Every Saturday morning since the summer after my freshman year, I dedicate my time to refereeing for my school district’s youth soccer league. Having no work experience, let alone experience in the officiating field, my supervisor by the name of Oscar came up to me and my friends when we were playing soccer right next to where they were having parents register their kids for the first-ever “Puro Futbol” season of the North Chicago District. I heard money was involved so I went along with it. I provided him with my phone number and went back to playing. I thought nothing of it until I received a call the following week. Not only was I shocked that he was serious, I was more perplexed as to why he would trust a fifteen-year-old kid rather than someone more experienced. After the first season though, I felt as if I had an awakening. As someone who wasn’t necessarily involved in my community prior to the outdoor season, I was overwhelmed by how many kids took part in the program. Every week, they reminded me of me. They are also growing up in the same community, loving the same sport. Still referring to this day, every week reminds me of my unconditional and endless love for North Chicago; something I never knew about myself before that summer. I always knew I wanted to go to college after high school. As a first-generation student, in everything I do, especially academically, I give it my all because my parents never got the chance to. When it came to what my desired major was, it was always architecture. My parents asked “Pero porque?” I always responded to them and everyone else, “I love to draw and love aesthetically pleasing buildings”. That is it. But it felt like an empty reason to major in architecture. I felt as if there was no real reason “why” I concluded that that was what I wanted to major in. That was until I took part in my community development and bonding through refereeing. I found that “why”, just not in architecture. I still love to draw and admire beautiful infrastructure, but how much more can I contribute to a small community like mine with architecture? Researching numerous majors in high school, I realized that civil engineering can have a higher roof when it comes to opportunities to give back to small communities like mine! Civil engineering focused on the functionality of various infrastructure projects, which to me seemed easier to apply such projects to North Chicago. Up until I got to high school, I never saw any change in our physical environment when I compared it to other areas around us, developing the value of a clean, positive, up-to-date environment more and more. Surprisingly, in my sophomore year, a new middle school was being built. It was the first of many infrastructure projects that recently jumpstarted. I was captivated by its visual appeal from the smallest detail ascending to the largest. In the middle school’s infrastructure, the attentiveness to making it pleasing to the eye and modish while making it fully optimizing at its full potential seemed like a work of art to me. There is so much originality that can be born through letting your mind run and creating different infrastructure plans, something that not every career allows. Witnessing this process in the present time has influenced my desire to participate in future projects as a way to personally play a part in our community development while I do something I love. Although it is subtle, I would retire in eternal bliss if I could impact my community, and civil engineering will best allow me to reach this goal. My biggest accomplishment was taking on the refereeing job. It provided me with my first job experience, my first check, but it also gave me my “why”. I now know why I want to major in civil engineering. I now know why I aspire to keep going. I now know why I love the place that raised me, and that “why” will give it everything it gave me.