For five years, track and cross country were the activities in my life that provided me the most joy. I was used to them; I was used to winning. I was used to hearing the sound of the stadium, the cheering, my family, coaches and teammates screaming my name, the adrenaline rush. During the height of competition season, I got used to the feeling of stepping up to the line, measuring up my competition, take a deep breath and waiting for the gun to go off. The exhilaration of running as fast as I could was, while exhausting, something I looked forward to days before every race. I went to nationals, and had the experience of traveling, sometimes during the burning heat, or the freezing cold, depending on the season. Some races turned out better then others, one year, I got 5 All-American titles between cross country, outdoor track, and indoor track, and one year I got 1. Nevertheless, I practiced around 45 weeks out of the year. And even during the breaks I dedicated myself by going on runs by myself, lifting weights and going to the gym if the weather wouldn't allow me to run. It taught me how to persevere even when I couldn't see my progress. Running taught me how you can never get better at something without hard work. It taught me the necessity for collaboration, through relays, and how to be relied on. It gave me something to do when I needed it and helped me escape when times felt too hard. Track taught me leadership, and how to help people when they felt they couldn't do something. For five years, track was a focus of my hard work, my love, my happiness. And in less than one year, it was taken away from me. In the middle of my junior year of high school, I started getting injured often. First, it was a sprained ankle that never healed properly. Then it was a knee issue that diminished my performance at states. But to me, those all seemed manageable. I had gotten through worse before, so why wouldn't I be able to do it again. These issues started in October of my junior year, and by January, I was no longer able to ignore them. After practice one day in January, I fell, and for some reason after that I was unable to walk. From there it seemed I had endless doctor's appointments and physical therapy sessions. Nowhere in my new schedule was there a place for running. The one activity that would have helped me escape from the pain and hardship, and I couldn't even do it. I figured that with enough practice I could perhaps get myself back in shape during my senior season of track and so I anxiously waited for things to heal. A month went by, then two months, then three months, until those months became seven until suddenly, I knew I wouldn't be returning anytime soon. But, five years of persevering in track weren't for nothing. Although I couldn't run anymore I did other things to work out and feel like I was back in shape, and slowly, I found my spark again. Every day I still try to work towards running. Even if I won't be able to restart competitively anymore, just the comfort of knowing I can go out for a run any time I need to would be enough for me.

The passion project that gave me the desire to do work serving others is my time organizing a free food ministry program with my church. This food pantry is a benefit to people in the community around us because there are many homeless people living in the area surrounding our church and having at least one guaranteed meal a week is impactful. One of my biggest long-term goals is to continue the church ministry and be able to have the benefits help more people outside of our small community to others, such as people that don’t necessarily have a place that they can receive these benefits from. Another long-term goal is being able to provide people with more than just breakfast food and enough food to last them until the next week of services. When the program first started, we were able to do that. We had frozen meals, meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, and all types of other food for people to take home with them. There was no limit and all of it was free, however we had to stop due to problems with our collaboration with the food market that provided us with the products. I have presented work that will help us start collaborating with another company to help us bring this back so that families in need can have guaranteed meals for the rest of their week, until they can get more. Aside from my passion for this volunteer project, I also want to continue helping people through my future career. This desire to help people drew me to the field of psychology, which I have started studying more through my academic path. I want to start out as a psychiatrist and gain experience in the field, before furthering my career by becoming a forensic psychiatrist. Both of these careers serve others because as a psychiatrist I can help those with serious mental health issues, by diagnosing and helping them manage their symptoms. Mental health is a topic in our history that often goes unaddressed or under addressed. As a psychiatrist, I could help people affected by mental health by making their lives just a little bit easier by giving them peace of mind and a way to control the effect that it has on their lives. As a forensic psychiatrist, I could further my reach to the criminal justice system. So many people in our judicial system have mental health issues that will either go undiagnosed or untreated. By expanding my work into their field, I can help them by freeing them from the uncontrollable impact that these mental health battles will have on their lives. As a forensic psychiatrist, I can also provide insight into court proceedings as an expert witness. Through this, I can make sure that the court process is fair, and takes into account people with mental health issues. Because I'm so passionate about helping people, whether through my career, or through personal projects, I want to make sure that no matter what stage of life I am in, I continue this work of trying to help people.

