When I was younger, I believed that every problem in my life had a single solution waiting to be found. If my love life felt empty, the right person would fill it. If I didn’t like how I looked, losing weight would fix it. Whatever felt wrong, I was sure there was one missing piece that would make everything fall into place. Olivia Rodrigo’s “The Cure” captures that belief, and the slow, painful process of letting it go, better than anything I’ve heard. The song follows someone who keeps thinking she has finally found the thing that will fix her. First it’s measuring up to the girls she compares herself to, only to find that the standard keeps shifting every time she gets close. Then it’s a relationship, a person whose love feels like it might finally quiet the bad thoughts she fights alone at night. Each time, she’s convinced this is the answer. Each time, it isn’t. That pattern is painfully familiar to me. I spent years chasing the next fix, sure that the version of me on the other side of it would finally feel whole. But reaching one goal never brought the relief I expected. There was always another thing I needed to change, another person I needed to be loved by, another standard I hadn’t met yet. Like the line in the song that keeps moving, the finish was never really there. What I love most about “The Cure” is that it doesn’t pretend the help we get from others is meaningless. The person in the song does try to help, and their love feels good, maybe even healing for a while. But the song is honest about the harder truth: no one else’s love, and no single change, can do the work for us. Hearing that said so plainly was a relief. It meant I wasn’t failing because I hadn’t found the right fix. I was struggling because I’d been looking for a fix at all. Life is more complex than one solution. The parts of me I wanted to repair were connected to how I saw myself, and that can’t be patched by a person or a number on a scale. The song’s image of feeling unraveled and asking why nothing is ever enough describes exactly how that search used to feel. The answer, I’ve slowly realized, is that nothing outside of me was ever going to be enough on its own. Learning to accept myself without first looking for something else to change has been one of the biggest challenges of my life, and I’m still working on it. Some days are easier than others. But “The Cure” reminds me that being unfinished isn’t the same as being broken. It has become an anthem for me, not because it promises a solution, but because it finally gave me permission to stop searching for one.

The good I’ve contributed to my community isn’t flashy, but it’s consistent. Most of it comes down to one belief: people in need shouldn’t have to wait for someone else to notice them. Much of my volunteer work is with a local initiative group that supports people experiencing homelessness and poverty in our area. One of the most meaningful efforts I’ve been part of was during an extreme cold front. For people without shelter, weather like that isn’t an inconvenience. It’s dangerous. Our group worked to make sure the unhoused in our community stayed fed while the temperatures were at their worst. It was hard, cold work, but it mattered. For many of the people we reached, a hot meal was one of the few comforts they had during those days. That experience showed me how much a small, organized group of people can accomplish when they decide to act instead of waiting for someone else to. I also contribute through a hobby that has turned into a way of giving back. I’m an avid couponer, and throughout the year I build up a stockpile of hygiene products and household essentials, often for very little money. At the end of each year, I donate that stock to the same initiative group, which distributes it to people who need it. What started as a way to stretch my own budget has become one of the most practical things I can offer. Items like soap, toothpaste, and canned food are easy to take for granted, but for someone struggling, they can make a real difference in daily life. Outside of organized efforts, I try to help whenever I see a need. When I have a little extra money and come across someone hungry, I buy them a meal. I don’t always have much to spare, and I can’t do it every time. But I’ve learned that waiting until I’m comfortable to help means waiting forever. My community work also connects directly to my future. I’m pursuing a degree in Geospatial Sciences and Technology because I want to use maps and data to advocate for people living in poverty, showing where needs exist and where resources are missing. The people I’ve met through volunteering are the reason I care about this work. They’ve shown me what is at stake when a community overlooks its most vulnerable members. None of what I do will solve poverty on its own. But each meal, each donation, and each hour of volunteering is a way of telling someone that they haven’t been forgotten. That’s the good I want to keep contributing, both now and through the career I’m building.

