There are many decisions that high school seniors have to make regarding their future. Gracian Sieni, Senior Class President, has always had a plan for her future and what she wanted to study as a career. Sieni is going to be attending the University of Texas at Austin as a Health in Society major in the fall.
Sieni’s journey into studying medicine stems from her parents who are both in the medical field. Sieni finds herself following in her parents path pursuing a career in Cosmetic Dermatology.
“My dad is a doctor and my mom is a nurse. I do think one hundred percent they kind of influenced me, and I feel that even if they weren’t doctors I would still pursued something in the medical field,”
Since Sieni was young she realized she wanted to pursue a career in the medical field, as it not only comes from direct influence from her parents’ carers but as well as a sparked interest. Sieni noticed that she may have been too focused on pursuing medicine; she didn’t give herself a chance to explore other careers.
“Ever since I was little, I always said I wanted to be a doctor or a nurse. Now that I am about to go to college and I think about it, I realized I never really opened myself to any other ideas. Even if my parents weren’t doctors, I most likely would have opened my mind to other options but even then I would still choose it because nothing else interests me,” said Sieni.
Sieni’s journey was challenging at first as she struggled with choosing a specific field of study. But Cosmetic Dermatology caught her attention after exploring different areas of medicine as she finally decided on a career that blends beauty treatments with medical science.
“At first I dabbled between emergency medicine and forensic psychiatry for a long time before I finally settled on cosmetic dermatology,” Sieni said “Cosmetic Dermatologists give lip fillers, botox, and they can do chemical peels. It’s similar to cosmetology but mixed with medicine.”
After high school and college, being able to balance work and life is important to Sieni. She decided upon Cosmetic Dermatology as she liked that they are able to have a flexible work schedule.
“I chose cosmetic dermatology because I like the work life balance, I think it’s really good. Even when they’re in residency, the work three to four days a week, maybe even less than that if they have their own private practice,” said Sieni.
High school is all about preparing a person for college; Sieni feels that her experience taking advanced placement classes has prepared her for the load of work she is expected to do for college.
“I feel like AP classes have definitely helped me and prepared me for the workload for college. Because not only is it four years of college but as well as medical school, residency, and sometimes even extra if you are trying to specialize in something,” said Sieni.
Sieni not only has prepared for college education wise, but as well as in her extracurriculars and getting some experience outside of school. Sienie was invited to a scholarship program at Emory University called National Youth Leadership Forum for hands-on activities and experience in the medical field.
“Aside from AP classes, I’ve done a lot of extracurricular activities. I’ve gone to med camps, so I’ve already gotten exposure to all the medical stuff,” Sieni said. “ We talked about medical ethics, learned parts of the body, and watched a live surgery.”
One of Sieni’s favorite parts of the summer program was the triage simulation, where she got a chance to get experience with real life scenarios.
“We did a triage simulation. It’s like when a disaster happens, like a plane crash would happen, a bus accident, or a flooding happened. They showed us how we would handle the situation. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole experience,” said Sieni.
Sieni has worked hard in and outside of the classroom, working to pursue a career in Cosmetic Dermatology. Through all the challenges of school work, college decisions and summer internships, Sieni is able to prevail and pursue an education in Health in Science as a 2024 high school graduate.
