Amanda Ball

Background

About Amanda Ball

All my life I have helped people, but it took me until I reached college to decide how I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. After working towards a major I had serious doubts about, I realized what I really wanted to do was be a psychiatrist. Helping people learn to cope with life in a way that works for them is exactly what I’d been doing my whole life, so I decided it was right for me and eagerly began the challenge to get there. To work towards this goal, I decided to double major in biology and psychology and now have a 4.0 GPA in both of these subjects. Growing up my best friend was bipolar, and, though I was very young, I was conscious of her decisions and curious what drove them. Even before she was diagnosed, I was constantly trying to guide her in the right direction and trying to help her cope with her swinging emotions. My curiosity about the mind and my overwhelming urge to help people who have emotional and mental problems has only grown stronger since then. Eventually, my drive to help others led me to tutoring. It’s a place where I really feel like I’m making a difference. I find the experiences this job has given me to be a valuable learning tool for when I become a psychiatrist. I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many types of people and learn how to cope with their different learning styles and their different levels of openness. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with kids that have had tough experiences growing up, and - while we can’t directly help the kids with these problems - we have helped build these kids’ confidence and helped them work on their social skills. This will also help me with psychiatry because this has helped me understand how important it is to create a positive base in someone’s life and how much it can help them. Being a psychiatrist is what I want to do with my life and I will work hard for this goal and continue to work hard once I reach it.