As a next generation student, I find it easy to identify myself as someone who can change the future. As someone who loves science, and can use my knowledge and study to find ways for our next generation to live on a healthier and habitable planet. Majoring in geology would allow me to learn how each individual can help our environment become more habitable. As our earth changes as we grow, it is important to recognize issues and solutions surrounding our planet. As a geologist, I would study changes such as temperature and sea level rises, carbon emissions from sources such as fossil fuel from electricity or industrial use, transportation and more- all which allow me to identify the sources that contribute to climate change and find solutions to prevent them. I am the second child to Filipino parents, to my mother who graduated in Manila with a bachelors degree in English and a father who only had the opportunity to graduate high school. My grandfather sees education as such an important accomplishment in my family as he left school early to take care of his siblings. My grandparents, (my father’s parents) were sent from the Philippines to Hawaii as Hawaii at the time were in need of workers when my father and his siblings were children. My grandmother worked at the Dole Plantation and moved onto working in the Marriott Hotels while my grandpa found a job as a construction worker, building some of the state’s older hotels and the train track at Pearl Ridge Mall. Neither of them continued school, but my father and his siblings were able to go school in an environment unlike my grandpa’s. Currently, my mother works at the Four Points hotel and my dad works as a truck driver for Recology. They both provide the best life for my sister and I and I’m extremely thankful for the life they have given us. My parents who are extremely hard working had to halt my sister’s education as they had a hard time funding my sister’s tuition. It has been a few years since my sister has not been in school, but my parents are trying again, trying their best to find ways to pay my education at Pacific Lutheran University. To my mother, seeing a promising future in the field I want to pursue is one of her dreams as well as mine, and seeing me pursing school with financial help will make her journey with my tuition much easier.