Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I learned early that the zip code you come from shapes the opportunities you can see. Brooklyn Park is often described as a suburb, but for families like mine — Black, immigrant, first-generation — it carried many of the same pressures and silences that follow low-income communities everywhere. My parents worked long hours in jobs that paid them less than they were worth. We moved more than once. There were no college counselors at our kitchen table, no alumni networks to call on, and no road map that looked anything like our life. The most consistent challenge I faced was invisibility. I attended schools where the systems were not built with students like me in mind — Black boys who were also children of immigrants, who came from homes where asking for help felt like admitting failure. I watched classmates with more resources move with a kind of ease I did not have access to. They knew what AP classes to take, what test prep resources existed, which scholarships to look for. I was figuring it all out alone, usually after everyone else had already moved on. The academic challenge was real, but the heavier burden was psychological. I spent much of middle school and early high school feeling like I was supposed to already know things no one had taught me. I was not failing — I maintained above a 3.5 GPA — but I was exhausted by the amount of invisible labor it took to stay afloat while also navigating a world that kept sending the message that students like me were exceptions rather than the rule. What changed things for me was deciding to stop waiting for access and start building it myself. I began researching college pathways, financial aid, and scholarship opportunities on my own. I shared what I found with classmates who were in the same position I had been. I tutored younger students in math because I knew how much a single person willing to explain things slowly — patiently, without judgment — could shift someone's entire relationship with learning. These were not formal programs. They were just a kid from Brooklyn Park deciding that if no one had handed him a map, he would draw one and hand copies to everyone around him. Now I am preparing to study computer engineering at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2026. That feels enormous — not because the school is prestigious, but because every step toward it was a fight that my family had never fought before. I am the first in my immediate family to pursue a four-year engineering degree. I am the product of a community that gave me resilience even when it could not always give me resources. This scholarship was created to support students who have faced the specific weight of growing up without the advantages that others take for granted. I know that weight. I have carried it every day of my high school career. And I am still carrying it — and moving forward — because the only alternative was to stop, and stopping was never an option I was willing to accept.

There is a lyric in Olivia Rodrigo's "brutal" that has stayed with me since the first time I heard it: "I want it to be mess-free, but I know that it won't be." The song captures something most people are reluctant to admit — that figuring out who you are and where you belong is exhausting, chaotic, and often frightening, no matter how capable you are. For me, that feeling is not just a coming-of-age sentiment. It is the texture of nearly every day. Growing up as a Black first-generation high school senior, I have never had a roadmap. My parents came to this country with ambition and love, but the systems I was navigating — college applications, financial aid, standardized tests, scholarship searches — were territories none of us had traveled before. There were moments when I felt exactly the way Rodrigo describes: desperate to appear composed while everything underneath was uncertain. I wanted to walk into every guidance counselor meeting, every application deadline, every campus visit knowing exactly what I was doing. I rarely fully did. But the song also taught me something about authenticity. Rodrigo does not pretend the brutality is glamorous. She names it, amplifies it, and lets it be exactly what it is. Listening to "brutal," I realized I had been spending enormous energy trying to make my story look clean — trying to present myself as someone who had it together when really I was learning in real time. When I started being honest about that, something shifted. I began tutoring younger students in math not because I had mastered everything, but because I remembered what it felt like to be lost and to have no one point the way. I started helping classmates navigate scholarship applications not because I was an expert, but because I had found some answers through hours of searching and I did not want that hard-won knowledge to disappear with me. I learned that the mess I had been ashamed of was actually the most useful thing I had — a memory of confusion that made me a better guide. Rodrigo's song ends without resolution. The chaos is not fixed; the speaker does not suddenly find peace. But there is something powerful in that honesty. She is still moving forward anyway. That, more than any tidy narrative of triumph, is the story I recognize. I am still figuring things out. I do not know exactly how my path through computer engineering at the University of Minnesota will unfold, or what challenges are still ahead. But I have stopped waiting to feel ready. Like the song, my journey has been messy and uncertain, and it has also been mine — full of things I learned by doing, connections I built by showing up, and a growing belief that getting through hard things is not about having all the answers. It is about staying honest about the question. Olivia Rodrigo gave me language for something I was already living. That is what great art does. It meets you in the middle of the mess and says: you are not alone in this. For a first-generation student still finding his footing, that has mattered more than I can fully express.

During my junior year of high school, I noticed that a younger student in my neighborhood — a seventh grader named Marcus — was falling behind in math. His family worked long hours and couldn't afford tutoring, and his school had cut its after-school programs. I had been there myself: I knew what it felt like to need help and not know where to look for it. I offered to tutor Marcus twice a week at our local library. At first, he was hesitant. He didn't think he was a "math person," and years of struggle had convinced him that some subjects just weren't for him. I recognized that feeling because I had felt it too — the creeping belief that certain paths were closed off before you'd even tried them. Over the course of several months, we worked through fractions, percentages, and eventually pre-algebra. I didn't just teach him formulas; I tried to show him how math connected to things he cared about — how ratios showed up in basketball statistics, how geometry described the architecture of the buildings he walked past every day. Slowly, his confidence grew. By the end of the school year, he had gone from nearly failing to earning a B in his math class. What I gained from that experience was as significant as what Marcus gained. I learned that helping someone isn't just about the knowledge you transfer — it's about showing them that they belong in a subject, that they are capable, and that someone believes in them. For a Black first-generation student like me, who has spent years navigating spaces that weren't built with me in mind, that lesson hit close to home. Marcus reminded me why I want to study computer engineering. I want to solve problems that matter to real people, and I want to bring others along with me. The most important thing I can do with the opportunities I've been given is to make sure the next generation of students — especially those who look like me — never have to figure it out alone.

Growing up as a Black first-generation student in America, I learned early that the spaces I would enter — classrooms, libraries, science labs — were not built with me in mind. The history of STEM fields reflects this reality: for too long, they have been shaped by a narrow slice of humanity. Yet I believe diversity is not just a social good — it is a scientific and technological imperative. When I look at the problems that matter most in the world — climate change, healthcare disparities, food insecurity, algorithmic bias — I see problems that disproportionately affect communities like mine. And I recognize that the people best positioned to solve those problems are often the ones who have lived them. As someone pursuing computer engineering at the University of Minnesota, I want to be in that room. I want to write the code, build the systems, and design the solutions that reflect the full spectrum of human experience. Diversity in STEM means better science. Studies consistently show that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones because they bring different frames of reference to complex problems. When a team designing a facial recognition algorithm includes people whose faces were historically misclassified, they build more accurate, more equitable technology. When healthcare AI is developed by teams that include voices from underserved communities, those systems are less likely to encode the biases that have long made medicine unequal. But diversity in STEM also means something more personal: it means that the next generation of Black, brown, and first-generation students can see themselves in the people building the future. Representation is not symbolic — it is structural. When young people from marginalized communities see scientists and engineers who look like them, they believe that those paths are possible. I know this because I have experienced the inverse: the subtle discouragement that comes from entering spaces where your presence seems unexpected. That is why I am committed not just to entering STEM, but to transforming it. I intend to mentor younger students, advocate for equitable admissions and hiring practices, and use my platform — however large or small — to make the field more welcoming. The work of diversity is not finished when one student earns a degree. It is finished when the discipline itself reflects the world it serves. Julia Elizabeth's legacy, as I understand it, was rooted in the belief that every student deserves the chance to contribute fully to society. I share that belief. Diversity in STEM is how we honor it.

Problem-solving, to me, is not just a skill — it is a language I have been speaking since I first watched my father take apart a broken television and bring it back to life with nothing but patience and a screwdriver. That image of turning broken things into working things planted something in me that eventually led me to computer engineering. One of the most meaningful things I have built is a Python-based budgeting tool I created for my family. Managing finances on a single income is genuinely difficult, and I noticed that my family often lost track of monthly expenses because everything was tracked in scattered notebooks and mental calculations. Over several weekends, I taught myself the basics of data handling and built a simple program that could take in income and categorize expenses automatically, then display a clear monthly summary. It was not a flashy app — no polished interface or cloud storage — but it worked. My mother started using it immediately, and for the first time, we had a real picture of where our money was going each month. Watching something I built actually change the way my family operated was more rewarding than any grade I have ever received. The problem I would solve next, if I had the necessary resources, sits at the intersection of technology and community health. In many low-income neighborhoods, residents lack reliable access to information about available local resources — food pantries, free clinics, emergency housing, mental health services. These resources exist, but finding them requires internet access, time, and often the ability to navigate bureaucratic websites that are poorly designed. I would build a community resource locator — a simple, SMS-based system that anyone with a basic cell phone could text a zip code to and receive a plain-language list of nearby services organized by urgency and availability. No app download required, no data plan needed. The SMS format would make it accessible even to elderly residents or those without smartphones. The engineering behind it would not be complicated — a database of resources updated regularly by volunteers, paired with a simple API and an SMS gateway like Twilio. The harder part would be building trust with community organizations and keeping the data accurate. But those challenges are exactly the kind of problem-solving I want to spend my life doing: not just writing code, but figuring out how technology can meet people exactly where they are. Richard Neumann believed that creative thinking was a form of art. I believe that art is most meaningful when it solves something real. That belief drives everything I build.

