Ella Jacobs
2024 Scholarship Winner
UCLA – Psychology

I wish I didn’t have to always fight the question of how much longer I would have with my mother. What gave me peace after years of wishing for another version of my life was understanding that I can become something despite the difficulties I’ve experienced.

I’ve been on a rollercoaster all my life – not knowing if she’s ever going to get better. The question of if it’s the beginning of the end always loomed over me, as it did heavily last year. In October 2022, my mother’s health worsened dramatically. She not only had cancer almost everywhere in her body but had endured a seizure due to the 23 tumors pressing on her brain. As I write this, she passed away exactly four months ago to this day, 5 months after attending the St. John’s Little Pink Houses of Hope Retreat with my father – her last vacation.

Witnessing my mother’s resilience despite her illness led me to focus on one solitary goal – to find more effective ways to persevere through difficulty. Throughout my life, there were times where the ups and downs of my mother’s health made it hard to find motivation for life and school. Watching my father and younger sister also affected by lack of joy, made me realize that even though I wish I could do whatever I could to make it better for them, I am only in control of fighting my own battles.

To overcome this challenge, I chose to do a program at Stanford, to learn how to heal. I gained skills in emotional regulation, finding purpose, communication, acceptance, and endurance. I connected with the program organizers who shared how their own complicated journeys influenced their careers. With these tools I learned that I could use these strengths to work even harder at school, work, and in my hobbies and interests too.

I’ve learned to live alongside my struggles, including severe depression and ADHD and take care of myself to build a life I want to be in. I became a better worker, daughter, and overall human with this experience. These tools have helped me discover how I want to broaden my knowledge when it comes to understanding people’s life experiences. I’ve since used this knowledge to further my study of therapeutic tools that can help those suffering with mental health challenges due to childhood trauma.

I was thirteen when I found out my mother had Stage IV cancer. It had returned, for the third time. Watching her slowly deteriorate crumpled my mental health and motivation. Cancer changed my family’s outlook on life and while they were preparing to grieve, I hit a turning point. I wanted my mother to see me become a strong woman. I became fascinated with finding the best way to cope with fear and the unknown, thus sparking my interest in researching how trauma affects the brain.

To accomplish this, I focused my last two years of high school in rigorous college courses. I was selected to be in a small Middle College program of only 21 students. It offered me a diverse learning experience that allowed me to explore educational interests and psychology resources not available at my school, and to obtain college credits while still a high school student. I was determined to show my mother I had inherited her work ethic by simultaneously working three jobs alongside school. I was first an active lifeguard, where I saved a six-year-old boy’s life. I was also a full-time Barista and care aide for an elderly philosophy professor. I learned that I feel empowered from pursuing passions on my own terms whilst giving room for balance between working hard and being present.

I’ve had to learn how to prioritize and develop skills in time management. By the time I graduated high school, I had also completed freshman year of my psychology major. It was clear however, that I needed to be with my mother as she was dying, rather than go away to college immediately. I adjusted to this by taking the transfer route. The weeks before my mother’s passing, I took care of her alongside my father and sister. Despite being absent from college for a number of weeks in my first term at UCLA, I persevered and achieved a 3.95 GPA first term grade.

Becoming a strong, resilient woman, like my mother, that is able to adjust and adapt quickly, and understand others perspectives, will allow me to succeed in my upper division courses and live a life that I know would have made my mother proud.