In 2018, my great-grandmother died and that was only the beginning. All of my life, my great-grandmother and one of my aunts lived together. They were not very far from my family's home, so we would visit and go out to lunch and dinner frequently. She encouraged me to take swimming and piano lessons, wanting to enrich my life with things she enjoyed as well. She wanted me to have a good, lifelong education and travel the world just like she had. It was extremely difficult to adjust to her death. I remember feeling very guilty, as I had not played piano in a long time at that point. At the same time, I could not handle the thought of playing again, knowing that she would never get to hear it. I remember staying home from school one day and falling asleep in bed with my mom. I hadn't done so in years. She told me later I was crying in my sleep the entire time. Still, life goes on. Just as I felt like I was finally moving forward three months later, I found out that my grandfather died. I adored him when I was young. He was a kind man, smart too, always wanting to make sure everyone is taken care of. Once again it felt like something was missing. There’s something uncanny about reminiscing on things and realizing you will never experience them again. I decided avoiding the thought of him would make it easier to keep moving forward. In 2019, following six months after his father, my uncle died. I remember being a little kid and him babysitting me. In January 2020, it was another grandfather. To end 2020, my aunt, the same one who had lived with my great-grandmother, died. For July 2021, my final grandfather died. And finally, to top it all off, the week of Thanksgiving in 2022 my uncle died. Loss after loss, my mental health deteriorated slowly. I struggled more to cope with stress and found myself giving up on things far easier than before. After being given the news of someone’s death so many times, I found myself more numb to it. It felt more like greeting an acquaintance than it did a shock. Still painful, but more easily accepted than before. At some point in the midst of everything, I realized that sitting in my grief did nothing. Just like so many people I loved, I too was dying, wasting away as I pondered what-ifs and why-me's. I wondered what the point of living on was if I never actually lived my life. I remember how, to cope with my pain, I would play video games. They brought joy and comfort in a time of pain and confusion. Now, I aim to give that comfort back to others in similar circumstances. I want to learn how to create video games so that others can experience the joy and escape I did. I want to bring joy and laughter to people, to show that there's light a the end of the tunnel. While I am unable to solve people’s problems, I can lend support and provide some relief. The most important part of life is being able to enjoy it. I really enjoy writing stories and creating art, so making games is a fantastic way for me to be able to share those.

I love patterns. I love predictable times tables, graphs, rules, and symmetry. I love problems with one clear solution, whether it has one or one hundred methods of solving them. In sixth grade, the classes were divided into three based on our math knowledge. I was in the advanced class, which was taught by one of the junior high's math teachers. We had a lesson once on the Fibonacci sequence, something that has stuck with me since then. I find the pattern of it fascinating and relaxing, 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34. Simple enough to go through in my head for a while, something mundane and repetitive to take my mind off of things. Not only that, but at the end of the lesson my teacher took printouts of a pinecone and a flower, tracing the Fibonacci spiral over them. I love the way I can see the pattern when walking out in botanical gardens. I love the shorthand tricks math offers. Whenever I go out to eat with friends or family, I calculate the tip. The trick is to move the decimal to the left one digit and double that number for twenty percent. I have a similar trick I use when going shopping. I estimate what my total price will be by rounding up the cents to a dollar, taking ten percent of that, and adding it to the total. I usually overestimate the cost, but it makes it easier to pay cash at checkout. Simple tricks like these I use every day, all of which I derived from tricks taught in my math classes. Most of all, I love the science of math. My physics class was spent taking real-life situations and breaking them down to see which formula fit them. It was somehow the same as a math class while being very different. When I work on programming video games, I use math and physics to calculate how objects move and interact. Geometry is also useful when programming how objects will collide or interact through touch. Once there is a scenario to apply mathematics to, it feels far more real. This is what I love about math.