Growing up as a Black student with a passion for technology, I became acutely aware early on that I occupied a space that society didn't always expect me to be in. The social norm that "tech is not for people who look like me" was a message I absorbed in subtle ways — through the faces I didn't see in science fairs, the lack of role models in my computer science classes, and the occasional raised eyebrow when I spoke about pursuing computer engineering. Rather than accept that narrative, I chose to push back against it — not through anger, but through presence and persistence. I see myself as a positive force in my community precisely because I refuse to be defined by what others assume about me. As a first-generation college student heading to the University of Minnesota to study computer engineering, I carry with me not only my own ambitions but the hopes of everyone in my neighborhood who has never seen someone like them make that walk. Every time I show up — in class, at a robotics workshop, volunteering at a youth coding program — I am quietly rewriting what people believe is possible for kids from my background. Social norms have shaped my thinking in two powerful ways. First, they made me angry enough to work harder. When I encountered the assumption that STEM spaces weren't for me, I didn't retreat — I leaned in. I volunteered at after-school programs to help younger students with math and coding because I wanted to be the role model I never had. I wanted a ten-year-old who shared my background to see someone who looked like them holding a circuit board and saying, "This is yours too." Second, social norms have made me more empathetic. Understanding what it feels like to be an outsider has given me the ability to see people who are overlooked in other spaces. I make a conscious effort to be inclusive — whether that means speaking up in group projects when a quieter voice is being talked over, or simply making space for people whose experiences differ from mine. Community isn't just about the people who share your background; it's about lifting the room. I believe my greatest contribution will come not just from the engineering solutions I build, but from the doors I help open for others. I plan to return to my community — mentoring, creating, and demonstrating that where you start does not determine where you finish. The norms that tried to define my ceiling have instead become the floor I stand on, pushing me to reach higher and carry others with me.

I grew up watching my father fix things — appliances, electronics, anything that was broken. He didn't have a degree in engineering; he had curiosity and patience, and those two things together made him able to solve problems that stumped other people. I inherited both, and they have shaped everything about who I am as a student and who I want to become. My name is Anthony Simpeh, and I'm a senior at Parnassus Prep in Minneapolis. This fall, I will begin studying computer engineering at the University of Minnesota — making me the first person in my immediate family to attend a four-year university in a STEM field. That fact is not lost on me. I carry it with both pride and weight. My educational journey has not been linear. Growing up in a single-parent household, I watched my mother work two jobs to keep us stable while ensuring I had everything I needed to succeed academically. There were stretches where the stress of financial uncertainty made it hard to focus, hard to believe that the path I was dreaming about was actually available to me. But I kept showing up. I maintained strong grades — a 3.7 GPA — while taking AP courses in calculus and physics, joining an after-school robotics program, and helping lead a peer tutoring effort at my school that connected struggling students with upperclassmen who had already mastered the material. My strengths are focus and persistence. When I lock onto a problem — whether it is debugging a circuit, working through a proof, or helping a classmate understand a concept they've been stuck on for weeks — I don't let go until I understand it fully. My weakness is that I can be hard on myself when I fall short of the standard I've set. I'm working on developing more self-compassion alongside the discipline that has gotten me this far. My hopes and dreams are deeply connected to the communities that shaped me. I want to build technology that matters to people who are often left out of conversations about the future — underserved communities, communities of color, communities where access to the tools of innovation is not assumed. I am interested in embedded systems and hardware-software integration, and I can see a future where those skills contribute to infrastructure projects, healthcare devices, or educational tools that reach kids who remind me of myself at twelve years old. My vision for the future is one where I become both an engineer and a mentor. I want to do meaningful technical work and I want to be visible in spaces where young Black men can see someone who looks like them solving hard problems. Representation matters in ways that are hard to quantify but impossible to ignore. Financially, I need this scholarship. My mother has sacrificed enormously so I could reach this point, and the cost of college is the most significant barrier standing between where I am now and where I am going. Every dollar of scholarship funding means fewer hours spent working a part-time job and more hours studying, building, and becoming the engineer I know I can be. Treye Knorr never got the chance to pursue his dreams, and his family carries that loss with them. In applying for this scholarship, I want to honor the spirit behind it — to live fully, aim high, and contribute something real to the world. I will not take that opportunity lightly.

Growing up, technology was never just something I used — it was something I wanted to understand and build. My fascination started early, watching my father repair electronics at home and wondering not just what was broken but why it worked in the first place. That curiosity has shaped who I am as a student and as an aspiring engineer. As a Black student at Parnassus Prep in Minneapolis, I've often been one of the few students who looks like me in advanced STEM classes. That reality hasn't discouraged me — if anything, it's deepened my commitment to the field. I know that representation matters, and I want to be part of changing what technology careers look like. I plan to study computer engineering at the University of Minnesota this fall, and I'm particularly drawn to areas where hardware and software intersect: embedded systems, robotics, and how we build intelligent machines from the ground up. What excites me most about information technology is its capacity to solve real problems at scale. I've seen how communities like mine — underserved and underfunded — often lack access to tools that wealthier communities take for granted. Technology built thoughtfully can close those gaps. I want to be one of the engineers who builds those tools, not just consumes them. In terms of hands-on experience, I've completed several coding projects, including building a basic inventory tracking program in Python for a school club, and I participated in an IT workshop series through a local STEM nonprofit where I learned fundamental networking concepts and cybersecurity basics. I've also spent time with Arduino microcontrollers, experimenting with sensor-based projects that help me understand how physical and digital systems communicate. These experiences have confirmed that I want to work at the intersection of software and hardware. Beyond technical skills, I've worked hard to develop the collaboration and problem-solving mindset that real IT careers demand. I've organized group study sessions at school where students support each other through difficult STEM coursework, and I take pride in explaining complex ideas clearly to peers who are newer to the field. I believe that strong technical communities are built on the willingness to share knowledge freely. The financial barriers to higher education are real, and I would be the first in my immediate family to attend a four-year university pursuing engineering. This scholarship would not only reduce that financial burden but also affirm something I believe deeply: that students like me — from underrepresented backgrounds, without a roadmap handed to us — belong in these spaces and have every right to shape the future of technology. I am committed to using my education to build something that matters, both for my own community and for the broader world that information technology increasingly shapes.

**Kindness in Action** My junior year, a classmate named Marcus transferred to Parnassus Prep mid-semester. He was quiet and visibly overwhelmed—new school, new people, already behind in calculus. I noticed him sitting alone at lunch, staring at a problem set with the same expression I'd had my freshman year when everything felt impossible. I sat down next to him. I didn't ask if he needed help—I just said, "That problem is brutal. Want to work through it together?" That small choice opened something. Over the next few weeks, we met after school regularly. I didn't just give him answers; I walked him through my thought process, made him explain concepts back to me, and showed him how I broke difficult problems into smaller steps. What made that moment matter wasn't that I helped him pass calculus—though he did. It was that he stopped sitting alone. Other students saw us working together and joined. What started as two people over a textbook became a small study group that met weekly. Marcus later told me that those sessions were the first time he felt like he belonged somewhere at our school. I learned that kindness isn't always a grand gesture. Sometimes it's sitting down uninvited next to someone who looks like they need a friend more than they need a tutor. That experience reinforced something I believe deeply: when you create space for someone to feel capable, you change more than their grades—you change how they see themselves. **Creating Connection** Parnassus Prep is a small school, but small doesn't automatically mean close-knit. When I arrived freshman year, I noticed that students clustered tightly in established friend groups, and newer or quieter students often went unnoticed. That bothered me, especially as someone whose family has moved more than once and who knows firsthand what it feels like to be on the outside of a community looking in. During my sophomore year, I helped organize an informal "Skills Swap" event where students taught each other things they were passionate about—coding basics, drawing techniques, cooking recipes, even a short lesson on African drumming rhythms I'd grown up learning from my father. The idea was simple: everyone has something worth teaching, and teaching creates connection. The event drew about forty students. More importantly, it drew students who had never really spoken before. A quiet junior who had been coding in isolation ended up spending two hours with a group of freshmen who were fascinated. A student who'd struggled socially all semester lit up while teaching origami to her peers. I didn't set out to "fix" anything. I just wanted to create a space where people could show up as themselves and feel valued for it. What I witnessed was that connection doesn't require much—it requires someone willing to set up the first table and say, "Come share something." The willingness to initiate is itself an act of love for your community, and one I try to practice daily.

My name is Tony Simpeh, and I'm a senior at Parnassus Prep in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. I'm heading to the University of Minnesota this fall to pursue a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics—a path I chose because I want to build technology that directly improves people's lives. Throughout high school, I've worked to be someone who doesn't just succeed academically but gives back to the communities that have shaped me. My extracurricular involvement has been central to who I am. As a Student Senate Senator since my freshman year, I've had the privilege of representing my peers in decisions that affect our school and community. I've learned that advocacy isn't just about speaking loudly—it's about listening carefully and translating what you hear into action. I've pushed for mental health resources, helped organize community service initiatives, and worked to make our school more inclusive for students from all backgrounds. Alongside Senate, I play varsity volleyball, where I've learned that showing up consistently—even on hard days—matters as much as individual talent. Outside of school, I use my passion for 3D modeling and design not just as a creative outlet but as a way to work through problems that matter. I've prototyped ideas for accessibility devices, exploring how engineering can reach people who are often underserved by expensive medical technology. It's given me a concrete sense of what's possible when ambition is matched with technical skill and social purpose. The adversity I've faced has come from navigating a world where students who look like me often have to work harder to be seen as belonging in STEM spaces. There were moments in rigorous classes where I felt the weight of low expectations from others, and moments where I questioned whether engineering was a path meant for someone like me. What got me through wasn't pretending those feelings didn't exist—it was choosing to show up anyway. I leaned on mentors, worked through the doubt, and let my results speak. Earning a 3.78 GPA while maintaining all of my extracurricular commitments is something I'm genuinely proud of, not because it proves something to others, but because it reflects the discipline I've built inside myself. I plan to make a positive impact through biomedical engineering—specifically through the design of low-cost adaptive and assistive devices that make quality healthcare more equitable. I believe that where you're born shouldn't determine the quality of the medical tools available to you. My career goal is to close that gap, one device at a time. Valerie Rabb clearly understood that belief: that investing in a student is one of the most powerful things an adult can do. This scholarship honors her legacy, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to carry it forward.

