Summarizing my academic goals, I want to find the degree I want with quality education, while not going into major debt from student loans. I recognize that colleges cost large amounts of money. However, most large colleges accept large amounts credits from community colleges. Community colleges, being cheaper, allows me to get similar education at much better prices. This however does not mean that community college still has decently high prices, and I will still need funds to pay for my college tuition. If I get this scholarship, I will have just a little bit more money to put towards my college journey, and every little bit counts. When I get into computer science, I want to work with Big Data. The field is growing rapidly and requires people who understand the ethics of the mass amounts of data they collect. I want to go into this field because the fact that people can take huge amounts of data, analyze it for trends and patterns and find more data off of preexisting data, amazes me. I want to be involved in Big Data also because some businesses and organizations that use this Big Data use it in ways that are unethical. I want to reveal these organizations and show them what they actually do with the data that they collect. I know I have the skills to go into data science, I excel at math and I have a good understanding of how organizations and businesses use the data to stay competitive. I love computers and tech and I would love to learn how to sue them better. I know that computer science is the field that I would be happiest to work in. I am an extremely motivated person, I try my best at everything I do. I have reached the rank of Eagle Scout. I'm in the top 20 for my class in high school. I take challenging courses in school because I know I can do them well. I teach myself programming languages outside school for fun. I have tested out of 2 classes in the past to make more room in my class schedule for things that I would rather take. I have been working at a job now for over a year to make more money to pay for college. If I get this scholarship, I will use it and I will be one step closer to my dreams and my future. Thank you donors for all the futures you help create!

Right now with $1000, I would take 15% and put it in my ROTH IRA. Then the other $850 would go into my savings account for college. The reasons being that I want to be financially secure in life both now and forevermore. The $850 would go towards my college so that I don't have to take out as many loans. The smaller my loans, the more money I can use to take care of myself and my family, to have some fun, and to give to other people who need it. I want to be able to one day have enough money to provide scholarships of my own. I love helping people and I don't like doing it for the attention, but for all of the good people out there who need help so they can help others too. I've been helped so much in my life, and I want all of that helping that they did for me to ripple out to everyone I can reach. This I will do as a thank you to all those who have helped me. If I want anyone to receive recognition and attention for who I am and what I do, I want it to be the people who guided and helped me become who I am. In other words, with $1000 dollars, I will be a step closer to who I want to be and to helping everyone around me become the help they want to be to others too.

The universe is everything. By better understanding the universe, we can better understand everything. Understanding is they key to making better decisions. By making better decisions we can achieve better outcomes to our goals and a better society. As a large human society on an orb covered with water and land floating in the cosmos, I believe that we are lost and confused constantly as a whole. Humans understand so little about their own world even after living on it for centuries. Humans even still don't understand things about themselves. I believe that by understanding the universe, we can understand our world, and ourselves. This understanding of the universe is not to be confused with knowledge of the universe. Knowledge is knowing something exists, understanding is knowing why it exists. As humans we know the universe exists, but we do not know why. We know we exist, but we do not know why. A child that knows 2 + 2 = 4 is not the same as a child who understands that 2 + 2 = 4. The child who knows just accepts the principle as a fact, while the child who understands can apply the principle of 2 + 2 = 4 to other means such as 4 - 2 = 2. If humans understood the universe, there would be no confusion. People could apply their understanding to hundreds of issues and figure out the issues of the world very easily. They could help, and they could also destroy, because they understand their societies and their own capabilities. But by understanding themselves, they can understand the outcomes of their own actions and how those actions will affect them emotionally and mentally. I believe that if people understood how their actions would affect themselves then they would choose the path that was better as a whole for society. In order to understand the universe, we must first know what it is, meaning we must know everything. Then in order to understand the universe we must understand everything. However, both of these steps are impossible, because as humans we cannot know everything. That is why, people must understand that they know near to nothing about their universe. Despite these observations, people must not lose hope that they can understand the universe. As individuals, there is no feasible method of understanding the universe, but as a whole, each individual understands a portion of the universe. Collectively, they can come together to understand the universe. People need just understand themselves and their passions, to understand their portion of the universe. This dream is a long way into the future, but it is not as impossible as individually understanding everything. Thus, I believe this is the closest we can get to understanding the universe.