I grew up on computers. My father works in IT and when I was a baby, he would sit me in his lap and show me how to work a keyboard. Throughout Elementary School, I would help my teachers use their computers, figuring out solutions to problems I had never seen before. All my life, computers have just seemed to come naturally to me. I loved the Day of Code lessons and tech team my elementary school had to offer, looking at more learning resources at home as well. I've taken multiple coding classes throughout my life, both online and at school, including JavaScript, C, Unity C#, and Python. Growing up on computers also meant that I grew up playing video games. They were a staple of my daily routine, something fun I could do alone and with friends. As I grew up, I became aware of the finer details of video games. How different games of the same genre used the same mechanic differently and how different companies approached mechanics in different ways. I began to wonder whether these choices were made stylistically or as a result of constraints from their game engine. In middle school, I discovered some indie games that I really enjoyed. When I learned how small the teams making them were in comparison to the large studios of the games I usually played, I was blown away. I realized that, if a single person could teach themself the necessary code, music, and art skills to make a popular game, so could I. I began doing more research into the game development process, looking at the changes made between games' beta builds and subsequent updates. I have always been particularly fascinated by how changing code to fix bugs affects other parts of the program, even if they did not seem to be related. My father is a veteran, he played the saxophone in bands in the army and marines. In addition, my aunt and oldest brother are both on active duty. My aunt is a navy dentist and she is particularly inspiring to me. She has worked hard her entire life to support herself and my family. Whenever my family has struggled, whether with finances, medical issues, or home renovations, she has been there to support us. She is committed to herself and her values. I aspire to be strong and work hard like her. I want to get to a place in my life where I can comfortably support myself, my mother, my friends, and any family members in need. I also have fond memories of working with my mom to pack care packages to send to my aunt and my mom's friends during their deployments. When I was little I loved sitting with my mom to pack those boxes and helping her take them to the post office. When I was a toddler, my aunt would record herself reading books during her deployment and send them to us. My mom would play the recording and have me watch and read along with our own copy of those books.

In elementary school, my sixth-grade class was divided into three classes based on math knowledge and I had the best teacher of my life. I was in the advanced class, I found that math always seemed to click for me. English was complicated, it was not black-and-white. English was about personal thoughts, opinions, and analysis. Whereas math was more clear to me. Unlike my classmates, I found the subject fun and easy. At this point, it was the clarity that drew me to math. A math problem has a clear correct answer, even if there are multiple methods to solve it. I can remember clearly, the best math lesson I ever had. Still in my sixth-grade class, my teacher decided to have a lesson on the Fibonacci sequence and spiral. The first intersection between math and nature I had ever seen. I will admit, I was (and still am) a little obsessed with the sequence. I go over it in my head to relax, 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-etc. In a math advancement summer school course with that same teacher, I had a piece of paper I covered in the Fibonacci sequence. The paper was covered on both sides with addition worked out in the margins. I kept graph paper in my school binders at this time, when I had nothing to do it was often used to graph a Fibonacci spiral. I remember, at the end of that lesson, my teacher took out printed pictures of a flower and a pinecone. He proceeded to trace over the pictures with the Fibonacci spiral, explaining that it was a natural phenomenon and that if we wanted, we could go out and find it. I was blown away by the realization. Nature, which had until that point seemed wild and unpredictable, had a pattern. Suddenly, nature is not so imposing and I want to learn more. The world seems more orderly, in a way, just by the knowledge that it organizes itself. I found myself wondering what other seemingly random facts of nature had logic. What reasons there were for plants' development? I became far more interested in science at this point, as I had noticed the overlap between math and science. This even drove me to take physics in high school. It was not required of me, but I thought I would enjoy the class and I did! It was fascinating, to be able to quantify how and why objects behave the way they do. I, while never being particularly interested in sports, would actually pay attention when I noticed a game playing on TV. It was curiosity at its finest, with an analytical overtone. I find that actions tend to make more sense to me now, as I have an understanding of why exactly they work.

