My love of art came from the freedom it gave me. It allowed me to express myself in ways I have never before. I lived in a broken home for years and I always felt trapped in it, like there was no escape and like it would be my everyday life for the rest of my life. Art was something I could turn to and I knew it would always be there for me. It was amazing seeing what I could create and seeing how everything came to life. I always doubted myself as an artist because I never felt like I was doing enough. I thank my high school art teacher for showing me that I was doing enough and that I am a great artist. She gave me the opportunity to learn to love something so amazing and wonderful. Even though I have faced judgement from those around me and have not gained support from some family I know I can say that from the start my love of art only grows more and more despite those hateful and judgmental comments. I can now say with certainty that younger me would be incredibly proud of the artist I have become today because I didn’t let myself quit. Today I stand proud of who I am as an artist. My favorite artist isn not someone famous, it is my high school art teacher. To me she is one of the best artists ever. She has great technique and always creates such amazing art pieces. Whenever I see something new from her I’m always stuck in a trance watching and observing every detail. She is my favorite artist because of her art and because of what she has taught me. She always made sure we felt at home and at peace with our art. She taught me to be the artist that I am now and because of her I will be pursing a degree in the arts. It is because of her that my passion for art has grown. I will always remember her words, “We are our harshest critics.” Those are words I learned to understand and agree with. To me there is no other artist like her out there, she is one of a kind. Her passion for art and making sure everyone gets an opportunity to experience it is definitely contagious. I thank her for helping me grow and not let me quit.

My mental health has been the biggest hardship I have had to overcome. I attempted to kill myself at one point and I no longer wished to live. I started feeling this way around the time I was 11. A kid should never have to feel like they don’t want to be around anymore. I would say that it has a lot to do with my family. There were unrealistic expectations of me, I was expected to be better than everyone around me. What I wanted didn’t matter to my family; they just wanted someone to brag about. Everyone would praise me when I did something good/right but it all felt fake. I remember seeing a lot of fake smiles and wondering what was real and who was there for me. I had no one there for me which made me feel worthless. I felt like I didn’t truly matter and that my value was defined by only my accomplishments and not who I was. If I ever strayed from the path that was picked for me I was looked at in disappointment. When I finally chose to live for myself and do the things I wanted, things only became harder for me. It was hard to be accepted by my family. All they saw was a hopeless child who wouldn’t succeed. I was faced with a lot of disappointment because I wanted to pursue art because I dressed differently because I wasn’t like them. Someone from my own family knew I was drowning in my thoughts and knew I needed help but they turned the other way and pretended like I was just lashing out. I felt betrayed and at that moment I swore to never tell another soul about my state of mind. Since then I’ve gotten the help that I need. I am in a much better place now. I learned to love myself by figuring out exactly who I am. When you are told to date yourself it is to tell you that you should find yourself. In a way, you could say I dated myself. I learned to love myself for who I am I am. I took myself out and did the things that I enjoyed. Yes, I could still hear the voices in the back of my head telling me I was worthless but the voices were much quieter this time around. I was allowed a chance to see the world through a different lens and I am glad I failed that attempt because I would’ve missed so much of this beautiful world. I would've all the events that happened since, they were incredibly happy moments that I got to experience with the people that I love. I hold no grudge against my family for the things that happened, if anything I understand that they just wanted me to succeed. It took a while but they were able to come around and understand me better. Now my family's one of my biggest supporters.

My name is Angelica Garcia. I am currently 17 years old and a senior planning to go to a University. My goal is to get an art degree. For as long as I can remember I have always loved making art. I love to create and I love sharing it with others. Being able to see things through a different lens is always so interesting. I love being able to share and collaborate with others. I got into volunteering at a very young age and I feel like as a person it has made me better. It has allowed me to appreciate more what I do have. Being able to meet new people and learn about their experiences is always so much fun. It’s one of the reasons why I love to volunteer. I enjoy being of help to others and learning new things. With volunteering you are able to gain new knowledge and/or a new skill. This scholarship would be of great help to me financially. I come from a low-income family with a single parent. We don’t have much but we appreciate and are grateful for what we do have. Being able to put this money into furthering my education would greatly reduce the stress on my mom who is trying to put two of my siblings and me through college. This scholarship not only would put less stress on my mom but it would allow me to have more free time to volunteer and to focus more on school. Without money I would be forced to get a job which would hinder my education. I love volunteering, I love being able to help out and be part of my local community. I feel like volunteering really helps out with my education. It allows me to see/view things differently. My major in college is related to art and with art being able to see more of the world, the good and the bad, let’s you create things you would have never created before. An example I have of how volunteering benefits me is when I was a part of a club at school that focused on helping out in the community. As I volunteered more I was able to learn better communication skills and collaboration skills which I was able to bring into my school life. Overall, I can say that who I am as a person is someone who loves to help out others and learn new things. This scholarship would be of great help to my education. Being able to have the opportunity to further my education would be incredibly helpful to me and my goals for the future.