My favorite book of all time was probably Dune. Dune was written towards an audience who loves sci-fi and characters that have more logical decision making than emotional ones. The reader didn't feel attached to the characters as much as some other books. The tone of the author explained things in a way such that the readers were assumed to have known what certain words and phrases mean. In other words, things weren't explained, but shown in a way that the reader could work to infer what the unknown things were. The book made a reader use their brain to process what is going on and why the characters were making their decisions. The descriptiveness of the author was also extreme at some points. It took a certain state of mind to not put this book down and keep reading. The most detailed descriptions were a third person view of the main character seeing through time. Even if a reader understood literally nothing in these scenes it causes some Deja-Vu in later chapters as they relate very similarly to these descriptions. I would describe reading this book to a friend as ascending to another level of consciousness subconsciously during extremely descriptive points. The book makes you feel smart for reading it. Although it isn't everyone's cup of tea, I can say that it was definitely one of the best reads I've had in a long time. he other book this reminds me of from my childhood was Artemis Fowl (book not movie, the movie was so bad) as they are similar in the logical thinking and plotting by the main character.

In economics it is assumed that everyone acts in their own self interest. This applies to every individual and organization. colleges have been raising their prices steadily because they know they can get the next generation to spend more money. colleges raise prices not to make people financially unstable, but to increase their own profits. In order to increase their profits without losing their students, they have to make their school an attractive option to apply to and go to. colleges typically do this by either having very low acceptance rates (prestigious colleges), or by making the college "experience" more enjoyable. You'll notice when a college boasts it's statistics they always list a ton of info, but when they tell you the cost, they only will tell you the average cost after financial aid. College economics set aside, if a college wants more money for a good college experience or more prestigious reputation, people should ignore this and look solely at the cost and the degree that they want to get. Logically, an individual goes to college for a degree. The degree is supposed to help them land a good job. However, it's not where you go that matters, it's what you know. If I was going to make education better for the future generations, I would have more high school classes dedicated to teaching the next generation how to minimize their college costs while still having the same, or better long term outcomes as a prestigious college. The courses would cover community college, scholarships, grants, the FAFSA, and how to make a plan to find their dream career. The greatest skill in life is knowing how to learn. If an individual knows how to teach themselves anything, then all they need from going to college is the degree. Anything else they need to know they can figure out on their own.

The most helpful financial advice I have ever received was to start investing as young as I possibly can. I consider it the most helpful because the reward for patience is extreme in the long run. Not many people are patient out there and will panic when the stock goes negative, but with a calm attitude, one can sit on their stocks for years and they will likely go back up. Most investors will avoid investing because it's too risky. I find that the risk takers are the ones who have the opportunity to make it. If you never take the risks you will never have the opportunity, thus making your retirement goals very difficult to reach. To save up for retirement helps a lot with stocks, as the money eventually starts doing your work for you. The fact that I start as young as possible helps me greatly as the stocks now have time to start snowballing with their reinvesting dividends. Essentially, I view this piece of advice as a better way to be optimistic about the future financially. Another piece of advice I received and I'd give to anyone is to do anything in your power to stay out of student debt. It is possible to stay out of student debt and plenty of people have done it. These people apply for hundreds of scholarships and fill out the FAFSA and anything else to lower the loans they have to take out. By doing this, an individual can set themselves up to be optimistic as they have much less money to be paid back in the future that could potentially grow with interest.

One of the best things a person can do just to stay financially secure, is to not take out loans as much as possible. For some people, this is extremely difficult, however, that is why the FAFSA and scholarships exist - to help people get the financial aid they need. Loans, are like a ball chained to your leg slowing you down financially. It grows heavier and heavier the longer you ignore it. Loans need to be paid off in order to keep yourself unhindered financially so you have the freedom to do what you want. But the mother of all financial lessons is saving. People have a tendency to look in their wallets at their cash as something that needs to be spent. These people end up digging themselves a hole as they fail to save for accidents and end up having to take numerous loans. When people save they invest in their future selves rather than their present selves, making them more optimistic and hopeful about the future rather than dreading having to take out a new loan for a car repair.

