My undergraduate studies in architecture gave me a passion for sustainable development. I believe that sustainability must be the primary objective for designers and planners to counteract the climate crisis and that it should inform all other aspects of design. I hope to use my planning degree to better understand how issues of sustainability, accessibility, and diversity are connected. A mentor of mine once described sustainable development as being like a fitted sheet. As you attempt to solve one problem, it is imperative that you find a way to consider several others at the same time while considering how your current actions affect them. I hope to better develop my ability to understand how the solution to one problem (i.e. reducing carbon emissions, improving public transport, etc.) affects other issues like gentrification, increased density, and economic stimulus. My architecture education helped me develop a sense of this on an individual building scale, but I hope to expand this knowledge and apply it to cities as a whole. Ultimately, no solution is sustainable unless it creates positive change environmentally, socially, and economically. I want to create high density developments, improve public transportation, and develop more green spaces in cities. Overall, my goal professionally is to make cities more desirable places to live. I want to design and implement solutions to improve cities in all aspects and help solve the climate crisis as much as I can. In addition to my Architecture major, I chose to minor in Sustainable Cities. I learned how cities develop over time and how to push that development in a more sustainable direction. I also learned that cities are the key to climate change. Since the vast majority of people in the world live in urban areas, making those areas as carbon neutral as possible, or even carbon positive, allows us to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Furthermore, encouraging migration to cities reduces emissions related to transportation as people are living closer together. However, cities are not currently as sustainable as they need to be to mitigate climate change and are actually the source of a huge majority of the world’s carbon emissions. As part of the Sustainable Cities Studio, I helped to create a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report for the City of Atlanta coupled with recommendations on how to improve emissions moving forward. Specifically, I worked on the Green Spaces team and learned how carbon sequestration can be used as a tool to counteract emissions. I also learned that prioritizing native biodiversity allows for green spaces to have lower maintenance costs and fewer emissions. Through that I learned how sustainable development works in a more practical sense. As a research assistant in the Re-Wind Network, I learned the importance of reuse and innovation in the effort to reduce waste. Furthermore, my Architecture studies and my professional theatre work helped me learn how to see multiple design questions as facets of one overarching problem and that for every answer, one must consider how it affects other questions.

My favorite hobby is theatre. When I finished high school, I was afraid that I would have to give it up forever because I imagined that in college I simply would not have the time to keep up with it. Honestly, I was half right. I do not have the time to spend working on productions. However, I refused to let that stop me. Since I started college, I have spent a huge amount of time that I don't have working on theatrical productions, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I used to exclusively be an actor, but I've actually branched out into set and costume design and construction since starting college. This has been even more fulfilling than being and actor which is a big surprise to young me. She could never imagine me working on a show without being in it. I love having the skills and ability to take an image in my head and make it real on a stage. I love working with other people to make all of our visions real together. As well as gaining creative fulfillment through my theatre pursuits, I've found most of my friends through doing productions. Had I given up theatre after high school, I probably would not have any friends now. I love being able to spend my free time with my friends while we all do something that we love. It is a great way to form deep, long lasting relationships with people. Before I started doing theatre, I was incredibly shy. I could barely speak to new people as a child. However, the more often I got on a stage and allowed myself to act like an absolute fool, the less I worried what people thought of me. I truly think that if I had never started doing theatre, my life would be much different, and much worse, than it is because of theatre.

I consider myself a particularly creative person. After high school, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to be as creative during college. The main thing I did with my free time back then was theatre. Even though I was majoring in Architecture, I imagined I wouldn't have the time to follow my true creative passions ever again. I could not have been more wrong. Since high school, I spend more time than ever engaging in my creative passions. Not only have I continued my work as an actor, I've also expanded my interests to include set design and costume design. I've also developed a love for drawing, painting, and collage through my academics. I've even taken up knitting and crocheting as a new hobby. These do not even include the creative thinking I have to use every day in fields that would traditionally not be considered creative fields.

