I aspire to be a software engineer straight out of college. I want to use my talents in an environment where I’d significantly impact the world. The company I work at is very important to me because my goal is to work for an upstanding company to help people solve world problems. During college, I will apply for internships that will help me learn and expand my skills as a computer science student and future engineer. Internships will also help me network as networking is a key element to having opportunities and being successful. Along with being an engineer, I plan to be a figure in my community who helps, educates, and mentors kids. Whether that is me being a teacher, mentoring, tutoring, or opening a scholarship. No matter the challenges or needs, I want to do whatever I can to support the newer generation of students. I am attending Howard University majoring in Computer Science. Finances were a huge factor in college and as someone with a high SAI number (eligibility index number used to determine how much federal student aid you would receive), I have not received much financial aid. I have been denied many need-based scholarships and have yet to be awarded much money from individual schools. Based on my family income, colleges may think we can afford tuition every year, but in reality, we can’t. Despite this, I chose Howard because of what they have to offer. I feel like this school will teach, sharpen, and prepare me for life outside of college, and adulthood. Not only do I want to walk out with a degree but I want to ensure I have confidence that everything I will learn from Howard will be useful to my successful future. If awarded this scholarship, I would have access to a rich quality education surrounded by Black Excellence with peers like me. The experience will allow me to network with others, and prepare for my career to lead to increased access to jobs. I’ll be able to earn the degrees and credentials that can help me gain social and financial capital that will support my goal of giving and making a positive impact on the youth, African African-American students in particular and inspire them to pursue their dreams. I am appreciative and grateful for any scholarship money I receive, I am confident that the funds will allow me access to the resources I will need to obtain my bachelor's degree.

My mother, Dionne Embry, is a black woman, born in Denver, Colorado. She graduated from Cal State East Bay in 2005 and went back to school to get her master's degree in 2015 from the University of Phoenix. She has been a teacher for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) for 15+ years and newly became the principal for summer school. In 2006 at the age of 28, my mother gave birth to her only child, me. In 2019 my mother got engaged, and now in 2023 she and my stepfather are married and are homeowners. Just as no one is, my mother's life hasn't been perfect personally and professionally but her resilience, intelligence, and hard work inspire me to achieve my goals and they will continue to do so. Resilient is a great word to describe my mother because throughout her life she has been able to adapt to challenges and overcome adversity and still return to a state of well-being. She has been thrown many curve balls on a personal and professional level, and her openness with me has allowed me to witness how my mother reacts to some of these experiences and how she makes it through. I am someone who hasn't always been able to overcome adversity and still be in a good place, so resilience is a trait I have developed over time by having my mother by my side to show and teach me how to come out of the other end successfully. What I have learned from her has inspired me to achieve my goals because I know that I have been taught the necessary skills to withstand any challenge thrown my way. Many people in life just want everything to come to them, they don't want to work for it. Then there is Dionne, my mom, a woman who has never had anything just given to her. My mother has always put in so much hard work and this is something that has always inspired me to put in the work for good things to happen. When you watch someone get up every day and put in work, it inspires you to do the same. For example, when my mom started graduate school I was 9 years old. Though this is a young age, I vividly remember seeing my single mom handle adulthood, motherhood, her job as a teacher, and school. I remember the sacrifices she had to make and her having to explain to me what was going on and why things were different. During this time, I was still the happiest pre-teen, and my mom was educated and getting her degree. Now that I am older, this chapter of my mom's and my life means much more to me. Her ability to manage several jobs while completing her education inspired me to believe that, with enough effort, any ambition may become a reality. I aspire to be a Software Engineer, a field that lacks diversity. As a black woman it will be challenging to be successful based on the inequities that happen. My mother has taught me to look past the challenges and what she has inspired me to set high standards for myself and to persevere through any difficulties in order to reach them. My moms’ life is an illustration of the power of hard work, and she has instilled in me the belief that with enough effort and dedication, I can achieve anything I set my mind to.

I feel most empowered when I am doing the things I love the most, know that I am good at, and where I get the most positive feedback – whether that be from a coach, a teacher, my parents, peers, but mostly myself. Therefore, empowerment to me means having the confidence to make decisions and take actions that lead to my personal growth and success, and the ability to bring positivity to my community when I am empowered. I have been fortunate to have had several opportunities in my life where I and a community of young women like myself have been uplifted and, therefore, empowered to be our best selves. When that occurs, that empowerment spreads out to others around us, to the community and, when it keeps growing, to society as a whole. First and foremost for me, the opportunity to play on my high school basketball team and work with a group of young women towards winning the California state championship, was by far the most empowered I have ever felt. Practicing, playing game after game, working as a team to bring us all the way to the championship was hard, hard work; but winning kept us unified and beyond empowered. Additionally, for volunteer work, I was an aid to an AAU women's basketball team, the Oakland Bruins. I mentored and encouraged the girls. As someone whose whole life revolved around basketball, sharing my skills and knowledge felt great. In high school, I was also fortunate to be a part of a program called Sisterhood, a club at my school where we worked on building sisterhood as black women; building and solidifying our love for ourselves, networking and learning skills that will help us in the future. I participated in Sisterhood throughout high school and my experience in this club was wonderful, as everything we did taught me something new, and also helped me build connections; thus empowering not me and other club members as well. Another place where empowerment was encouraged was a group I was part of during the first year of Covid, Girls Inc., where we met twice a week by Zoom. Girls Inc. is a program known for mentoring, providing a pro-girl environment, and programs to prepare girls for independent life. These programs taught me how to take care of my body, how to listen and be receptive, how to advocate for myself and others, and much more. All the knowledge I gained through these programs are life-skills that I still and will continue to practice in my day-to-day life. As a recent high school graduate and 17 year old woman, I have learned empowerment in a wide variety of ways. I’ve had others lift me up and I’ve learned how to empower myself and, therefore, others and this, of course, has had a significant impact on my life. It gives me self-confidence and assurance, enabling me to pursue my passions and goals fearlessly. When I feel empowered, I feel independent and like I have control over my life. With empowerment I am better prepared and equipped to navigate challenges and learn from my setbacks. Additionally, being empowered means having the courage to break stereotypes and challenge societal expectations, paving the way for greater color and gender equality. Empowerment for myself then motivates others, and, while this is a large responsibility and takes discipline to do, I can support others like myself to be confident and continue to follow their own dreams, leaving a legacy that promotes positivity and hope.