When I got my period, everything changed. I was in fifth grade at the time and had spent the last couple of years struggling with molluscum, no treatments had worked. Puberty seemed to have cleared it up and for the next year or so I was fine. Slowly, however, I noticed a decline in my health. I have always gotten sick rather frequently, a few times a year. Once I started middle school, I noticed frequent joint pain, headaches, and nausea that had started creeping up since puberty. I had difficulty eating anything most of the time, often too nauseous for food. Everything felt far more difficult as I was constantly fatigued. I'm a digital artist and love to draw but have trouble sometimes due to pain in my wrist and stiffness in my fingers. Today, my doctor went over my blood test results and told me she suspects I am in the early stages of Lupus. Less frequently, I struggle with intense menstrual cramps. While my period may have cleared out some childhood health issues, it now keeps me down monthly. The first two days are the worst, my cramps are so intense I tend to struggle to sit up properly and spend the whole day on painkillers to function at all. Throughout my life, I have learned to understand my limits and pace myself. Once I learned my limits, I have been able to plan out how and when to work on assignments and projects so as to not push myself too far. I have a good understanding of my capabilities and what is easier or more difficult for me to do. This knowledge has helped me be more productive. However, there are still times when I need to take a step back and rest. With all the time I have spent exhausted and in pain, I found ways to entertain and distract myself. Video games help me relax and enjoy my day despite the struggles I face. Making plans to meet friends in person and general physical activities can be difficult for me, especially since I'm never sure how I'll feel on a given day. But talking to friends online and playing games with them is much easier! I love being able to do fun things and still relax and rest my joints. I want to go into the video game industry to be able to give others the joy I have experienced from video games. It is very important to have ways to relax, relieve stress, and connect with people without having to push yourself. Furthermore, I want to help bring attention to people's struggles and I think storytelling is a good first step. People tend to be more receptive to learning when it happens in a fun setting.

In the realm of computer science, my goal is to become proficient in multiple coding languages for video game programming. I have enjoyed programming since elementary school, having taken various courses from sixth grade till now. One of my favorite languages to learn has been Python 3, with its easy-to-understand syntax. I have also learned some C, C++, C# and JavaScript. At the moment, my knowledge of each language is rather basic, though I am capable of working in each. My goal is to have in-depth knowledge of a handful of programming languages and some basic knowledge of more so that I will be a versatile asset in the workforce. Having a lot of programming knowledge and experience would allow me to learn faster by making connections between languages. I would also be capable of doing some independent coding projects. I am enrolled in a bachelor of science in computer science and game design program to be able to work in game studios after graduation. I find the process of video game development interesting and would love to have a hand in it. I am particularly interested in how game engines and artificial intelligence work. While I appreciate art and storytelling, there is something fascinating about the inner mechanisms of video games. I love learning about why non-player characters will make certain decisions and how a random event is chosen. Outside of computer science, I love art, writing and entertainment. I spend a lot of time designing original characters and writing stories for them. I work hard to create beautiful and interesting art of original characters and characters and scenes from media. I enjoy posting them online for others to see and occasionally make videos of my process. I believe it is important for people to explore their interests and find fun content online, as it provides time to relax and enjoy yourself. To combine these goals, I would love to someday work independently on my own video games. So far, I have been able to create a couple of small visual novels, one by myself and one with a small team. I greatly enjoy the process of creating visual novels, from the initial story idea, writing out the game, adding in the art and finishing up little details and transitions. I especially enjoy getting feedback from other people on what they enjoyed and what I could improve upon. Knowing I was able to create something fun for another person to enjoy means the world to me. Aside from making my own games, I have had an interest in modding games since middle school. Learning more coding will allow me to create mods and explore the possibilities of my favorite games. I want to be able to look through the code, understand how it works and build something interesting and unique that still fits in with the original content.

