From Loss to Purpose by Arianna

From Loss to Purpose by Arianna - August 2025 Scholarship Essay

When my nephew died, the world stopped. His drowning at my sister’s home shattered my family in ways I couldn’t have imagined, first with grief, then with the crushing weight of financial responsibility for his passing. It’s a surreal cruelty: after losing a life, you’re faced with the unfeeling demands of the world, bills and all, as though your heartbreak comes with an invoice. I had endured many things in life, but losing a baby was not one of them.

Before that moment, I had just started my first year at UCLA as a pre-psychology major. I wasn’t entirely sure why I had chosen psychology. The reasons I’d told myself during applications seemed to fade in the fast pace of the college “hustle and grind.” My life was about adjusting to classes, meeting deadlines, and finding my place in a new environment. But after my nephew’s death, something shifted. I stepped away from the noise of campus and had a quiet, raw conversation with myself: What intention am I setting for my life?

My first aspiration for this school year is to give myself space to heal. I want to learn to sit with my grief without letting it consume me, to honor my nephew’s life without being paralyzed by his absence. Healing, I’ve learned, is not linear, but in my classes and through campus resources, I want to practice what I’m studying: emotional regulation, healthy coping mechanisms, and resilience.

The second aspiration is to be a healer for others who feel helpless. Seeing guilt, shame, anger, and sadness consume my family made me realize how isolating emotional pain can be. My major gives me tools to understand trauma, loss, and mental health in ways that can genuinely change lives. This year, I want to get involved in peer counseling programs, volunteer opportunities, or research projects where I can use what I learn to support people through their hardest moments.

My third aspiration is to deepen my commitment to psychology beyond academics. I want to explore specializations like grief counseling or trauma therapy, shadow professionals in the field, and use this year to confirm the path I want to take in graduate school. Losing my nephew reminded me that this work is not abstract — it’s deeply human, and it matters.

What drives me now is that I know exactly what it feels like to be helpless in the face of loss. I know the silence after the condolences fade, the financial strain that quietly compounds the grief, and the way tragedy can pull people apart or bring them together. My motivation comes from wanting to transform that pain into something that can help others find their way back to themselves.

This school year, I aspire to heal and to be a healer. My nephew’s life and loss are a constant reminder of why I am here — not just at UCLA, but in this field. I’m enthralled by my major because it equips me with the tools to create the kind of support my family needed, and to pass that healing forward. If I can help even one person feel less alone in their pain, then I will be living out the intention I set for myself in that moment of reckoning.