Before I ever understood what biomedical engineering was, I understood Mr. Harris. He was my junior-year STEM teacher at Parnassus Prep, and the way he ran his classroom changed how I think about problems, people, and myself. Most teachers teach subjects. Mr. Harris taught us how to question them. On the first day of class, he put a broken motor on the desk and said: "Before you can fix something, you need to understand why it broke." That line lodged itself into my brain and hasn't left. It's the principle I now bring to everything—from volleyball strategy to my 3D modeling projects to the way I approach conversations that feel impossible. What made Mr. Harris different was his willingness to be honest about failure. He would bring in his own failed prototypes, blueprints that didn't work, ideas he abandoned. He'd walk us through what went wrong not to show weakness, but to show us that failure is information. That reframe was radical to me. I was a student who had always measured my worth in grades and outcomes, and here was an adult I respected who was showing me that the process had as much value as the result. There was a semester project where we had to design a device to solve a real-world problem. I chose to work on an accessibility tool—a low-cost prosthetic grip aid—because I'd seen how expensive adaptive devices are and wanted to apply what I was learning to something meaningful. The first three versions failed. Not in small ways—they structurally fell apart. Mr. Harris never let me feel defeated. He would ask one question after each failure: "What did this version teach you?" By version four, I had internalized something that engineering textbooks can explain but can't teach: iteration is the method, not the exception. That project shaped my plan to study Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota this fall. The connection between design, biology, and human impact is exactly what I want to spend my career exploring. I want to build things that change real lives—devices that help people move, sense, and heal. And I can trace that ambition directly back to a broken motor on a desk and a teacher who trusted us to figure out why it stopped working. Mr. Harris also noticed me in ways that mattered outside the classroom. When I was going through a difficult stretch personally and my focus was slipping, he pulled me aside not to scold me but to ask what was going on. He never made me feel like a problem to manage. He made me feel like a person worth investing in. That kind of attention from a teacher—that belief that a student's whole self matters, not just their test scores—is something I carry into every room I walk into now. The lesson I learned from Mr. Harris isn't a formula or a framework. It's a disposition: stay curious, embrace the breakdown, and treat every person as a problem worth genuinely understanding. That's the influence I bring into everything I do, and it started in his classroom.

Growing up in a single-parent household in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I learned early on that resilience isn't just a word—it's a way of life. My mother raised me on her own, working multiple jobs to make sure I had everything I needed while somehow still making time to show up to my volleyball games and school events. Watching her navigate life's challenges with grace and determination gave me the blueprint I try to follow every day. As a senior at Parnassus Prep, I've spent years channeling the work ethic I inherited from my mother into everything I pursue. I carry a 3.78 GPA, serve as a Student Senate Senator, play varsity volleyball, and spend hours teaching myself 3D modeling in my spare time. None of this happened by accident—it happened because I grew up understanding that no one was going to hand me anything, and that the path to opportunity runs through preparation and persistence. The realization that changed me most came during my sophomore year, when I was working on a 3D design project and hit a wall. Every iteration I built collapsed or failed some structural test I ran. For weeks I kept starting over, and each failure felt heavier because I knew how much my mother had sacrificed to give me access to the tools and education I needed. I remember sitting at my desk late one night, genuinely thinking about quitting—not just the project, but the idea that engineering was something meant for me. Then I thought about my mother. She never quits. She can't afford to. And neither can I. I redesigned the project from scratch, this time embracing the failure as data instead of defeat. When it finally worked, the accomplishment didn't just feel like a technical win—it felt like proof that the values she instilled in me were actually working. I understood for the first time that struggle isn't an obstacle to achievement; it's part of the process. That shift in mindset opened up everything for me. I stopped seeing setbacks as signs I didn't belong and started seeing them as problems to engineer my way through. This fall, I'm heading to the University of Minnesota to pursue a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics. It's an ambitious path, and I won't pretend I'm not anxious about the financial side of it. My mother has done everything she can to prepare me, but the cost of a university education is real, and scholarships like this one make the difference between a student who gets to focus on learning and one who is constantly stressed about how to pay for it. I'm not applying for this scholarship because my upbringing was tragic—I'm applying because it made me exactly who I am. Growing up as the child of a single parent taught me independence, gratitude, and the courage to keep building even when things fall apart. I carry that with me into every classroom, every design challenge, and every goal I set. I hope to carry it into a career in biomedical engineering where I can create devices and systems that help people who, like my mother, face hard circumstances with strength they don't always get credit for.

Graduating with an engineering degree is expensive. Graduating with two engineering degrees — in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics simultaneously — is a different level of expensive entirely. I've known since my first year at the University of Minnesota that managing the financial reality of higher education would require as much strategy as managing the academic one. My approach to student loan debt has three pillars: minimize what I borrow, maximize my earning potential, and start with intention before the first payment is due. On minimizing borrowing: I've been strategic throughout my undergraduate career about pursuing grants, scholarships, and work opportunities to reduce how much I need to finance through loans. Scholarship applications like this one are not incidental — they're a core part of how I manage my education financially. Every award I receive is debt I don't take on. I've also worked part-time through significant portions of my degree, taking on roles that fit around my academic schedule so that I'm contributing to my costs rather than deferring everything to post-graduation. Student Senate, while primarily a service commitment, also carries a stipend that has offset some expenses. On earning potential: Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics are fields with strong labor markets. The combination positions me for roles in medical device development, assistive technology, and advanced manufacturing — sectors that continue to grow and that compensate skilled engineers competitively. My career plan is not just aspirational; it's financially grounded. I've researched starting salaries in the fields I'm targeting. I know what it will take to build a repayment plan that doesn't push debt management into my forties. That kind of long-range financial thinking is something many students aren't taught, and I've had to learn it myself. On beginning with intention: I'm graduating in 2026, and I've already begun modeling what my debt-to-income ratio will look like in my first years of employment. I've looked into income-driven repayment options, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program if I end up working in nonprofit health technology, and refinancing options for private loans once I have a stable income. I also plan to put any signing bonuses or early-career performance bonuses directly toward my principal balance before building other savings — an aggressive early-payoff strategy that compound interest math strongly favors. What I want to emphasize, because it matters in the context of this scholarship, is that being a BIPOC student in a high-cost technical degree program carries a specific financial burden that compound over time. Representation is growing in engineering, but the wealth gap that makes student debt disproportionately harder for Black and Brown students to carry hasn't closed. Scholarships like the Ruthie Brown Scholarship are not just financial instruments — they're structural interventions that help close that gap one student at a time. I'm applying because I've done the work to deserve it, and because the support would make a direct difference in how I enter the next phase of my life: with momentum rather than burden, building rather than catching up.

My thing is volleyball. I know — not what you were expecting. I'm a 6-foot-something Black male engineering student from Minnesota. The assumption most people make when they find out I play a sport is that it involves a hoop. And look, I have nothing against basketball. But volleyball is where I ended up, and it turns out it fits me better than any other sport I tried. There's something that happens when you tell people you play volleyball. A pause. A slight recalibration. Then usually a version of "Oh, that's different" or "How'd you get into that?" I've heard it so many times that I've started to enjoy the moment. It's a small window into how people carry assumptions without realizing it — and a reminder that one of the most interesting things you can do is show up somewhere unexpected and be good at it. Volleyball sharpened me in ways that engineering school reinforced later. The sport is fast and communicative. You have about half a second to read the play and respond — there's no time for ego or hesitation. You have to trust your teammates completely, call the ball, and commit. When I walked into my first group engineering lab and realized the same dynamics applied — read fast, communicate clearly, know your role, trust the people around you — it felt like something I'd been training for. What also makes me stand out, and what I think connects to the spirit of Charles B. Brazelton's legacy, is that I've chosen to spend my college years being present in spaces where presence itself is a statement. I'm one of very few Black men in my dual engineering program. I've been a Student Senate Senator since 2022, often the youngest voice in rooms making decisions that affect thousands of students. I do 3D modeling as a creative practice that bleeds into my engineering projects. None of these things individually are unusual — but together, they make a combination that people don't often expect. Charles was a swimmer in a world that assumes tall Black men belong on a basketball court. I'm a volleyball player studying Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics who builds things in 3D modeling software and argues for student rights in Senate chambers. We're both just doing the thing that actually fits us, not the thing that was assumed of us. I think that's what the people who loved Charles want to carry forward — not a specific sport or a specific path, but the spirit of someone who showed up as himself and was remarkable at it. That's what I'm trying to do every day. Graduating in 2026, heading into a career in assistive technology and biomedical device design, I'm still that kid who picked volleyball and meant it. The unexpected choice, it turns out, is usually the right one.

