I have the drive and determination to excel in the parts of my life that I am passionate about. Aerospace is one of those parts. I will start flight training to get my Private Pilot's License (PPL) shortly, and I am planning on earning my PPL before I start college. In college, I will study aerospace engineering hard. I have the work ethic to accomplish my goals and enter the workforce with confidence in my abilities. As an aerospace engineer, I plan to use my studies, my flying experience, and every resource I find, to create the best technology I can make. I want to create airplanes or technology that are environmentally-friendly and will not contribute to climate change. Climate change a big problem, and in my career, I want to create the technology that helps to minimize the general aviation community's carbon footprint. I want to advocate for minorities, such as BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ+, in the industry to make it an inclusive and comfortable place for them. As a female, Asian, and bisexual person, I understand what it's like to be a minority. I know that engineering is a very male-dominated career field and that minorities can often get pushed to the side. I want to stand up and help advocate for these minorities so they don't get pushed to the side and so they feel comfortable to voice their opinions without feeling like they might be ignored or talked over. I am currently in Civil Air Patrol and am working on the Washington Inclusion Committee, and my goal is to make everyone feel comfortable and like they belong in the program, no matter who they are. I am confident I can translate the skills I am learning in the Inclusion Committee over to advocating for underrepresented groups in the aerospace industry. I have set multiple goals for myself to accomplish my long-term goal of becoming a successful aerospace engineer. My first goal is to finish high school with a cumulative 4.0 unweighted GPA. I will start flight training to get my Private Pilot's License (PPL) for Single Engine Land aircraft shortly, and I am planning on earning my PPL before I start college. In college, I will major in aerospace engineering, and after I graduate, I plan to work as an aerospace engineer. As an aerospace engineer, I plan to use my studies, my flying experience, and every resource I find, to create the best technology I can make. I hope to help represent the aviation community in the aerospace industry and work on cutting-edge innovations for the aviation community such as drones/unmanned aerial vehicles and environmentally-friendly aircraft.

My flight instructor, Captain Bill Post, yelled at me from the back seat of the glider. I felt him on the controls, taking over so he could correct my mistake for me. The stick and rudders moved in my hand and under my feet, but I was not moving them myself - it was Bill. He yelled with a raspy voice, so it always seemed like he was mad, or at least disappointed. It was very stressful to be in the glider with him. “Your airplane,” Bill said, and I took the controls back again. The strong winds were pushing the airplane around, and despite how much I tried to keep the airplane flying straight, the winds would just not allow it. “No, no, no, no, no. What are you doing? Fly the plane!” Bill yelled. “Look! Do you see what you’re doing? Look at what the nose is doing!” I took about twenty-five flights with Bill, and on the first three, every time this happened, he would continuously yell at me to fly straight. He was an old and wise man, but he was stubborn and had high expectations for his students, and his teaching style was very abrasive. As a result, many students secretly hated to fly with him (although I have always had an immense respect for him). But even with all the yelling and all the different methods he tried with me, I could not find a way to improve. Eventually, I told him what my problem was. “I don’t know how to compensate for the wind. It keeps blowing around and I don’t know how to make the glider stop responding to it,” I finally said. “I’m keeping the stick completely still and I’m not using any force that would make it go in any different direction than straight, but the wind keeps pushing the glider around and I don’t know how to fix it.” Immediately, Bill said something that even though it sounds forgettable, I still remember what he said to this day: “Well, it doesn’t matter if you or Mother Earth is moving it. If it’s moving, you gotta fix it.” It took me a second to comprehend what he was saying, so he decided to expand on what he told me. “Even though you’re not moving the glider, the wind is. So, you have to fix it yourself if you want it to go straight,” he said. I considered his advice and tried his instructions. When I noticed the glider being moved, I would turn it back to the path that it was on before. “Gooood,” he said. “Now do it faster.” I eventually learned to anticipate when the wind would affect the path of the glider, and I learned how to fly straight. After learning how to take off and land well, I was allowed to solo. I had the best landing of all the other students in the program, and it turned out all of Bill's yelling paid off.

Image 1: I was Cadet Commander of the cadet color guard team, and I led our practices and made sure we were making good progress. Our hard work paid off, and we won the state competition! Image 2: This picture was at flight academy, and I learned how to fly gliders (airplanes without engines). I was only fifteen years old when I had my first solo flight in an airplane, and I had never even driven a car yet. Image 3: As drum major, I spun baton at our football games and hyped the students up for school spirit!

