ARVO Setting Your Sights Advocates: Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of being part of the National Honors Society (NHS) Induction Ceremony celebrating 11th and 12th graders at the Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Md. The NHS equips students with the tools and knowledge to become impactful leaders in their school, community and beyond. It also acts as a vital connection between students and school leaders, fostering engagement and providing valuable insights into students' thoughts, feelings and needs. I was privileged to be one of two keynote speakers for the ceremony. My role was to give a speech to the students being inducted, reflecting on the attributes  they embodied in the work they had completed.

To prepare for this event, I first reflected on my own NHS Induction Ceremony at my high school in 2010. I attempted to remember what it was like for me going through this special event as well as what 11th  and 12th grade was like overall. This helped me to decide what I wanted to speak about.

As a high school student, it's hard to imagine being anywhere but in a classroom; the road ahead seems long and endless. By this point, each of these students being inducted had attained academic excellence in high school, been a volunteer and participated in leadership activities, working diligently to prove themselves. While celebrating them for all their amazing hard work, I acknowledged also how difficult high school can be and the immense amount of pressure one can feel. Sharing my own story of becoming a doctor last year — something I had been working towards since I was their age — I relayed how, despite the challenges, the journey was worth it. The moment I walked into The Johns Hopkins Hospital for the first time as a resident physician-scientist was one of the happiest of my life. I told them they were on the right track and had shown they can work hard but emphasized also that they had to have patience each day and diligence to get to this end because this was only the beginning. “Keep working hard and keep moving forward because one day you will get to look back on all of this and know that you made it to where you wanted to be.”

After the event, an 11th grade student came up to me and said she was thankful for my acknowledgement of the pressure students are under and the difficulties of high school. She appreciated that I said the path wasn’t easy nor was it over, but their education would be worth it in the end.

Connections like this with such amazing students are exciting, and it was wonderful to see everyone happy and celebrating them. It was worth my own hectic challenge to get to the ceremony, coming straight from finishing my day at the hospital as a resident (I even was still in my clinic clothes)!  I believe it showed though that I love my job and only made the essence of my speech stronger.

Be it through volunteering, leadership or just social activities, community outreach is such a great way to inspire and teach new minds. I think participating in our communities is imperative to the eye and vision research field. It shares who we are, our passions and our work. By getting out in the community and supporting young minds — if that is through volunteering, leadership, or just social activities — it is such a great way to inspire and teach them and we are helping to empower the next generation of scientists and physicians.

About Setting Your Sights (SYS)

ARVO’s Setting Your Sights Program aims to motivate and guide the next generation of eye and vision researchers, especially youth from underrepresented groups, by encouraging interactions with members of the research community like you. If you are a researcher, clinician, educator, or post-doc who would like to get involved (e.g., as a SYS Advocate) in helping students build a solid foundation to enter the field, please contact outreach@arvo.org.