My dream has always been to help people stuck between pain and healing. I don't know when the want for this first started. I just know that when I sat down next to my mom to watch the Flash, I discovered that not every person who helps bring justice to people needs a taser and fists. From that day in the third grade, I knew I wanted to become a forensic scientist. This passion took me as far as going to a summer camp to learn forensics. But that passion sunk into a mix of a love for science and the flashy tools that I forgot why I felt drawn to in the first place. I forgot that the most important part of the crime is the people who experienced it. I forgot that a crime is not just a puzzle to put together and pack away. It is the hole in a victim's heart, and the family that lost them. I forgot, but I learned. In 2025, I almost lost my brother. I'd encountered suicide in my life because of previous friends who had mental health issues, but it was always words. I would see stories online because there has been an insurgency in acknowledgement of the importance of mental health. But never me. I always thought that I would never encounter it. That no matter how hard life got, I would never try. No matter how busy life gets, it would never throw me something along those lines. I had gotten comfortable in life, I had forgotten that life does not wish you to stay the same and never grow. It was 8pm when I got in the shower to get ready for school on a Tuesday night. It was 8:06 when I received a message from my brother's best friend that didn't ping as my phone was on silent. It was 8:17 when I grabbed my phone mid-shower because I forgot to set an alarm. It was 8:23 that I was in my parents car, hair and eyes drenched in water, each for their own reason. It took us an hour to find out what happened to him. It took another 20 to find out where he was. It wasn't until 10:09 that the nurse told us he was alive, but not well. But never me? I'd be lying l if I said that I still don't have my days where I break down. I'd be lying if I said that I only take showers in the morning only because "I hate to sleep with my hair wet." But I'd be lying if I said that this didn't strengthen me. The line between pain and healing is a limbo that nobody ever teaches you to navigate. It's always you're either in detrimental pain and suffering, or you're perfectly okay and it won't bother you anymore. It's the line between sobbing every hour with a numbness in your hands, and finally passing by the place where it happened without a drop in your heart. This is a puzzle that no one tells you where to put once you've finished. I want to teach that there is no other place besides that line. You cannot live in the moment forever and you don't have to be the same as before. I became someone who makes sure to define that line. I want to go to a university where I can be that person for others, I want to give victims their line, the place where they stay after it's happened, the place that is the truth of healing.

Submitted via a video link.

I recognize that schools aren't focused on educating children on financial responsibility. While I was always fortunate that my parents have been decently educated on finances, and a lot of the information they've held carried on to me, I have seen how education does not emphasize it. The first ever full lesson I had about finances was in the 6th grade (over Microsoft Teams seeing as this was in 2020, during COVID) and a presenter was invited to introduce us to a financial simulator. This sort of game gave you a random life circumstance, and you learn how to invest, save, make smart choices, and survive. I was given the life circumstance of being a single mother who didn't attend college or university. I did my best to stay afloat, but even with making decently responsible choices I watched my character slowly fall into a deeper hole of debt and stress. My friend was given a young kid who was sent to college and was getting a degree while coming from a poor home. After they got their degree, they started making money that freed them. It opened my eyes on one - bodily responsibility - but also how having a degree and working hard in school is crucial to being successful. I do not come from a wealthy family, I know what it's like to live on EBT and food stamps. My parents did not complete college, and because this they can only make so much to support me and my brother. Recently, my brother has been attending college. I'm so incredibly proud of him for working hard (he graduated from my schools IB Diploma Program and graduated Salutatorian, I am currently in that program as well) and making it far, but I have seen how financial stress of keeping him in college has affected us all. I have a passion; a strong need to push myself and become successful. But this year, my brother almost couldn't continue. I am going to get a job, save money responsibly, and learn to invest safely. I may not have learned as well as some kids who come from families who's parents are realtors or financial advisors, and unfortunately my family has not had the best run in money, but that will not prevent my will to succeed. Since money is my obstacle, I will work to make it my ally. To this day, since that class in 6th grade, I have not been given an educational session on the importance of investments and financial responsibility. I know to save my money, but I see how my friends now spend freely as if we don't need that money to barely apply to colleges. Despite the IB Diploma Core program taking up my schedule which prevents me from taking an economics class, I will use what I have learned in life from watching my family swim in stress and sweat, with loans upon loans scraping at their backs dragging them under, to keep myself afloat. This experience of living paycheck to paycheck (to the point that I understand I will need to get a job to support my family), and grasping to find ways to keep simply one kid in college has inspired me to work hard in school and out, and to use resources I have to prevent another family financial disaster. While classes have not been entirely helpful in aiding me to fully understand the economic world, the life I have been given is more than enough of lesson to push me to remain resilient and wise in my choices.