Confident young women without any stress toward school, family, or finances swimming alongside a whale shark off the coast of Australia.

Hello, my name is Cora Gunderson. I am a middle child who lives in New Mexico and is hoping to go to a college that can support my ambitious dreams of studying Marine Biology. Because I live in a desert, my childhood dream of living by the ocean and researching the animals hidden in the depths could not become a reality without me going to a college along the coast. After long hours of researching, I finally found a college that would achieve my goals and give me a great place to learn and thrive. Western Washington University in Bellingham is a small college right on the water where I can research to my heart's content. There was only one problem standing in my way, the outrageous tuition of going to an out-of-state school right out of high school. My parents have always supported my career decisions and knew that at some point I would have to leave New Mexico. They knew the price of school so they saved money, but life happens and sometimes those saving have to go to more important things. My older brother struggled in High school and didn't get a whole lot of money when he started college. paying for his tuition was a lot more than what my parents expected so they tapped into my and my little sister's saving to educate him. All this with little help from scholarships and FASFA. I am going to go to Western Washington University, but with only a couple of months left before I move, I still have no way to pay without taking out student loans as an 18-year-old. My parents are not giving me much, Fasfa doesn't recognize me due to my parents both having paying jobs, and I can't find a job to pay for school since I don't have much work experience in the first place. So I turned to scholarships in hopes that my grades and extracurriculars could be enough to raise some money. Any amount of money helps. Scholarships like these that recognize school is expensive and can always be paid for are the most helpful for families like mine that don't get any help from the federal government. My parents have to send three kids to college and barely was able to pay for the first. I am grateful my parents are willing to send me to an out-of-state university. I am trying my best to raise funds by myself so they don't have to worry about helping me, also so there is money left over for my little sister to get an education as well. I have ambition, and my dreams are big, too big for my family to pay for. I am relying on scholarships to be able to follow my dreams. No amount of money should stop anyone from following their dreams and there is no way it's going to stop me.

I have always been fascinated by the ocean since I was a young girl. I loved watching documentaries about all the animals and eventually fell in love with sharks. At the young age of five, I knew I wanted to be a Marine Biologist just to learn as much as I could about sharks and the ocean. I worked hard and learned as much as I could, but living in New Mexico I was restricted. I have gained some experience working with the animals I want to help preserve through my volunteer hours at our aquarium here in New Mexico. From the age of 14, I have volunteered as a Nature Guide to teach the public about the conservation of the Rio Grande River and how to protect the animals shown at our zoo and aquarium. With this program, I was able to work with animal artifacts, my favorite being the shark table where I could show off shark jaws and teach people how gentle these giants are. I never liked how the world portrayed sharks. Movies made them mindless hunters eating anything in their path. I would try my best to tell the world that sharks are amazing and thoughtful hunters that clear the ocean of sick animals so diseases would not spread. I then realized I wanted to teach people about the ocean just as much as I wanted to learn about it. Only now, as a high school senior, am I beginning to realize the possibilities of my studies. I can finally go to a school near the ocean and learn hands-on. I can finally help these misunderstood creatures and hopefully make the ocean more welcoming to everyone. I want to work in conservation, I want to clear the ocean of trash, I want to find solutions to the melting of ice caps, and I want to know why we are experiencing strange weather patterns. All these goals tie to the ocean. I want to be a marine biologist so I can study the ocean and teach the rest of the world how important the ocean is. How detrimental these issues are to the continuation of our survival. How, if we ruin it, we won't have a future at all. People are just now realizing this fact and I want to be part of the team that comes up with the solution, and I truly believe we need to start with the animals just below to waves for an answer.