Amanda Figueroa

I am a freshman psychology major attending the University of Pittsburgh at Titusville. I am Jamaican and Puerto Rican and take great pride in my ethnicity. I have always had a profound interest in the different ways the brain works and how it is connected to different sections in the brain. I have always wanted to help people with mental illnesses better understand what they are dealing with and what they can do to help make everyday life a little easier. Mental illness is a serious problem that many people still call just being emotional or strange, but these mental illnesses are the result of a specific region in the brain or a chemical imbalance. I want too make sure everyone with a mental illness knows that it is not something they can easily control and that their are ways to help. I am the Vice President of the Allies Club. The Allies Club is a club for LGBT people and the people who support them. We do community service and events to get the community to open up to the LGBT community. We do many informative events to help people understand what it means to be lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and many other sexual preferences. It is important to inform others because people are afraid of things they don't understand and that fear can turn violent. I am also a member of the Black Student Union. The Black Student Union is not only for African American students, but for all different races that are against discrimination and hate due to ethnicity or religion. Our clubs come together a lot to help people accept others not only for their sexual preference, but for their ethnicity and religion as well. We work hard to promote acceptance of all differences people have.