In my mind, I have painted out what I want my future life to be like. I would be working a well-paid finance job with friendly colleagues and a positive work environment. I’ll be financially stable and have enough to provide for my parents and younger siblings as well. After that, I’ll be able to work on my goals of living a healthier lifestyle and traveling around the world to experience different cultures. However, all these dreams and goals will take a few years of hard work and dedication for me to achieve them. When I was a high school freshman just entering high school, I did not know what I wanted to pursue for my major in college and my career. I knew I wanted to work in a well-paying job that I enjoy but what was I deeply interested in? The answer came to me soon, business. I had worked in my family’s restaurant business in middle school and when I learned that my high school offered business classes, I became more intrigued in learning the ins and outs of what it takes to create a business. Since then I sacrificed my lunch periods in order to fit business elective classes into my schedule each year. I participated in my school’s business club, DECA, which allowed me to participate in competitions that provided experiential learning opportunities that furthered my knowledge and skill development. During my first three years in the club, I concentrated on competing in role plays in the accounting application category and am in the top ten roleplays and exam scorers in New York state each year. The roleplays helped enhance my adaptability and presentation skills as I had only 10 minutes to prepare for a given scenario and present it to my judge. For my senior year, I decided to compete with a presentation on a marketing campaign I created with my partner on a product. This way, I would gain experience in competing as a roleplayer and a presenter to strengthen my skills in both. The business teachers offered resources for free and online business programs to anyone interested and I snatched up the opportunity to broaden my scope of the business world. From participating in the program, Invest in Girls, not only did I learn how to be a CFO, CIO, and CEO, but I was offered the opportunity to participate in the National Personal Finance Challenge with a team of 4 like-minded students. We met once every week for 3 months with a pair of coaches to prepare us for the competition and became semifinalists. From the Girls with Impact program, I learned how to create my own business startup. My idea was an app centered around relieving stress and enhancing productivity in students due to the increase in mental health problems among students. I hope to be able to further develop this idea in the future to make a positive impact on student’s mental health in my future communities. All of my extracurricular activities have been focused on pursuing a business career which I plan to major in for college. I have already set short-term goals to help me reach my long-term goal for success and have completed one of them which was getting into my dream school, NYU Stern. I am currently on the right path to reaching my dreams and I will continue to push through any challenges that come my way since I’m determined to not give up. Hopefully, after a lot of hard work, dedication, and time I’ll be able to live out my dream.

My absolute favorite anime series to watch and rewatch is My Hero Academia. I love the importance of the story that the author is trying to convey about a comic-book-like society with heroes and villains. All the unique characters in the story whether they are a hero or a villain make us question who is in the right. Not everything is as black and white as a comic book but rather it is varying shades of gray. Heroes and villains can’t solely be defined as purely good or purely evil. Many of them are in that vast gray area. Although their society seems to be perfect with the heroes always catching the villains, there are flaws and cracks in that society. The villains want to expose those flaws and cracks that the heroes desperately want to keep away from the public. This makes us question whether this hero society is as perfect as it looks and whether or not it would be a good idea to bring that hero society down. The backstory of each character is unique. For example, the main character, Deku perseveres in achieving his dream to become a hero despite not having a superpower or quirk. Even those who have powerful quirks can't simply be heroes. They also need to put in the effort to make their powers strong, which is what Bakugo has realized. It shows that just being born with a certain talent doesn’t mean that person is talented if they don’t put in the effort and work to build and strengthen it. The villains' backstories showed how they have been wronged and shamed by society for not being normal, allowing the audience to understand why they had become the villain they are now. I enjoy the contrasting arcs that the story has such as the school-related ones reminding us that the characters are still high-schoolers with moments of comedic relief. However, there are also arcs showing the students out in the world being forced to mature quickly and become heroes. With each villain they fight, it shows how each has their own backstories and reasoning behind their actions. My Hero Academia is a perfect blend of comedy, school life, and action that conveys a deeper story about our own society and each person’s uniqueness and story.

Others usually view accounting as a boring job but I don’t see it that way. I find that there is so much more to it than just working with numbers. It is about analyzing data and being able to organize that data in a way that can be easily explained to others in a worksheet or graph. I started getting my feet wet by signing up for my school’s introductory accounting class. While some of my classmates struggled with it, I found it to be comprehensible and fun for me. An accountant job is well suited to my personality as well since I’m organized and detail-oriented. I like having a set process or plan on how to do something so when learning about the accounting cycle I could see myself doing this in the future without getting tired of it. I enjoyed learning about the process of how financial transactions are recorded from journal entries to ledgers to trial balances to the final financial statement. I find it enjoyable to work with numbers since they are data values that can be used to make logical and rational decisions. Analyzing data from my research class was something that I enjoyed as it allowed me to conclude what all the data values mean or show. Since I’m so detail-oriented, whenever I work on a project or presentation I always have to make sure I scan it over to check for any mistakes. This skill is also useful for an accountant as they have to make sure that there are no errors within the vast amounts of data. Since I’m a bit introverted, doing this type of work independently is something that I would enjoy doing but I’m also not afraid to talk with clients. I have experience in helping others, such as my younger siblings and friends with their homework. Through the experience, I have learned how to explain difficult concepts in a simplified way that would help them understand. That skill would be greatly beneficial in helping clients understand their financial situation without the use of complex financial jargon that is used within the industry. Now for the importance of accounting, our economy would not be able to function without it. It is a key component for businesses and individuals when handling their financial information. Both make lots of transactions throughout their life. For businesses, their earnings and expenses need to be noted down to determine whether or not they are earning a profit. By putting that data together, accountants help businesses gauge their financial health and provide ways to help boost their business by finding ways to cut costs and increase revenue. Those same budgeting techniques can be used for individuals who also want to understand their financial situation better and learn how to budget effectively to save money. Accountants can help businesses make crucial decisions based on the data provided by their financial statements. Those financial records also have to be accurate and comply with government regulations to reduce the risk of fraud. For individuals, accountants also help file their taxes on time and help identify potential opportunities and risks for where they put their money. A lot of the financial data from businesses and individuals in the broader public has to be accurately organized which is why the role of an accountant is so crucial to our society.