Why should we consider you for this scholarship? Please write about your academic accomplishments, extracurricular activities, and anything else you would consider noteworthy to us. I am Tony Simpeh, a graduating senior at the University of Minnesota pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics — two fields that I believe, together, form one of the most meaningful combinations available to an engineer in this era. I graduate in 2026 with a 3.78 GPA, and I write this essay not to recite credentials but to explain what that number represents and where the work behind it is meant to go. Academically, my journey has been shaped by a commitment to rigor and relevance. A dual engineering degree is not a conventional path. It requires depth in two distinct disciplines — the biology and physics of living systems in Biomedical Engineering, and the integration of mechanical, electrical, and software systems in Mechatronics — while maintaining the continuity to graduate on time. I chose this combination intentionally because the devices I want to build at the intersection of these fields don't exist in one department alone. Assistive technology, prosthetics, adaptive robotics — these are problems that require you to fluently move between biological reasoning and electromechanical design. My academic record reflects my commitment to becoming someone who can do exactly that. Beyond coursework, I have developed hands-on skills in 3D modeling and prototyping, electromechanical systems design, and engineering analysis. My senior capstone project brought these together, challenging me to translate theoretical principles into a working prototype — an experience that sharpened not just my technical skills but my ability to think as a builder rather than only as a student. My extracurricular life has been equally formative. Since 2022, I have served as a Student Senate Senator at the University of Minnesota — a role I have held through my final year in 2026. The Senate represents the student body in matters of university policy, resource allocation, and institutional governance. My work has focused on advocating for first-generation college students, pushing for expanded mental health resources, and ensuring that financial aid policies are both accessible and clearly communicated to students who need them most. This role demanded a different kind of precision than engineering — the ability to understand the intersection of policy and human need, to translate a peer's frustration into actionable institutional change, and to stay engaged through the long, incremental work of governance. I also play on the university volleyball team, which has given me an understanding of collaboration, resilience, and accountability that no classroom fully replicates. Athletics taught me how to compete and perform under pressure, how to support teammates who are struggling, and how to maintain focus when the margin for error is thin. These are skills I carry directly into engineering work: a complex group project, a lab that isn't producing results, a Senate debate that's going nowhere — the habits volleyball built are the habits I need. What I consider most noteworthy is not any single accomplishment but the coherence of the path I'm on. Every choice — the dual degree, the Senate seat, the athletics, the engineering focus on assistive technology — reflects the same underlying conviction: that the purpose of education is not self-advancement alone, but the development of the capability to build things that matter for other people. The medical devices and adaptive systems I plan to design after graduation are not abstract career goals. They are commitments to people who currently live without access to technology that could restore their mobility, independence, or quality of life. I come from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, raised by a family that understood education as a form of dignity and a mechanism for expanding possibility. That upbringing gave me my work ethic and my sense of obligation. The University of Minnesota gave me the tools. What I'm asking of scholarships like this one is the continued ability to stay focused on the finish line — to complete my degree, begin my career, and do the work I came here to do. I believe the Christian Fitness Association General Scholarship is designed for students who are not just academically capable but purpose-driven — students who want to contribute something meaningful when they finish. I hope this essay has made clear that I am one of those students. I am grateful for your consideration. Financially, college has not been without difficulty. Scholarships like this one make a direct difference in whether students like me can remain fully focused on our studies or must take on additional work that fragments our time and energy. Every dollar that comes from a scholarship rather than from stress is a dollar that goes directly back into the quality of my work — my research, my projects, my service. I am applying because I need this support and because I intend to use it well.

Faith, for me, has always been tied to the people who believed in something before there was evidence to support it — who bet on a future that hadn't arrived yet. My mother was that person in my life. She believed in my education before I had any grades to show, before I had a major, before I knew what I wanted to build. She believed in it the way people believe in things that matter deeply to them: quietly, consistently, and without requiring proof. That kind of faith shaped everything. Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I didn't have a map for the path I'm now walking. No one in my immediate family had navigated a dual engineering degree. No one had been a Student Senate Senator at a large research university. No one had worked on biomedical engineering projects or studied Mechatronics. But my mother made it clear, through example rather than instruction, that education was the foundation — the thing that opened doors and gave you options. She sacrificed for it. She didn't let uncertainty become an excuse to stop reaching. That faith became my inheritance. That belief — in education as transformation, in effort as a form of dignity — is what has carried me through five years at the University of Minnesota. I've maintained a 3.78 GPA while managing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics. I've served as a Student Senate Senator since 2022, advocating for students who, like me, are navigating higher education without a blueprint. There were semesters when the financial pressure of college, the complexity of the coursework, and the weight of Senate responsibilities converged. In those moments, I came back to a simple principle my mother modeled: show up, do the work, and trust that the investment is worth it. Beyond my family, I have been pushed by the underrepresented students I've met on campus — the first-generation students, the students of color in engineering who are few in number but fierce in presence. Watching them persist, watching them build something out of limited resources and limited representation, renewed my own commitment every time I felt it wavering. Service became a form of faith for me too: belief that what you do for others creates ripple effects beyond what you can see. Patricia Lindsey Jackson's encouragement of her children to pursue excellence in education reflects exactly the kind of inheritance I received from my own family — not wealth or connections, but a standard, a conviction, a set of values that made education feel like both a privilege and a responsibility. That is what drives me. That is what I carry into every lab session, every Senate meeting, every design challenge. As I approach graduation in 2026, I carry that faith forward — into a career designing assistive medical technology, into communities I hope to serve, into a future I was raised to believe I had every right to build.

1. What trade are you pursuing and why are you passionate about it? I am pursuing Mechatronics as part of a dual degree alongside Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Mechatronics is the integration of mechanical systems, electrical engineering, and computer controls — the foundation behind robotic systems, automated manufacturing, and assistive medical devices. It is, at its core, a skilled trade: it requires precision, problem-solving under physical constraints, and the ability to translate an idea into a working system using your hands and your mind together. I became passionate about Mechatronics because it bridges the gap between design and reality. In my coursework, I've learned to program PLCs, wire control systems, fabricate components using CNC equipment, and debug electromechanical assemblies. These are hands-on, repeatable skills that industry depends on. The engineers who keep manufacturing plants running, who maintain robotic surgical systems, who design and service prosthetic limbs — these are skilled workers, and Mechatronics is the foundation of that work. That's exactly where I want to operate. 2. What are your future plans after your trade education? After graduating in 2026, I plan to work in biomedical device development and assistive technology. I want to design and develop systems that serve people with physical disabilities — mobility aids, prosthetic components, and adaptive interfaces. Mechatronics is central to this path because the devices I want to build require precisely the integration of mechanics, electronics, and software that this field trains you to master. Longer term, I hope to be part of teams that bring affordable assistive devices to underserved communities — people who need adaptive technology but can't access it due to cost or availability. The skilled trades give you the tools to make things real, not just conceptual, and I believe that hands-on technical expertise is what separates engineers who design on paper from engineers who actually change lives. 3. Describe a time in your life when you overcame adversity. How did you work through it? Pursuing a dual degree in two demanding technical fields while serving as a Student Senate Senator is not a small undertaking. There were semesters — particularly in my junior year — when the coursework, the Senate responsibilities, and the financial pressure of college all collided at once. I was managing a heavy load of engineering courses, attending committee meetings, advocating for my peers, and trying to maintain a GPA that would keep doors open after graduation. The way I worked through it was by refusing to treat any one of these obligations as optional. I didn't cut corners in the lab or skip Senate meetings because things got hard. Instead, I got more organized, more deliberate with my time, and more honest with myself about what I needed. I leaned on teammates, professors, and mentors. I asked for help when I was stuck instead of struggling silently. That experience taught me something about skilled work: mastery isn't just about what you know — it's about your ability to stay functional under pressure, troubleshoot when things break, and keep going when the work is harder than you expected. That's what the trades demand. It's also what I've been building in myself.

There was a moment during my sophomore year at the University of Minnesota when I was sitting in a lecture hall for a thermodynamics exam, surrounded by nearly two hundred students. I looked around the room and counted the Black men I could see. There were three of us — in a room of two hundred. That moment didn't crush me. But it clarified something I had been circling around since I arrived on campus: that I was navigating spaces not originally designed with me in mind, and that the path I was walking had very few footprints ahead of me. That realization was a kind of challenge — not the dramatic, singular kind, but the slow, persistent kind that accumulates over time and tests not just your ability but your sense of belonging. Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I learned early that being a Black male in a predominantly white environment meant developing a particular kind of endurance. You learn to carry yourself in ways that absorb scrutiny without internalizing it. You learn that being exceptional is not optional — it is the baseline you set for yourself because the margin for error feels thinner. These are lessons my family passed down not through formal instruction but through example: through watching people I loved work twice as hard for the same opportunities, and still choose to show up fully. My mother, in particular, modeled what it looks like to keep going when the path isn't clear. She raised my siblings and me with limited margin — financially, logistically — and still emphasized education as the foundation of everything. The expectation in our home was never just that I would graduate, but that I would mean something when I got there. That weight, which I carried into college, became a source of purpose rather than pressure. In that thermodynamics lecture hall, I made a decision. I committed not just to succeeding personally, but to doing so visibly — so that the next Black engineering student who walks into that room sees at least one more person who looks like them. I became a Student Senate Senator that year, a position I've held through 2026. I used that platform to advocate for first-generation students, for students of color, and for more equitable financial and academic support structures. I chose to study Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics — fields that demand precision and creativity — and I earned a 3.78 GPA not to prove a point to anyone else, but to prove to myself that the standard I held wasn't aspirational; it was real. My upbringing taught me that being underrepresented in a room doesn't mean you don't belong in it. It means you carry more responsibility when you're there — to excel, to advocate, and to leave the door wider for the people behind you. Every time I've been the only one, or one of three, I've had to make a choice about what that means. I've consistently chosen to let it mean something constructive. As I move toward graduation and into a career in biomedical engineering and assistive technology design, I carry that choice with me. I want to build medical devices and adaptive systems that serve communities often overlooked by the health technology sector. I want to bring the same commitment to access and equity that shaped my college experience into the work I do as an engineer. Marie J. Lamerique raised three sons with determination, faith in their potential, and a refusal to let circumstances define their limits. That story is not unfamiliar to me. It's the story I was raised inside of, and it is the reason I am still here — still building, still reaching, still showing up.