I have no idea how to justify my love for dogs. I love them all with my whole heart and soul, and, yet, I struggle to explain why. There's the obvious cuteness factor that certainly helps their case, but that doesn't explain why I also love ugly dogs. Frankly, I think loving dogs is a default setting, and people who don't love them should have to justify themselves. In what world can you see a dog with its floppy ears and smiling face and feel overwhelmed by love? However, I will do my best to explain why I love dogs so much as I think they deserve it. Dogs are truly one of the best parts of this thing we call life. They are a force for companionship and loyalty that we don't see often. People are capable of corruption and evil. Dogs are not. They're innocents in this world. Dogs are so capable to be content with their lives with their people and their toys. I envy that. There have been times in my life where I've felt like I have to do more or be more because otherwise I have failed. Dogs don't feel that. They just want to hang out with their people and rip the squeaker out of a toy. There is a lot to be learned from this. They can teach us to appreciate the world around us. We are so lucky to live in a world with people we love. How much more can a person need in life? My dog Capo is the best dog in the world. I know everyone thinks that about their dog, but they're wrong. I'm right. She's a chihuahua/terrier mix of some sort, we're not entirely sure. Her favorite game is chasing the leaves on the ground as they blow in the wind. I think it's obvious to say that Fall is her favorite season. She's constantly smiling and constantly making everyone around her smile. It's impossible to look at her and feel anything other than happiness. When I come home she moves her tiny little body to the door as fast as she possibly can to greet me, often skidding on the floor as she fails to stop soon enough. I can count on her licking my face and hands as I try to take off my shoes at the front door. Even on my worst days, she makes me smile.

In the age of smartphones, everyone has a graphing computer in their pocket at all times, so why would they need to know how to calculate an integral? They can Google the answer in the same amount of time it would take to solve it by hand. Does this mean we should stop teaching calculus in school? Absolutely not. Being able to calculate an integral is not the most important reason students learn calculus. When students learn calculus, they learn how to think. Let's face it, in many STEM fields people have very little need to use the computational skills they learned in calculus class. Either they use a calculator or computer program to solve the problems for them, or the opportunity to use these skills just rarely comes up. However, every single day, these people are using the critical thinking and problem solving skills that they developed by learning calculus. They have mastered the skills to solve problems logically and methodically. They have learned not to panic when faced with a problem they don't know how to solve. These are critically important skills in every single STEM field whether you are designing a bridge, performing heart surgery, or solving differential equations. Calculus also teaches people how to learn. Difficult subjects are a hugely effective way to spot holes in your study strategies. For example, when I took calculus, it showed me that I was not actually taking good notes in my classes. There were often holes where I was not paying attention or missed writing something down. In my easier classes, I had never noticed. In fact, I had never looked back at my notes to study them at all. It showed me the processes my brain preferred to learn new information, and allowed me to see where I had been letting myself down. Calculus made me a much better student both in and out of the classroom. In all fields, constant learning is a must to reach your full potential. However, this is especially prevalent in STEM fields which are ruled by curiosity. Without a constant ability to learn by all STEM workers, the field would stagnate. Often times throughout my career in school, I have had peers complain to me about having to take subjects that are not directly related to their discipline. Calculus was the complaint I heard most often. I have even been guilty of this myself at times. However, when I hear this complaint, even from myself, I think about all the times in which I've been a better student and person because I took calculus.

My mom loves to tell the story of the first time she fed me rice as a baby. According to her, I screwed up my face and immediately spit it all out. I hated it. Now, as an adult, rice is one of my favorite foods. Admittedly, I don't remember that happening. I was a tiny baby. However, it does speak to the most important lesson I've learned in my life: it's important to try new things. Throughout my life, there have been many times when I've been reluctant to try something new. I tend to be a person who thrives on routine and is scared to take risks, but when, halfway through my junior year, I realized I hated my major, I had to try a collection of new things to avoid a life of misery. I knew it was probably too late to change my major without spending an extra two or three years on my Bachelor's degree, so I decided I was going to have to go to graduate school. First, I decided to try my hand at theatrical design. I knew I loved theatre, and I knew I had the skills to design sets or costumes with minimal training. I had a great time, but I realized arts didn't feel like my calling. I went back to the drawing board. I made a list of other subjects I was interested in. The biggest was sustainability. That's great, except that I always thought I hated math, and that there was no way I could work in a STEM based field. I decided to try it anyway. I used the carpentry and design skills I picked up doing theatre to join a research group on campus looking for ways to repurpose decommissioned wind turbine blades into structural members for civil infrastructure. I assumed I was in way over my head. However, as I learned more about the subject, I realized that I was not only capable of doing the work, but passionate about it. After this, I added a minor to my degree in Sustainable Cities. I took several classes about how to improve city infrastructure to make them more sustainable. Now, I'm planning to get my Master's in City Planning after I graduate. Around this time was when my research advisor approached me to ask if I would want to help launch a start up based off of this research. At first, I thought there was no way I could possibly be interested in this. Not only did I not know anything about business, I didn't really care, but I learned my lesson from the other times I tried new things in spite of myself. I hesitantly accepted the offer. Now, months later, I've been spending all my free time learning how to run a business and applying to programs that guide founders in how to start a business, and I'm loving it! I've finally found something that I want to do for the rest of my life. If I hadn't been willing to try new things and push myself outside my comfort zone, I never would have found this opportunity. I would probably still be trudging towards a life I would hate simply because it was what I knew. Now, I'm much less afraid to try new things; they usually work out for the better.