If everyone just did their small part, plus one more, then there would be double the work being done to clean the world. Whenever I have trash and I'm at a park, I make sure it makes it into a trash can that will hold the trash in even in gusts of wind. Then if I see other trash on the ground in the park, I'll pick up a little just to do my part, plus the job of someone else. While it does seem like a lot of work for a small thing. You know what people say, the small things add up. People just get discouraged after seeing how small of a thing they do, that they think it makes no difference to do it or not. If they are aware of people picking up around the park then maybe, just maybe that'll give them the motivation to clean up too. That person they see could be you.

The impending doom of the world I believe, is the rise of Big Data without individuals realizing its immense power. Big Data, is a term used to describe immense amounts of extremely diverse information that travel at extremely high speeds. The issues with Big Data is the intrusion of privacy it presents to individuals in a society, and the manipulation it allows over the population. Target, for example, has used Big Data by researching their customers. In this case, they collected many variables based on studies they did of the purchasing behavior of pregnant women. Target compared the purchasing behavior of pregnant women to the purchasing behavior of all the target customers combined. Target created predictive models that were modeled after this data and were used to score how likely a given customer was pregnant and when they were likely to deliver. Target uses these pregnancy predictions to identify which women should receive specific coupons. Big Data doesn't stop here. When an organization manages to find data on an individual, they can use this data to manipulate them. This can be done through various methods, one of which is called "Commanding the Trend," which allows an individual to be exposed to weaponized fake news using existing trending topics on social media. The best solution to this immense issue, is the education of future data scientists in ethics. Data scientists are people who work with Big Data by managing of data for an organization and creating predictive models and algorithms. By instructing them in ethics, it allows them to see when an organization is doing something unethical so they can say something about it when it happens. While it is a simple and unreliable solution, it's the first step into keeping Big Data on a leash.

Life always throughs tough times for everyone. My challenges I tend to view as harsh lessons. When I am presented with a tough challenge I look at how it affects me and the people and environment around me. After assessing the inputs and outcomes of the situation, I learn how to prevent it from happening and I look at the outcomes as a motivator to myself to have it not happen again. Overall, people I find are always looking for happiness in life. However, people tend to struggle with this because they cannot find the balance between short, and long term happiness. Optimistic people have hope for the future. So in order to stay optimistic, one must invest much in the long term, and little in the short term. This causes the present to be a little worse, but you can smile knowing that the future is brighter for you and everyone around you.

I want the world to be better, but I am a mere speck out of the billions of people out there. One speck, however, can collide with another and cause a ripple to affect everything. One person comes to mind as I think about mentorship. He would come to me asking if I could help him with his geometry homework and he became a good friend of mine. One day he asked me what career he should go into. I remember showing him the website for the federal bureau of labor statistics and together we dove into the website trying to find which career best fit him. He walked away from that conversation knowing just a little more of what he liked and was interested in doing in the future. By mentoring others, I hope to be part of a ripple effect to help change the world for good. Every person struggles with something, and every person has qualities that allow them to help others in their own way. By teaching people how they can use their skills to help, I can help make the world better.

Being a servant to others can inspire them to be a servant for others too. I know this because I'm always affected by it whenever someone sets aside a little bit of their time for me. By volunteering at a young age I hope to also inspire those around me to sacrifice a little time too. My favorite service project that I always keep coming back to every month is the free breakfast at my church hosted by the Knights of Columbus. It's a great way for the parish community to get together and have a nice social event. I typically help out by coordinating and leading our new volunteers who are unfamiliar with the breakfast in terms of what they should be doing. Another important mention is that I made my own service project once to complete my rank requirement for Eagle Scout. I found a need in my community(some old rotting picnic tables at a school needed refurbishing and a new coat of paint), I planned a service project to solve that need, and I got a group of volunteers together to help with the project and execute the plan effectively. In my future, I plan to still sacrifice a little bit of time in my life to continue to serve my community. I want to continue to make small changes in the daily lives of others to make their lives that much better.