The room had to be at least 80 degrees. My heart pounded with a power I did not realize was possible. Frantically, my eyes scanned the textbook filled with times tables and stains that lived there for probably twenty years. The teacher's fingers snapped to a beat no metronome could compete with. As she passed your desk and snapped her fingers, the answer to the multiplication problem must be said with confidence, or you’ll be writing the entire page for homework. “7, 28, 56, 64.” Keep up. Keep focused. Memorize. Surely this was not a third grade classroom, but a torture chamber. My turn came. “36,” I proclaimed with robotic accuracy. Safe for another night. In high school, I participated in a program that taught Algebra II and Trigonometry simultaneously. My confidence was high. My foundation in elementary school was so drilled into my existence that any problem that came across my desk was sure to be solved. That confidence quickly dissolved. Everyday I walked into that class and every day there was a new topic— sometimes even two. That year I found math transitioned from a rhythmic set of answers to a systematic puzzle, requiring creativity and a great deal of patience to solve. As the year progressed, I slowly adjusted to the quick pace. I found a shift in mindset began to take place. Memorization was no longer enough to pass. I had to expand my imagination and critically think to understand how the minimum of a parabola could relate to the least amount of fencing needed to build an enclosure. It was challenging, but the notion that these formulas could describe how the world grows and decays fascinated me. I am now a Senior in my second year of calculus. I have never struggled through a math class more than I am now. However, I have never been more in awe of tangential lines communicating how an object moves through space, or how integrals slice through graphs to calculate area. Math, like all languages, is fundamentally a man made concept; however, it describes abstract, universal ideas with such logic and wonder. I have grown in my understanding of math, from memorizing to describing the universe. I love math because it is a challenge that will describe how every molecule of our world moves and changes, if you are patient and creative enough to work with it.

As my mother pushed my stroller down the walking trail she noticed my hand was tightly clenched— a sure sign of mischief. She asked me to show her what I had, but I refused. After a small struggle with my grubby, sticky toddler fingers, she found a stink bug that I somehow made my unfortunate prisoner. I did not mean to harm it, only to know what it felt like. There are many stories like this one from my childhood. From the moment I could retain information I did so best with my hands: touching every piece of fabric in the clothing store, poking at every pebble in my driveway, and experimenting with anything I could hold. My vast curiosity has always compelled me to physically interact with the world around me. Although I have matured significantly from those stroller days, I have not outgrown my urge to get my hands dirty. It has never been questionable if I am a tactile learner. Feeling the textures, shapes, and sizes of objects is still my favorite way to absorb new information. I do fine with just reading information, but I analyze best when I can touch and move it. It is why I thrive in classes where I can build models, test experiments, and interact with real-world data. STEM excites me because it lets me feel the logic of this world and not just observe it from afar. Junior year, a group and I were tasked with creating an airplane out of any material, just as long as it flew with a motor originally designed for paper planes. We researched beforehand, which was helpful, but letting our little balsa wood plane crash or soar solidified the concepts. I observed that angling the wings upward created stability, but at the cost of maneuverability. I experimented with the elevons and the rudder, seeing how their different positions could steer the plane left or right— and how too extreme of an angle added too much drag that quickly landed the flight. The most frustrating lesson, though, came from the plane’s center of gravity. Each time our group thought we made the plane light enough to fly with the tiny motor, our triumphant hope soon spoiled into bitterness as we discovered once again our plane tipped forward or only flew in a frantic loop, forcing us to add more weight to the front for balance. Ultimately, the motor never could lift our balsa wood design for more than a second, however the plane did achieve about four seconds of stable flight even without the motor. Projects like the airplane are a great example of how logic and creativity do not need to be opposites— they can rely on each other. I have also taken a liking to art, where I can craft my imaginary subjects and physically transfer them onto paper or canvas. Exploring how a figure moves, or what is holding objects together through a medium like paint allows me to better understand how the world interacts, all while getting my hands a little dirty. By taking STEM principles of creative design, physics, and math, I’ve learned how creativity coincides with problem solving. I want to chase the paths my curiosity leads me on, because I want to not only know the world on a surface level, I want to dig deeper and find the tangible answers. The curiosity that once compelled me to hold bugs has grown into something that inspires me to continue learning and problem solving through hands-on means in STEM.