One of the many reasons that I love math is because of how precise and logical it is. Math is guided by rules, equations, and formulas, and as long as you follow them, you'll always get the correct answer. Math is one of my favorite subject's because rather than trying to remember hundreds of facts, you just have to remember a few formulas, and that is the key to every question that will come up later. Math is methodical. Everything is guided by steps, and as long as you remember them, you can't get the answer wrong. There is less room for error because it isn't up to your own interpretation, and you don't have to come up with your own method, you simply have to stay within the guidelines given to you. Math is everywhere and in everything you see. It can be beautiful, in the Fibonacci Sequence that we see all throughout nature. Math can be music, in the carefully played measures of a pianist, or the scales that a flautist might practice day-to-day. Math is honest. It doesn't have biases, it doesn't show partial truths. It doesn't care about what you believe or what you want to believe, there can be only one correct answer. Math is universal. It transcends language barriers. The same rules are followed in every country, and there are no exceptions to the rule. I love math because despite the barriers that separate so many of us in terms of ideologies and beliefs, biases, and ideas, there is only one correct answer. There might not be only one way to get to that answer, but there can be no question of who is right, who is wrong. Math cannot be corrupted, what is true for one person is also true for the next, and THAT is what I love about math.

One personal experience that I have demonstrated compassion, kindness, and dedication to serving others is my time organizing a free food ministry program with my church. This food pantry is a benefit to people in the community around us because there are many homeless people living in the area surrounding our church and having at least one guaranteed meal a week is impactful. One of my biggest long-term goals is to continue the church ministry and be able to have the benefits help more people outside of our small community to others, such as people that don’t necessarily have a place that they can receive these benefits from. Another long-term goal is being able to provide people with more than just breakfast food and enough food to last them until the next week of services. When the program first started, we were able to do that. We had frozen meals, meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, and all types of other food for people to take home with them. There was no limit and all of it was free, however we had to stop due to problems with our collaboration with the food market that provided us with the products. I have presented work that will help us start collaborating with another company to help us bring this back so that families in need can have guaranteed meals for the rest of their week, until they can get more. Aside from my passion for this volunteer project, I also want to continue helping people through my future career. This desire to help people drew me to the field of psychology, which I have started studying more through my academic path. I want to start out as a psychiatrist and gain experience in the field, before furthering my career by becoming a forensic psychiatrist. Both of these careers serve others because as a psychiatrist I can help those with serious mental health issues, by diagnosing and helping them manage their symptoms. Mental health is a topic in our history that often goes unaddressed or under addressed. As a psychiatrist, I could help people affected by mental health by making their lives just a little bit easier by giving them peace of mind and a way to control the effect that it has on their lives. As a forensic psychiatrist, I could further my reach to the criminal justice system. So many people in our judicial system have mental health issues that will either go undiagnosed or untreated. By expanding my work into their field, I can help them by freeing them from the uncontrollable impact that these mental health battles will have on their lives. As a forensic psychiatrist, I can also provide insight into court proceedings as an expert witness. Through this, I can make sure that the court process is fair, and takes into account people with mental health issues. Because I'm so passionate about helping people, whether through my career, or through personal projects, I want to make sure that no matter what stage of life I am in, I continue this work of trying to help people.

I am a person who has worked extremely hard to achieve everything that I have earned. I have worked hard to put my best foot forward in everything I commit myself to, and that has shown up in every aspect of my life. One way that this has shown up in is my commitment to being a student athlete, with the student part always coming first. Throughout my whole high school career, I have maintained a GPA of 4.3 or higher, while also managing my track and cross country career. Since my freshman year of high school, I have earned six All-American awards, with 4 of those being national championship titles. I dedicated myself to track, pouring everything into it. This included doing long runs on my own, and outworking everybody at practices, even when I was tired. On top of that, I managed to stay near the top of the class and I took AP classes and college courses to challenge myself. I did extra credit work whenever possible, and I won academic awards such as the College Board National Recognition Program, and the AP Scholar award. I kept a perfect balance of academic success and athletic success, however in junior year, this changed. In the beginning of junior year, I was in the middle of cross country season. While juggling multiple injuries, I still managed to qualify for states, however I had to take about a 3-week break after that. Once that break was over I went to nationals, and places, even though I hadn't run in weeks and I was still injured. Indoor track season was more of the same. Finally outdoor track came along, the season I had been most excited for. I dove headfirst into practices, doing lots of work on my own outside of practices. However about two months into the season, the unthinkable happened. I suffered an injury and couldn't even walk. I notified my coach that I would be taking two weeks off, and then I returned to practices. However, after just one practice I realized that I wouldn't be able to continue the season. One month turned into three, which turned into six. Once I finally gave into the realization that I wouldn't be able to continue with track, I was devastated. the highlight of this time, however was the month I spent at the North Carolina Governor's School program. I considered myself very lucky to be there, considering its acceptance rate of around 13%. While there, I cultivated my love for learning and i worked on a research cornerstone project, which I then presented. This scholarship would help me reach my goals because now that I no longer have the track scholarships I worked so hard to gain, I can only rely on academics and outside scholarships and grants. This scholarship means so much to me because I have very high educational goals for myself, and with those goals comes a lot of money. My life's dream is to become a forensic psychiatrist, and that takes around twelve to thirteen years of schooling. I cannot do this without outside help, and I don't want to put too much of a burden on my parents, as I also have younger siblings as well. This scholarship would help my family so much, and it would help me achieve my goals that would otherwise seem out of reach.