Ever since I was a little girl I have wanted to pursue the arts. I was always told “They don’t earn good money” “Thats dumb, how are you supposed to survive in the real world”. They always thought it was a waste of time and that it wasn’t worth anyone’s time. They tried steering my path towards other careers like nursing, teacher, surgeon, or basically any of the science majors. They would’ve all just been happy with me pursing something I wasn’t happy in. None of those careers interested me. They weren’t me. My brother was the only one who was happy for me when I told him that I wanted a career in the arts. For a moment I felt accepted and it made me happy to at least have one person to support me. Having everyone trying to steer me into another career hasn’t been easy. It makes me feel unaccepted, like I’m the one that’s missing something. Not being able to make everyone happy made me feel so much pressure to find another career that would make them happy. In my mind it was like they thought I didn’t have what it takes to be an artist. Art has always been a great way for me to be me. It allowed me to express myself in ways I didn’t know I could. Till this day I’m still learning about new ways that I can create. Art was always an outlet for me. It allowed me to see the world through a new lens and take in its beauty, it’s true beauty. Having somewhere to be able to step away to when I’m hurting, confused, or just tired has been great, it’s allowed me to create many wonderful things that not just I get to see. I share my art with others and they seem to be able to find a connection to it too and I love that we’re able to share an experience through an art piece even if it wasn’t the same event. Art comes in so many didn’t forms and so many of them have been a part of my life. Art truly has made me a better person. I’m not someone who looks like they would create art so when I do mention that I do this as a hobby that is what they think and nothing more. They think I’m not good and that I have to prove to them just how good I am. For some time it did feel like I needed to do that because I was always trying to prove to my family that it was the right choice for me but after some time I stopped and I allowed my work to do the talking for me.

The dreams and goals for my life are something that I always viewed out of reach. I wanted to travel and see the world maybe connect to other cultures and grow more as a person, but I’ve also always wanted to live a comfortable life with a family of my own. Being able to see those around me grow more into who they are has also always been important do me for now and the future.

As a women pursuing the path of welding, many have looked down on me, questioning my abilities to be a part of a field heavily influenced by men. The reason I am doing this isn’t because I am a minority in the field, it is because it is what I set my heart on. I am a high school senior who was inspired one evening when I was talking to a college adviser. The college adviser began talking about different programs that we could possibly attend. They started talking about a welding program that we could attend. They explained how this is hard work, how it’s a lot of hands-on work, and how you get to create. I was just fascinated by the idea of this. As a kid the art of creation had always been a passion of mine, that passion became an influence in my career choice now. When I was listening to that college adviser talk about welding I thought to myself “woah this would allow me to do what I love most!” Since that moment it is the only thing I have wanted to do. Yes, I have looked into other things previously but none have sparked creativity like this one. No other major, degree, or career has been able to strike inspiration like this one did. It sparked inspiration like never before. Being able to create and build is just amazing, you never know what your imagination could lead to. Welding has become an important field in many industries such as aviation, construction and the automotive industry. This metal work is very important to the everyday life. It creates from the smallest of everyday life items like your kitchen appliances to the biggest everyday items, for example a building like a skyscraper. Welding also creates other things like cars, airplanes, and ships. These are essential things in todays society. Without forms of transportation things would stop functioning like normal. Transportation stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic and there was a shortage of protective equipment that’s required in hospitals. As I have done research about welding and looked further into what it is about, I have noticed that not only does it allow me to build and create, it allows me to help others. I am also someone who loves helping others and if welding allows me to do that I know I have picked the right career goal. Welding is something that is important in everyone’s everyday life and has become something that is an essential part of society.

Everyone will tell you that you’re wasting your life if you aren’t getting some type of degree or higher education…but why is it important? That’s the question everyone should be asking. Why do you care for it? It doesn’t matter what everyone else is asking if you. Why do you want it? As a high school senior I have found myself thinking of this before. Why is it important to me? To me it can be about the end goal and being able to have the chance to pursue the goals I have in life, but it is also about the knowledge and experience. I’ve read countless articles and seen countless statistics of people who didn’t get a higher level education and most everyone regrets not being able to experience that. I know I shouldn’t base off my own opinions on why I should pursue a higher level education for these articles and statistics but it makes me wonder, how much would I regret not doing this? I want to pursue a higher level education because it’ll allow me to have more opportunities in life than others. It’ll allow me to gain new knowledge. It would also allow me to have more time to think about what I really want to do in life and who I want to be as a person. It’ll allow me to find who I am as a person along the way. Finding out who you are in different settings is as important and plays as much of a part as the learning about a degree. So you are asking why is higher education important to me? Well it’s important to me because I get to grow as a person. I get to gain new knowledge that I wouldn’t have found on my own. It’ll allow me to be able to collaborate and have connections with others. It’ll show me who I am in a working environment and who I’m not. It’ll show me where I need to improve on. Most important of all though, it’ll allow me to pursue my goals in life. I’ve set many goals along my life that would only be possible if I were to have a higher education. This is why higher education is so important to me.