I am pursuing a degree in Geospatial Sciences and Technology because it combines work I genuinely enjoy with the chance to help people who are often overlooked. Maps shape how communities understand themselves. They show where resources are and where they’re missing, and they can turn scattered struggles into clear evidence that decision-makers can’t easily ignore. I want to use my education to map the needs of people living in poverty in the Southern US, giving those who are often unheard a voice and amplifying it with my work. My path to this degree hasn’t been a straight line. I have bipolar disorder, and it has shaped my educational journey in ways I couldn’t always control. During depressive episodes, even ordinary tasks can feel impossibly heavy. Keeping up with assignments, attending class, and staying on top of project deadlines takes far more effort than it should, and sometimes I fall behind despite my best efforts. These episodes have delayed my educational timeline, and I’ve had to accept that my path may take longer than I once planned. I also experienced a manic episode during one of my semesters, and my grades suffered because of it. Coming back from that was one of the hardest things I’ve done. Once my health was under control, I returned and worked to rebuild what I had lost, one assignment and one class at a time. That semester taught me that a setback doesn’t have to be the end of the story. What matters is that I keep coming back. Managing my disability has made me more honest with myself about what I need. I’ve learned to recognize warning signs, to ask for help, and to give myself room to recover without giving up on my goals. Perseverance, for me, doesn’t mean never struggling. It means continuing forward through the struggle. That’s also why independence means so much to me. To me, independence is being able to take care of myself and my family while managing my disability, without the constant fear that one depressive episode could leave us on the verge of homelessness or worried about having enough to eat. Right now, that security feels fragile. A difficult stretch of health can mean lost income, and lost income can quickly become a crisis. I want a life where my health doesn’t put everything I’ve built at risk. Education is how I build that stability. A degree in geospatial science opens the door to skilled, sustainable careers with better pay, more flexibility, and more reliable benefits than the work available to me now. That kind of stability would give me room to manage my health when I need to, without every hard week threatening my family’s basic needs. It would let me plan for the future instead of only bracing for the next emergency. My education will also let me do meaningful work that helps others facing the same kind of insecurity I know so well. I understand what it’s like when one setback can unravel everything, and I want to use my skills to make support easier to find for people living that reality. Independence, for me, isn’t about never needing help. It’s about having a foundation strong enough to carry me through the hard times. My education is how I’m building it.

I discovered my love for the field I am pursuing when I took a geology course for my business degree. This class gave me the confidence and love for science that I now continue to have. I am now continuing to pursue a graduate degree in Geospatial Science & Technology, which helps me learn how to make maps that show more than just locations and geographic features. Maps can look simple, but they shape how we see the world and who we see in it. A map can decide which neighborhoods get attention and which ones are left blank. It can show where resources are concentrated and where they’re missing. When I started learning how to collect, analyze, and visualize spatial data, I realized that mapping isn’t only about places. It’s about people, and about whose stories get told. That’s what drew me in. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about people who are often overlooked: those living in poverty, people without stable housing, and communities that rarely have a say in decisions that affect them. Their struggles are real, but they’re easy to ignore when no one is documenting them. Geospatial work gives me a way to change that. With the right data, I can show where people lack access to food, healthcare, transportation, or safe housing. I can turn scattered experiences into clear evidence that’s harder for decision-makers to dismiss. My goal is to give those who are often unheard a voice, and to amplify it with my maps. Being a woman in this field matters to me for the same reason. Women are still underrepresented in many areas of STEM, including geospatial science. When the people building data and maps all come from similar backgrounds, the questions they ask tend to look similar too, and certain needs go unnoticed. The questions we ask decide what we find. I want to bring a perspective that pays attention to the people at the edges of the map, and to ask questions that might otherwise go unasked. I also hope to make a difference simply by being present. Every woman who enters a field like this makes it a little easier for the next one to see herself there. If a young woman sees my work and realizes that STEM can be creative, meaningful, and centered on helping people, that’s a difference worth making. As I grow in my career, I want to support other women in the field, whether through mentoring, collaboration, or just making sure their ideas are heard. I chose geospatial science because it was fun, and that still matters to me. Enjoying the work keeps me curious and motivated. But what keeps me committed is knowing that the skills I’m building can be used for something bigger than myself. A well-made map can change how a community understands its own needs. It can help direct resources where they’re needed most. And it can make sure that people who have been overlooked finally get seen. That’s the difference I hope to make: using my skills, my perspective, and my place in this field to make sure no one is left off the map.

