I am a victim of a Two Parent household. One that has varying effects on who I believe i am today. My household was typical with a father, mother, two daughters, one son, and four children. I was one of the four children here, also the youngest. Before my 3rd birthday, my grandparents lost their eldest daughter; also my mother. My birthday continued as planned, while I was at constant search for my mother. I turned 19 a couple months ago, I threw a party for my friends and I to celebrate it. It felt surreal. When the birthday you have recollection of isn't the one that required utmost effort and planning, instead, its the one you hardly took part in. You begin to want to do more, have more impact, more memorability. I know that household as grandma's house; where the two parents weren't mine. My grandparents stepped into a role no one should have to fill and raised me with structure, sacrifice, and love. That shaped everything I am. My grandparents gave when they had every reason to focus only on themselves. I carry that forward through volunteer work. I plan to make impact in two ways. First, directly continuing to volunteer where need is visible and showing up consistently, not just when it is convenient. Second, through the skills I am building in college. I want to use data and technology to support organizations that serve underserved communities like mine, whether that means building better systems for nonprofits, analyzing data that helps leaders make smarter decisions, or mentoring young people who do not see themselves represented in STEM. Outside of school, I am passionate about things that keep me creative and connected to people. Celebrating milestones intentionally matters to me too. After my 19th birthday, I realized how much I value creating moments people can actually remember because some of my earliest years were shaped by absence rather than celebration. I also enjoy video creation, competitive gaming, and busy tasks that require some creative problem solving. Work itself has become a passion in a practical sense. Balancing a job with college taught me discipline, time management, and respect for every dollar earned. It honestly keeps me humble and focused. These passions share all of one thread: they connect me to community, purpose, and the kind of life I'd want to build. My best motivator in life is my grandmother. She didn't choose to lose her daughter to cancer. She didn't have to raise 4 of her daughter Children. She chose to show up every day, for years in a house that became my home when my mother could not be there. My grandmother is my motivator because she represents a kind of strength that does not announce itself. She did not have a college degree to pass down to me. She did not have a roadmap for raising a child who would study computer science and statistics at a private university. What she had was consistency, sacrifice, and the belief that her grandchildren deserved more than the circumstances they were born into. She motivates me because she never asked for recognition. She simply did the work. Jennifer Kelley was honored for hard work, creative thinking, and selflessness — and when I read those words, I see my grandmother. I am not studying to escape where I come from. I am studying to honor the people who kept me standing when life took something I can never get back. Everything I do — college, work, volunteering — is my attempt to make her sacrifice mean something that lasts.

I am different because I am building a life that no one in my family has built before and I am certain I will be able to leave a mark. I am Edgerryn Cobbs, a first-generation college student from Danville Virginia, currently studying computer science and statistics at the University of Lynchburg. In my hometown, college is not a given. It is a question one that many people answer with doubt before they ever give themselves the chance. My parents finished high school and worked hard their entire lives, but neither attended a four-year university. When I chose a path in STEM, I did not just choose a major. I chose to become someone my family had never seen before: a student learning to code, analyze data, and navigate systems that were never designed with people like us in mind. That difference shows up in small moments. I am the person who has to ask questions others are embarrassed to ask about financial aid, course sequences, internships, and what certain acronyms mean. I am the student working during the school year while trying to keep up with a technical curriculum. I am the volunteer who has spent more than sixty hours serving in my community, not because it looks good on an application, but because Danville raised me to show up for people. What makes me different is not that I am smarter than anyone else. It is that I am walking a road without GPS and I keep walking anyway. I leverage that uniqueness by being visible in the right way. I do not perform success; I practice persistence. When I stay after class to understand a concept I did not get the first time, someone might notice. When I balance a shift at work with a statistics assignment due the next morning, someone might notice. When I volunteer on a Saturday after a long week, someone might notice. I may never know who is watching.. a younger cousin, a high school student from Danville, a classmate who is also first-generation and afraid they do not belong in STEM, but I act as if someone always is. That belief changes how I show up. I try to be honest about struggle instead of hiding it. First-generation students often feel pressure to look like they have everything figured out. I cannot front that ideal. I have had moments where a programming error or a difficult proof made me wonder if I chose the wrong field. But I have also learned that visibility matters. When someone like me keeps going not perfectly, but genuinely it gives permission to someone else who thinks college or STEM is only for people with the "right" background. I leverage my difference by turning it into service. Computer science and statistics taught me that patterns matter. I see a pattern in my own story: when one person from a community breaks through, others start to believe the door was never as closed as they thought. But I live as though that conversation is already happening. Through my work ethic, my willingness to help peers, my volunteer time, and my refusal to treat where I come from as something to escape rather than something to represent. I leverage that difference by making my life a quiet answer to a question someone else may be afraid to ask. I believe the answer is yes. Not because Im extraordinary, but because I am willing to be seen trying. And for someone watching from a distance, that might be the difference between giving up and starting.