Although some of my musical skill is natural talent, I have worked tirelessly to improve as a percussionist. I have been playing instruments for eleven years, and in the last two years, I have gotten serious about improving my skills to become the best musician I can be. Before this, I would just play songs that I liked, and the satisfaction of hearing myself play something I recognized would be enough for me. The turning point was making the snareline in marching band my sophomore year. Playing with people who were more experienced than me opened my eyes to my current skill level and to where I could be. Since then, I have dedicated every free second to improving my snare playing, whether it be just tapping my fingers on a table or practicing on my drum. Fundamentals, which others may find extremely boring, have become a normal part of my practice routine, and I have learned to embrace the ‘boring.’ I know that endless work at Eight on a Hand will pay off majorly in the end. Self-awareness is also something that I use to improve my skills. I sit in front of the mirror and take videos of me practicing; watching myself practice helps me to understand what I am doing wrong and how I can fix it. I am honest with myself when I practice, and I don’t let repeated mistakes get me down. Practicing for two or three hours a day has become normal to me. I have seen a tremendous improvement in my playing, and I am proud of myself for my achievements. I am hoping to continue playing music in college. I am a drum major in band, and my typical drum major duties are conducting, leading rehearsal, ensuring that the schedule is followed, and more. I also lead percussion sectionals and have mentored multiple students who are interested in auditioning for the drum major position. Being in band has opened up many opportunities for me to make a real impact on people's lives. In my opinion, one of the most important things I’ve done for the band community was this year during the pandemic. In my position as drum major, I realized that the incoming freshmen would feel isolated coming into such a tight-knit band community without the ability to physically interact with other band members to make friends. That is why I worked to initiate a mentorship program that would achieve our goal of giving freshmen an opportunity to make friends with other freshmen and band members, and it also gave returning band members an opportunity to become leaders themselves. I have learned self-discipline, focus, and the importance of hard work from playing percussion, and have shared my skills with other students. I hope that I have taught them how to have a good work ethic, and that it is possible to achieve anything that they set their mind to. I hope that I have created a safe environment that band members can flourish in.

I wanted to write a snare lick that could match and groove with the song 'All I Need' by Jacob Collier. After listening to the song for a while, I understood the structure and which parts should be emphasized. I started freestyling to come up with ideas, and every time I found something I liked, I stopped to internalize it and made sure to play it again on my next run. My favorite part was when I took a hybrid rudiment called "book reports" and pushed it to start on the 'e' of the beat (it's usually played on the downbeat), then played it again but flammed and buzzed on the 'a.' I thought it sounded really funky and I was so proud of it.

When I think of music, I think of math, however weird this may initially seem. It’s one of the reasons I’m so drawn to playing the snare drum. Since the snare is an unpitched instrument, everything I do ultimately boils down to rhythms, which in my mind, boil down to math. From a mathematical point of view, rhythms make so much sense. Every note is a fraction of the full beat, and the full beat is a fraction of the measure. Lately, I’ve been especially interested in drum gridding exercises (grids). They use a set pattern of shifting constants and variables (accents and embellishments), across each subdivision of a beat. The first time I heard a grid being played, I intuitively knew the structure of the exercise and what it should sound like, even without seeing any sheet music. Grids resonate with me so well because I understand the concept of constants and variables from math, and to hear them being applied in music is thrilling. I love being able to take math, something scientific and logical, and mix it with music, which is creative and expressive. The two are an unexpected combination, which makes associating them together so much more special and interesting. It gives me another reason to appreciate learning math, and this interdisciplinary connection of math and music gives me joy. Using math helps me to contextualize, analyze, and understand music better. On the flip side, applying math to my music makes me more enthusiastic about both, and makes me want to excel. I truly believe that the best benefit of education comes when it can be applied to real life and to things you are passionate about.

I am a second generation Filipino-American. Even though I am full Filipino, I grew up separated from the culture, and my parents and I can’t speak Tagalog. Since I grew up removed from Filipino culture, I’ve always felt like a part of me was missing. I knew so little about the Philippines that when people asked me “where I came from,” I felt like I didn’t even deserve to say that I was Filipino because I felt like an impostor when I said it. On the other hand, it also didn’t feel right just saying I was American, because of my Filipino heritage. I wasn’t Filipino enough, and I wasn’t American enough. I was right in-between, and when it came down to it, I didn’t “belong” in any one group. I felt ashamed asking Filipino people to speak to me in English, and as a minority, I never fully fit in with my white-American peers. A white man once told me I was “just another American mutt.” It was insulting, but deep down I wondered if I really was. As I grew up, I became more comfortable with myself and my personality. People didn’t ask me “where I came from” as much, which gave me time to self-reflect on who I was. I learned that whether I was “Filipino,” or “American,” or whatever in between, I am who I am, and although my ethnicity is a part of who I am, it does not define me. In the future, I would love to take any opportunity to connect with other Asians to learn more about my heritage, but more so to help anyone who feels like they don’t belong feel confident that their race, gender, sexuality, religion, or any other label, does not define them. I understand what it's like to be a minority, as a female, Asian, and bisexual person. I want to help underrepresented people feel like they truly belong so they might not even have to go through adversity in the first place. One way I am helping underrepresented people is in my position in Civil Air Patrol (CAP), serving on the Washington Inclusion Committee on the Cadet Advisory Council. I have witnessed many problems in my own squadron, especially for trans cadets, and have worked with our underrepresented cadets to find solutions to these problems. Some of these solutions are including character development lessons on topics such as gender/sexuality and microaggressions in our curriculum (rather than just advocating for respect on a broad, general level) and making it easier to change a member's first name in our online logistics system to avoid deadnaming trans members. In the Inclusion Committee, I am dedicated to advocating for these solutions to make CAP a better place for everyone. In my future career as an aerospace engineer, I want to continue to advocate for underrepresented people. I know that engineering is a very male-dominated career field and that minorities can often get pushed to the side. I want to stand up and help advocate for these minorities so they don't get pushed to the side and so they feel comfortable to voice their opinions without feeling like they might be ignored or talked over. I am confident I can translate the skills I am learning in the Inclusion Committee over to advocating for underrepresented groups in the aerospace industry, and throughout my life I want to continue to do this because I believe it's the right thing to do.

