About two years ago, I saw a large fire being put out under a bridge near my home in Atlanta. The fire was started by a homeless community to keep themselves warm during the cold winter night. Now, there are large rocks in the same place tents used to stand. Countless people once again experience what it is like to lose the bed they sleep in or a place they may have called home. I pass that site almost every day to get to my house and, without fail, I see a homeless person wandering down the street asking for any spare change. Everyone deserves to have their basic human needs met: food, water, clothing, sleep, and shelter. After college, I would like to be able to create a place for these down-on-their-luck people to stay and pick themselves up. Regardless of what they have been through, they deserve warmth, nutrition, and a place to sleep at night. I believe that anything can truly help, which is why I try to give what I can when I can. However, when I am in a place where I can provide more for my community, I would like to build up a community space that works to pick people up off their feet. It would provide them with the resources needed to help get them into a career path or finish school, as well as work on financial literacy. A place where people can go to feel at home and work to create one of their own. Occasionally, all people want is someone to talk to, someone that will listen and understand their story. Other times, they may want help in forms other than spare change. Many people do not know where to start, whether they are homeless or not. Many college students even struggle with adjusting to life on their own due to them now having much more freedom and relying on themselves for time and money management. This is not always taught in schools and tends to be what people struggle with the most. Atlanta is a truly beautiful city and the people in it should be able to feel the same way about themselves as they do the city they live in. Many cities around the world implement “anti-homeless” architecture such as the rocks I previously mentioned, or benches with railings in the middle of them to prevent people from sleeping in those spaces. Not only is this unfair to the people, but also unappealing to the eye. More community spaces and resources for homeless people to get off the street and into better living situations will diminish the need for such architecture. Many people also view the homeless as “ugly” and what is giving the city a bad look. Downtown Atlanta is littered with trash up and down the streets with a homeless person sleeping on the corner. While a major issue here is littering, providing a welcoming space for the homeless to rest will get them off the streets more.

My mother's a coder. My friends know how to code. There were code clubs in school, books always available, classes that had units in coding. It was always around me, so it is only right I learn how to code as well. It has extreme benefits and hobbies that come with it. People who know how to code can create apps or video games. I am a person who likes efficiency. It is part of the reason why my major is industrial engineering. Industrial engineers are all about making projects more time and cost efficient. With the knowledge I currently know about industrial engineering and coding, I plan on creating a program to make work-based tasks more efficient for both the employee and the employer. When entering a new job, a person has to go through training. For some jobs, certain certifications are needed. In order to make this more time efficient, I would create a program where someone is able to enter in all their certifications; while the employers are able to put in the training modules their workers needed to take. If the employee has done that certifications and trainings required, the program will tell the worker that information. Another problem that I am passionate about is the clean water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Or rather, the lack of clean water in Flint, Michigan. I need to learn more about coding, because I do not currently know much about it. However, if I knew more, I would look into programming a way to filter out the dirty water in the sewer system. With my engineering degree, I could find a way to use the program and implement it into a physical filtration system. I would find the ways in which the filtration system would need to be created and layered to clean the water. The programming would make the system run by itself without the need of human workers. This would reduce the chances for them to become sick due to contact with the water. I believe that this is a very needed and beneficial system to bring to Michigan seeing as the dirty water has effected many individuals. From people becoming sick to birth and children defects, to dehydration and potential death, Flint, Michigan's water is an extreme health hazard for everyone. It comes into the drinking water, the plumbing, the showering water. It is even unsafe to clean food. Boiling it does not even help all the time. This program and system would make it so that clean water is much more accessible to people and create a better standard of living for all.