Moving to the United States from Turkey was a transformative experience in high school. Adjusting to my new life was challenging, but I embraced every opportunity to learn and grow. Living in a small apartment with my father and stepmother, our financial situation was stable at first, but in 2023, my stepmother lost her job, and my father, who works in transportation, underwent bypass surgery in December. Unable to work for six months, our financial strain deepened, making our income less than $20,000 a year in 2024. At school, I have remained committed to my community, particularly in advocating for a safer school environment. When I began taking IB Digital Society Higher Level in eleventh grade, I was introduced to the concerning prevalence of cyberbullying and in-person bullying. Through class discussions and research, I saw how deeply these issues affected students, both in our school and beyond. Although my school, BSGE, has an academically focused student body and does not have significant in-person bullying, cyberbullying remains a persistent concern, especially on social media platforms where students interact freely. Recognizing this, as junior class president, I leveraged the power of social media to raise awareness about cyberbullying. Working with a small team, I created informative posters and reposted reels featuring influencers who spoke about the harmful effects of online harassment. By consistently posting about these issues on our school Instagram account, we ensured that students were not only aware of the dangers of cyberbullying but also knew how to respond and seek help. Beyond online efforts, I sought to make a tangible impact in my school. I organized a town hall focused on bullying prevention, where I, alongside other students, presented research on the topic and discussed solutions. This initiative fostered open conversations among students and faculty, reinforcing the importance of maintaining a respectful and supportive school environment. The town hall empowered students to speak up, and it emphasized that everyone has a role in fostering kindness and respect within our academic community. My involvement at my school’s Big Sib club further strengthened my commitment to student well-being. Through this program, I was paired with a lowerclassman for the academic year, providing them with guidance on school life and personal challenges. Over time, I learned that my Little Sib was experiencing cyberbullying. By offering support, listening to her concerns, and connecting her with the school’s guidance counselor, I helped her regain her confidence. This experience reinforced my belief in the power of mentorship and peer support in preventing bullying. As a student council member, I continue to uphold a positive and inclusive school culture whether by encouraging constructive discussions, promoting respect among peers, or ensuring that concerns are addressed by the administration. By engaging with students and faculty, I help maintain a space where academic success and emotional well-being go hand in hand. My journey has been shaped by both personal and community challenges, but I have never allowed adversity to define me. Instead, I have used my experiences to become a proactive leader, striving to make a difference in my school and beyond. However, the financial obstacles my family faces threaten my ability to pursue higher education. With my father recovering from surgery and our household relying on limited income where I would never ask my stepmother for any money, I seek scholarships and financial aid to turn my aspirations into reality. My passion for advocacy, leadership, and education drives me forward, and with the necessary support, I am determined to continue making a life-long effort to keep youth safe from in-person bullying and cyberbullying.

From an early age, every decision I faced came with a choice—a choice that carried the weight of its consequences. My mother, with her patience and pragmatism, never imposed arbitrary rules. Instead, she offered explanations, laid out potential outcomes, and, most importantly, left the decision to me. Often, she was right; regret would follow my missteps. Yet, on some occasions, my instincts defied her predictions, leading to unexpected results. This constant interplay of questioning, evaluating, and deciding shaped not just my childhood in Turkiye, but also my approach to the world around me. After deciding to study in the United States in ninth grade, I walked into classrooms, hoping to grasp what felt like fleeting explanations and intricate concepts in subjects I barely understood. English words floated around me, heavy with meanings I couldn’t always decipher. I scribbled down as much as I could—extra notes, reminders to look things up, question marks littering the margins. I was determined to catch up later, but each class left me with more questions than answers. With all the hours spent at the library and endless evenings at the cafe around the corner studying, a relentless drive to keep learning English guided me through closing the gap between what I knew and what I needed to learn to thrive. Today, that drive fuels my curiosity and ambition, transforming obstacles into stepping stones and curiosity into a guiding force. Ironically, while I often challenged the rules I was told to follow at home or school, I found myself captivated by the rules that govern our universe—laws that didn’t require negotiation or interpretation, only revealing themselves through observation and proof. My first encounter with these unyielding principles came during my tenth grade physics class. As my teacher sketched a free-body diagram on the board, explaining the forces acting on a block sliding down an inclined plane, I was fascinated by the mathematical elegance of Newton’s Second Law. That evening, curiosity propelled me down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos on astrophysics. The concept of spacetime as a flexible fabric bending under the weight of massive objects captivated me, filling my mind with endless questions about general relativity: How does time bend? What mysteries do black holes hold? Can spacetime be warped in ways that allow wormholes or time travel? The following summer, I participated in an engineering program in China, an experience that deepened my passion for physics. Each morning, we delved into lessons ranging from the composition of the universe to hydrodynamics, before applying these principles to building a remotely operated vehicle. My team—a tapestry of cultures from the U.S. and China—gathered around the scattered tools, wires, and construction papers, working late into the night to finish our project. The project pushed my technical understanding beyond classroom equations, forcing me to confront real-world complexities. However, an unexpected revelation emerged: I found myself just as excited about explaining our work as I was about constructing the vehicle. I channeled my enthusiasm into presenting our project to faculty and students, articulating the physics behind our design while advocating for our work in an impromptu competition. When a professor remarked, “You seem so passionate about this,” I realized that my curiosity extended beyond physics—I was equally drawn to the power of communication and persuasion. That moment was a turning point. Physics was my foundation, but I began to explore other areas that fascinated me: economics and business. The summer after my engineering program, I was accepted to the Economics for Leaders program where I explored the principles of supply and demand, opportunity cost, market growth, and property rights, learning how economic theories influence decision-making. Just as a single equation can determine a falling object’s motion, economic theories—opportunity cost, market equilibrium, property rights—can dictate the rise and fall of nations. Yet, unlike physics, these laws were not rigid. They were dynamic, shaped by human ingenuity, risk-taking, and sometimes, irrationality. This complexity fascinated me. Eager to understand the practical applications of economics, I joined a Business and Entrepreneurship program. There, I created and managed a business model with a developed product along with a team of brilliant students, discovering the power of collaboration. This program also assisted me in learning how to manage the finance department of a $4 million company simulation, putting the economics knowledge I learned from the previous program into practice. And I loved it. As I continued to explore the intersection of physics and economics, I saw a profound connection between the two. Just as physics seeks to understand the forces shaping the universe, economics seeks to understand the forces shaping human progress. Whether analyzing the stock market’s fluctuations or the trajectory of a projectile, I found the same intellectual satisfaction in uncovering hidden patterns and deriving fundamental principles from chaos. This realization solidified my ambition: I want to major in both physics and economics, as complementary lenses through which I can understand the world. Physics hones my ability to think logically and quantitatively, while economics challenges me to navigate uncertainty and human complexity. Together, they offer a powerful framework—one that I hope to use in entrepreneurship, where scientific innovation meets economic strategy. From struggling to decipher English lectures to immersing myself in the intricate dance of forces and markets, my journey has been defined by an insatiable drive to learn. Every challenge has only deepened my curiosity, reinforcing my belief that knowledge—whether in physics, economics, or beyond—is the most powerful tool we have to shape the future. I am eager to continue this pursuit, to explore, question, and innovate, knowing that every problem is an opportunity waiting to be solved.