My personal experience with finances and financial education have been rough. Growing up, I was never really taught financial literacy. I wasn't taught how to save, how to budget, how taxes and credit worked. I was never taught any of it. Whenever I had money, it would be spent immediately, even if it was on something I'd never end up using. It took me until I was 17 with my first job to start learning about all of it. The first thing I ended up learning, is that you don't get paid exactly what your hourly pay rate is, and that the government would end up taking some money out of each of your pay checks, to then later be reviewed, and possibly returned during tax season in spring. I also had to learn quickly how expensive everything really is when it's your money you're spending. I ended up learning how to budget and save my money, what products work well that wont break my bank, the 20/30/50 savings rule, where you save 50% for bills, 30% for yourself, and 20% in your emergency savings, so that I'd always have a little extra for those "just in case" moments, like sudden hospital trips, or even evacuations during a natural disaster, and how to differentiate between a want and a need. Now that I'm 18, I have to start figuring out how to build my credit, and keep it good, so that I'll be able to have less of a struggle buying from places like cars and housing companies. I still do struggle from time to time with saving my money, and differentiating between a want and a need, but it has gotten much better considering I started with no knowledge, and had to build it up from there. I plan on using what I'm learning to better my future financially. I never want to be broke, or have to decide between bills and groceries because I had a dumb moment, and spent the majority of my money on something I didn't even need. I'm hoping to continue to educate myself financially, and start learning how to build up a good credit score soon so they in the future I wont have struggles with things such as buying a car, or house, or keeping a good amount of money in my savings for emergencies such as medical bills, or car malfunctions.

I spent the majority of my life growing up with only my mom. I never really had a dad to go to for anything, it was just me and her. She had a lot of trouble making enough money to support the both of us, even with government funding, and child support. She'd constantly bounce from job to job, trying to make enough so that we'd have a house, food, and basic necessities. Even though we were struggling, I never really realized it until I got much older. I had nice clothes, a bike, and always had new school supplies every year. What I didn't know is that my mom would be saving months in advance for all of my things so that she could spoil me to the best of her abilities. As I got older, we ended up moving from Pennsylvania, all the way down to Texas, and I was told at that time that it was because Texas was much cheaper than where we were, and that it'd be a better place to live in as I grew older. I never questioned it, as I was 12 at the time and considered "old enough" to be let in on some of the struggles she faced financially, and thought that if she said it'd be better for us, then that's how it was going to be. The only thing that nerved me a bit was that she consistently told me, and made sure that I never told anybody, even family, that we had moved down to Texas; it was treated like a life or death situation. She would always check my messages to see what I would say about us moving, and make sure nobody knew. Later on when I was around 15 years old, I was told it was because my father, who she had taken custody of me away from claiming he was "abusive" and "narcissistic", was trying to steal me from her, and she just wanted me to be safe. Oh boy was that quite the opposite of the truth. I spent the past few years being told how much of an evil person he was, and at times being told I was exactly like him. I was told these things so much, that I thought it was true. It took until this year for me to realize that I am exactly like him, but not at all in the way that was said. I finally got back in contact with him thanks to my uncle, and it was the best moment of my life. It turns out he had custody of me this whole time, and that my mother had kidnapped me because she wasn't exactly right mentally. Talking to him made me realize how much of my father's daughter I am, and how untrue all of the mean comments made towards me from my mother were. I'm not a narcissistic manipulator like how she claims us to be, I'm a genuine, loving girl, who absolutely loves spending her time by the water, just like my father, and I hope to forever be this way.

Being a child with selective mutism has been quite difficult for me in a variety of situations. I used to get taken out of class often as a child to have counselors try and talk with me, but I was always too anxious, and my body would never let me just speak. I'd get like this inside of class too, and a lot of kids thought I was very strange for always being super quiet, and rarely talking. I could never really understand why I couldn't talk in certain situations. My body would just tense up a little, and it'd feel like a ball was stuck inside of my throat, keeping my words from coming out. No matter how hard I pushed myself to speak in those situations, I never was able to. I eventually got put into therapy, and bounced from therapist to therapist, but I still would hardly talk. On the days I did though, it felt like a million questions were being asked all at once so that they could dive deeper into why I wouldn't talk. We ended up figuring out I had an anxiety disorder, and that the feeling of not being able to talk could be tied to that. Whenever a situation made me feel too anxious, or like I wasn't being heard enough, I'd feel that ball in my throat that would force me to stop talking. I ended up having to get a 504 plan in high school for a variety of things, always changing, but the one part that always sat there, unchanging was "This student tends to get nonverbal in social situations." That one sentence never went away, never changed; it stuck there my whole 4 years of high school, and now might even be on my 504 in college. I have had help, and can speak more comfortably now in situations I felt I wasn't able to before, but there's still a few times a day where that ball forms, and nothing comes out. Even though I won't be physically able to speak at times, I'm still planning on getting a higher education, even if it ends up being difficult. I've worked hard these past few years to get to where I am now, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon, even during the moments the ball forms. I have been dreaming of getting my degree, and becoming a Marine Biologist so that I can help make an impact on healing the ocean and its life, and it would pain me if something as small as not being able to speak at times stopped me from getting it in the future.

