I was first introduced to Sabrina Carpenter when I was 7 years old. She was my favorite character on the Disney Channel show Girl Meets World. I tuned in to every episode to watch her. When Sabrina started releasing music, I instantly loved her. From "Can't Blame a Girl for Trying" to her newest album Man's Best Friend, I've always connected with her music. Sabrina's confidence, self-expression, and relatability have been a constant throughout her career, keeping me as a loyal fan for most of my life. As I've grown older, her music has grown with me. In middle school, I was unsure of who I was and trying to figure out where I fit in. When she released "Sue Me", it helped me feel more confident in myself, empowering me to show people around me my true personality. Throughout her songs, Sabrina has stayed honest about the realities of growing up, which helped me feel comforted and understood in high school. Even now as a freshman in college, I still enjoy the way she combines that honesty with more light-hearted lines. It reminds me to not take everything so seriously. Sabrina's ability to reinvent herself has also helped me realize how fluid self-expression can be. She started as a Disney actress and shifted to such a huge, confident pop artist without sacrificing her authenticity. Watching her journey has made me feel more comfortable making changes, big or small. Overall, Sabrina Carpenter's career has impacted my life by giving me more confidence, comforting me when I feel down, and allowing me to grow and change with her.

Throughout all of my schooling, math has always been something that I just understood. Whether I'm doing geometry or AP calculus, it has been a challenge I look forward to most days. Nothing about math is subjective, there is always a correct way to do things and one answer to each problem. This is somewhat comforting. Nothing is up for debate and there are no gray areas - your answer is either correct or incorrect. In college, I have realized skills that are taught in math can be used in many other areas of life. I use the problem-solving and analysis skills I developed in math classes every single day. When I create a schedule for my day or work through personal problems, I use the same logical reasoning taught in math. The ability to break bigger problems down has been one of my most important takeaways from school, and it was largely developed by math. One of the biggest reasons I love math is how it balances individuality and structure. I really enjoy seeing how many different paths people take to arrive at the same conclusion. Overall, loving math for the majority of my academic career has shaped how I think, solve problems, and how I interpret the world around me. It's reach is bigger than a lot of people realize and trying to figure out just how far it goes has only grown my love for it.

Quarantine began at the end of seventh grade and I was thrilled to stay at home, like most other kids my age. By eighth grade, most students were going back to school, but my parents decided to keep me and my sister at home as remote learners for another year. I was okay with it at first, though as the year continued it became more and more difficult. At the start, I knew many other kids who weren’t returning to school either. I kept in contact with most of my friends and still felt close to them. As the year progressed, most other remote learners went back to in-person learning. I became one of the very few students to stay at home the whole time. I fell out of contact with all but two friends because I wasn’t experiencing the same things as any of them. I didn’t leave my house or go into stores, while many of my friends would still hang out and go on vacations. I felt so alone. I didn’t know anyone experiencing the pandemic the way I was. By the end of eighth grade, I was depressed. I only talked to one friend regularly and I was becoming miserable without more social interaction. I went back to school in 2021 as a freshman, and I was so excited to be inside a building, not just on a Zoom call in my house. I made a few friends and reconnected with some old ones. Even though I had more of a social life, I was still struggling with my mental health and trying to figure out how to fit back in with other students. I tried to deal with it alone because I didn’t want to put anything else on my parents’ plate. It took me until the beginning of 2023 to tell anyone how I was feeling. I finally asked my parents to go to therapy. I had a lot of unresolved emotions from the year I spent at home and the difficulty I had re-entering a school environment. After about two months in therapy, I felt so much better. I learned how to let go of what was bothering me and developed techniques to get myself out of any periods of depression I may have in the future. I’ve become happy with myself and more confident in who I am. I’m not afraid to talk to my parents about how I’m feeling and I know it’s okay to ask them for help if I ever need it. It has sparked an interest in psychology so I can help others the way somebody helped me. I know what it is like to feel like things won’t ever change and I have come out on the other side. I want to show other people that they can do it too. Though the experience wasn’t easy for me, it truly turned my life around and is one that I needed to live through to become who I am today.

