My path to figuring out I wanted to be an female technician took me a while to figure out, it started when I was a junior in highschool I had taken a lot of stem classes two years prior to taking the automotive class given here in my highschool. And once I began to take the class I enjoyed it greatly, we had a teacher who was hard on us which most students didn't like and left, I never minded it, for his sole purpose was to get us to learn something by the end of the year. He fueled my passion for it, I was always told by my father that it was useless for a woman to learn about changing the oil in a car, or changing brakes when in the end I'd end up marrying a man who would do all the dirty car work for me, I never liked that statement especially since I always enjoyed being independent and not be dependent on others, he always tried to push down those dreams of being a technitian by saying it was either too hard, too dirty of a job for a woman, or it was not fit for a woman since it was all men's work. But I for one don't like to back down on my dreams I'm set in on my dreams to complete my learning and become a technician. Receiving this scholarship would benefit me a lot and lessen my burden of worrying about paying for the school itself, Im on a plan to pay a certain amount per month and I come from a low income house so we dont have a lot of money saved up for my school. The school that im going to is out of state so ill be paying for my own apartment and alongside the monthly payments just to stay in school I'll have to budget hard, so this scholarship would be a huge help in lessening my burden with monthly payments. Once I complete my training I'll be spending some time paying back my loans, working for a car company that I like and maybe one day I'll have my own car repair shop. I was always thinking I'd stick to working in turbo or engine building since it had always piqued my interest since I was younger, I was always a fan on racing movies and how they built their cars, engines or customized their cars which one day I plan on doing to my own car or other cars that I get commission to modify. Once I feel like I've accomplished what I needed to i might go into teaching, and be someone like my automotive teacher was a hard working man, and one who makes sure his students are well taken care for and have learned something by the end of the day. That was always his goal to make sure we learned something and that we always took better paths rather than ones that would end up with us in bad ways. *This is not part of my essay but I wanted to mention that the car below is a car i once worked on. But i dont have any pictures of me working on a car because my own father doesnt like me taking pictures of myself doing that he has expressed against it afterall he told me he wouldnt pay nothing nor support me if i went down the path to become a female technician.*

My name is Ema, I plan to become a female technician by next year and own my own autoshop one day. The main reason I joined the automotive world was because a few teachers inspired me but the main person who stood out was my automotive teacher, his name is Oscar Murguia hes a teacher at pasco highschool and when I first joined he seemed like a strict teacher from the start but one you start working and taking charge for yourself in his class he starts to lossen up and teaches us more beyond the coursework that he had. Some days he'd bring in cars that had some other problem different from the coursework and he'd have us grab him tools and tell us how to work and find the problem and fix it. We did the basics learning how to change the oil in a car, mount tires and balance them, replace brakes, doing simple alignments and told us the main things we should check in a car when they come into our shop. I really have enjoyed working on cars from actual teachers and students who would them in for us to work with, when i first began the class i always knew i enjoyed hands-on work and that automotive class helped me figure out a lot about myself I didnt know i loved doing. I did two years of automotive at my school and now as a senior it has become my highschool pathway. This scholarship would help me tremendously to pay for the technical school I got accepted to, I still have to pay each month while I attend said school and I want to reduce my monthly payments as much as I can in anyway possible, no matter the amount. Im applying to any scholarship I can find.

When I was younger, I would always pay attention to cars. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known about cars. I was always an observant child, and cars consistently caught my interest. Once I was able to take an automotive class in my high school, I enjoyed the whole experience of working on cars. I really enjoy hands-on learning. Of course, we still do online work, but it’s very quick and easy once you understand the concepts of cars and their systems. I started my journey in automotive technology in my junior year. The thing that always surprised me was how few girls joined. It was understood that a lot of them didn’t like to get dirty, so most didn’t sign up for the class. To me, it seemed like a male-dominated class because there were so few women apart from myself. But the teacher I had didn’t care about gender or anything like that. All he cared about was getting us to learn the basic concepts of cars and their systems. It’s a fun class. I’m a senior now, so it’s my last year, but I’m still taking the class. By the time I write this and you get to read it, I’ll be working on struts and bearings. I’m quite excited for it, actually. Since we are so busy doing simple jobs like changing brakes or oil and oil filters, we sometimes don’t get the chance to learn something new. As for continuing my education in automotive technology, I have been accepted to a technical school in Sacramento, California. I currently live in Washington, so moving away from home is hard. After all, I’ll be all alone in this new journey. And to be frank, I’m quite excited. The courses I’ll be taking will be fun for me. I’m very interested in building my own engine from bottom to top and learning about turbos. If I have enough money in the future, or if I gain enough scholarships to pay for this school, I would come back and even consider taking their NASCAR course that they offer to train us and employ us right into the NASCAR world, which to me sounds amazing. But I’m losing track of what I really wanted to talk about. The reason why I’m so passionate is that I have a great high school teacher who motivated me to love working on cars, which I still do. The only part I hate is the clean-up part, because once a form of car liquid gets on the floor, it’s hard to ever get it off the ground. Though the main reason I’m so determined to continue my learning is that I want to be the first in my generation to go to a tech school or some form of secondary school. I am a first-generation student in my family, and I want to make them proud with my journey because once I get my degree, I won’t stop learning. I’ll continue to learn for as long as I can, as long as I have a way to be financially okay and receive all the support I need.