Priyal Dhingra has “always wanted to be a doctor.” 

“That was always the thing,” she said. “I never changed it. I always stuck to that.” 

Recently, her focus has been on orthopedic surgery, which is personal to her. “My dad has suffered from back pain, so seeing him struggle through that pain and everything, looking at how the wounds would affect you…I just want to help people,” she said. 

Much of her desire to be a doctor also comes from her lifelong enjoyment of having to work with time constraints. “In middle school I was like ‘Okay, I like being under pressure and surgery is kind of like that, so surgeon,’” she said. “The adrenaline gives me a rush.”

She says that her family has always been supportive of her interests. “If I wanted to do anything, they would say, ‘You don’t have to be a doctor, you can be whatever you want. You can do whatever your passion is,’” she said. 

Priyal is a first generation college student. She says that navigating college applications was “challenging.”

“It’s difficult,” she said. “I don’t know most of the things. I still don’t know most of it, but I’m learning.”

In the fall, she will begin her undergraduate schooling at the University of Maryland at College Park on a pre-med track.

But she says she will remember her friends from Wilde Lake High School, who have given her the opportunities to chase her ambitions. “The Wilde Lake community has always supported me,” she said.