I'm drawn to Electrical and Computer Engineering because I believe access to computers and the internet has become one of the most important forms of opportunity in the world today. Being able to afford a working machine and a connection to learn from is no longer a luxury; it's the foundation for almost everything. That conviction is what pulls me toward this field. I've come to see how much a person's path can be shaped by having the right tools for learning, and I want to be one of the people building those tools. Part of what excites me is how quickly the field is changing, especially with the rise of AI. I won't pretend AI doesn't carry real risks, particularly in how people learn and what they outsource. But I've also watched it shrink the gap between someone who knows almost nothing about a subject and someone who is an expert. Things that once felt impossible without a personal teacher or expensive tutoring are now within reach for everyone. Everyone can have a fairer chance to learn and grow, and that possibility is exactly the kind of problem I want to spend my life working on. What I love most about this field is that there is always something to learn and always something to build. New problems appear faster than we can solve the old ones, and instead of finding that overwhelming, I find it thrilling. Computer engineering has given me a reason to keep exploring, to keep teaching myself, and to keep up with a world that refuses to slow down. It's the challenge and the thrill of it that make me certain this is the right path for me. The impact I hope to make grows directly out of that belief. I don't want to build products designed to break quickly or to push people into buying the next version they don't need. I want to design technology that is reliable, durable, and genuinely useful, the kind of thing that lowers the barrier to entry instead of raising it. If I can help create devices and systems that are affordable and built to last, then I can help make sure that the people who are most often left out of technological progress are included in it instead. That ambition has been shaped by my own circumstances. Life hasn't been easy. There is still so much I don't know, and there have been many times when I couldn't afford a better computer, the paid program, or the tools that would have let me work more efficiently. Watching others move faster simply because they had more resources was difficult, and I've had to work part-time every summer just to keep up and help pay for school. But rather than discouraging me, those limitations gave me my purpose. They are the reason I care so deeply about building products that don't depend on having money to begin with. I know what it feels like to be on the wrong side of that gap, and I want to close it. Electrical and Computer Engineering isn't just a degree to me. It's the discipline that turned my own disadvantages into the clearest reason I have to keep learning.

To dream, soar, crash and rise again. Entrepreneurship embodies the idea that I can dream something and then actually build it into reality. To me there is something incredible about the thought of leading a company from the ground up and watching an idea I once held in my head become real. But the longer I've spent in college, the more I've realized that the dream itself isn't the only thing that drives me. What truly excites me is the people. Learning how to train and raise up teammates, guiding them through obstacles, and coming out the other side successful together has been one of the most rewarding feelings I've found. It's what makes me want to take on hard challenges and push against the status quo instead of settling into it. Entrepreneurship, to me, is a discipline that forces me to question everything. It doesn't let me accept that things have to be the way they are, and in doing so it makes me stronger, sharper, and more resilient. Utilizing this mindset is exactly why I chose to pursue it as an additional major in Entrepreneurship, Design, and Innovation alongside my Electrical and Computer Engineering degree at Carnegie Mellon University. My background isn't one of wealth, and I've worked part-time every summer to grow my experience and to help pay for school. That reality shaped my ambition of not wanting to build successful companies, I want to build systems and designs that are accessible to everyone, not only to the people who can afford them. I've tried to prioritize entrepreneurship throughout college by approaching it from every angle I could. I've interned at venture capital firms to understand how investors evaluate companies and how that perspective differs from the experience of actually founding a startup myself. I've attended the McGinnis Venture Competition to watch how real founders think, pitch, and carry their projects forward, learning from the way they handle pressure and uncertainty. I've gone to make-a-thons and hack-a-thons to practice generating and prototyping ideas that could one day become startups of my own. Each of these experiences taught me something different, and together they've given me a fuller picture of what it actually takes to bring a venture to life. What I love about entrepreneurship is that its limits are endless. There's always another problem to solve, another person to learn from, another idea to chase. Pursuing it has helped me grow and connect with people on a scale that I don't think a traditional engineering path alone would have offered me. Engineering taught me how to build; entrepreneurship taught me why it matters and who it's for. Combining the two is how I want to spend my career, creating technology that genuinely helps people while lifting up the teams and communities around me. That is the climb I've committed to, and every competition, internship, and late night spent learning and building towards a dream has been worth it.