What separates a successful person from the average person? Is it good luck or simply hard work? It can be easy to feel envious or jealous of people who've accomplished our dreams, but perhaps these feeling should inspire us to chase after everything we've been dying for.
Most people walk through life believing that their ambitions are out of reach when in reality, the only thing holding us back from them is ourselves. The story of this young woman will motivate you to go after that thing you've been wishing on. After all, at 13, she's already been accepted at med school. Here's her story and how she's making history.
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Alena Analeigh Wicker would appear to be like every other pre-teen girl from the outside: having fun, hanging out with friends, and learning the life lessons that all young people learn while growing up. However, unlike most 13-year-olds, this teenager has found within herself a superpower that has been manifesting all of her dreams to come true.
To a stranger, it would appear that Alena keeps getting lucky. However, she explains: "I'm still a normal 13-year-old ... I just have extremely good time management skills and I'm very disciplined."
On June 30th, Alena accepted an offer to medical school, becoming the youngest person of color to achieve this level of success at such a young age. Being ten years younger than the average age for first-year medical students, Alena has inspired and surprised her family, friends, and 18,000 Instagram followers.
Alena is living proof that age is just a number and that time and society's expectations of us are not the path we are obligated to follow. "You're not too young to do anything. I feel like I have proven to myself that I can do anything that I put my heart and mind to."
Alena will enroll at the University of Alabama in 2024. She was granted the Burroughs Wellcome Scholars Early Assurance Program, which guarantees her access to the program as a top priority.
For now, she is certainly wasting no time. She's currently studying biology at both Arizona State University and Oakwood University, working towards two degrees after graduating high school at the ripe age of 12. "I love school, I love learning, I love reading ... The high school work was so easy for me that I ended up graduating from high school at 12 years old."
Research shows that within the industry of science and engineering, only 28% of workers are women, and just 5% are women of color. Even as a pre-teen, Alena wants to change this statistic, inspiring her to become an entrepreneur, and starting an initiative known as the "Brown STEM Girl."
"We're showing the world that there are other girls out there that are just like me, and they deserve an opportunity and a chance," there are over 2,000 girls involved in Alena's program, which is fully funded by private donors.
Alena found a mentor in Clayton Turner, a director for NASA. At 12, she landed an internship at the worldwide famous astronomy organization, where she contributed to the research on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, Calif.
While Turner describes her as "one of those exceptional intellects," he went on to acknowledge that her heart is even larger and more impressive than her brain. While Alena has continued to flip flop between career goals from NASA researcher to medicine, the one thing each dream has in common is that she wants to help people in need.
This teenager demonstrates that fitting in with the crowd is not always the best possible outcome, but instead that our individuality is our superpower. Her mother explained that Alena appeared to be different from her peers since she was a toddler, noticing that she was gifted.
"There was a little boy that bullied me, and he would tease me and call me 'smarty pants." While Alena's short road to success has not always been a smooth and easy one, she is an example that good luck is simply hard work that always pays off, "it's been a long journey, but it's all gonna pay off in the end."
The combination of this scholars young age, her identity as a woman, and her ethnicity, Alena states that statistics show that she's beat all odds. "I would say to any little girl out there that's reading this: Never give up on you, never let someone tell you that you can’t do something."
Apart from her goals and ambitions to break boundaries in the science world, Alena has her heart set on becoming a role model for women everywhere. "I really want to leave my mark on the world ... lead a group of girls that know what they can do."
Most people move through life feeling the weight of the pressure to fit within the box that society tells them to. While there are always going to be people around us that try to bring us down, stories like Alena's shed light on the fact that life is what we make of it.
No matter what limitations your circumstances set you up for, you have the power to accomplish anything you hope and dream for. So, go for it! Just like Alena, you never know how far you can get when you shoot for the stars.
Are you still searching for your life purpose? You won't believe what the science of Numerology can reveal about you!
That's right, the numerology of your birth date, regardless of what month you were born, can reveal surprising information about your personality.
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