Alert1’s Student for Seniors Scholarship Announcement

Alert1 loves protecting seniors, and we love students who help seniors. That’s why we recently started the Alert1 Student for Seniors Scholarship. We want to reward students who have played a positive role in the lives of seniors.

We asked each applicant to elaborate on these three questions:

1. What is your experience with seniors?
2. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned from seniors?
3. How will you help seniors in your chosen career?

After many submissions, we awarded the scholarship to a student from Texas named Shelby. This is Shelby’s story:

Shelby is an ambitious and hard-working student who received great encouragement and mentorship from her grandparents, who helped raise her in Texas. She found a passion for healthcare, and desired to give back to the senior community by pursuing an education that would enable her to obtain a career in the healthcare field.

Shelby worked full-time as a pharmacy technician and volunteered as often as possible in multiple facilities to help seniors throughout her academic journey. She described the experience as incredibly rewarding way to build strong relationships and gain bounds of knowledge.

Alert1 wants to help and honor Shelby as she continues to pursue her academic career.

Shelby provided some heartfelt and inspiring answers to the questions. Read on to see what she submitted.

Since childhood, most of my caregiving has been provided by my grandparents as both of my parents worked full-time. Helping my grandparents cook, clean, and care for themselves throughout my childhood gave me a deep appreciation for life and aging. This experience gave me the motivation to help seniors throughout my adulthood.

I have volunteered for hospice care and retirement communities because the most significant observation that I carried with me from my grandparents was the loneliness they often suffered. Building relationships with patients in these settings was extremely significant to developing my career and education goals because I quickly recognized the lack of adequate healthcare they received and how such lack of care affected them in the last stage of their lives.

Often, the patients spoke of their families and grandchildren with hope, which was heartbreaking because they seemed void of hope for themselves. Because I experienced such frustration knowing that conditions could be improved in the environments I volunteered at, I knew that my career goal would be centered around increasing the quality of healthcare services for seniors to improve their last stages of life.

The most important lesson I have learned from communicating with seniors is the value of life itself and how our perception of its value is something within our own control. Some of the patients I interacted with made me incredibly joyful because the value they had for their lives was contagious.

They felt full in their last stage of life, and therefore any lack of care contributed a very small effect on their quality of life. However, other patients felt poorly about themselves and the lives they had lived, which reflected in a poorer quality of life.

When I investigated by asking them how they felt about their family and life accomplishments, a sense of control over their lives was commonly observed among the contagiously happy seniors, which made me realize that proper support could improve the lives of those that exhibited poorer health and quality of life.

In my career as a public health research facilitator, I will help seniors by providing better and more accessible healthcare in both physical and mental aspects. I know that this will be extremely beneficial for seniors because the small changes I could make while volunteering exhibited noticeable results.

When I provided support for those seniors who seemed hopeless, they showed appreciation and slowly began to radiate joy similar to their surrounding community members. It was an incredible change that I would love to enable in more seniors through public health research.

With the help of Alert1’s scholarship opportunity, Shelby is now pursuing a Master of Science degree in Health Psychology at University of Texas at San Antonio. Shelby is incredibly excited to facilitate pursuance of healthcare research at University of Texas in San Antonio.

Thank you Shelby, for all that you have done and will continue to do for seniors throughout your career.

Alert1 was so inspired by Shelby that we decided to continue scholarship opportunities. If you’re a student who has helped a senior in any way, you’re qualified for the scholarship!

Whether you were caregiving for a loved one, or worked with seniors in the medical industry, we want to hear from you. Submit your Alert1 Scholarship application online by January 5th, 2018 11:59 PM PST.

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