Annamarisa Sudigala

UConn School of Nursing

I was born in Mount Kisco, New York and grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, where I received my Advanced Regents Diploma from Saratoga Springs High School. I will receive my Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from UConn in May 2021.

I want to be a nurse so that I can attend both to people’s mental and physical health, and be a source of light and happiness for them. I have volunteer experience with the Make-a-Wish foundation, the American Cancer Society, and with a nursing home. In 2018, I worked at a summer camp for children from low income families, to which I will return in 2019. Working at the summer camp revealed to me the obstacles children from underserved families routinely face.

I truly discovered my love for helping underserved people when I embarked on a MEDLIFE service-learning trip to Ecuador. This trip inspired my application to the Urban Service Track/AHEC Scholars Program: the impact of the trip, both on myself and on the communities I served, compelled me to seek work with underserved populations in my home state. My experiences with the UST/AS Program will enable me to learn more about medicine and to see from different perspectives in order to improve health outcomes in the communities I will serve. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Some pursue happiness, others create it”; I want to create it.