I am a college freshman now, but three years ago, in high school, I joined the engineering academy at my school, and I believe it has helped shape who I am today. Being in this academy sparked a great interest in me to pursue a career in engineering because I found the passion it had gifted me. Throughout my three years in the academy, I got to work with many fields within engineering, like electrical engineering, working with circuits, soldering, CAD, laser cutting/engraving, CNC machines, and woodworking, which were my favorites, and I used power tools and machinery while also making accurate measurements and, most importantly, demonstrating safety throughout it all. Doing all of this gave me a wide view of how many different fields there could be in engineering, and I love the fact that I can do many things in one career. During my senior year, we got the most requests for projects where my instructor assigned me as the leader because he believed I could get things done on time and efficiently, and to this day, I appreciate the push and challenge he always gave me in a male-led field. Through these requested projects, I got to give back to my community, which I truly loved. Some of my favorite projects included a mini library for preschoolers at my school and multiple plant boxes for the gardening club in my school as well. I loved seeing their faces light up with what I have been working so hard on alongside my teammates. Any struggle during the project always paid off at the end, and I hope to keep this mentality for the many projects I will continue to complete. I plan on working for my community and the environment around me. Making sure I keep all people, animals, and nature is essential to me. I get excited knowing that one day, God willing, all this work will pay off, but in a much more advanced manner. I plan to make people's dreams come true, and every day is a step closer to accomplishing that. One day, I remember my team and I were working on a project: 3D printing Snoopies with different costumes and decorations for all the different seasons. Later that day, I was in a car accident, hit by a drunk driver who fled the scene shortly after the collision. I went to the hospital that night for X-rays and MRI's and spent hours waiting for an answer to come out. I continued to go to physical therapy after the accident and missed days of school because of my injuries. I would consider this moment one of the biggest adversities I have overcome so far. Close to an adversity I got through when I was young. My father's body was failing him one night. I remember standing behind my mom, afraid of the tall and intimidating first responders in my living room transporting my dad onto a carrier. My father needed a transplant, but we were blessed with a miracle, and my mom was a perfect donor. It was a scary feeling, as both of my parents underwent surgery, risking both of their lives to save one. They stayed at the hospital for days after their surgery, and while my parents weren't home to take care of my older brother and I, we learned how to be independent and care for ourselves as our parents would because they won't always be there. I am so blessed to say that after all these incidents, we are all healthy and blessed to be alive.

Hello, my name is Brianna Lopez and I am a senior in high school currently on track to be a valedictorian for the class of 2026. I love to bake, cook, and I am interested in becoming an aerospace welder or engineer. I have been awarded a certification from the Society of Women Engineers from the San Buenaventura Section and I have been certified by OSHA. This was all thanks to being in my school's engineering academy for the past three years which was what sparked my interest in welding. I have had the opportunity to give back to my school through this academy in many ways. Recently I have been improving on my group work and leadership skills in collaborating with my classmates on a little library in which we made for a class similar to a preschool so the little kids could use it as they wish. We are currently making planter boxes for my school's gardening club as well. Just as I am able to give back with my work here in high school, I plan to continue doing so after high school, in college, in the workforce, and in my future career, I will always be open to giving back to my community as it costs nothing to be kind and I get to gain experience one project at a time. However, the opportunity to do so, was also taken from me. A few months ago, I was in a car accident with my dad and one of my best friends. Although it was not at our fault, it is still guilt I feel to this day. We all had injuries and although they weren't major thank God, it was the event that left us in shock. Many x-rays, MRI's, and physical therapy visits later, we are still recovering. What allowed me to overcome this adversity was the fact that God allowed us all to survive this incident. I understood that not all people who have accidents walk out of it. This was when I realized that the Lord still had a plan for me and was not done with us yet. This event allowed me to remember that I still have a purpose to fulfill and prosper in. Since my first day back to school after the accident, I felt like I was washed new. My perspective changed. I saw how fortunate I was in so many ways. Now being on route to be valedictorian, just proved to me that there are greater things the Lord has for me. I am willing to continue to work to make my Lord, my parents, and my family proud. Thank you for your time, kindness, and generosity in helping us reach our purpose. I hope to make you proud as well. God Bless.