I have never thought of myself as someone who does anything remarkable. I do not have much money to give, and most of what I do for others is small. I have come to believe that the size of a gesture doesn’t matter as much as consistently showing up for people, even when you don’t have much yourself. For almost a year, I’ve worked as a delivery driver while going to school. The job has shown me more of my community than I’d ever seen before, at every hour of the day and night. It has also shown me how many people are struggling, and how easy it is for everyone else to look past them. I don’t want to be someone who looks past the struggles of those around me. My goal is to advocate for people living in poverty, to push for programs and policies that meet people’s real needs and treat them with dignity. I want to help change how my community responds to the people who are struggling within it, so that care becomes the expected response instead of the exception. For a long time, I thought that work would have to wait until I graduated and was in a position to make a real difference. I’ve since realized that ambition and action don’t have to happen in order. I can work toward the big change while doing the small things now. So I use what I have. Couponing is my hobby, and throughout the year I build up a stockpile of hygiene products and household basics, often for little or nothing. At the end of each year, I donate that stock to a local initiative group that distributes it to people in need. What began as a way to stretch my own budget has become one of the most useful things I can offer. It turns a skill I enjoy into something that keeps families fed and stocked with essentials. When I have a little extra money and see someone who is hungry, I buy them a meal. It’s not much, and I can’t always do it. But each time, it reminds me why I’m working toward something bigger. To me, selflessness is a habit of paying attention. It means noticing the people around me, recognizing that my own struggles don’t cancel out someone else’s, and putting whatever I have, whether that’s time, money, or a pantry full of couponed groceries, toward people who need it more. That habit is the foundation I want to build my career on. I hope that one day I’ll be in a position to make lasting change in how my community cares for its most vulnerable people. Until then, I’ll keep doing one small thing every time I can, and I’ll keep looking for ways to do more.

I live in an area where our economy is built around the refineries that pepper the region. With so many high-paying positions available, one might expect us to have better economic resilience than we do. Our poverty rate, however, is nearly twice the national rate. A problem I want to help change in my community is the lack of empathy and care toward our unhoused, impoverished, and other residents in need. I have been working as a delivery driver for almost a year now. While doing this, I have seen more of my town at all times of day than I ever have. My hope for the degree I am working on is to use it to help advocate for those in need, and I have often thought working towards this was the best I could do at this given time. My mind was changed after a particularly hard night of work. I was in a rush to pay my phone bill. It was severely past due, and I was on hour eleven of my delivery shift. I wasn't sure it could make another day without payment. Throughout the evening, to night, to morning, I drove past a man sleeping at a bus stop. I noticed something I hadn't before: it had anti-homeless benches. Each time I passed it, he was in a different position. The only thing I could do for him was bring him breakfast and a cold drink. It was extremely hot for being four in the morning, and the only place open was Starbucks, so that is where I went. I had the worker help me choose something for him: a ham & Swiss sandwich and a large iced water. When I brought it to him, his response caught me off guard. He tried to reject it. "Oh, I just had something, and I have a Gatorade somewhere in my bag," he said. I told him a white lie. I said I couldn't have this because it has meat in it, and I wasn't supposed to have meat. I insisted the water was needed because the heat was horrible, and I told him it was free anyway. He accepted it and set it down. Before I left, he told me his friend was coming to get him a phone soon, and a car. I told him that sounded great. He told me it would be a black Camaro, and that he had always wanted one. All he did after this was lie back down on the bench, squeezing his legs between the bars. When I passed him the next time, he was halfway through the sandwich. Of course I needed that money. That order alone was around ten dollars, and with how slow it had been, that was over an hour of work for me. It was an impulse and a need to not have that guilt directly on myself as I continued towards the morning. I let that experience marinate in my head up to getting home, a grand sixteen hours after I had first left the house. It stuck with me. Change doesn't have to start all at once, with everyone taking part. Sometimes the best way to get started is to make one kind gesture to one person who needs it. This is one of many events that have pushed me to work specifically with the topic of poverty in Southern America as a result. I hope to one day make a big change in my community, but until then, I'll do one small thing every time I can.

