Aurora Rocha Memorial Scholarship

Moving to the United States from Venezuela was a major change in my life, which brought forth many obstacles, like the language barrier, and my mom particularly struggled finding a stable job. Year after year, we always had to rent an apartment. I recall walking on the side of the roads to try to reach stores, since we had no reliable transportation, and because of the lack of sidewalks. Always having to live in the cheapest places we could find, sometimes we had to live in shady areas, and my mom worried for our safety. It was also particularly difficult for me to make friends in school, since our housing situation resulted in us moving after each school year, which had a negative impact on my social life. Living like this, however, only motivated me to work harder, to create a better future for me and my family, and ultimately be able to repay my mom for opening so many doors for me while giving up her whole life for me. Having the privilege to receive a proper education in the United States made me realize how fortunate I was, which inspired me to give back to my community. Every week at church, I volunteer in the livestreaming team, where I help set up the livestream camera, push graphics for the online service, edit the service podcast, and public livestreams to social media. After volunteering for a whole year, I gained the opportunity of training new people for the livestreaming team, which helped me hone my leadership skills and my teaching skills. Furthermore, I was invited to help run the games section of Vacation Bible School (VBS), which was a great experience where I worked in a team to set up fun games for the kids. On top of church, I have also taken part in fundraising volunteering for my school’s band program, by volunteering at Top Dog Fireworks, where I got valuable experience as a salesperson and as a cashier, giving me opportunities to interact with strangers, and work on my communication skills. All of my volunteering experience also allowed me to join my school’s 2025 chapter of the National Honor Society, giving me new opportunities to volunteer around my school district. I have approximated that by the end of my senior year, I will have over 500 hours of volunteer work completed. My interactions with other people have not just been limited to volunteer work. I have a deep passion for programming, and have started several passion projects where I coded Minecraft servers, which allowed me to create online communities, with one reaching around 100 members. While I mostly program for fun, being able to create new communities is a fun way to connect with others. Having positively impacted several people who played on my servers, I realized that I wanted the same for my career, and I seek to study Computer Engineering. I seek to explore my interests in game design or potentially artificial intelligence, because I both enjoy creating new communities and interacting with them, but I also believe in the potential of AI to optimize many aspects of society, and wish to contribute to its growth. With all my experiences in volunteering and connecting with online communities, I hope I can contribute to advancements in artificial intelligence, while continuing to make meaningful connections, both in real life and in a digital space.