When I was a baby, my father sat me in his lap and guided my hands to play with his computer keyboard. Computers were part of my life from a very early age, computer games in particular. I would often help my teachers when they did not know how to do something on their computer, though most often I was not sure myself, rather using intuition. Somehow, computers just make sense to me in a way most of my family and some peers do not understand. I have taken various coding classes since elementary school, including JavaScript, Python and Unity C#. As I have gotten older and had access to more of the internet, I fell in love with video games. An art form, experience and way to connect with people across the globe. Video games have been a large part of my entertainment and friendships throughout my life. As I have gotten older and grown more interested in the development process, I have found inspiration in the small, independent and solo developers that make some of my favorite games. Seeing the amazing games produced by small teams of people like me, I feel that I am also capable of developing interesting games. I am currently enrolled in a bachelor of science in computer science and game design program. After finishing this degree, my goal is to work professionally coding games and make enough money to help support myself and my mother. Aside from that, I aspire to spend my free time working independently on small games. I do a lot of digital art and story writing as a hobby and would love to incorporate these into higher-quality projects of my own. For now, I make small visual novels in my free time. I view video games as an interactive method of storytelling and a way to build communities. It would be a dream to build games based on my own stories to give people joy and a way to find friends with common interests. I believe I am the best candidate for receiving this scholarship because I have spent nearly my entire life developing my passion for computer science. It would be immensely helpful to have this aid in paying for my college and help lessen the financial strain it causes. I would love to receive this scholarship to remove some stress from my mother over our finances between attempting to move and pay for my college.

If I could have everyone in the world read just one book, it would be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. While I was assigned to read it in my senior English class, I quickly fell in love with the story. I adore the style of the book, short easy-to-read chapters interspersed with small comments and asides make it a wonderful experience. The narrator, Death's, personality is rather charming to me. Not only does it have a lovely style, but The Book Thief also gives an important perspective on World War II Nazi Germany. Ironically, in spite of having Death as the narrator, it gives a rather human take. The story shows people's selflessness, courage, and strength in a time of fear and adversity. Reading The Book Thief was the first time I had ever read about Germans helping Jewish people during World War II. I believe this is very important to learn about from that time period. Humans can be cruel, yes, but they can also be kind and loving. Learning about the hatred and cruelty of World War II is important, of course. But what of the brave people who chose love instead? What of human lives and love and empathy? I believe people should see both sides, so as to not allow it to seem so black and white. It is crucial to learn about history, to learn from past mistakes, and move forward as better people for them. However, there is a big difference between the cold analytics reading statistics from a history textbook tends to provide and the emotions and empathy a story such as The Book Thief provokes. It is far too easy to ignore or brush off the past. It is much harder to brush off the attachment you feel when reading a story, something with fewer characters that you can get to know and love rather than millions of nameless people. Furthermore, I believe that reading a story like The Book Thief opens the gate for people to look into real stories and learn about the Jewish people who lived through World War II, and those who didn't.

To influence is to care about those around you and to show joy and optimism. "Influencers" are prominent in today's society, which I believe can be a positive thing should they take this role seriously. Personally, I try to stay positive and use humor to influence those around me. I believe laughter is a powerful way to improve someone's day. Currently, I am struggling with my transition to college. I am enrolled in my dream school, which is wonderful! However it is out of state, so I will need to move and on top of that, my parents are going through a divorce, with it initially being brought up a week before Christmas. Some days I hardly want to get out of bed, let alone work on anything. I still do, because I have to. I have had some reprieve through video games, both playing and watching others play. One of my best friends recently moved across the country, but I am still able to spend time with him through video games. Though life may feel uncertain now, I know that eventually, it will fall back into place. I hope that one day I will be able to help people find some peace through uncertain times, as well. I plan to work in game design, specifically the programming area. Video games have done a lot to allow me to make and maintain friendships, so I hope to one day give that back to other people. I see video games as a storytelling medium as well as a way to allow people across the world to connect with each other. I understand how important the escapism video games can provide is, as well as the community they can create. I want people to find joy, peace, and a safe space in the games I create, just as I have in so many others' games. Ideally, I would like to get a well-paying job with a company in order to be able to help provide for my mother. I also have dreams of working independently and making my personal projects come to life. Overall, what I really want is to share my stories and have other people enjoy them. Receiving this scholarship would be immensely helpful to me. As my mother and I are looking into moving and I am uncertain of my father's help to pay for college, I am looking for any way to lessen the stress and burden it will cause financially. I am grateful for any help I can get so that one day I can return the favor to someone else.