I was once told that grief is like a ball in a box with a button. When the ball is first in the box, it is huge, hitting the button constantly and wreaking havoc. Over time, it shrinks, but when it does hit the button, it feels the same as the first time. I was in high school when I first lost a loved one. It was a friend of mine, whom I had last talked to the morning he decided to end his life. For the funeral, my stepfather dropped me off and told me my mother would pick me up when it was over. I was scared, as this was the worst kind of new experience to have alone. When I went to give condolences to my friend's parents, I lost it when I saw him. One of my teachers found me sobbing in the back of the funeral home and comforted me. My mother never picked me up, so I walked home from the funeral barefoot, holding my too-small dress shoes, sobbing in the rain. I was never asked how it went or told how to deal with what I felt, so I tried my absolute best to pretend it never happened. The third year of my bachelor's program is when I lost my paternal grandparents. Two funerals within a year of each other, though so far away that it felt like a dream on the drive there. I cried, but I was so numb during this that I didn't fully process what was going on. When I walked in for my grandfather's funeral, my grandmother saw me and came running to throw her arms around me. That's all I could think of during her funeral, in the same funeral home I had been in months before for my grandfather. I did the same thing I had done for my friend to process this. On the way back, I compartmentalised what had happened the best I could. I couldn't do the same with my next experience with death. My husband's grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on a Monday, and exactly a week later, I found myself giving CPR for the first time in my life while my father-in-law did breaths. We didn't have the money to bury her like she wanted. I had trouble looking at myself in the mirror for a long time after that. It was barely two weeks later when my maternal grandfather was put into hospice. I had never hated anything in my life more than I did myself when I found myself holding back vomit when I heard his death rattles. I struggled with the swiftness and mere existence of death from then on. How was I supposed to go along each day knowing that it could always be my last? I sought answers about the point of life everywhere. I found myself in the deepest depression I had experienced in my life. It crept into my schoolwork, too. I would spend hours staring at a pile of papers I needed to review for my research, unable to touch them. In reference to the "ball in a box" metaphor, it felt like the ball wasn't just hitting the button; it was stuck on there, never giving me a break. By the end of the first semester, since my first-hand experience with death, I had barely scraped my way through with an A, something that usually felt gratifying, but this time felt suffocating. A wave of pessimism hit me like a tsunami, and I felt utterly lost with myself. On a whim, one day, a few months later, when running errands, I found myself drawn to a church I had never been to before. I hadn't gone to any church in over ten years, let alone by myself on my own volition. I still am not sure what pushed me to bring myself there out of the blue. In this church, for the first time in my entire life, I felt at peace with more than just my own existence. I felt at peace with the idea that I may not always exist. I have been working on putting myself back together since then. The most challenging thing I have faced during school has been the havoc I caused for myself when processing grief. I dropped so many classes during this time that I was disqualified from taking out student loans for my next semester, and as someone who was barely scraping by with student loans, this has been devastating. I will never give up on myself, my loved ones, or my potential. I will never give up on the hope that I will overcome this, like I overcame my fear of death. I know that no matter what happens, I will be able to handle the feelings that stem from it and move forward, even if it feels like the very first time it happened.

What I find most beautiful about math is that it isn't something that makes the world go 'round; it's how we track that it actually does. It was there long before us, and it will be there long after we are gone, even if we aren't there to do so. It is used in every avenue of every aspect of our lives—it is inescapable. We can't pretend it doesn't exist, lest we forget to divvy up our paycheck among our bills, needs, and wants every payday. While sometimes it feels like it can be out to get us, math is innately neutral, although many school children may disagree with you there. Math is everything and nothing at the same time, and arguably, there is nothing else like it. What other subject bleeds so well into every other one? One could argue language, but there are over seven-thousand known living languages in our world, and only one math. Science is worldwide, but it is inductive and can be revised when something new is discovered. History is said to be written by the victors, but math could be completely forgotten by the world, and upon rediscovery, it would follow the same rules. To put it simply, I love math because there is nothing else like it. For students who don't speak the same language as their teachers, math is often easier to transfer than other core subjects due to the concepts being consistent worldwide. It is universal, and it can track the universe.

I want to build a better life for myself and my loved ones. My ambitions stem from my abundance of need that I experienced as a youth. I grew up without a lot and without a lot of help. I had a common occurrence growing up of mispronouncing words and being made fun of for it by adults when I had only learned the word from reading books. I did not always have someone to teach me the things I needed, and I often had to rely on my intuition and what I could find in books or online. In order to build a better future for myself and my loved ones, I need to be successful. This is something that everyone measures differently, but to me, success is measured by financial stability and kindness. If I keep a kind heart and can support myself and my family, I will view myself as a success. I know this may not hold for everyone, as others may have different standards for their success, but this is mine. In order to achieve my goal of becoming successful, I am working hard at school and doing everything I can to make the connections that I may need in the future. This could be simple things like joining clubs and engaging students in classes I am in, to things like participating in research events and applying for research positions. No matter what I do, I want to always be partaking in something that will move me forward in my goal of being successful. I hope that the diligence I have and the effort I put into this are fruitful. Measuring success in my ability to help others is near and dear to my heart, because that is exactly what I needed when I was younger. I want to be able to do that for my family, friends, and loved ones.