Reflection

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new", is a quote from Albert Einstein. This quote fits my experience with this project perfectly. My experience with this was challenging yet very rewarding not only to my personal, but to my dreams of becoming a doctor. The reason that I chose this topic is very simple, my mother. My mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia this year. After finding out my mom had this mental illness I wanted to know everything that I possibly could about, beginning with what caused this illness. After doing a little research I found that high paced lifestyles and a lot of moving is conducive to schizophrenia. During this time of me doing research on schizophrenia my Advanced Placement Literature teacher informed us about the Capstone Project. I took this as an opportunity to expand my knowledge on the subject.

This project challenged me mentally and emotionally was the hardest part of the project in my opinion. The fact that I was working with a mental illness that almost ruined my mother was where the emotional part came into play. When I read that the person who has the illness came have three different stages and may never actually leave what some call a "normal" life it hurt me so much I literally broke down and cried at the fact that my mother would have to deal with this all of her life. I began to have second thoughts not only about not wanting to do my project on this but about me pursuing my dreams of becoming a neuroscientist. Even though this project, at times, got the best of me I pressed forward. I continued knowing that I wanted this project to be by far one of the best one for years to come.

The life long learing I will take away from this prject would have to be the fact that no matter how small whatever you are doing is it can make a big differene in the world. I hope that this project is a help to the mena and womena who are learning about schizophrenia and how it effects people's lives. I want my work to give somebody even the smalelst bit of information to make a life changing discovery. I am a better erson and more aware of what it takes to become a successful person and successful doctor because of the Capstone Project.