My goals in education and career are focused on channeling curiosity into impact. My choice of a mechanical engineering degree enables me to be equipped to design solutions to real-world problems using design and mathematics. Engineering channels this curiosity and ambition and informs me that progress occurs after challenges and mistakes when rigorously analyzed. To be more specific, my goals in education focus on learning the foundational principles of mechanics, materials, and systems, coupled with project-oriented, research, and internship experiences to ground and apply what I learn. I want to hone in on the application of engineering to healthcare and assistive technology, where intentional design can provide mobility’s dignity and freedom. Completing independent engineering projects, including the design of a bionic hand prosthetic, proves how practical engineering knowledge can solve problems and help people. It confirms my goal to pursue this as an educational focus. My goals in career pursuit also focus on engineering applications for healthcare. As a mechanical engineer, I want to create affordable and accessible devices. Life-altering medical devices remain inaccessible in underserved communities. I seek a firm that builds scalable solutions and considers usage and equity in its devices. I can see myself mentoring students for this profession over the years. I want to encourage those who otherwise see no connection between mathematics or science and their lives. Resilience matters more than perfection. It is about helping others, as I have done in the past. My ambition is rooted in goals that extend beyond me. For years, I have pushed myself beyond my comfort zone in circumstances that foster progress after mistakes. In the end, what matters is how well I apply what I learn to create more opportunities and better circumstances for those less fortunate than I am. As a mechanical engineer, I set education and career goals to develop lasting solutions through designed devices that benefit everyone involved.

I am a curious and motivated high school student with a desire to learn more about all things engineering, problem-solving, and technology that change the world. Academically, I am pursuing a math, science, and project-based course of study with plans to major in mechanical engineering after high school. I prefer classes that are heavy on critical thinking and logic, especially if I can relate the subject matter to what I use outside the classroom. Hobbies: I am a very involved extracurricular student. I have spent many years learning about robotics, programming, and engineering concepts, and completed many independent projects that allow me to build, test, and iterate on real systems. My most exciting project has been my bionic hand prosthetic project, where I combined design and construction with iterative prototyping to create an inexpensive working model. It showed me the value of iteration over time and the value of being creative and not giving up. In general, I enjoy engaging in and giving back to the community. I have provided more than 500 hours of community service, which has shaped my sense of responsibility and commitment to helping others. Volunteering in my community has shown me the power of one individual making the time commitment to help others. Finally, I enjoy fitness activities. I spend considerable time training at the gym and building my strength and endurance. More importantly, this has taught me discipline and balance in my life. After high school, I plan to study mechanical engineering to better understand how people can create technologies and tools that improve the day-to-day life of others. I am interested in learning more about the field of engineering related to health, assistive devices, and future solutions for others, such as potential solutions for all communities to have access to sustainable resources. My long-term vision is to create resources for underserved communities so that everyone has access to advanced technologies rather than just a select few. If I had my own charity organization, the focus of this charity would be an organization dedicated to giving affordable assistive technology prosthetics to individuals with physical disabilities unable to access them due to financial or accessibility issues. This organization would be focused on giving children and adults who are unable to access them due to family or socioeconomic situations. Individuals will be assisted by volunteers who will help with the assembly of the prosthetics and provide basic engineering skills to anyone who desires to learn the skill. We will also provide workshops on how to engineer prosthetics and all information about 3D printing services. The charity will focus not only on the engineering but also on the services people provide to individuals who need prosthetics but cannot afford them. This will ensure everyone benefits as people can get independence, dignity, and opportunities through their design rather than see one portion of society benefit from their lives. This engages not only my field of interest in engineering but also the impact I will have in years to come while earning a degree in engineering or a related field.