Service, for me, is not a résumé line. It's a posture I adopted early and have never put down. I grew up understanding that community is something you maintain — not something that maintains itself. That understanding shaped every decision I've made in college. As a Student Senate Senator at the University of Minnesota, serving since 2022 and continuing through my final year in 2026, I have spent four years translating the concerns of my peers into institutional action. I've sat in committee rooms arguing for better mental health resources, more equitable financial aid policies, and stronger support structures for first-generation students. These weren't abstract policy discussions — they were conversations about real people navigating real difficulties. Being their voice, and following through, is the most direct form of service I know. That sense of duty also extends onto the volleyball court. Sports build culture, and culture shapes people. When I show up with consistency and commitment — keeping the team accountable, lifting teammates who are struggling, staying composed under pressure — I'm practicing a kind of leadership that doesn't require a title. It's the everyday work of making the people around you better. My academic path deepens this commitment. I'm pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, with a 3.78 GPA and a graduation date of 2026. These are not fields I chose for earning potential alone — I chose them because I want to build things that heal people. I want to design assistive technologies that restore mobility to those who've lost it. I want to engineer prosthetics and adaptive devices that give independence back to individuals who live with physical limitations. Engineering, done right, is a form of service delivered at scale. But I also know that impact doesn't wait for a diploma. My senior capstone project connects biomechanical engineering principles to real assistive technology design challenges. My Senate work has given me a window into how systems either serve or fail the people who depend on them — and how to push those systems toward better outcomes. My three-dimensional modeling practice allows me to prototype ideas, translate concepts into tangible forms, and build solutions that others can interact with. Mrs. Makins' legacy — rooted in education, faith, and commitment to community — resonates with the path I'm on. Her life demonstrated that service isn't episodic; it's woven into who you are day by day. That's the example I try to follow. When I enter the workforce, I plan to carry this ethic into environments where it's needed most: underserved medical settings, community health initiatives, and organizations developing accessible technology for people with disabilities. I want to be the kind of engineer who builds with the community, not just for it — someone who listens first, designs second, and stays engaged long enough to see the real-world outcome. Service is what I do. It is also, more importantly, who I am becoming — and engineering is the mechanism through which I plan to do the most good.

The question of how to make a positive impact on the world used to feel abstract to me. Now, in my final year of a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, it feels precise. The most direct answer is this: I want to design systems that help people move more freely. Mechatronics — the intersection of mechanical engineering, electronics, and software — is a discipline that sits at the heart of prosthetics, rehabilitation robotics, and assistive technologies. These are not niche applications. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live with mobility impairments that affect their independence, their employment, their sense of dignity. The gap between what current technology can provide and what those people actually need is still enormous. I intend to spend my career working in that gap. But the impact I want to make is not purely technical. I have served as a senator in my university's Student Senate since my first year, representing students in policy conversations that affect their academic experience, their mental health resources, and their sense of belonging on campus. What I have learned from that work is that the most durable changes happen when people who are directly affected by a problem are also involved in designing the solution. I carry that belief into engineering. Good design requires listening — to clinicians, to patients, to caregivers, to the communities that will use a technology in their daily lives. This is also why volunteering and community engagement matter to me beyond simply building a resume. The issues I care about — accessibility, equity in healthcare, the underrepresentation of Black students in STEM — are not problems I can solve alone or solve through engineering alone. They require sustained relationships, ongoing presence, and a willingness to show up consistently in communities rather than just for them. My plan for positive impact is not a single project or a single moment. It is a career built on the conviction that engineering is a form of care. A well-designed prosthetic limb gives someone back the ability to carry their child, cook a meal, return to work. A well-designed academic policy gives a first-generation student the support they need to stay enrolled and finish their degree. These are not grand gestures. They are the accumulated effects of people who chose to apply their skills to problems that matter. I plan to make a positive impact by doing that work — methodically, collaboratively, and for a long time.

Going to college has meant something different to me at every stage of the process. When I first enrolled at the University of Minnesota, it meant possibility — a chance to pursue Biomedical Engineering, a field that combines medicine and technology in ways that genuinely excite me. Now, in my final year pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics, it means something more specific: proving that the ambition I started with can actually be built into something real. I grew up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and I came to college knowing that students who look like me are underrepresented in engineering. That awareness has shaped how I've moved through my education. I didn't just want to attend college — I wanted to be present, to contribute, to make myself impossible to overlook. That's part of why I ran for Student Senate as a first-year student and have served as a senator every year since. I wanted to be at tables where decisions are made, not just in classrooms where I was being prepared to sit at those tables someday. What I am trying to accomplish is difficult to sum up in a single sentence because it operates at multiple levels. In the near term, I am completing a dual degree with a 3.78 GPA and preparing to enter a field — biomedical engineering and robotics — where my work can directly improve people's lives. The convergence of mechanical systems and medical applications is one of the most meaningful frontiers in modern technology. I want to contribute to it. But I am also trying to accomplish something harder to measure. I play volleyball, I spend time on 3D modeling and design projects, I serve in student government. I am trying to be a full person, not a narrow specialist. I believe that the best engineers are people who understand complexity, who can communicate across different worlds, who have built themselves through varied experience. College has given me the structure to pursue that kind of breadth without losing focus. What going to college means to me now, after four years of it, is this: it means that the gap between where I started and where I want to go is closeable. It is not guaranteed to close. But college has given me the tools, the discipline, and the community to make it possible. I am not the same person who walked into the University of Minnesota as a freshman. The version of me finishing this degree is more capable, more self-aware, and more clear about what I want to build. That transformation is what college is supposed to do — and I am grateful, every single day, that I got to experience it.

Selected Passage — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV, Section 3 (translated by George Long): "Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else but the good ordering of the mind." Marcus Aurelius opens this passage with a deceptively familiar observation: people want to escape. They want the countryside, the shore, the mountain air. The emperor — who himself had access to any retreat in the Roman world — acknowledges that he has felt this impulse too. In doing so, he performs an act of honest self-examination before correcting the premise entirely. The desire for an external retreat, he concludes, is not a mark of wisdom but of ordinariness. The passage's central argument unfolds from this inversion: the retreat worth seeking is inward, not outward, and it is available to anyone at any moment. The phrase "it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose" is the pivot on which the entire argument turns. Aurelius is writing in the Stoic tradition, and this phrase activates one of that tradition's core distinctions: the difference between what is up to us and what is not. The countryside, the shore, the mountain — these require permission, wealth, time, health, favorable weather. They are conditional freedoms. The retreat into one's own soul requires none of these things. It is unconditional. The emperor writing these words governed an empire under near-constant military pressure, dealing with plague and political conspiracy. His argument is not theoretical; it is the record of a practice he actually performed. The phrase "good ordering of the mind" is also worth close attention. Aurelius does not define tranquility as the absence of disturbance but as the presence of a specific internal arrangement. This is a crucial distinction. A life without conflict is not what he is recommending — he plainly lived a life full of conflict. What he is recommending is that the mind be organized around the right things, so that conflict passes over it without disordering it. Tranquility, in this reading, is not a state you achieve by changing your circumstances. It is a state you maintain by having correctly understood what matters. There is also a subtle critique embedded in the passage's opening lines. The people seeking retreats in the country and at the shore are described as "the most common sort of men." Aurelius does not say they are wrong to rest or to enjoy nature. He says that believing such external retreats are necessary for inner peace is ordinary thinking — unexamined, unreflective. The Meditations as a whole are addressed to himself, not to an audience, which makes this critique more interesting. He is not lecturing others about their shallowness. He is reminding himself not to fall into the same easy error. What Aurelius is ultimately describing is a form of portable sovereignty — the ability to govern oneself regardless of external conditions. As a student of engineering and systems thinking, I find this passage resonant in an unexpected way. Complex systems fail not because of dramatic external shocks alone, but because they lack internal stability. A well-designed system maintains equilibrium under load. Aurelius is describing the human equivalent: a self whose order does not depend on the conditions around it. The retreat into one's own soul is, in systems terms, a return to baseline. It does not require peace to achieve peace. It requires, as he says, the right thoughts already in place — ready to be looked at. This is a demanding idea and an honest one. Aurelius does not promise that the inward retreat is easy. He promises only that it is always available, and that it works better than any alternative. That combination of accessibility and rigor is what makes this short passage, written in a private journal by a man under enormous external pressure, still immediately useful nearly two thousand years later.