My name is Brianna Lopez, I am a senior in high school currently on track to being a valedictorian for my class. I love to bake, cook, and I am interested in a career within engineering as I am and have been enrolled in my school's engineering academy for the past three years. I would like to go to community college for my general education and learn how to weld as I am interested in becoming a welder. I chose to attend community college first to be able to work as well to help my family financially. After my two years in community college I will look into bigger colleges or universities to grow my skills and look into aerospace welding as it has recently caught my eye. As of extracurricular actives, currently I am learning how to play the piano, I was on the robotics team my junior year, I was on the girls Flag Football team from my sophomore year to my senior year, and outside of school, I have volunteered in beach and park clean ups around my community ensuring to keep our environments clean. If I could start a charity, I believe I would be very passionate in feeding those who are less fortunate than myself. I love cooking, I believe over time it has transformed into a love language of mine. I cook pretty often as my parents are working most of the day so it is up to me during the week to cook our dinners and I truly don't mind it because it is peaceful for me to get to cook for others. I would serve anyone I could with this mission. I love sharing my food with others. I pray over each meal I hand out before and after I cook. The kind of service my volunteers would perform could be collecting or donating foods like vegetables, fruits, breads, meats, dairy, anything needed for the meals. It could also include cooking. Maybe my volunteers, after gaining experience if needed, could set up sites around the world to feed the hungry. Packaging would also be essential in making sure the food remains warm and fresh before, during, and after it has been handed out to enjoy. Lastly, handing out meals is a big part of this organization, multiple volunteers could be handing out the warm meals as quickly and efficiently as possible so it may get to whoever needs them and constantly feed all our brothers and sisters. I believe it is important to serve others as that is why God has created us, to love each other and serve them as we would serve him. I feel for those who have hard times and not enough for a warm meal or a meal at all. I pray for them every time I see one out in the streets and I pray for them at night. I believe this charity would help answer this prayer very well and as there are already some in action, this continues to prove the Lord works for the good of everyone. Thank you for your time, kindness, and generosity. God Bless.

I have made an impact on my community through leadership experience in my engineering class. I have been enrolled in the engineering academy in my high school for the past three years and I have loved it ever since. I look forward to my engineering class because I love working hands-on projects with my classmates and friends. In this class, I learned how to work efficiently in groups, something I struggled with and tried to avoid at all times thinking I could get the job done faster myself as I am very independent. However, I learned and gained experience working in groups and leading my group projects and I learned to love working alongside my friends and classmates. We create memories that we will forever cherish thinking back to this time and I hope to continue making these memories with my future classmates and coworkers. Being in this pathway has sparked an interest in welding when we worked with something similar called soldering. I have been in a male-led field being in these classes with less than four girls each year and I've grown comfortable in it thanks to this interest and passion. I show leadership when in groups whether I am assigned as the leader or we get to take it at our own pace. I always make sure everybody has a job and I make sure to include everyone in any way possible throughout the project. Through my leadership I was able to complete many projects not only in my engineering class but in other classes as well. I was able to lead my group in our most recent project which is planter's boxes in which my school's gardening club requested we build for them. The boxes are meant for them to plant anything they wish inside of them and radiate nature around my school. I was also able to make a little library that me and my group gave back to my school. I would like to impact my community further through engineering by continuing to learn and become an educated woman to serve and give back to others as best as I can. Proving to the generations after me that you can be a leader in a male-led field, prosper, and have a passion for something not many other women do. I believe through engineering, we can collaborate to make our community a better place a weld at a time. I hope to continue to give back to my community and most importantly make my family proud. Thank you for your time, kindness, and generosity in making this possible, I hope to make you proud as well.

Giving back within my community has shaped my life in changing my perspective and being grateful for everything I have no matter how small or big. Being able to give back has broadened my awareness of the circumstances others live in. This allowed me to see a different background and the new environments have given me the opportunity to give back whenever I can even if it may not be as much as I wish to give. I am blessed in my situation and I know I am very fortunate to be where I am and to have all that I do. Giving back to my community has allowed me to be more considerate towards others without expecting anything in return. I believe God has given me an able body and passion to serve others in whatever way I could. I have done community service cleaning parks and beaches and it warmed my heart at the end knowing how far my help has contributed to my planet, my community, and those that will one day come after me. I love cooking and baking so when I do, I give back to my peers and teachers at school. I believe God has gifted me with the love, ability, and the resources to be able to make any meals or treats so even with this, I try to always give back. Although I love baking and cooking, I am also passionate about engineering. I am enrolled in an engineering academy at my high school and have been for the past 3 years. This pathway has allowed me the access to learn and get hands-on experiences within the field which has interested me into a future in welding and engineering in general. Following this interest in engineering, I have been able to visit places of work within the field for example, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory which I thought was really cool and HAAS Automation which inspired me and gave me the opportunity to further see myself in this field. My engineering class has taught me how to work efficiently in groups, something I once had trouble with but working with my classmates and friends are some memories we will all cherish and I hope to continue making more memories like these with future classmates and coworkers. One of my favorite things to do in this class are hands-on projects. Recently, we have built a little library that we decided as a group to give back to what my school calls "The little Vikes" which is a class similar to a preschool with little kids. Currently, we are working on planter boxes requested by our gardening club where they will be able to plant whatever they wish and make our campus radiate with nature. I hope to continue to give back to my school and community in any way I can as it is a great objection to why I do the things I do, a big factor in who I am today, and who I will one day grow to be. Thank you for your time, kindness, and your generosity to help me get there, I hope to make you and my family proud.

