STATEMENT OF PURPOSE 3
supported my original hypotheses, my findings were still valid. As a favorite biology professor
of mine used to say, scientific advances are often out of proving something does not exist.
Currently, I am volunteering in Alaska for a year through an International Volunteer
organization at a parenting camp. I work with families whose kids have been in public
guardianship trying to keep the families close. Kids, there are very young and going through
some tough times which makes it quite difficult to work. Many of them could be studies of
several risk factors. Working here has opened me to how cases of divorce, abuse, and family
neglect can merge to negatively affect the children’s social interactions, how they view
themselves and the world and the kind of future that is expected of them.
I was introduced to adolescent substance use issues during my undergraduate research
and honors thesis. I became interested in the issues of substance use among adolescents and how
an adolescent’s conditions whether environmental or familial could affect his or her life. I would
love to help children like those I work with to have more fruitful lives. I am fascinated by my
adolescent and child health especially use of substances, resilience and risk, aggression and
pathology, and how family and social frames affect these issues. I want to focus on reducing the
difficulty of growing up, especially in high-risk children.
I see it worthwhile to spend my career in clinical counseling. I think that it is really
important to have well-informed research through clinical practice that is based on deep research.
I find it crucial for research to be well circulated, and that extra attention is paid on underserved
regions as objectives of study and assistance in clinical practice. For example, due to a weak
university presence, most of Alaska suffers from underhand social services programs which lack
the latest clinical technologies. I’d love to advance interventions and prevention programs to
voice my specialties, and profession as a college professor would be a great way to reach this