Challenge Name: "The Real Connection Test" Here's the premise: Love Island has always been about attraction, but the show rarely tests whether two people can actually sustain a real conversation when the pressure is on. "The Real Connection Test" changes that. How it works: Each couple is separated and placed in identical rooms with no phones, no music, and no outside distractions. They're each given the same list of 10 questions — ranging from lighthearted ("What's your most embarrassing habit?") to genuinely revealing ("What's something you've never told anyone in the villa?"). They write out their answers independently, timed at 90 seconds per question. Then the host reads their answers aloud side by side, in front of the full cast. The scoring works in two layers. First, the audience votes on whose answers were most authentic — not most compatible, but most honest. Second, the couples themselves vote on which pair seemed most genuinely connected based on what they heard. The couple with the most combined votes earns immunity from the next recoupling. The twist: one question on the list is a "wildcard" that neither person sees until the moment it's read aloud. It's always something specific to that couple — pulled from conversations the producers have been quietly observing all week. Maybe it's "What do you actually think your partner's biggest flaw is?" or "Name one moment where you weren't fully yourself around your partner." There's no preparing for it. That's the point. What makes this challenge great for the show is that it rewards emotional intelligence over charm, which is a gap Love Island has always had. The most charismatic islander doesn't necessarily win — the most self-aware one does. It creates real drama without manufactured conflict, and it gives viewers something to talk about long after the episode ends. As someone who studies engineering and loves problem-solving, I'm drawn to systems that reveal what's actually true underneath the surface. That's what Love Island at its best does — and that's exactly what "The Real Connection Test" is designed to find.

I'll be honest: I didn't discover Sabrina Carpenter the way most fans did. I wasn't watching "Girl Meets World" religiously or following her Disney era closely. I found her the way a lot of college students found her — through a study playlist, at 1 a.m., deep into a problem set that refused to cooperate. "Espresso" came on shuffle, and suddenly the frustration of debugging a circuit simulation didn't feel quite so heavy. That might sound like a small thing, but as a Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics student at the University of Minnesota, the late nights are real and frequent. The gap between who you want to become and where you are right now can feel enormous. Sabrina's music has this quality I didn't expect — it's confident without being arrogant, self-aware without being self-pitying. Songs like "Please Please Please" and "Nonsense" are playful on the surface, but underneath there's a real clarity about who she is and what she wants. That kind of groundedness is something I've had to consciously work to develop. What's impressed me most about Sabrina Carpenter is watching how she's grown into her identity as an artist. She started young, in a system that tends to flatten people into whatever sells, and she carved out a voice that is genuinely her own. The Short n' Sweet era felt like the culmination of someone who had spent years quietly building something without needing anyone to validate it along the way. As someone in my final year of a dual degree — constantly navigating pressure to pick a lane, to specialize, to be one thing — that kind of artistic confidence is genuinely inspiring. I serve as a senator in my university's Student Senate, I play volleyball, and I spend a lot of time on 3D modeling for engineering projects. These pursuits don't always fit together neatly on paper. But Sabrina Carpenter has shown me that you don't have to be one-dimensional to be taken seriously. You can be funny and sharp. You can make people feel something light while still working toward something meaningful. Music doesn't solve differential equations, but it makes the process of working through them more human. Sabrina Carpenter's catalog has become part of how I push through difficult stretches of my education, and for that, I'm a genuine fan.

Option 2: The Future of Human Connection Technology has transformed virtually every dimension of modern life — the way we work, learn, communicate, and heal. As a Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics student at the University of Minnesota, I spend much of my academic life at the intersection of technology and human wellbeing. And one question I return to constantly is this: as our tools become more powerful, are we using them to bring people closer, or simply to simulate closeness while the real thing quietly disappears? I believe the answer depends entirely on intention. Technology is not inherently isolating — it is a mirror. It amplifies whatever values we bring to it. When we build systems designed to prioritize efficiency over empathy, reach over depth, or engagement metrics over genuine understanding, we erode the conditions that allow authentic human connection to flourish. But when we build with people in mind — with their loneliness, their need for recognition, their desire to belong — technology becomes one of the most powerful instruments of connection ever created. I have seen this firsthand in my work as a Student Senate Senator at the University of Minnesota. When the pandemic forced our university into a fully remote model, I watched students lose their sense of community almost overnight. The group chats and video calls that replaced in-person gatherings were functional but hollow. What students missed was not just the physical presence of others — it was the spontaneous, unrehearsed texture of real human interaction. My advocacy shifted accordingly. I pushed for hybrid programming that used technology not to replace human connection but to extend it — to bring students who might otherwise be isolated into spaces of belonging. Preserving authentic human connection in a technology-saturated world requires us to be deliberate about three things. First, we must design with intention. Engineers, designers, and developers must be held accountable for the social consequences of the systems they build. Every algorithm that prioritizes outrage over understanding is a choice — and a choice that erodes something essential. As someone who will soon be building biomedical technologies, I take this responsibility seriously. Second, we must invest in the physical and institutional infrastructure of connection. Community centers, mental health services, student organizations, and shared civic spaces are not luxuries — they are the scaffolding of belonging. Technology cannot replace them; it can only supplement them when the scaffolding is already in place. Third, and most importantly, we must practice the habits of genuine connection ourselves. Asking a real question and waiting for a real answer. Being present in a conversation rather than performing it. Showing up for people in ways that do not scale, that cannot be automated, that resist optimization. These habits are the foundation that technology, at its best, should serve. The future of human connection will be determined not only by the technology we build, but by the values we bring to building it — and by our willingness to choose depth over convenience, even when convenience is easier. I am committed to making that choice.

Mental health matters to me because I have seen what happens when it is ignored. Growing up as a Black male in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I watched peers and family members push through stress, anxiety, and grief without naming what they were experiencing. In communities like mine, mental health struggles are often carried in silence — treated as weakness rather than as a medical reality that deserves care and attention. Arriving at the University of Minnesota to pursue a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics, I quickly understood that the stakes were just as high in an academic environment. The pressures of college — particularly for students of color navigating predominantly white institutions — are significant. Isolation, imposter syndrome, and the weight of being a trailblazer take a genuine toll. I experienced these pressures firsthand and sought support through the university's counseling services. That choice transformed my academic experience and helped me recognize how many students around me were struggling without access to the same resources. That recognition drove me to act. As a Student Senate Senator at the University of Minnesota from 2022 to the present, mental health advocacy has been one of my primary commitments. I have pushed for increased counseling staff capacity to reduce the weeks-long wait times that students face when seeking help. I have advocated for culturally competent care providers who reflect the diverse backgrounds of our student body. I have supported mental health awareness programming to reduce stigma and normalize the conversation around seeking help. In budget discussions, I have repeatedly made the case that mental health infrastructure is not an optional luxury — it is a fundamental part of what a university owes its students. Beyond institutional advocacy, I create space for mental health conversations in my day-to-day interactions. I mentor younger engineering students, particularly those from underrepresented communities, and I make a point of checking in with people — not just on academics, but on how they are really doing. That kind of peer support matters just as much as formal services. Mental health is important to me because it shapes everything — academic performance, relationships, career trajectory, and quality of life. I advocate for it because the communities I care about deserve better than silence. Looking forward, I intend to carry this commitment into my career in medical device development, where I hope to contribute to technologies that make mental health support more accessible — particularly for communities that have historically been underserved. Representation in both technology and care matters enormously, and I plan to be part of that change.

Mental health is not something I grew up openly discussing. In many Black households, and certainly in the communities I have moved through, mental health struggles are often private — carried silently, managed through faith, or simply pushed aside in the interest of survival. But the silence around mental health shaped me just as much as anything spoken aloud, and understanding that silence has become one of the most important parts of who I am. Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I watched family members and peers push through stress, grief, and anxiety without naming what they were experiencing. I watched classmates disappear from school without explanation. I watched people I admired become shells of themselves because they never received support. For a long time, I did not have the language to describe what I was observing. But when I arrived at the University of Minnesota to study Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics, everything came into focus. The transition to college — particularly for a Black male in a predominantly white academic environment — was a pressure unlike anything I had prepared for. I was managing the demands of a dual degree program, navigating spaces where I was often one of very few students who looked like me, and simultaneously processing the emotional weight that comes with being a first-generation trailblazer. There were moments of profound self-doubt. Moments when the stress felt less like a challenge and more like a ceiling I did not know how to push through. I reached out for support through the university's counseling services, and that decision changed the trajectory of my college experience. What I found at those counseling sessions was not just relief — it was perspective. I began to understand how stress, isolation, and unaddressed mental health needs were silently undermining the academic performance and wellbeing of students around me, particularly students of color. That realization drove me toward advocacy. As a Student Senate Senator at the University of Minnesota from 2022 to the present, I have made mental health resource expansion one of the central pillars of my advocacy. I have pushed for increased counseling capacity, culturally competent care providers, and reduced stigma through mental health awareness programming on campus. I have sat in budget meetings and argued that mental health support is not a luxury — it is infrastructure. Every student who drops out because they could not access support, every student who underperforms because they are drowning in unaddressed anxiety, is a failure of the institution as much as it is a personal struggle. My goals for the future are deeply shaped by this understanding. As I pursue a career in biomedical engineering with a focus on medical device development, I am particularly interested in technologies that address gaps in mental health care access — wearable monitoring devices, diagnostic tools that can be deployed in under-resourced communities, and systems that reduce barriers to early intervention. Healthcare disparities in mental health are as significant as those in physical medicine, and I intend to build a career at that intersection. Mental health has taught me that vulnerability is not weakness. It has taught me that reaching out is a form of courage, and that the communities most in need of mental health support are often the least likely to receive it without someone fighting on their behalf. I am committed to being that fighter — in my professional work, in my community advocacy, and in the way I show up for the people around me.