There’s no hesitation when I began to explain who has supported me the most in reaching my educational goals. That person is my mother who has always been adamant about giving me everything she did and didn’t have. She is a first- generation college student who went to college to obtain a B.A., Teaching Credential, Masters Degree and an administrative credential. Being a model of someone who values education is a major thing she has done in addition to teaching me values such as hard work, integrity, perseverance and resilience. Up until my sixth grade year in school, my mother raised me as a single mother. I've been brought up in predominantly low-income communities in the West, and now the flatlands of East Oakland, CA. Many of my friends went on to private school for high school; unable to afford that she made sure to research a public school with offerings that would elevate me academically. Together we chose Oakland High School, unlike our neighborhood school, it has many AP offerings and an Engineering Pathway. She also made sure I knew about dual enrollment options I could take in high school related to Computer Science. She realized school alone wouldn’t be sufficient and also took me to all kinds of extracurricular activities to compliment what I learned in school. Two examples are, Black Girls Code and the San Jose State Women’s Engineering Conference. Additionally, teaching me about financial literacy and how to seek resources is helpful for my education. Based on our family’s SAI, we don’t qualify for much and we have worked together to make sure I can meet requirements for outside (of FAFSA) scholarships and she's worked with me to know the various resources out there. Lastly, she emphasized the importance of a quality education, guiding me on a path of knowing how to speak up, ask for help and advocate for myself when it comes to school. My mother has connected me with a community of people who also focus on education which has enabled me to be able to network with people who can support me with my future college experience and career. Instilling perseverance and resilience in me has helped tremendously to avoid the distractions of negativity and failure that plague our community. This is something necessary for me when I am getting my education, although I may not have the same kind of distractions, they will arise when I am on my own. My mother is truly the sole reason why I am who I am today, a resultant, bright, talented, smart young black woman who is destined to be successful in her future. I commend my mother and now am trying to apply what she’s taught me by applying to this and other scholarships. She’s worked so hard as a teacher in a community with kids who look like me, not getting paid much. However, the government expects her to pay over thirty thousand a year for me to go to college. I want to make her proud and now support her by attempting to get as many scholarships as I can. I appreciate this opportunity in advance, scholarship money will help us tremendously and allow me to pursue my higher education and future Career as a Software Engineer.

I am a 17-year-old, scholar-athlete. I aspire to be a software engineer because that is my passion. I will go to school to become a software engineer and this will be my career. I also want to be a figure in my community that helps and teaches kids. Whether that is me being a teacher, mentoring, creating a program, or opening a scholarship. Whatever it is, I want to help make a positive impact on the kids in my community. Since my sophomore year of high school, I have been working to make that happen. I joined the DEA pathway which stands for Innovative Design and Engineering Pathway at my school and it has provided me with opportunities to have hands-on experiences with using CAd to 3d print. I’ve learned how to laser cut. All of our projects have been designed to teach and/or create & improve things to help people. I have learned to code and code using Arduino. It was my IDEA computer science teacher and IDEA counselor who encouraged me to take my learning further by enrolling in AP computer science and computer science college classes. I also play sports. I have played 3 sports over the course of my 4 years of high school; Basketball, Softball, Flag football. I fell In love with these sports and continued to play. I didn't only continue to play based on my love for the sport, but also what came with playing the sport. I have learned and developed many skills that are valuable for life. I have also met and been connected to a lot of people which helps socially and professionally. I plan to major in Computer Science and in my sophomore year of college, I plan to study abroad. I want to do this because there is life outside of the U.S. I want to be able to learn from the different continents in the world. During the summers I will do internships revolving around computer science. Internships are a key way to get hired straight out of college. I also want to get some experience with work that involves kids and teaching. This will help me in the future. I plan to get a master's degree and later on in software engineering so I can have more education and get paid more money. In the future, I still see myself teaching others. It can be me teaching computer science, life skills, study skills, whatever it is. My education plan will help me pursue my passion because it will allow me to have the degrees and credentials that can help me gain social and financial capital that will support my goal of giving and making a positive impact on the youth, African American students in particular and inspire them to pursue their dreams.