There are quite a few ways we can strengthen human connections. We could genuinely do so many things to restore and strengthen human connections, such as implementing rules on technology usage in places such as cafes, movie theaters, markets; just the very crowded places in general, so that people will be focusing on talking face to face instead of texting or doom scrolling on their phones all day. We can also have communities start hosting more social events, like community gatherings, holiday events such as pumpkin patches, Easter egg hunting, parades, and even haunted houses, all while having some of them be "phone free" so that kids, teens, and even adults can have the chances to communicate one on one with each other. Schools and colleges can also host events for the students to get the opportunity to make more connections and friends. One school I know of used to host an evening party every Saturday night for the students, so that they could get dressed up and have fun together. More schools could start doing things like this, or even offering a wider variety of after school clubs, all with different hobbies for the students, so that they'd be able to find other people their age with similar hobbies and interests to them. I feel like for humans to strengthen connections, we really just need to limit technology usage, and plan more events in communities so that everyone can be face to face instead. I think another very good way to do this, even though it probably isn't the most reasonable idea I have written so far, is to shut down certain cell towers, then downgrade phones and social medias, so that people will be kind of forced to be social face to face. If we downgraded cell towers and technology ,like phones and IPads, and put a limit to, or full ban on the majority of social media, it would force people to actually go out into the world, and make deeper connections with others. Now, I'm not saying we should get rid of it completely, there are some uses for technology, especially during emergencies we face these days, but putting a limit or ban to some of it could be extremely beneficial to restoring human connections. Not only would it help restore and strengthen human connections, it'd also help get rid of a variety of addictions that we have today. Phone addictions, porn addictions, and even addictions that can get influenced by others online could all significantly decrease, while human connections and quality time increases. There are plenty of solutions to strengthening human connections, a lot of people just would rather not implement them because of how some people in the world can be these days, you never know what can cause a huge issue inside of the world, and what would be a minor problem. Strengthening human connections with some of what I said could also help that though, since we'd all genuinely know other peoples opinions.

Science has always been one of my favorite subjects growing up in school. I always loved learning the little things about our world through science, especially in biology. Biology classes were always my favorite; being able to see how every thing in our bodies worked from mRNA translations, to the math that helps you find out which genes from the parents are most dominant in their children has always amazed me. I even took the time outside of class to study different topics of biology, the older I got, the more complex parts of it I was able to understand. As I grew up, I also really loved marine life and the oceans. I'd do research on different animals such as dolphins, sharks, specific species of jellyfish, and even little guys like the blue sea dragons. The older I got though, the more I realized how destroyed our oceans are. Climate change is melting the glaciers, raising sea levels, and messing up how heat is transferred. Pollution and trash is messing with the oceans natural environment, and is slowly killing the animals in there, causing some of them to be close to extinction. Our atmosphere breaking is causing there to be more gases such as CO2 and nitrogen to enter the Earth, and since oceans are the main things on Earth that regulate these gases, the sudden increase of them, along with sea levels changing, is causing a noticeable imbalance in these gases. I figured, since I love biology, and also love the ocean, that I'd go to try and get my degree in marine biology, so that I can work with other scientists in the ocean, to try and help and save it, and all of the life inside of it. I've seen all around the world, how different scientists have been making lots of technology to try saving the oceans, including gadgets like a robot that refreezes ice in the oceans to restore ice sheets and glaciers, a piece of technology that puts a healing substance onto corals in the coral reefs to keep them alive and thriving, and also a robot with a huge net that collects a bunch of trash each day, so that it can all be disposed of properly. Scientists everywhere are trying their best to save the oceans, and after seeing all of these, I know that it's possible for me to help too, and that's why I'm so passionate about getting a STEM education. I've always loved the oceans and science, and now I'll be able to have the knowledge on how to help save it.

