain treatment is incredibly vulnerable.

Because of this, my next steps are all about improving how I communicate. I want to learn how to take really intimidating, complex scientific concepts and explain them in a way that actually makes sense to people. As a future healthcare provider, my job will not just be treating illnesses or guiding patients through different specialties and care plans. My job will be empowering them. If I take the time to actually educate the people I care for, I can help them build a foundation that protects them from being misled about their own health.

     At the end of the day, fighting against this kind of manipulation takes empathy, patience, and actually sharing what we know. As I continue to grow as a Global Citizen Scholar, I really want to be an advocate for informed decision-making. Whether I am in a clinic or out in the community, my goal is to ensure the people I interact with have the confidence to stand firm in their choices, health, and personal values.