As a child, I envied my friends who lived in one home their entire life; and never had to move because of a random rent increases. I hope that one day, I have the privilege's to provide my family with a place to call home. A place full of nurturing and stability both financially and emotionally.

Impact, what exactly does the word mean? Impact as a verb is a strong effect or influence that something has on a situation or person. This definition, however, it's just a definition. It is neither positive nor negative. It is the situation that the word is used that makes an impact positive or negative. Also, when it comes to making any impact, it can be a direct or indirect impact. I am going into the field of computer science however, the impact that my degree will make on my community is not a direct impact. The way that my degree will impact my community would be considered an indirect impact. This is because I grew up in a low-income household. My parents combined income when I was growing up did not even break 100K a year. With my degree, however, I will have the opportunity to make up to 150K a year by myself. Possibly even more than that with a master's degree. This indirectly impacts my community because my degree increases my value, which in return, increases the value of my community. Me making more money means that I can bring more money into my community's local economy ethically. Where I grew up, we were taught to survive not to thrive. We were taught that the best way to earn in life was to work however, we were not taught the importance of education in my community. The older that my peers got the less I saw them in school. This is because many of them were helping their parents financially. I saw teenagers working up to 40 hours a week. The maximum a 16-year-old can work in South Carolina. Many of my peers saw their paychecks and thought that it was good money. Because in our heads, all money is good money. The unfortunate part of this mindset is that many of them would settle for less. They would settle for their high school diplomas. Now, a high-school diploma is very valuable however, we were only required to take a singular economics class in high school to graduate. Our economics class only taught us that getting and building credit is important and that making a budget is important, but did not truly teach us how to do these things. The rest of the valuable teachings about finances was up to the student's parents. For my upper-middle-class peers, their parents were able to save for their education as well as give them more opportunities to invest their money. Their parents were able to cosign for their first cars, credit cards, and even houses. My community does not have that luxury. With many of my peers having a survivor mindset they are not building credit and they are not saving. One thing that I would like to do for my community is to offer resources to valuable knowledge on how to make their money work for them. Something that I would like to do is to have an after-school program for middle and high-schoolers to educate them on financial literally. I would like to use my learnings to teach them how to thrive and not survive. I would like to teach them how to correctly use a credit card, and how to correctly budget their money to allocate funds for bills, spending, and as well as saving. I would like to give my community a chance at learning how to truly live comfortably. That is the true positive and direct impact that my community needs to break this toxic cycle of financial instability.

When I was younger any food put on the table was a blessing. I was the daughter of a teacher assistant and a factory worker. They did not make much however they did make enough to be a couple of dollars over the income requirements to be eligible for EBT assistance. This means that the cost of food was added to my parent's financial struggles when I was a child. My parents would find ways to put food on the table for me and my growing sister by using any coupons, having cheap go-to meals like spaghetti but without the meatballs, since it was too expensive, and even by going to church pantries when it was hitting the end of the month. This means that for me and my family, all food was good food. We did not look at nutrition labels or how much sodium was in a product. We just saw food. Now that I am older I realize now that the primary reason for me having an unhealthy lifestyle was not because my parents didn't care, but because nutritional food just was not in the budget. Fresh fruits and vegetables are a luxury of the privileged. Something that I was not as a child. According to research conducted by the Harvard School of public health, unhealthy lifestyles cost $1.50 less per day than a healthier lifestyle. That is almost a $47.00 difference monthly per person. For a family of four that is almost a $188 difference in the price of food monthly. That is something that my parents could not afford. My unhealthy lifestyle did not catch up to me until I hit puberty. When I was 10 years old I was the average weight of a child. When I turned 12 I started to pack on the pounds. I was supposed to be around 122 pounds yet I was almost 150. My parents said I was just building muscle mass since I played basketball but I could see it in my gut the most. I remember the first time I realized I was bigger than the other girls was when my team went to go try on our jerseys for the year. I was originally a size medium in everything. I remember having to change my jersey number since my original number, 21, was only in a size medium. I had to change to the number 30 since it was an extra-large. Which I now needed. When I stopped playing sports in high school my weight got to the highest it had ever been. When I was 16 years old I was wearing an 18 in women's jeans, an extra-large in women's shirts, and I was a whopping 265 pounds. My senior year of high school is when I decided that it was time for me to change my eating habits. I decided to invest in myself. At first, I made small changes. I stopped drinking sodas and lowered how many sweets I had after every meal. Then, I started switching out my usual nutter-butters for protein smoothies. I started bringing wraps to eat on my lunch break instead of the usual pizza. Before I knew it I had lost 30 pounds. I feel as if my taking baby steps over the past year has helped me tremendously. Now that I am in charge of my groceries as a college student, I plan to maintain this weight loss by still eating well, but also adding working out to my weekly routine. Hopefully, in the next six months I can start lifting again.