STEM topics have always piqued my interest. As I grew up, I explored many disciplines of the broad STEM category, including microbiology, coding, robotics, and more. Being in Civil Air Patrol exposed me to a new discipline of STEM: aerospace. It wasn’t something that I was immediately attracted to, but as I continued to learn about aerospace as a result of progressing through the program, I developed a passion for it. I enjoyed reading the assigned aerospace books and felt smart and enthusiastic whenever I could demonstrate my knowledge to others. When I was fifteen, I went to a flight academy and learned how to fly gliders, and even got a chance to solo. The moment I soloed in that airplane I knew aerospace was absolutely what I loved. The following year, I went back to the flight academy for their advanced glider program, where I learned more about flying and aerospace. That summer, I passed the written FAA test for the powered private pilots’ license! I was learning aerospace in Civil Air Patrol and taking every STEM class I could at school. Junior year, I took an engineering class and developed an affinity for it. I loved being able to see my designs come to life. Even fixing the mistakes that I inevitably made was an adventure for me. On my own, I started designing drum pads. Funnily enough, one of my biggest challenges was just convincing my parents to get the materials to make them with! It was so much fun for me, and it baffled me to know that some people disliked engineering. One day, an aerospace engineer came to our engineering class to talk about his profession. The combination of the two STEM topics I loved most was amazing, and his talk about all the innovations in the aerospace world was beyond inspiring. Deep in my heart, I know this is what I want to pursue. I have set multiple goals for myself to accomplish my long-term goal of becoming a successful aerospace engineer. My first goal is to finish high school with a cumulative 4.0 unweighted GPA. I will start flight training to get my Private Pilot's License (PPL) for Single Engine Land aircraft shortly, and I am planning on earning my PPL before I start college. In college, I will major in aerospace engineering, and after I graduate, I plan to work as an aerospace engineer. I want to advocate to make the aerospace industry a safe and inclusive space for for BIPOC, females, and LGBTQ+. As an aerospace engineer, I plan to use my studies, my flying experience, and every resource I find, to create the best technology I can make. In my future career, I hope to help represent the aviation community in the aerospace industry and work on cutting-edge innovations for the aviation community such as drones/unmanned aerial vehicles and environmentally-friendly aircraft. I have the drive and determination to excel in the parts of my life that I am passionate about, and aerospace is one of those parts. I have the work ethic to accomplish my goals and enter the workforce with confidence in my abilities. As an aerospace engineer, I plan to use my studies, my flying experience, and every resource I find, to create the best technology I can make. I will accomplish my goals and become the person I know I can be.

It was a rookie mistake. And a potentially dangerous one, since I was flying solo 3,000 feet in the air in a glider. I treated my altimeter as if it was measuring from Above Ground Level (AGL) instead of from Mean Sea Level (MSL), and since Ephrata was 1,000 feet above MSL, I was 1,000 feet lower than I thought I was. A quick look down at the ground confirmed it. I was scared I would lose all my altitude by the time I made it back to the airport, and that I would have to make an emergency landing. Whatever fear I had, I pushed it aside and got to work. At Ground School, I learned that flying at 49 knots was Best Glide Ratio, and that meant I would go the farthest with losing the least altitude. Applying this knowledge, I decided to fly at Best Glide Ratio to conserve altitude. Instead of turning downwind to the airport, which is standard procedure, I cut straight to the base leg of the landing pattern to save altitude. I had razor-sharp focus and did not let stress cloud my judgement. With my knowledge from Ground School, I made logical, well-informed decisions that ultimately paid off, and when I finally landed the airplane, it was the smoothest landing I had ever done. My instructors always talked about how decision making was the most important part of flying, even more important than being able to control the airplane. At that moment, I fully understood what they were saying. Up in the air, my brain went into full analytical mode. Without the knowledge I learned in Ground School, I could’ve easily turned my dangerous situation into an emergency situation. It turned out that as uneventful as Ground School seemed to have been at the time, it is what ultimately saved me up in the air. From this experience, I learned to appreciate education for everything it can do for me, even if when I’m learning it, it can seem tedious, boring, or difficult. I never know how I will use my education to help me in the future, so I keep myself prepared for anything that might happen; If I’m having trouble in challenging classes like AP Calculus, I’ll work through my problems until I understand it. I am committed to making sure that I fully comprehend what I learn both in the classroom and ‘in the cockpit.’ My experience flying gliders has ignited my passion for aviation and aerospace, and my ultimate goal is to become an aerospace engineer. I am excited for college so I can learn about something I’m truly passionate about, among peers who share the same passion as mine.