A fantastic process in nature is the exchange of gasses between plants, fungi, and animals. I am fascinated by mushrooms and learned a lot about mycology to study them. Equipment such as a laminar flow cabinet for sterile air, used in sample transferring, to pressure cookers for sterilizing growing medium has filled my basement. After learning all of the ins and outs of using sterile techniques, I was able to build a wall of various species of oyster mushrooms that also vary in color. Pink oysters followed by golden oysters, shades of blue oysters filling the rows above the former, and lions mane, the pom-pom-looking mushrooms, filled the bottom row. The lifecycle of the mushroom is vital for other lifeforms to thrive. If fungi hadn't come into existence, none of the organic materials would decay and give back to the soil for new organisms to thrive. Mushrooms also require oxygen and give off carbon dioxide, which gets used by the plants where the carbon dioxide is used and returned as oxygen to the atmosphere. Some fungi even help plants gather nutrients with their mycelium web stretching for great lengths. These mycelium webs are the equivalent to roots for plants. Nature has this way of recycling that humans can learn how to follow. In turn, we would help nature's cycle to continue, slowing the progress of unusable land. Possibly even learning how to become self-sustainable and not go too far into the industrial products that pollute the world from their manufacturing process. An example would be recycling your own soil without using a product such as peat moss, which releases a considerable amount of carbon to our atmosphere when dug up and processed.

Math was my favorite subject in school. It's comical how I wanted to be a computer scientist until the day I took a chemistry class in high school. The thing that changed my mind to become a chemist is that the math portion is fun to complete and the resulting experiments have real results that one can measure. The career path I have chosen favors mathematics and the use of measurements is important. I believe math is important as it is a subject that doesn't change based on discovery. I actually enjoy reading about how some mathematics was formed way back when. Matter of fact, Logic has a role in the discovery of the fundamental math that was shaped first. Trigonometry was hard to understand, in my case, but learning the history helped me get through the class. I find it impossible to fathom how these mathematicians discovered the truths of mathematics. My second favorite subject, that I found in college, is philosophy and ethics. The incorporation of logic and mathematics allows us to converse with others in a non-opinionated way. For example, arguing that 2 + 2 = 4 is much more concrete than arguing the true meaning of happiness. I enjoy that mathematics is objective as opposed to personal opinions which are subjective. Another thing that I love about math is that it can be used for theoretical science and even future events. Economics uses math to predict how markets will be affected by choices made in a firm. They also use them to find the best production output based on the limited resources that are owned. An example would be when a company makes two objects that share similar resources. They graph the number of products they can make with variations between them to determine which output would maximize production. With mathematics and induction, economists came up with a law called Law Of Demand which states: price and quantity demanded are inverses of each other. When prices rise, demand lowers (for an elastic demand curve). There are exceptions such as necessities like housing, medications, and more... My favorite use of math, besides economics, is for chemistry purposes. It is useful to know how much reactant you will need to produce a specified amount of product. I enjoy the fact that chemistry uses an array of mathematical formulas for many different tasks. There are exponential formulas to determine the ph of objects from titration. Constants like Avogadro's number, like how pi is to geometry, allow us to determine the number of molecules in a sample of a given mass and compound. This scholarship will allow me to pursue my passion for chemistry and hopefully allow me to discover new math proofs and formulas. I plan on using my mycology knowledge in a combination of chemistry to pursue new medications and cure any diseases that will be prevalent. Who knows, maybe there's a magical number that will allow the best applications of future medications (per drug).

Watching people around me deteriorate to disease and illness is heart-wrenching. I wanted to be a computer scientist until I had taken a chemistry class in high school. Instead of focusing on making new technology for everyday use, I have decided to learn about modifying chemicals to create new medications. My dream is to create new medications to cure any illnesses the future will have for us. I think it would be a good idea if I could incorporate the computer skills I have with my chemistry skills to increase the effectiveness of production. Which in turn would make it easier to provide the world with the medications everyone should be entitled to.