My name is Tanjai Ploykao, and I am from the city of Phuket in Thailand. Phuket is approximately 8,630 miles away from the United States. Thailand is surrounded by Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia, and is famous for many delicious foods such as Pad Thai and Tom Yum. Food has brought me closer to other cultures, and although I have been to several countries, I am always interested in exploring more of the world. My passion for computer science and the STEM fields has been building since I was a child, but it really bloomed during my high school years. I joined my high school’s robotics team and was assigned to the programming division of that team, and as my knowledge of coding expanded, my interest expanded proportionally as well. I used my grasp of programming and physics to help my team reach national championship level competitions. I learned to apply my programming and mathematics knowledge to my school’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics club during my freshman and sophomore years. My ambition was to achieve a degree in computer science once I graduated, but I was frustrated by citizenship complications as I was not yet an American citizen. My family has several connections with the military, including both my grandfather and my sister who served in the United States Army. I joined the United States Air Force in 2020 after my sister's contract ended during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. When I joined the USAF, I was interested in many jobs in the cyber and aviation fields. Unfortunately, at the time of my enlistment, I still was not a citizen of the United States, and as such, I was severely limited in the jobs I could get. I finally got my citizenship in April 2022, but at this time I have been unable to secure a job in the cyber field. Even though I do not work in the cyber field, I do my best to work past that, taking on projects that allow me to bring forward solutions from a computer science perspective. I applied for an internship called StratoFi that asked an airman to come up with an innovative idea to help improve the USAF. I developed an idea to help create an effective process for USAF fitness testing in order to greatly reduce human error, and was selected for the internship. I developed an app that I am still working on, and although the internship has now ended, I continue my work in the hope that I can innovate a military process that has been stale for too long. The StratoFi Internship has opened the door for me to utilize the skills I developed in high school, an opportunity I am truly grateful for. Presently, I am working toward a degree in computer science. The military, being the established institution it is, certainly does not make pursuing my dream easy, but that will not stop me from achieving it. I look forward to solving problems and inventing solutions in the future, and I am grateful to qualify for the Ben Brock Memorial Scholarship. Thank you for your consideration.