I love math because it doesn't care about your background. It doesn't ask where you're from, what you look like, or whether anyone in your family went to college. A proof is either right or it isn't. That fairness was the first thing that drew me in, and the deeper I went, the more I found to love. Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, math was the subject that felt like solid ground. When other things were uncertain, a correctly solved equation held. That reliability became a kind of confidence — not just in class, but in how I approach problems more broadly. I'm pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, and math is the connective tissue running through everything I do. Differential equations describe how a drug disperses through tissue. Linear algebra underpins the control systems that make robotic joints move smoothly. Calculus captures the dynamic behavior of the body itself. Without math, I wouldn't just struggle in these fields — I wouldn't be able to see what I'm actually designing. But what I love most about math isn't its utility. It's the way it trains you to sit with a problem that seems impossible and keep looking for structure. There's a particular feeling that comes with working through a proof or a derivation and suddenly seeing why it has to be true — not just that it's true, but why. That moment of clarity is addictive. It's the same feeling I get when a mechatronics simulation finally converges or when a biomedical model produces a result that matches observed data. Math also taught me to be honest about my thinking. In engineering, a sloppy assumption in a calculation has real consequences. That discipline — of being precise, of checking your work, of knowing the difference between "probably right" and "verified" — shapes how I reason about everything, from sensor design to policy decisions as a Student Senate Senator. I love math because it is both a language and a lens. It lets me describe the world with precision and see patterns that aren't visible any other way. For someone who wants to build things that actually help people, that is an extraordinary gift.

Growing up as a Black student passionate about science and engineering, I learned early that representation in STEM isn't just symbolic — it shapes who believes they belong and who gets to build the future. Raised in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I watched technology shape my community while too few people who looked like me were shaping technology. That gap became my motivation. I'm completing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, where I've maintained a 3.78 GPA. My path into STEM wasn't paved for me — I built it. I chose biomedical engineering because it sits at the intersection of two things I care deeply about: human health and creative problem-solving. And mechatronics — the integration of mechanical, electrical, and software systems — gave me a toolkit to actually design solutions rather than just study them. Together, these fields push me to think about the body as a system and engineering as a form of service. Service is something I've pursued deliberately. As a University of Minnesota Student Senate Senator since 2022, I've represented students on academic policy, advocated for equitable resources, and worked to ensure that underrepresented students — including those in STEM — have a voice in the decisions that shape their education. I've seen firsthand how access to funding, lab space, and mentorship determines outcomes. That experience taught me that engineering problems and equity problems often share the same root: systems that weren't designed with everyone in mind. Beyond policy, I've channeled my creativity into 3D modeling and animation — using design tools to bridge engineering visualization and accessible communication. These skills have opened conversations with younger students who see STEM as abstract or out of reach. When you can show someone a complex concept rendered in a way that suddenly clicks, that's mentorship in its most direct form. Competitive varsity volleyball has been another teacher. It demands discipline, communication, and resilience under pressure — qualities that transfer directly to engineering team projects and research. Every season reinforced that individual excellence and collective success aren't opposites; they're both requirements. My dual degree at the University of Minnesota is preparing me for graduate research and a career focused on medical device development and assistive technology. I'm particularly interested in building devices that address persistent gaps in healthcare outcomes for Black communities — whether that's prosthetics designed with broader anthropometric datasets, diagnostic tools calibrated for melanin-rich skin, or rehabilitation systems accessible beyond major hospital networks. Representation in who builds health technology directly shapes whether that technology works for everyone. This scholarship would meaningfully reduce the financial weight of my final year and allow me to invest fully in my capstone project and graduate school applications. But beyond finances, it would affirm something I've believed since I first saw that gap between who was in STEM and who should be: that Black engineers who understand both the technical and human dimensions of their field are exactly what this industry needs. I'm not just pursuing a degree. I'm building the expertise to close gaps I've seen my whole life — one design, one policy, one student at a time.

There is a moment in Taylor Swift's Eras Tour performance of "All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)" that I keep coming back to, no matter how many times I've watched the footage. The lights dim. The crowd of tens of thousands goes eerily quiet. And then she begins. What makes that performance so moving isn't just the song itself — although the emotional depth of a ten-minute ballad about loss and memory is already extraordinary. It's the way Swift commands complete silence in a stadium full of people and then fills it with something raw and unfiltered. She isn't performing in the detached, polished way we often see from pop stars at that scale. She is, in every visible sense, living inside the song. As a student who has poured everything into engineering and science, I spend most of my days in the language of numbers and systems. Music, and especially Taylor's music, has always been my counterbalance — the space where emotion is allowed to be messy and unresolved. The "All Too Well" performance hit me differently because it captures something I rarely let myself sit with: the idea that caring deeply about something, even when it doesn't work out, is still worth it. The grief in that song is treated not as weakness but as evidence of a full, felt life. The Eras Tour itself is a testament to Swift's refusal to leave any version of herself behind. She built a show that honored every chapter of her artistic life, which resonated with me as someone at the edge of a major transition — graduating and stepping into a career that will look nothing like anything I've done before. Watching her hold every era simultaneously, without apology, made me feel that I could do the same. But it's that singular moment with the red scarf, the ten minutes, and the hush of 70,000 people that I return to. It reminds me why art matters: not because it solves problems, but because it makes you feel less alone inside them.

Growing up Black in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I learned early that the path I wanted to walk did not always have a clear trail. When I told people I wanted to study Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics, some raised an eyebrow. Not because the dream was too small — but because it seemed too large for someone who looked like me, from a place like mine. That tension — between the world's limited imagination and my own unbounded one — has shaped everything about how I approach education and my future. I am a senior at a high school in Brooklyn Park, maintaining a 3.78 GPA while playing varsity volleyball for four years, serving on Student Senate, building 3D models and animations, and competing in robotics. On paper, those lines might look like a list of activities. But each one tells a deeper story about how I have learned to navigate challenge, build community, and grow into the kind of person who refuses to shrink. Volleyball taught me more about perseverance than any classroom could. There were seasons when we lost more than we won, when my own performance fell short of what I knew I was capable of. I had to learn that growth is not linear — that you can work your hardest and still come up short, and that the only failure is walking away. I carried that lesson into academics. During my junior year, balancing a rigorous course load with extracurriculars, I struggled to keep every plate spinning. Instead of giving up, I got organized, asked for help when I needed it, and pushed through. My GPA reflects not just intelligence, but the discipline I built through years of showing up even when it was hard. Being a Black student with deep interest in STEM in a field that has historically excluded people like me is its own kind of challenge. When I walk into advanced engineering or science spaces, I am often the only person in the room who looks like me. That experience could be discouraging — and sometimes it is. But I have come to see it as clarifying. It reminds me exactly why I need to be there, and why I need to stay. Representation is not just symbolic; it is structural. When young Black and Brown students see engineers and scientists who look like them, they begin to imagine themselves in those roles. I want to be that image for the next generation. My passion for Biomedical Engineering is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: technology should serve everyone, not just those who can afford the best hospitals or who live near the best medical centers. Growing up in Brooklyn Park, I saw how access to quality healthcare was not evenly distributed. I watched families navigate systems that were not designed with them in mind. I want to help design the systems that are. Whether it is developing more accessible prosthetics, engineering diagnostic tools for under-resourced clinics, or creating mechatronic systems that reduce the burden of physical disability — I want my career to close gaps rather than widen them. My interest in 3D modeling and animation has given me a creative lens through which to approach engineering problems. I do not just see structures and circuits — I visualize how they move, how they feel, how a person will interact with them. That spatial and aesthetic sensitivity is something I believe will make me a better engineer and inventor. Robotics has given me a space to prototype those instincts, turning ideas into physical systems that work in the real world. Education has not just given me information — it has given me a way of thinking. The University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering is where I plan to take these passions to the next level. I chose it not just for its academic reputation, but because of its access and its commitment to students from all backgrounds. Being able to pursue this dream close to home — in a state where I have already built community — matters. I want to serve Minnesota, and I want Minnesota to see what its students from Brooklyn Park are capable of. I am not naive about the road ahead. Graduate school, research, the professional world — these spaces will bring new challenges. But I have spent four years learning how to meet difficulty with discipline and creativity. I know how to fall behind and catch up. I know how to stand in a room where I do not fully belong and make it a room where I do. I know how to care about something enough to pursue it even when no one else expects me to succeed. Education has not just shaped my goals — it has given me a foundation sturdy enough to build them on. Every class, every teammate, every late night studying and every early morning practice has convinced me of one thing: the future I am building is worth fighting for. This scholarship would help me stay focused on that fight, and remind me that the world is, in fact, rooting for me. I dream big. I intend to rise higher.

