Andrea Trimmingham

Graduate Admissions Essay

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our
community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others,
for their sakes and for our own. Cesar Chavez
My name is Andrea Trimmingham and I would like to be granted the opportunity to be a
graduate student at Queens College to pursue my masters degree in Urban Affairs. I currently
hold a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Africana Studies from Brooklyn College and a
Bachelor of Science in Physician Assistant Studies from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. I
work full time as a Physician assistant at New York Presbyterian Hospital- Weill Cornell and part
time as a faculty fellow at SUNY Downstates Physician Assistant Program.
What drew me most to SUNY Downstates Physician Assistant program was their mission
statement: to foster the development of professional, competent diverse Physician Assistants to
provide compassionate healthcare for an evolving urban population. Our vision is to meet the
unmet health care needs in Brooklyn and New York City. Knowledgeable of the fact that
community health education issues are not only limited to New York City, one realizes that New
York City is a megalopolis with mixtures of races and ethnicities, cultures and socioeconomic
statuses. Being a student and subsequently teaching at SUNY Downstate afforded me a vast
amount of opportunities to realize the needs of cities such as New York. I was exposed early in
my Physician Assistant career, as a student and as a professional, to the deficiencies of the
surrounding communities and how it affects its residents. Ive always had ideas for change. If
given the opportunity, those ideas coupled with the working knowledge of public policies and
urban development that Queens College will provide, will allow me to effectuate a needed
change, especially with regards to healthcare.
The focus of the Urban Affairs Graduate program is in essence to train individuals to develop an
understanding of, and solution to, the problems that characterize modern urban societies. This
too has been my mission, to give back to the communitythe elderly, the minorities, the
children, the marginalized people, by changing public policy and improving functionality of
urban administration--to essentially meet the needs of this society. I have demonstrated this by
volunteering at churches and other social events, promoting health and disease prevention:
discussing common health care issues, counseling residents of the community on disease
prevention by way of health care screenings, medication/follow-up compliance and mentoring
young adults on the HIV infection, prevention of transmission and protection.
Healthcare, at this time, is under turmoil and the uncertainty of the direction of healthcare is not
only actual but expected. It is my objective in life to help. I feel it necessary to extend the
knowledge that I have had the privilege to obtain to our communities. Unfortunately, this
information, and moreover the necessary time it takes to affirm a general understanding, is not

always realistic, I hope to sometime in the near future change this. I have a strong background in
community service and my goal is to use all the resources I have acquired to improve the quality
of life for all of us.