11/16/2019
Late last week I received an email from a young lady in the USA. She is an immigrant who, with her family, arrived in America after fleeing her native country as a refugee. She has not been in the US long enough to feel totally at home but, I think, with time that will come. She is grateful for the opportunities that are open to her. Her ambition is to become a qualified pharmacist because she sees that as one way to help many people who are in need of medical help. This desire to help, she told me, stems from the dire needs of people, especially children, that she observed in her country of origin. In order to attend the school where she can study to become a pharmacist, she needs to submit to the school a personal statement describing who she is and why she wants to be admitted to that school. She asked me to proofread the statement she had prepared because she recognized that, if there were errors in it, it would reflect unfavouably on her. This is easy to understand since English is not her first language. I indeed proofread her statement and made a number of corrections, and I did that for a small nominal fee. She expressed gratitude to me for helping her out, and I was glad to have been of service.