Growing up a person of color, I witnessed the many struggles that my family had to endure regularly. Mental health was highly stigmatized, and nearly no one ever spoke about wanting to receive help...instead, everyone just suffered. Prior to high school, where I took my first psychology class, I did not even know that therapy was a real thing! Fast forward to my freshman year of college, I remember being in one of my psychology classes and seeing the low number of POCs attending therapy and then seeing how very few POCs are therapists. As someone that is also fairly new to receiving therapy, I would seek a therapist that shared a similar background/characteristics with me, but ultimately that was almost impossible to find. Due to my own experiences and what I learned during undergrad, I discovered that I want to serve people in my community and help bring mental health awareness to diverse groups of people. After all, everyone deserves to have their voices heard and feel supported!