I moved to the United States from Venezuela. After years of trying to leave the corruption and harsh conditions of the humanitarian crisis, my parents, with the help of other relatives, managed to get us to the United States safely. As a Latina and Jewish, my upbringing was full of tradition and festivities. I attended the Jewish school "Moral y Luces Herzl Bialik" from pre-K to 5th grade, my last school year before moving to the United States. I have always had a passion for learning and creating. From a very young age I wanted to explore and find the answers to my endless questions. And as I grew up I continue to discover more passions. I loved arts and crafts, painting and drawing with my mother on my free time. Years later, I discovered my love for technology, from videogames to the idea of artificial intelligence. Now, I pursue both passions since aside from my education in school, I spend my free time doing arts such drawing, painting, digital art, crocheting, and knitting, and learning about technology using programs such as CodeCademy to learn programming languages such as Python. This has led me to chose computer science as the career I want to pursue in life. I am considering even studying psychology as a minor to satisfy my curiousity about the human mind. Aside from my formal education on computer science and psychology, I will be exploring graphic design as a personal project with the possibility of turning one of my passions into a side hustle. From a young age, I started drawing and doing crafts, now I want to use my passion to create in other ways. When I first got interested in programming, my mother asked me if I could make her an app or program for her to work with her patients, something simple. For context, she is a speech pathologist and behavioral therapist. That was when I was taking my first coding class, and even though the app was terrible, it made me want to learn so I can make the app for her to help those kids. Similarly, I found that organizing my life was difficult, so I was trying many organization apps, websites, and programs. Out of the ones I tried, there is always a feature that is missing, or it isn't customizable enough to meet my needs. I am sure many others find themselves with the same problem as I do, so one of my goals is to learn how to program to make an app that can help the most amount of people possible. I might not be solving a major world problem, but the impact of launching a tool like this will impact those who truly need it.

I moved to the United States from Venezuela. After years of trying to leave the corruption and harsh conditions of the humanitarian crisis, my parents, with the help of other relatives, managed to get us to the United States safely. As a Latina and Jewish, my upbringing was full of tradition and festivities. I attended the Jewish school "Moral y Luces Herzl Bialik" from pre-K to 5th grade, my last school year before moving to the United States. My parents have emphasized the importance of our Jewish identity and what it involves throughout my entire life. Because of this, aside from going to a Jewish school, my parents and I went to the synagogue on Friday night, and they enrolled me in Jewish camps, among other Jewish activities. After I moved to the United States, I had to go to a public school, which made it difficult to keep a strong connection with my Jewish identity. While we still celebrated the holidays, went to the synagogue on Shabbat nights, and got involved with the Jewish community in our area, I started to forget how to speak, read, and write Hebrew. Because of this, my parents decided to enroll me in the Sunday Hebrew School at our local synagogue, and later on the Maimonides Leadership Program which I still attend to this date. As both Latina and Jewish, we have a unique mixture of traditions. While we celebrate the holidays according to the Jewish tradition, part of our Hispanic culture gets mixed in, in the form of foods and songs. When I go to college, I want to study both programming and graphic design. I have a passion for creating. From a young age, I started drawing and doing crafts, now I want to use my passion to create in other ways. When I first got interested in programming, my mother asked me if I could make her an app or program for her to work with her patients, something simple. For context, she is a speech pathologist and behavioral therapist. That was when I was taking my first coding class, and even though the app was terrible, it made me want to learn so I can make the app for her to help those kids. Similarly, I found that organizing my life was difficult, so I was trying many organization apps, websites, and programs. Out of the ones I tried, there is always a feature that is missing, or it isn't customizable enough to meet my needs. I am sure many others find themselves with the same problem as I do, so one of my goals is to learn how to program to make an app that can help the most amount of people possible. I might not be solving a major world problem, but the impact of launching a tool like this will impact those who truly need it.