My name is Brianna Lopez and I was born and raised in Oxnard, California. A city known for its hispanic roots and culture. I am a senior in high school looking foward to following a major and career in welding and engineering. To initiate this process, I have been enrolled in an engineering academy in my high school, Hueneme High School, for 3 years now where I have been able to learn about different aspects and fields within engineering. I am OSHA certified and get lots of experience with hands on activities. In this way we have been able to give back to our community as we have built a little library for a preschool classroom within my high school and build the planter boxes for the gardening club at our school. I have grown a love for working hands on and this engineering class has given me the opportunity to grow that passion and skill. I have not only worked with wood but with 3D printing, design, soldering, breadboards, circuit boards, and robotics. Engineering has given me the ability to exploring colleges as well as places of work and manufacturers like HAAS Automation encouraging my passion in engineering. Something I have built on being in engineering has been team work. I am very independent but being in this class for 3 years has taught me how to make friendships and connections with my classmates allowing me to work in a group with ease and understanding. In fact, i’ve learned to love working with my friends as we get work done and learn from each other. The best part of it all is being allowed to have fun and create great memories we will forever cherish. My first language is spanish as my mother had made a promise with my father when I was young to set me and my brother up for a successful future by making us bilingual. With this came all the benefits and the blessing it is to be bilingual. My mother speaks to us in both Spanish and English while my father speaks to us primarily in Spanish. I will forever be grateful towards my parents for making the decision to make me and my brother bilingual. I believe there are no challenges to being bilingual because it is truly a blessing in many ways. This includes being able to speak, write, and understand two different languages at all times. Being bilingual allows me to help my community with communication when it is needed especially for the older generations who didn’t have the opportunity to learn English as I did. I am grateful to be able to help without an issue and I hope to continue working towards that and never lose the ability. Being bilingual allows a wider range of friendships and enhances social interactions. Being bilingual means keeping that connection with my ancestors and shwoing respect towards their culture. Being bilingual allows open doors in careers and job opportunities. Being bilingual means keeping that connection with my ancestors and showing respect towards their culture. Bilingual is a blessing. Thank for your time, service, and support.

My name is Brianna Lopez, and I am a 17-year-old high school senior from Oxnard, California. I am a true and easygoing student. I love to bake in my free time, and I wish to consider welding as my future career. To many, I am an overachiever, as it runs in my family, but I simply just want to make my parents proud. I am also considered too kind, for I will give generously with my eyes closed, as my dad has said multiple times, but I believe in giving back. I give back in many different ways. I give back to my parents by simple things like cleaning when they don't ask me to, being a good student, always trying my best, and lastly, by being a good person, as they have raised me to be. I truly believe we are all a representation of our last names. So whatever we do, we bring our family and ancestors with us, so it's nice to represent them in all I do. My community involvement includes volunteering for clean-ups at parks and beaches with the City of Oxnard. This is where I join others of all ages, get together early on a Saturday morning, and clean up either a beach or park for about 2 hours, and try making it as clean as possible, which I would say we do quite a job in. Clean-ups make me feel good inside, knowing I did something right for our environment, wildlife, community, and overall, our planet by slowly reducing waste in nature. My parents have always worked as hard as possible, but in this economy, even with many hours, money has sadly always been something to worry about. One of my biggest goals is to never worry about money again. I don't wanna be rich; I want my parents to never have to think about money because life is so much more than a piece of paper. I plan to work alongside my older brother as hard as my parents do to give them the well-deserved break that they need after working many years, as they never gave up, and I don't plan on doing so either. And I believe this scholarship and education after high school will guide me towards this. I keep the youth safe in my community, starting at school. I watch what I say and never speak badly about others. I have never made jokes or rumors, considering I treat others the way I want to be treated. When you grow older, you realize that perhaps not everyone will treat you nicely, just as you have done to them. Regardless, you shouldn't seek revenge or treat them any differently, but instead wish them the best and give them space. I had an experience with cyberbullying, where one of my teammates was uploaded on social media in a video clip, capturing the girl from the other team scoring. But in the comments, they were making fun of my teammate, unaware that the clip captures her season-ending injury for multiple sports in her senior year. I found this wrong, and with my other teammates, decided to message the creator and kindly ask them to take down the video. The video was still up days later with no response, so we chose to report the video. We did this multiple times for the protection of my teammate, and we will continue to do so until it is taken down.