Zachary Sturmi ’21
As a Richard Gulling Leadership Scholarship recipient, graduating senior Zachary Sturmi has been able to continue working towards his goal of medical school, while volunteering during a critical time in history for local hospitals suffering from the COVID-19 personnel shortages. His is just one of the many stories of Walsh students and alumni who are serving on the front-lines of a global pandemic.
I have always had a passion for science and have fully enjoyed my studies at Walsh. With my Biochemistry degree, I plan to attend medical school to become a Family Practitioner.
In more ways than one, Walsh University’s generous scholarship could not have come at a better time. Financially, I am fully responsible for paying for my own college education. In years past, I would work 40 to 50 hour weeks over the summer installing swing sets and basketball hoops. It was during these summers that I could make enough money to pay for both my fall and spring semesters.
However, during the summer of 2020, I was left with a difficult decision of whether I would work or fully commit my summer to getting into medical school. This decision weighed heavily on my mind during the spring but ultimately, I took a gamble and decided to prepare myself for medical school. I scheduled my MCAT exam and reserved one month of my time to study for this exam. I studied for 40 hours a week for roughly five weeks straight.
After taking the exam, I began contacting local hospitals offering my services in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. I figured I would be of best use in a lab running tests for them, but as I would learn, what the hospitals really needed was volunteers.
Summa Health Systems in Akron was the first to offer me this opportunity, and I gladly accepted. I was asked to work in the H-Tower main desk as a patient transporter. Due to COVID-19, nearly all of the hospital’s volunteers were asked to stay home because of their advanced age. Realizing the need for my services, I began volunteering 40-hours a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., five days a week. This time commitment meant that I would not be able to work at all during the summer.
Had I not received Walsh’s scholarship in April 2020, none of this would have been possible for me. I would not have had time to study for the MCAT exam and more than likely, I would not have been able to take it this year. Instead of working all summer, I was able to offer my services and volunteer at Summa where I learned so much about the medical field, and where I felt I actually made a difference. My dreams of making it to medical school would have been put on pause had a Walsh donor not been so generous.