Ethan Hagey
Ethan Hagey is a senior at the University of Washington, double-majoring in Psychology and Law, Societies, and Justice. His interdisciplinary research mainly investigates the complex relationships between COVID-related experiences of racial discrimination, mental health challenges, and democratic engagement. He has worked extensively in public service, including for former Assemblymember Phil Ting, Senator Scott Wiener, and the Institute for Good Government and Inclusion. He now serves as Executive Director of the Health Empowerment through Advocacy and Leadership (HEAL) Initiative: a regional coalition and fellowship that empowers students across three universities with Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training to identify and respond to mental health crises, as well as with research methodology and democratic engagement skills to become leaders in mental health advocacy. Outside of academics, he also enjoys casual running and playing the cello. Ultimately, Ethan plans to serve as a scholar-practitioner, advancing systems of well-being by bridging research, law, and public service.
Goals
Ethan hopes to pursue an M.Sc. in Global Mental Health at King’s College London and an M.Sc. in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation at the University of Oxford. During his studies, he aims to build transatlantic programs that leverage comparative analysis of legal and health systems to systematically challenge stigma and improve community mental health outcomes. After returning to the U.S., he intends to attend law school and enter public service to champion the design and implementation of evidence-based, transnational health policy.
Tips
The application process pushes you to reflect on your experiences, consider your role in each of them, and also somehow make sense of them. But writing about yourself can be surprisingly difficult! Take your time and please don’t be afraid to give yourself grace. Really. Stay in it and trust the process. Your story doesn’t need to be perfect and that’s exactly how it should be. Authentic stories will show people who you are, how you’ve stretched your thinking, and how you expect to continue to do so – in whatever proposed programs are meaningful to you. To this end, take the initiative to get feedback from your mentors, family, friends, and, of course, the wonderful OMSFA team. Find out what you know and what you don’t know. And then embrace it. Regardless of the outcome, these scholarship applications will make you grow in ways you would never expect. In that sense, you can’t lose, so give it a shot.