With 1,000 I would start to pay off my current student loans. I currently have a total of $5,500 in federal student loans. I should be gaining interest on them since it is in unsubsidized loans however since the government has extended its national hold on student loan repayments, I have no interest. If I did have my interest rate applied, $1,102.20 should be added to my original $5,500 total. Since I am in my second year of college my current balance should be $6,602.20. By the time I graduate my total loan debt would've become $9,908.80 due to my 4.99% interest rate. This nine thousand dollar total is only based on if I do not have to take out any more loans. Which is very unlikely. The federal student loan hold will supposedly be lifted on August 22, 2022. Since our president has extended its hold twice already, and our economy is not growing, likely, that there will not be a third extension. Because of this fact, I would rather begin to pay off a portion or all of these loans now to avoid as much interest as possible. I do not want to have over $10,000 of student loan debt due to interest rates increasing after this federal hold is released. The best way to avoid that future is to pay it off now that there is no interest being applied due to the past two years of the pandemic.

The creation of the calculator is a technological innovation that inspires me because of the doors that it opened when it comes to computer programming. The very first fully electric calculator was the British Bell Punch/Anita that was made in 1963. The Anita was originally used by scientists and engineers for major projections and calculations. Like the calculations that were made when creating and testing the very first spaceships . Later on in 1970, Casio created the first handheld calculator, making electric calculators more portable and more accessible to the public. This is also when the price of calculators began to decrease because the interfaces that were used were becoming more readily available. When looking at the evolution of the calculator you can also look at the evolution of computers as well. Many of the same circuits and interfaces that are used in computers originated in electric calculators. The very first calculator is essentially the mother of the computer since it is a computer program. This makes the electric calculator a catalyst for the begging of the electronic age that we live in now. Over the past 60 years, the electric calculator has evolved from a thirty pound desktop to an application that comes on phones. This evolution The calculator can be used for something as small as solving 2+2 or as grand as creating the projections that were used to get us to the moon. The calculator is a timeless technology that will be influential in learning for generations to come.

My name is DaJanae Sanders and I am a rising sophomore at The College of Charleston. I am majoring in computer science with a minor in studio Art. In my freshman year of college, my love for art was reignited when I took a drawing one class as an elective. Throughout high school, I was a full time worker and student so I did not give myself much time to create. I prioritized working because I was saving for college but I neglected my love for drawing. Now that I am in college, I want to tap back in to my creative flow and possibly even sell of my creations as well. If there's one thing many people in the work force have told me it is to do what you love and love what you do. And I love being a creator and innovator. I hope to be able to combine my love for coding and my love for art in my future profession. Something that inspires me to be a better person is the impact that my attitude has on others. A problem that society has is that we have a independent mindset. We think that what we say and what we do only effects us. That independent mindset is simply not accurate at all. In the world of Social Media, our words, photos, and interactions with others content is forever on your digital footprint. Yes, you can delete that inappropriate post however, the people who have seen it and interacted with it will remember what you said and what you did. With your digital footprint having such a impact, it has made me more mindful of who and what I interact with, both on and off of the internet. I constantly think to myself when posting on social media "Would I be okay with my parents seeing this?", "What does this post convey to others about me?", and most importantly, "Does this post spread hate towards others." I feel like digital footprints inspire me to be a better person because it keeps me coconscious of how all of my words and actions, on and off the internet, have positive and negative consequences. Digital footprints remind me that my words have an impact. I want to create technology that will flag taken designs from artists, and will be able to guide users to the original artists websites and social medias so that they will be able to buy from them. With the rapid rise of fast fashion brands are trying to sell the most popular designs at the cheapest prices for them. This means that many main brands to not have their own designers and they do not give credit to the original designers either. Just by going on to websites like Fashion Nova or Shein you can see this phenomenon. Many of these "chic and new" design concepts are taking from independent artists. This outright stealing of designs takes money out of small businesses and puts it into the pockets of billion dollar industries. I want to create a chrome extension that will be able to analyze designs across the internet and to find the original creator of a design. I also want this technology to be able to figure out whether or not the designer gave any rights to a brand or website to use their design. Hopefully, this type of algorithm will be able to help to create more traffic to original and independent artists.

In 2019 my father was diagnosed with cancer. He had to get treatment and was not able to work for about six months. Even after those six months, he could only work about 25 hours per week. My father is a factory worker and is the head of the household in my family. My mother is disabled and had to medically retire in 2017. So, when my father got sick, we only had my mother's fixed income to go off of for bills. My parents got over $10,000 of debt due to back rent, backed credit card bills, and medical bills for both my mother and father. We are now in a better place; however, he now has to pay off his debts while also trying to help put me through school. One investing tip that I've taken to heart is creating an emergency fund. In my economics class, we were taught that we need to have an emergency fund. It is beneficial for this emergency fund to have at least six months of bills saved up. Bills like rent, utilities, and groceries. Essentially any bill that will reoccur in those six months needs to be accounted for. If my parents were taught about financial literacy instead of just how to survive, our family would have been stable financially during those six months of hardship. We would have also been able to focus on my father's health more than we did. Also, if our family had an emergency fund, we would have avoided years of debt. Now that I'm working, I've started an emergency fund for myself that can be allocated to future emergencies or hardships. It's very hard to admit that in life emergencies and hardships happen. The only thing that we can do is be prepared for them.

