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- Year Of Graduation: 2020
- College/University: University of Central Florida / AdventHealth University
- Major: Biomedical Sciences
What do you do for a living, or how are you supporting yourself right now?
I’m an aid for my autistic brother. He’s 23 years old and he has seizures and some medical issues. My parents are his guardians, they’re kind of my employers, but I get paid from Medicare to help with his daily needs, like dressing, feeding, groceries, and chores.
Why did you choose your undergrad major? Talk to us about your journey through schooling.
I graduated high school when I was 16, and started at Valencia College in Florida where I was for two years doing my AA degree, just a general education one. They had a transfer program where you could move your credits from there to UCF, the University of Central Florida. It was kind of an easy transfer over, and UCF actually had a building at Valencia, so I didn’t have to drive all the way up, maybe an hour away, to the main campus. I could do it all closer to me. I went to UCF for about three years for a bachelor’s in biomedical sciences. When I was there, I didn’t pass a lot of my classes toward the end, so I got suspended from UCF.
After that, I went to AdventHealth, and that’s where I kind of found my love for school again. I went to AdventHealth University, which is connected to AdventHealth Hospital, for another bachelor’s in biomedical sciences. I graduated from AdventHealth with that degree, and my plan was to go to medical school. I took the MCAT a few times. It was nice because it’s usually an eight-hour exam, but since it was right after COVID, it was only five hours for me. I applied to a lot of medical schools, but at the same time, I started realizing what medical school actually was. You’re going to be in debt for a while, and you’ve got to use your own money since there aren’t really a lot of loans for that. I had to figure out if that was really something I wanted, and it kind of wasn’t.
I really loved medicine, though. I was a tutor for anatomy and physiology, and I absolutely loved it. But then I saw that tech was up and coming, so I thought, “Okay, let me see about the tech field.” I went back to Valencia to get my bachelor’s in computing technology and software development. I just call it computer science because that’s easier to say. It was a two-year degree, all online, which made it a little harder. I mean, computers are online, sure, but it’s really hard to talk to people and figure things out. I had to learn a lot since I didn’t know any of the languages, Java, Python, all that.
Toward the end of that degree, though, I realized I wasn’t the best at coding. It wasn’t something I could see myself doing as a job. I could read and edit code, but coming up with it and being creative wasn’t really for me. So from there, I thought, “Okay, let’s see about something else.” I’ve always really liked psychology, and I wanted to go for a PhD, but if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to work for four years. Right now, I really want to work and save money, so instead, I went for a master’s in behavior analysis, which I’m currently in. I’ll graduate this December, and with that, I can become a board-certified behavior analyst. The thing is, though, I started realizing most BCBAs work with autistic children. My parents are retired foster parents, so we’ve had kids in our home for about 25 years, pretty much since I was born. I’ve had so many different siblings of different ages, with different medical and therapeutic needs, and that’s not something I wanted to keep doing. I feel like I’ve already done that, so I feel stuck again. Now I’m in this spot where I have something I could go into, but I’m not sure if I really want to do that right now.
What does purpose mean to you? Do you think you’re living a purpose-driven life?
My purpose used to be more self-focused in the past, but now I think it’s more about helping others. I definitely think, you know, back then I didn’t know what I was doing, so I couldn’t really help others because I didn’t even know what I was doing myself. I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I have more of an idea of how life is going. I feel like now, my purpose is helping others. Whether it’s kids or adults or graduates, whatever it is. And I do feel like I’m fulfilling that now. I really do.
Back then, I didn’t have all that knowledge, and now I feel like I have so much to share and explain to people, and still so much to learn, for sure.
What’s your biggest struggle right now? What led to it, and how are you moving forward?
My biggest struggle right now is actually landing at least one interview. I feel like that’s very, very difficult, especially with this whole ATS system and the AI scanning resumes. I feel like if I can just get past that resume scan and get into the interview, I’d be able to explain so much more of who I really am.
A resume is just one or two pages of words and bullet points of what you’ve done, but it’s a lot easier to explain things in person. I just feel like you’ve got to get past that point to get to the next step, you know?
What do you want to spend more time working on, either personally or professionally? What’s stopping you?
Personally, lately, I’ve been working more on friendships because during those 10 or 11 years of school, you make friends, but of course everyone kind of spreads out. I feel like now I’m a lot better with my relationships with friends because I was always at home studying or reading or had to go to bed early or something. So I feel like, personally, my relationships are doing a lot better, especially with family, too. Before, I was always like, “I have to go study, I have to take a test.” And now, I feel like a lot of my personal relationships are doing much better.
Professionally, I mean, of course, learning more, I could always learn more, but just being able to use some or most of my skills in some kind of career aspect.
How do you define being a successful person?
Success is a personal thing. For me, though, I think it’s being able to learn the things I want to learn. I liked learning about medicine, I liked learning about tech, and I liked learning a little bit about behavior. I feel like being able to learn a bit of everything and apply it to personal situations, or even just random things, makes you, I don’t know, kind of successful.
Eventually, I think using all those skills in a job to help with bigger problems would be the overall goal of success. I feel like I’m on the way to it, at least, because of all these years of learning.
If we traveled three years into the future of your life, what do you want to achieve? What would you hope has changed?
I definitely hope I’m taking a break from school. That would be great. But I do think, or at least I hope, whether or not I’m in my first job that I applied for now or next year, or my second or third, I do hope I’m in a very stable job at least three years from now.
And I hope that I’m learning, or at least being promoted up or something. Mainly, I just hope that for now it’s really about building a career, and then deciding later on if I want to pursue higher education. But definitely being stable, because school’s not very stable. School’s like back and forth. So just being stable and calm in a job would be great.
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you’d known earlier?
Listen to your friends, even your friends’ siblings who’ve been to college. Listen to their advice and really know what you want to do before you get into school. I know you might say, “I really want to be a doctor, I’m going to do it.” But sometimes when you’re in it, that changes, because maybe you don’t do so well in chemistry or biology. Those are the killer classes, the make-or-break ones. I definitely feel like knowing exactly what you want to do, and then having backup plans is important.
Connect With Cheyenne:
- LinkedIn: @CheyenneBarton
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