Growing up in an ethnic minority community in Ireland, where progression to college is less than one percent and unemployment is 87%, I showed Grit by persevering to achieve my dreams and to challenge stereotypes by becoming an educated female with a career.

Annmarie, a native of County Meath, Ireland, is a 2017 graduate of Trinity College Dublin and a Fellow at CFES.

Growing up in an ethnic minority community in Ireland, where progression to college is less than one percent and unemployment is 87%, I showed Grit by persevering to achieve my dreams and to challenge stereotypes by becoming an educated female with a career. To do this, I set my sights on a degree from Trinity College Dublin. For two years, I worked to save money to complete a community college course with the hope of eventually gaining entry to Trinity College Dublin. It worked! In 2017, I graduated with an Honors degree in Occupational Therapy from Trinity College Dublin.

Throughout my journey, I learned how to be Agile, travelling to Mexico City on my own for a summer, having won a Travel Award for my community volunteer work in Ireland. With no Spanish, I learned to quickly adapt to my surroundings, a city of 21 million people, and work as a teacher with the indigenous children of Mexico City.

As a training Occupational Therapist, I learned how to be a strong team worker, working with doctors, therapists, and nurses in different healthcare settings.

Throughout my time at Trinity, I learned how to Network by using my volunteer work to meet inspirational and impactful people. In early 2017, I had the opportunity to speak at Oxford University where I met Dr. Rick Dalton and learned about the CFES Fellowship. Six months later, I began my one-year fellowship with CFES in Essex, NY. Overall, none of this would have been achieved without setting goals of what I wanted to achieve and how I was going to achieve them!

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