My favorite piece of art is my abstract sculpture. I named it everything with intention because every crack and every crevice was hand carved by me. When I was a child, I was infatuated with birds. I would keep out bread for them and even would attempt to make nests for them. Now that I am older, I realize now that I associate bird nests with the concept of home. I feel as if everything that makes a house a home is intentional. Same as the intentions of a bird's nest. The mother hen created the nest for her children to be warm and to be safe from predators. She intentionally picked every stick, every branch, every stone, and every piece of dry grass in order to make a home for her family. She can travel for miles to find the perfect tree that is away from any predator that might want to harm her family. When I created this art piece I was thinking of home. It was my first year of college and I was living on campus. I was almost three hours away from home with no car. I had no way to go see my family until our breaks. This broke my heart because my family is my everything. They are my protectors and they have done everything in their power to keep me safe and secure throughout my childhood. Same as the mother hen. My first semester of college was the first time I left my nest. I was scared and alone in a different city. I was homesick. All that I could think of was wishing I had wings so I could fly to see my family. This sculpture reminds me of home. It reminds me of the home my parents built for me and my older sister. They may not have ownership of a place to call home, yet they still instilled this feeling in my heart. I may not have had a physical home, but I still had a nest in my heart where my family resided. This sculpture is made out of plaster. I made it as my first project for my sculpture class. In order to create the initial body, we filled a plastic bag with plaster and added four water balloons filled with water. We let the plaster set and we took it out of the bags. We had to use the shape that we were given and create an abstract sculpture with it. For me, I started with a flat blob of plaster with four hollow points, these hollow points were where the water balloons were. To me all that I could think of were the indentions that eggs make. I decided instead of deleting these hollow points that I make it a part of my sculpture. For about two weeks I began to create the gravel-like texture around the eggs. I did this by carving out pieces of the plaster with an exacto-knife and then creating cross hatches with the knife. This created a uniform texture throughout the textured portion of the sculpture. For the eggs, I sanded down these hollow points in order to create a contrast between the rugged and rough texture that I created. The final thing I did to create this was to cut off the bottom of the sculpture. I did not like how it laid down flat. I wanted to draw the viewers eyes to the hollow eggs, and I felt as if having to hunch over to see them was not the best decision.

Math is a very broad and intricate subject so I can understand why many people are opposed to having to take it in high school or in college. The hundreds of formulas that we had to memorize, the math equations that take up half of a piece of paper to solve, and the fact that many teachers do not allow students to use a calculator for something as complex as probability in statistics is why it's not a popular subject. Even though it is not popular among many it is one of the most important skills that we need to have in our daily lives. In this economy, math can be used in order for people to manage their money. Algebra is a great subject to learn because you are trying to solve the different variables in equations or in systems of equations. When it comes to our economy, the amount of money that is moving is constantly changing. Same with a person's everyday living expenses and a person's salary. With Algebra, people are able to find the averages of these different everyday variables. When a person pay's attention to their money, they are able to know how much they make, how much they should spend, and how much they are able to save while still living comfortably. You can also use algebra when trying to calculate how much interest you would be paying when taking out a loan. If you want to take it a step further, you can compare the interest rates of different loans in order to figure out which loan gives you the most amount of money with the lowest amount of interest paid. Another way that algebra can be used in everyday life is something as small as food portions. We are all aware that how much pasta we cook for two people versus four people will be twice the amount. What about using the same recipe to make a food portion for 20 people or even 50 people. You can easily use algebra to figure out the different cups of food you might need for a ten person dinner by using the proportions from a four person recipe. This is something that many people do on a regular basis yet don't think of it as algebra. You can also use this simple concept and add it to a broader scale. You could use Algebra when you are trying to figure out the best pricing of food options in a restaurant. Math is such a important subject because it can be used in every aspect of a person's life. Math has been a hated subject for many simply because they believe they'll have no use for it in their future endeavors. That is a false stereotype that has unfortunately been reinforced by society. When people think of math class they think of the perfect time to take a nap during the school day. When I think of math, I think of all the ways that it can help me solve a problem. For me, math in the most simplest terms is finding the common patterns of life. Math is a very logic based subject where you are trying to solve problems. Math is important because it gives people a new way to solve problems. Problem solving is one of the most important skills to have in life because it shows that a person is capable of critically thinking. It also shows that a person is able to find the best solution to any problem that is thrown at them.