I grew up a motivated and inspired child as my mom told me that the world is my oyster. Evolving into the individual I am today, I have found my passion to be in physics but I wanted a more practical application– thus I landed in the field of Engineering. The discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle hooked me as the uncertainty of the unknown was captivating. This itch in the brain planted a seed in my mind, sprouting into a desire to someday be one of the Engineers at CERN unraveling the mysteries of our universe on a particle level. Engineering will serve as the outlet of my curiosity– solving puzzles and mysteries with the little clues that the natural world has left us. This applies not only in the grand scheme of the makeup of the universe, but it also applies on the micro level– our communities. Often people find themselves gravitating to the Pre-Med path as that is a direct way to impact people's lives, however, I feel like people forget about the finer ways you can change a life. Engineers impact lives every single day through the very appliances we have– the computer I am typing this application on, our fridges, stoves, and many more. I, too, want to have that impact on people's lives. I want to take on the Iron Ring and promise to ethically serve the public by making our quality of life much easier, especially when it comes to environmental sustainability. I want to impact the world by working alongside other Engineers to create an eco-friendly world so that the generations after us will have a chance at life. Throughout my educational journey, I can proudly say that my heart belongs in Engineering. No matter how much I struggled in my classes, I made it out on top and my curiosity failed to dwindle with each level of classes I ascended. I write this as I am short to begin my Sophomore year with specialized upper-division Engineering classes. My experiences thus far were briefly with my school's Aeronautics and Astronautics CubeSat (Cube Satellite) team, where we successfully launched a CubeSat this summer through the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative. Working with other inspired Aerospace Engineering students made me realize how passionate I am for what they do because of observing the laws of physics in action, the math I’ve been learning in real-time application, and the work ethic to launch their dreams as high as the CubeSat. Engineering is a tough major to study, especially as a lower-income Lao American, where we never had the financial means to chase our dreams. However, I believe I will finish my degree despite all odds and add a familiar face for children to look up to– it is an honor to be part of the change.

I want to bike 17 miles. These 17 miles are crucial to my work and my contribution to humanity. I’ll bike 17 miles in a circle, a mysterious catacomb-like structure that holds four enigmatic faces. As I bike, I wonder the next time they murmur words that will reveal the bits and pieces of our story. But out of all the faces, ATLAS is one whose eyes are a window to the dark, yet important parts of our existence. Coming from an immigrant family that held outdated beliefs about women, the prophetical fantasies I envisioned about myself revolved around falling into the shadow of men. My career, autonomy, and my life fell into the hands of men around me. My father would repeat that my existence amounted to nothing over and over. It was a requiem of a dream– finding my own identity and creating a change in the world I already viewed skeptically. Despite being met with a collision that threw me into the void, I flew around endlessly with no sense of identity or passion until something pulled me into its orbit. I found myself fascinated with the inner workings of our world as I knew it, delving deep into theoretical concepts through all the books that I would throw whatever money I had at. Coming from a low-income background meant that I had to ration and use my money wisely, but the pursuit of knowledge is worth every penny: The Feynman Lectures on Physics and The Principa. Although I failed to understand the process of classical mechanics or even begin to interpret the abstract wonders that are quantum mechanics in modern physics, I never shied away from trying to comprehend Hamiltonian and Lagrangian mechanics. What came forward from this new infatuation with various laws of our existence, was the desire to live the life that these physicists and engineers have– a life of constant absorption of knowledge and gaining the opportunity to discover knowledge worth sharing. Not only was this a chance to enrich myself in what the world has to offer, but a chance to prove to my father that women can pave the way in the world. Ultimately, this dissatisfaction with not being able to understand how Richard Feynman attempted to integrate the laws of classical mechanics and apply them to quantum mechanics will erode my being. Despite the cliche blatantly writing itself, this insatiable curiosity for knowledge on the foundational structures of our universe brings me to the CERN research institute. In my lifetime, there will be someone who surpasses some of the greats: Feynman, Oppenheimer, Bohr, or Heisenberg. A visionary such as myself dreams to be one of the greats and follow the footsteps of the brilliant women physicists and engineers who came before me. Maybe no longer will the names that were listed be the only ones that most of the world knows, maybe we can call back and remember women such as Marie Curie alongside my name. I envision myself contributing to a greater cloud of knowledge that we all share, working with the largest particle accelerator in the world. Niels Bohr, inventor of the Bohr model of the atom, said “Prediction is very difficult, especially about our future.” These 17 miles to bike will not be an easy feat for me, the path to ATLAS is bumpy starting from the ground, but this is a test of my passion and ambition. One day, I would hope to see ATLAS’ face and to see exactly what it is capable of.