Nearly my entire life has been enriched by the vibrant art and storytelling of video games. As a child, I loved console games from large companies, while now I tend to find indie games truly inspiring. Seeing small, independent teams make gorgeous games inspires me to see what I can create. Starting off, I had planned to work on game art and get some sort of design degree. Throughout high school, I took three art classes, all of which I loved. In my spare time, I designed my own characters to draw and adored the process. This made me decide to take a character design course through the Art Center College of Design. The class included prop and environment design, which I found I did not enjoy as much. With this in mind, my goal was to work on character design and art for games. In my junior year, however, I also took a programming class. I found the class very enjoyable and realized there was a lot more to code than I initially thought. While I had taken a few programming classes in middle school as well, I had not realized how in-depth code really was. This brought me to consider having more diverse skill sets to be a better job candidate in the future. I have since taken online coding courses to expand my knowledge. Aside from traditional school, I have also looked into games to learn how to make them. By playing and analyzing their contents, I see what choices work for certain audiences. I also looked into the people who made them, which had a major impact on my career goals. This is around the time I realized how small some of the indie developers I love actually were. Some of them are single people working on all parts of their games alone, and others are as small as three people. The realization that, while helpful, you do not need a large studio to be able to create games inspired me to try and make them on my own. With the knowledge that programming is very complex, I decided an education in that field would better suit my desire for some independent work. My goal now is to get a degree in computer science and game design, which will provide me with important technical skills. These will broaden my skills and allow me to create more refined games independently in addition to helping me get work in larger companies.

Now more than ever, people need ways to feel connected with something. Whether that be other people, stories, or characters, technology helps provide these connections. Developments in virtual reality are especially useful in this area. Virtual reality technology allows users to feel like they are within a space - as if they can reach out and touch what they see. This level of immersion makes it easier for users to feel connected with their experience. VR "chatrooms" such as VR Chat allow users to connect with others through the use of virtual avatars. This gives a more personal connection than sending messages on a text platform does. By making users feel like they are physically sharing a space with another person, they bond more with the people around them. As someone who spends a lot of time interacting with people online, I find this particularly interesting. Different methods of communication do feel different! I feel different and to some degree portray myself differently when having a messaging conversation versus a voice call versus a video call. The way someone perceives others and, in turn, themself is different depending on the means of communication. VR is also very useful as a storytelling medium. Users experience more of these worlds than they would reading stories, watching films, or even playing other games. Interactions between players and characters tend to feel more genuine with the impression of being face-to-face. This can also aid in portraying scale as the player may need to look up or down at objects and characters of different sizes. Little details like this build up immersion and enhance the experience very well. People thrive on emotional connections to each other and to experiences such as games. Virtual reality technology has provided a fantastic way to enhance these experiences for users.

Waking up in the morning is always the same routine The lilies on my bedside greet me Gratitude, pride, prosperity I only wish you would’ve said them to me Getting dressed by the wardrobe, I glance out the window Daffodil in the windowsill Memories follow Narcissus into the pool Forgiveness swims to the banks to rest Checking my laptop for anything new Dahlias by my side remind me of you Congratulations on a job well done But now it feels like I’d never won I go to the kitchen for breakfast The dining table is painted in petals White orchids, purple hyacinth, white peonies Regretful, sincere apologies Their emotion leaves no room for me The mornings will never be the same Ghosts of warmth and laughter haunt these halls Some days I almost hear your calls The mantle is decorated with scorpion grass Memories stay strong but the connection feels shattered I tend to wonder if it truly mattered A letter on the desk remains unsent I still hope to make amends I suppose it is on me now You’ve been reaching out anyhow The letter gets sealed in an envelope Nestled between petals of a bouquet White tulips, blue hyacinths, violets, white orchids, white peonies Hopefully, you’ll understand what it means to me