One contribution that I have made to my community is a food pantry that I have started working with my church. Every week we pass out food to people both who attend our church, and in the community surrounding the church. This food pantry is a benefit to people in the community around us because there are many homeless people living in the area surrounding our church, and having at least one guaranteed meal a week is impactful. One of my biggest long-term goals is to continue the church ministry and be able to have the benefits reach out and bless more people outside of our small community to others such as people that don’t necessarily have a church home that they can receive these benefits from. Another long-term goal is being able to provide people with more than just breakfast food and enough food to last them until the next week of services. When the program first started, we were able to do that. We had frozen meals, meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, and all types of other food for people to take home with them. There was no limit and all of it was free, however we had to stop due to problems with our collaboration with the food market providing us with these foods. I want to work on collaborating with another company to help us bring this back so that families in need can have guaranteed meals for the rest of their week, until they can get more. One immediate goal that I want to achieve is helping to get more of the other youth to help us with the program because I want us to still be able to continue and have multiple people available so that if some people can’t come, we’ll always have other people ready to help. This is an immediate fix because the pastor of our church is a close family friend and his children, whom me and my brothers grew up with and are extremely close to, and my brothers are already helping me and my cousin every week to pass out food to the people. Another short-term goal that I can easily see to immediately is using the weekly church announcements so that people who ae members of the church know about it also. There are around 80 people in our church, and around 60 of them are elderly people who mostly live by themselves. Without working, some of them are living in precarious financial situations and I believe that as a church we should work together to make sure that they know they have an available way of being able to feed themselves every week. By making the people aware of the opportunity available to them, we can help give them a little more ease.

One way that I have persevered throughout my life is by staying strong despite being bullied in my childhood. When I was younger, I was bullied a lot, and I had an extremely difficult time making friends. Throughout this, I tried to stay strong by immersing myself in my schoolwork in order to escape what was happening around me. After a while, though, everything became too much: my grades started slipping, and I struggled with my schoolwork. Everything was changed, however after we moved to North Carolina. I moved to North Carolina in 2022, and I decided that I was going to try and start over and do my best to make friends around me. Although this proved to be hard at first, everything changed when I started doing track, both for my middle school at the time and a club team. Through track I found something that I was good at, and I made a lot of new friends along the way. I found a new community where I could completely be myself and through this, I was able to start healing from everything that was affecting me before. One thing I'm extremely passionate about is psychology. By going through such a hard time in my life, psychology and emotions, as well as how the brain works began to interest me. More recently, I have found an interest in specifically criminal and forensic psychology. Criminal psychology is the study of how criminals' minds work. In an applied field, criminal psychology can be used to understand criminal patterns, which would allow you to build a criminal profile. Criminal profiling uses pattern recognition to predict what a criminal's next move could be, thus allowing you to prevent it. Forensic psychology is used to bridge psychology and law. A criminal psychologist would be used in a courtroom to assess the people involved and determine whether they are competent enough to testify, apply expert testimony, and evaluate the people involved in a case. Although I'm not completely sure if I would rather become a criminal psychologist or a forensic psychologist, in either field, I would be able to help many people every day. Both jobs are dedicated to helping people and protecting them against criminals, both in the courtroom and in real life. As a criminal psychologist, I could help people by learning criminal patterns in order to prevent crimes from happening to innocent people. With this job i would work closely with law enforcement in order to help them solve and prevent crimes. As a forensic psychologist, I would be helping people by evaluating people in the courtroom in order to help a trial run more smoothly by offering my expert opinion and ensuring that everything is fair.