I am a mixed, Hispanic and Asian woman, who spent the beginning of my life living in New York, and the remainder living inside of Texas. I first started to try to get a job, or any sort of side hustle while I was in Texas, as I was older, and able to. My main reason for wanting to get a job while still in high school at that time was because my Mother wasn't ever financially stable enough to take care of me by herself, even with government aids, so I decided to try to make my own money so that I'd be able to cover the majority of my own needs. I started out with small side hustles at school. I did things such as tutoring in science and history classes, and helping with the homework in those classes. I made enough to be able to afford some stuff that I wanted and needed, just not as much as I would have liked. Eventually though, I needed something that paid me more, so that I could be able to afford more without having my Mother stress over choosing between my needs and hers. Finding a job at first was quite difficult. I've heard a lot of reasons as to why I was not hired during interviews. Sometimes the interviewer would even stop short after finding out something like my race, or education, and it would always confuse me. Three that I've heard the most often were: "You are going to college soon, so we can't have you here", "We can't have your type of people working here", and finally "Well, since you aren't English, we won't be able to hire you.". Hearing these would always confuse me, because these people were desperately trying to find new workers, yet wouldn't hire me because I'm either going to college, or not physically what they want. It didn't matter if I met their requirements, or would have been a good choice; they saw my background, and said "no" because of it. Thankfully, I was able to end up finding an accepting job, who hired me because I am who I am; I was able to meet the requirements, and not get judged for racial backgrounds or appearances. Now I'm saving up money before I go to Lamar University to attain my degree in Biology, with its focus being aquatic sciences. I've always been passionate about science as I grew up, even listing it as my favorite subject in year books and school questionnaires. Alongside my love for science, I also very much enjoy being in the ocean, and seeing all the aquatic life around me. Because of my interests, I decided to try going for a Biology degree, focusing on aquatics so that I can be a marine biologist in the future. I would like to hopefully be the type of biologist to go out into the oceans to do things such as research, animal tracking, and sediment collecting; to then bring everything back, write research papers, and get the collected sediments tested in a lab. My main reason for trying to achieve my degree and become a biologist, is to hopefully make the ocean much healthier than it currently is, or to at least let it have a good start to getting there, so that the biologists generations after me have something easier to work with. Currently, there is a lot going wrong inside of the ocean, such as ocean levels rising due to climate changes, animals getting closer to going extinct because of the pollution and heavy chemical imbalances. All of these issues are not only effecting the marine life, but also effecting the environments surrounding it, since the ocean is also a big pool of heat and chemical regulation, it being dysregulated is causing harm to other areas. I'm hoping to work with other biologists, and maybe even bio engineers in the future, to try and make different types of technology so that the ocean will be able to start getting healthier. Over the past few years, I have seen things getting made by scientists all across the world, such as a robot that slowly refreezes ocean water into ice to help restore ice sheets and glaciers, one that collects trash into a huge fishing net so that it can be thrown away properly, and even a little gadget that fixes up dying corals inside of the coral reefs by adding on a healing substance to the dying branches. I know that because these inventions exist, and keep getting made, that about anything else to save the ocean can be possible, and that is why I am working towards my degree. I want to be able to help the environment in the best ways possible before it's time for the next generations to do so also.

I come from a single parent, and a low income household. I originally wasn't supposed to be in a single parent household, but my mother took full custody of me, and technically stole me from my father. She didn't make enough money to take care of me herself, and needed to rely on government funding and child support for a lot of things such as groceries and medical bills, as I grew up getting sick quite often. As I got older and found out the truth about how we really were financially. I ended up getting a job so that I could support the majority of all my own financial needs, so that my mother would have a couple hundred dollars every month for other, more important stuff, like bills. Over time though, she quickly took advantage of me making my own money, causing me to try and work extra hours so that I'd have enough for myself. She ended up starting to rely on me for paying for her car breaking down, her drugs, her gas money that she spent on said drugs, and I ended up getting tired of it, and leaving. Because of all of this, though, I know how hard it can be on some kids who come from low income households, or single parent families. I'm hoping that after college, when I make enough money from the job I am working towards, that I can have enough to possibly donate to different charities. I have quite a few in mind that I got things from growing up, such as food pantries, and toy drives; so in return, I'd like to donate to them so that they can continue to help out kids like me.