Quarantine began at the end of seventh grade and I was thrilled to stay at home, like most other kids my age. By eighth grade, most students were going back to school, but my parents decided to keep me and my sister at home as remote learners for another year. I was okay with it at first, though as the year continued it became more and more difficult. At the start, I knew many other kids who weren’t returning to school either. I kept in contact with most of my friends and still felt close to them. As the year progressed, most other remote learners went back to in-person learning. I became one of the very few students to stay at home the whole time. I fell out of contact with all but two friends because I wasn’t experiencing the same things as any of them. I didn’t leave my house or go into stores, while many of my friends would still hang out and go on vacations. I felt so alone. I didn’t know anyone experiencing the pandemic the way I was. By the end of eighth grade, I was depressed. I only talked to one friend regularly and I was becoming miserable without more social interaction. I went back to school in 2021 as a freshman, and I was so excited to be inside a building, not just on a Zoom call in my house. I made a few friends and reconnected with some old ones. Even though I had more of a social life, I was still struggling with my mental health and trying to figure out how to fit back in with other students. I tried to deal with it alone because I didn’t want to put anything else on my parents’ plate. It took me until the beginning of 2023 to tell anyone how I was feeling. I finally asked my parents to go to therapy. I had a lot of unresolved emotions from the year I spent at home and the difficulty I had re-entering a school environment. After about two months in therapy, I felt so much better. I learned how to let go of what was bothering me and developed techniques to get myself out of any periods of depression I may have in the future. I’ve become happy with myself and more confident in who I am. I’m not afraid to talk to my parents about how I’m feeling and I know it’s okay to ask them for help if I ever need it. It has sparked an interest in psychology so I can help others the way somebody helped me. I know what it is like to feel like things won’t ever change and I have come out on the other side. I want to show other people that they can do it too. Though the experience wasn’t easy for me, it truly turned my life around and is one that I needed to live through to become who I am today.

Quarantine began at the end of seventh grade and I was thrilled to stay at home, like most other kids my age. By eighth grade, most students were going back to school, but my parents decided to keep me and my sister at home as remote learners for another year. I was okay with it at first, though as the year continued it became more and more difficult. At the start, I knew many other kids who weren’t returning to school either. I kept in contact with most of my friends and still felt close to them. As the year progressed, most other remote learners went back to in-person learning. I became one of the very few students to stay at home the whole time. I fell out of contact with all but two friends because I wasn’t experiencing the same things as any of them. I didn’t leave my house or go into stores, while many of my friends would still hang out and go on vacations. I felt so alone. I didn’t know anyone experiencing the pandemic the way I was. By the end of eighth grade, I was depressed. I only talked to one friend regularly and I was becoming miserable without more social interaction. I went back to school in 2021 as a freshman, and I was so excited to be inside a building, not just on a Zoom call in my house. I made a few friends and reconnected with some old ones. Even though I had more of a social life, I was still struggling with my mental health and trying to figure out how to fit back in with other students. I tried to deal with it alone because I didn’t want to put anything else on my parents’ plate. It took me until the beginning of 2023 to tell anyone how I was feeling. I finally asked my parents to go to therapy. I had a lot of unresolved emotions from the year I spent at home and the difficulty I had re-entering a school environment. After about two months in therapy, I felt so much better. I learned how to let go of what was bothering me and developed techniques to get myself out of any periods of depression I may have in the future. I’ve become happy with myself and more confident in who I am. I’m not afraid to talk to my parents about how I’m feeling and I know it’s okay to ask them for help if I ever need it. It has sparked an interest in psychology so I can help others the way somebody helped me. I know what it is like to feel like things won’t ever change and I have come out on the other side. I want to show other people that they can do it too. Though the experience wasn’t easy for me, it truly turned my life around and is one that I needed to live through to become who I am today.