My passion for mechanical engineering is the culmination of a lifetime of curiosity about how things function and, more importantly, how they could function to the benefit of those for whom it doesn’t function at all. In my life, I’ve battled against a mind that loves to solve problems and often has trouble finding the right questions. What I initially thought was anxiety and an unruly mind became an unquenchable source of curiosity once I discovered engineering as an outlet. Through math, physics, and system design, I found a meaningful way to harness that urge to find better solutions for everyone. Engineering first captured my interest in middle school through robotics and programming. I was fascinated by the ability to take something abstract and fashion it into something real through logic, mathematics, and iteration. It wasn’t long before I figured out that mechanical engineering has just the right amount of rules and creativity. I could design things, then build and test them while fixing my mistakes through the power of problem-solving. I harnessed this pursuit of knowledge through math, which taught me how to turn imagination into reality and how to fail only to get up stronger each time. As I leveled up my skills, I learned that inequity is not only systemic but deeply embedded in who gets to access certain technologies. This led me to one of the most meaningful projects of my own thus far: a bionic hand prosthetic. After hearing a few people’s stories about losing their hands in wars and accidents, I wanted to create a prosthetic hand that someone could buy at an affordable price. While medical technologies can be groundbreaking, they are also expensive and often unavailable to those who need them most, so I wanted to fix that with a bit of mechanical magic (think linkages, range of motion, motors). I’ve faced countless failures (burnt-out motors, incomplete motions, non-stabilizing designs), but engineering has instilled in me the understanding that failure is part of the process. Engineering humbled me. It taught me how to be patient. More importantly, it showed me how education could be an instrument for social good. By understanding mechanics and mathematics, I was not solving problems for myself anymore; I was learning how to be better equipped to solve problems for others and increase access and dignity. My passion for mechanical engineering is intertwined with my pursuit of equal justice for all. People should have access to safe infrastructure, healthcare technology, clean energy, and devices that are meant to assist people, not only those who can afford them, live in certain areas, or have a bit more luck in life than others. Mechanical engineers are instrumental in the very systems upon which people rely daily: transportation, housing, medical technology, sources of energy, and so much more. Engineers working with all these systems have inequity at their fingertips (to maintain or destroy), so with a proper education, I plan to be part of the team that does the latter. With my education, I want to engineer technologies that are scalable, accessible, and inclusive. I am interested in many areas of mechanical engineering, including but not limited to health care engineering, sustainable manufacturing, and human-centered design, but all these areas have a common goal. Engineering this kind of technology means we can reduce inequity; tailored inventions could reduce production costs, focus on durability, and ultimately make it more easily usable by the most underserved populations. Higher education will also provide me with an ethical framework and the collaborative experiences needed to be an advocate for responsible engineering. I want to work with diverse teams from diverse backgrounds and learn to draw on their strengths in creating solutions for systems that people need and understand. A proper education will ensure that I continue honing this vital skill while still ensuring that I’m perfectly poised to design great systems. Mechanical engineering has provided my restless mind with direction and given me the power of using curiosity as a tool to shape something meaningful. With the right education, I’ll have the proper tools to use knowledge as an instrument for equity. My systems will create opportunities rather than take them away from those who need them the most. Coupled with empathy and intention, engineering can be a vehicle of change, creating positive change and equal justice for all, and I want to help.

What’s different about me is that my curiosity is always restless. I have never been someone who could sit still intellectually, and, over the years, I have gotten used to seeking new questions, problems, and ideas to engage with. I used to think this restlessness was a bad thing. I tended to be anxious and a bit of an over-thinker, and, typically, trying to slow myself down usually didn’t work. However, what helped me overcome this was discovering a love for engineering. I found engineering through robotics and programming, where I discovered that many complicated questions do not have to be complicated if you approach them systematically. Math was the tool that transformed what I tend to think of as a chaotic stream of ideas into an orderly process for solving a problem. It was no longer something to be afraid of; it was the way to structure my ideas, play with them, and adapt designs. It also taught me to be resilient in the face of failure, because every failure teaches you something useful for next time. One of my favorite projects has been designing a bionic hand prosthetic. I completed it to create a useful product rather than for any commercial gain, and this project helped people, including myself, see the potential of technology when used for good. By developing a usable design that was also cost-effective, I sketched my ideas, built a rough prototype, and engaged with the final version. I relied on math and mechanics to iterate motion, strength, and reliability of the design to ensure that the product worked. Every challenge forced me to dig deeper and think outside the box so that I was not pursuing perfection, but opportunity in engineering. I want to study for a degree in mechanical engineering and use it to design products that people can benefit from. The areas I want to focus on are healthcare, manufacturing, and accessibility within my products. This scholarship would make pursuing an education less of a financial burden so that I can dedicate myself fully to my studies, research projects, and gaining practical knowledge in engineering. With your support, I can continue to transform my curiosity into meaningful solutions and secure a future in engineering that benefits people rather than being only theoretical.