All throughout highschool I've had a 504 plan for ADHD, anxiety, autism, and hearing issues. It was, and still kind of is, a challenge to learn in a classroom, and get along with other kids. I could never focus, never grasp a variety of subjects that well, was never able to do group work, and a lot more. It made me feel like I failed, because throughout elementary, I was in the gifted program with straight A's, then all of a sudden I was struggling in on level with a 504, getting pulled out of classes to take tests to see if I needed an IEP, or needed to be put in special education classes instead. The issue was never how I performed academically though, it was how the environment around me was. In my sophomore year of highschool, I decided I wanted to try going to college, and doing better academically, because I knew I could do more, I just didn't have the proper guidance to show me how, so one day in the first month of the school year, I decided to switch to higher level classes that I knew I would be able to do well in. I was hesitant at first, because I struggled to understand a lot, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I would be able to do higher level classes. I started off with honors and AP, and oh my days, it was so much more different than on level. The teachers actually took the time to help every kid understand the topics we were on, and the kids were much more tame because they wanted to be there and learn. The classroom environment was so much easier for me to handle, and the teachers made it easy to learn. During that year, my AP history teacher, who has all the same issues that I do, inspired me to achieve more, and to go to college. He made me think, "If he had the same struggles as me, and made it this far, then why can't I?" I then decided to take dual credit classes, and start thinking of what I'd want to do for college, and where to go. The thought was very overwhelming at first, because even with my 504, I was scared that college would be the same type of struggle that highschool is, but that teacher inspired me to just go for it. I ended up doing well in my dual credit classes, and one of the teachers even helped me figure out what I wanted to major in. I just needed to find a good college that gave good programs for a biology major. I started my research, and ended up applying to, and getting accepted at Lamar University. I was really excited, especially because with all these challenges, I didn't think I would be able to make it that far academically. Now that I am enrolled though, there is a lot more I need to do, such as scholarships, doctors appointments for vaccines, housing, and getting everything transfered and set up at Lamar University. During this process, I still feel the same overwhelm that I did throughout highschool, but I know that in the end it'll be worth it, because without the support from those teachers, and the class support from my 504, I would not have made it this far, or felt the urge to keep going further.

I am currently doing quite a few things to help myself out in the near future with student loan debt. Right now, I am working part time at a fast food place in my town; 6 hours a day, for 4 days throughout the week, to try and have a decent amount of money in my savings before I go to college this year. The funds will mainly be for doctors appointments, and medication, as I do have mental illnesses, and am going from doctor to doctor for a possible chronic illness, so I'd like to have some backup money. I have also been taking dual credit classes the past couple of years in highschool, so that I'll already have some of the credits that go towards my degree, making my tuition a little cheaper than it would've been if I didn't take these classes. I've also been offering cheap tutoring for some kids at my school in all subjects, so that I can get a little more money in my savings for college. So far this year, I've been applying for countless scholarships to help aid my college costs so that I hopefully won't have to take out a loan, or will have to take out a very small loan. I've also applied for my FASFA for extra financial aid. Over the summer, before college starts, I plan to pick up more shifts and hours at work to make extra money to help me pay off any sort of college funds. I am also going to try taking mini semesters for the courses I'll need, so that I'll have the credits, and have less money I'll owe for classes. I also plan on doing a small side hustle for extra money starting this month; I'm going to be doing hair. I took cosmetology classes for a while, and know how to do lots of braids, such as box braids and cornrows for example, and I also know how to bleach and color hair safely and correctly. I plan on having them pay the full price of any products I'll need, plus an additional 20 dollars for profit. I also have a few people who have asked for art commissions, and while this is not a side hustle I'll be doing like the hair and tutoring, it's something I'll accept to do, because any money towards my savings for college, even if its a single dollar, will help. I'm hoping that with all of this, I'll come out with as little debt as possible that needs to be paid off.

I'm interested in Marine Biology because growing up, I have always loved the ocean, and all of the life in it. I loved learning new things about the ocean, such as the Bermuda Triangle, point nemo, different animals that live inside of the ocean, and the different types of plants you can find in there. As I got older, I learned about the more real stuff, about how the oceans are getting polluted with trash, how glaciers and ice sheets are melting, causing sea levels to rise, and how ocean environments are dying. I ended up getting really into biology and marine life during this, and I decided to go for my degree in Marine Biology, not only because I absolutely love ocean life, but also because in the future, I hope to team up with various other people in STEM to try and help make an impact in saving the ocean. I've read about things people in STEM have been doing, such as making little robots that help maintain coral inside of the coral reefs, robots that try to help remake ice sheets in the oceans, and a type of robot with a big net on it that helps collect a bunch of the piled up trash in the oceans. I believe the more people we get to be able to work together, the more we could be able to do to keep the oceans healthy and stable so that the environments and animals inside of it are safe, and can live peacefully. I, for one, know what its like to not live in a safe environment. While I was growing up, and learning about the oceans, I was also living in an unstable household. My father was very abusive towards me and my mother, and some days he got to the point where he would try to kill us. I never expected to be able to grow up, and go work my hardest to achieve the things I am doing now, but here I am. My environment while growing up, and the ones in the oceans now are definitely two different kinds of unstable, but both are still bad, and the marine life should not have to live in trashed waters with unbalanced elements and populations, fighting to survive at certain times, and that is why I am interested in trying to earn a degree in Marine Biology.