As a Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics student at the University of Minnesota, I've come to understand calculus not just as a course requirement, but as the fundamental language through which the physical world becomes quantifiable. Every meaningful problem I've encountered in STEM — from modeling the mechanics of a prosthetic limb to understanding signal processing in sensor systems — traces its roots back to calculus. At its core, STEM is about understanding change: how diseases spread, how bridges bear loads, how neural signals propagate, how a robotic joint adjusts to terrain. Calculus is precisely the mathematics of change. Derivatives let us describe rates — how fast a drug dissipates in the bloodstream, how quickly a robot's actuator must respond, how stress propagates through a material under load. Integrals let us accumulate — total displacement, total energy, the area under a pressure-time curve. Without these tools, STEM fields would be limited to static snapshots of a dynamic world. In Biomedical Engineering specifically, calculus underpins almost everything. Pharmacokinetic models that determine drug dosing rely on differential equations. Biomechanical analyses of joint forces — like those I perform when modeling prosthetic devices — require integration to compute work and energy. The Fourier transforms used to analyze EEG and ECG signals are built entirely on calculus. When I design a mechatronic system with feedback control, the PID controller that maintains stability is a direct application of proportional, integral, and derivative relationships — calculus made physical. Beyond the technical, calculus teaches a way of thinking that's invaluable in STEM careers. The discipline of limits and infinitesimals trains engineers and scientists to ask: what happens at the boundary? What occurs in the extreme case? This kind of rigorous, boundary-testing thinking is exactly what produces safe bridges, effective medications, and reliable software. Calculus demands precision — you can't approximate your way through a differential equation when lives depend on the answer. I've also seen how calculus serves as a gateway to more advanced STEM mathematics. Linear algebra, probability theory, numerical methods, and machine learning all rest on calculus foundations. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to STEM — from genomic analysis to autonomous prosthetics — the gradient descent algorithms that power neural networks are fundamentally calculus-based optimization. Students who shortchange their calculus education find themselves hitting walls at precisely the moments when STEM fields are most exciting. There's also a broader equity dimension worth naming. Calculus has historically functioned as a gatekeeping mechanism, concentrated in well-resourced schools and positioned as the dividing line between STEM-capable and not. As someone who grew up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota — a community where many students don't have access to AP Calculus or strong math instruction — I've seen talented people filtered out of STEM pathways not because of their capacity, but because of their access. Making calculus education equitable and accessible is itself a STEM priority, because the field needs diverse thinkers to solve diverse problems. Calculus is important in STEM not just because it is used, but because it fundamentally shapes how STEM thinkers approach the world — quantitatively, rigorously, and always asking how things change. In a field dedicated to understanding and improving the world, that's not merely a skill. It's a necessity.

The moment I understood what biomedical engineering actually was, I knew I had found my purpose. I was in a high school science class, learning about prosthetic limb technology, when I realized that the gap between what was possible and what most people could actually afford was enormous. A state-of-the-art powered prosthetic limb can cost $70,000 or more. For most families in communities like mine in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, that number is not just expensive — it is impossible. I remember thinking: someone needs to fix this. It took me a while to understand that someone could be me. I am currently pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, maintaining a 3.78 GPA. My academic focus is on the design of assistive devices that combine mechanical precision with biological sensitivity — technology that restores function and dignity to people whose lives have been altered by injury or illness. My long-term goal is to build affordable prosthetic systems for underserved communities, particularly those where access to cutting-edge medical technology has historically been determined by zip code and income rather than need. The impact I hope to make is both technical and systemic. On the technical side, I want to contribute to the research and development of lower-cost prosthetic components using advanced manufacturing methods like 3D printing and modular design. On the systemic side, I want to demonstrate through my career that engineering can be a vehicle for equity — that the people who design our medical systems should reflect, understand, and be accountable to the communities those systems are meant to serve. Getting to this point has not been without adversity. As a Black male in an engineering program at a predominantly white institution, I have frequently been one of very few students who looked like me in any given room. That experience — the quiet pressure to represent, to prove, to persist — is something many minority STEM students carry without it ever being acknowledged. There were moments in my first year when I questioned whether I belonged. There were courses where I struggled and had to seek help, which required setting aside pride and asking for support that sometimes felt hard to access. I pushed through, not just because I wanted a degree, but because I understood that my presence in these spaces matters — and that the students who come after me deserve to see the door already open. I have also navigated the financial realities of being a first-generation college student from a community with limited resources. Every semester requires balance: academic rigor, part-time work, and family responsibilities that many of my peers do not carry. This experience has shaped my engineering philosophy as much as any course I have taken. Real-world constraints — cost, accessibility, cultural context — are not obstacles to good design. They are the design challenge. My interest in STEM is not abstract. It comes from a specific place, a specific community, and a specific conviction that engineering done well can change the conditions of people's lives. I intend to spend my career proving that is true.

When I was growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I did not see many people who looked like me working in engineering. I did not see Black engineers on television, in my neighborhood, or in my family. What I did see was a community that faced real, structural problems — barriers to healthcare, limited access to opportunity, and families navigating financial strain without the tools or technology that could make life easier. That gap — between the technology that exists and the people who can actually access it — is why I chose STEM, and why I am committed to spending my career closing it. I am currently a dual-degree student in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota, maintaining a 3.78 GPA. My focus is on assistive technology — specifically, developing prosthetic and rehabilitation devices that are both high-performing and genuinely affordable. Today, a powered prosthetic limb can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $70,000. For most families — especially Black and Brown families who are disproportionately impacted by amputation-related conditions like diabetes — that price tag is simply out of reach. I want to engineer a different outcome. My goal after graduation is to pursue a graduate degree in biomedical device development and ultimately launch a social enterprise that designs lower-cost assistive technology specifically for underserved communities. I have seen firsthand what happens when people cannot access the tools they need: reduced mobility, lost independence, and compounding disadvantage. Engineering can change that, but only if the people designing the technology are thinking about the people who have historically been left out of it. STEM gave me a language for solving problems I could see clearly but did not yet have the tools to fix. And my community has taught me that the work of a degree does not end at graduation — it begins there. In Brooklyn Park, I have volunteered with youth mentorship programs that connect Black and Brown students to STEM pathways. I have tutored peers in physics and calculus, not because it was required, but because I know what it feels like to be the only person in the room who looks like you — and how much it matters to have someone show you the door. Every student I helped understand a concept they had given up on reminded me of the stakes: when we lose talented young people from STEM because they lacked support or could not picture themselves in it, we all lose. Black students earn roughly 7% of all STEM degrees. That number is a failure of access, not of potential. The Stephan L. Daniels Lift As We Climb Scholarship represents exactly the kind of investment that changes that statistic — one student at a time, one community at a time. I am pursuing STEM because the world I want to live in requires engineers who are driven by equity, not just efficiency. And I am committed to using my degree to lift as I climb — designing technology that reaches the people who need it most, and opening doors behind me so that the next generation of Black engineers does not have to walk the path alone. We have the capability to build a more equitable world through science and engineering. I intend to be part of building it.

Growing up in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, I learned early that opportunity is not equally distributed. As a Black male pursuing a dual degree in Biomedical Engineering and Mechatronics at the University of Minnesota — with a 3.78 GPA — I have dedicated my academic career to closing one of the most painful gaps I know exists: access to affordable, functional assistive technology for underserved communities. My professional goal is to develop prosthetic and rehabilitation devices that are both high-performing and affordable enough to reach the people who need them most. Today, powered prosthetic limbs can cost upwards of $70,000 — a figure that puts life-changing technology out of reach for most families, particularly communities of color. I intend to change that. After completing my undergraduate degree, I plan to pursue graduate studies in biomedical device development, with a long-term vision of launching a social enterprise that bridges the gap between cutting-edge engineering and real-world accessibility. My academic goals are grounded in a belief I have held since I first encountered engineering: that technology must serve humanity, not just those who can afford it. I have maintained a 3.78 GPA while navigating the demands of a dual engineering program because I understand that excellence in my field is non-negotiable when lives depend on the devices I will one day design. Giving back has never been separate from my identity — it has always been central to it. In Brooklyn Park, I have volunteered with youth mentorship programs that connect Black and Brown students to STEM pathways, knowing that representation in engineering begins with exposure. Seeing a face that looks like yours doing something extraordinary makes the extraordinary feel possible. I have also tutored peers in physics and calculus — both because I believe knowledge multiplies when shared, and because I understand that many talented students face barriers I have been fortunate to navigate with support. Every student I helped understand a concept they had previously given up on reminded me why engineering education matters beyond the classroom. These experiences transformed how I understand my purpose. Mentoring young people pushed me to see that my work does not begin when I graduate — it begins now, with every conversation I have with a young person who believes engineering is not meant for them. Volunteering in my community made me more attuned to the real-world consequences of the technologies I study. When I work on prosthetics in a lab, I no longer see only equations — I see people. The Sunshine Legall Scholarship would provide more than financial support. It would affirm what my community has always told me: that underrepresented voices belong at the table where innovation happens. I am committed to proving, through both academic achievement and community impact, that those who have been told the table was not built for them are exactly the people who should be building it. I will graduate from the University of Minnesota not just as an engineer, but as a son of Brooklyn Park — shaped by a community that gave me purpose, and determined to give that purpose back to the world.