I remember being five years old, dashing down the hallway with a small Boeing 787 in hand. As I ran as fast as my legs could carry me to imitate the breakneck speed of a commercial airplane, I kept the model level, occasionally letting it ascend or descend a couple of inches whenever it hit an imaginary patch of turbulence. My fascination with flying first stemmed from watching birds in my backyard and noting how they maneuvered their wings and bodies to stay airborne. This curiosity branched out to encompass airplanes as they seemed to be everything birds were not - hefty; yet able to fly with semi-flexible wings rigidly affixed to their fuselage. Having grown up in poverty, I am all too familiar with the phrase “an arm and a leg”. It was often thrown around in conjunction with my explicit desire to become a pilot, as my mother was living paycheck to paycheck with only a 7-11 job to keep us supported. The news that I might never be able to become a pilot hit me like a ton of bricks, causing me to sweep my passion for aviation under the rug and contemplate other career options I knew would never satisfy my adventurous nature. Around 2021, my mother lost her only job, driving us deeper into poverty while simultaneously crushing any lingering hopes I had left. When I took my first flight to Orlando, Florida in May of 2024, I rediscovered my love for aviation and am set on pursuing it as a career via the help of scholarships and grants. The truth is that living below the poverty line makes it hard to get involved, whether that be obtaining a job, participating in extracurricular activities, or even finding cheap aviation-related hobbies, all of which ultimately challenge my success. Instead, the little things often count the most, and I have become immersed in volunteering at my high school where demand for volunteers is unyielding. So far, I have participated in multiple trash pick-ups on school grounds, coordinated several annual blood drives within my HOSA club, and advocated for better treatment of students with medical issues. As a result of my hard work, I have already been accepted to Front Range Community College and am excited to start basic aviation courses there post-graduation. Despite my limited resources, I am determined to make a difference in the aviation industry. Becoming a commercial airline pilot may not seem like a significant innovation on its own. However, I will be fighting the ongoing pilot shortage while inspiring others to become passionate about flying. Additionally, air travel and transport actively connects businesses from around the world to one another, facilitates economic growth, opens up new job opportunities, promotes tourism, and enables cultural exchange - aspects of the broader picture that I am proud to be a part of in my journey to become a pilot. In my pursuits, I want to find out how to improve modern airplanes to make them faster and more efficient, and I hope to see the 48 hours it takes to fly around the world reduced to 10 or fewer in the future. The prospect of advancing even further in this industry motivates and enthralls me as the possibilities are seemingly endless, and receiving this scholarship will propel my efforts forward.

Anxiety has been a lifelong battle for me; an unrelenting shadow figure following my every step with seemingly no way to escape the chains of which I am bound to it. At just the young age of five, my mother’s toxic marriage looped me into a period of physical and verbal abuse that lasted roughly six years. Young me didn't know how to cope with the familiar feelings of fear and distress - all I knew was that I felt ill all the time and, consequently, stopped eating as I associated food with increased nausea. I had been to several doctor’s appointments after I lost a significant amount of weight and was checked by multiple doctors for everything in the book but nobody could pin down what was wrong. This timeframe in my life marked my first formal anxiety diagnosis: Anxiety-Induced Anorexia. Years later, the abuse began to subside and I commenced eating without the need for medical intervention. Tackling the eating disorder was the hardest part of my anxiety-filled journey as I would frequently relapse and lose the weight I had worked so hard to put back on. Even after I regained normal eating habits and returned to a healthy weight, my anxiety trailed behind me. Because of the abuse, I became distrustful of others and crawled deeper into my shell. Throughout elementary school, I was bullied heavily for being “the weird one” since I was socially awkward and didn't know how to interact with my peers. By the time high school rolled around, the bullying ceased, but I was left with the resounding effects of anxiety. Larger class sizes and a higher demand for cooperation with classmates meant that I often avoided social interactions when I could and bottled up stress until it would eventually force itself out in the form of spontaneous panic attacks. These episodes of extreme fear led to my diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia. While I acknowledge that my social skills have improved thanks to exposure, medications, and therapy, being social itself still poses great difficulty for me. A while ago, I remember being greeted by another student as I made my way back to class. No matter how many times she repeated the word “hi” to me, I could only stare blankly like a deer in headlights. In this way I know what it is like to be an animal; to have a voice without the ability to speak. For a conversation so simple, it is exceptionally dehumanizing to want to utter a single greeting in return only for your voice to turn off completely, which has been my experience during all four years of high school. Anxiety may be an obstacle, but I know that I cannot let it rule over my life. Pursuing a college degree feels like a silver lining in the darkness; a key that can unlock new opportunities and break the vicious cycle that is social anxiety. Although I plan on pursuing my alternative degrees online (which are required to become a commercial airline pilot) for financial reasons, I will still need to take flight lessons in person in the future. If I want to chase my dream of becoming a pilot, I need to step outside my comfort zone and become accustomed to social interaction. This career will teach me valuable lessons not only in the realm of aviation but in communication and leadership. Knowing that I can slip away from what has been holding me back for so long motivates me to start a new chapter in my life.

My biggest dream is to soar the skies as a commercial airline pilot. Although my passion for flying and all things aviation did not ultimately begin until May of 2024, when I took my first flight to Orlando, Florida, I immediately enjoyed the blissful sensations of being suspended 40,000 feet above the ground. I admit that I was terrified at first as the plane hit several downdrafts and descended during its departure over the mountains, causing my head to spin. Surprisingly, the feeling became something that I could get used to and eventually came around to enjoy as the bold side of me showed up. I have come to realize that this initial fear has helped me discover a career which would truly make me happy because it is so full of surprises and new experiences. Before this trip, I had chosen accounting as a possible career path but realized that sitting in an office all day wasn’t the kind of fulfillment that I need in my life. Becoming a pilot will satisfy my adventurous personality and ensure that I actually enjoy my profession. Outside of my personal life, I am invested in improving the quality of services and saving lives within my community. I am currently working on creating a less stressful environment in my own high school by advocating for changes to be made to better help those with sensory issues (like myself) pursue their educational goals. A dislike of school tends to be the main reason why students skip out on going and I hope that improving this distressing environment will encourage my peers to attend and chase their dreams. Additionally, my family and myself have donated blankets, toys, and unopened cans of cat and dog food to the local shelter in the past. I am a firm believer in being a voice for those who cannot be their own voice; as is the case with animals. Serving all members of a community leads to a healthy and well-established society. Both an aviation degree and my future successes will help break the misconceptions surrounding aviation. In the future, I hope to give my passengers the same experience in which apprehension about flying eventually gets turned into passion. Aviation is one of the many careers that tends to get shoved under the radar, thus resulting in a shortage of pilots and other flight crew members. My aim is to change this using my own future successes; to inspire the next generation into delving deep within a rewarding and adventurous career. Although becoming a pilot takes time and copious amounts of training, I am more than willing to claw my way through to pursue a hobby that brings me joy and wish to inspire others to do the same. I know that hard work is its own reward and I remind myself of this fact every day when I gaze up at the sky and see a plane zipping by; because one day, I will be up there in the cockpit.

My mental health challenges are aplenty as a high school senior pushing through the obstacles of my educational journey. I am currently battling Generalized Anxiety Disorder, significant gender dysphoria, and chronic symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Simply showing up to school is difficult for me - my anxiety triggers are most prominent in boisterous, crowded, and malodorous environments - the typical public high school setting. Even after obtaining a 504 plan, I find myself overcome with paranoia about the future and consistently checking for potential danger. These bothersome characteristics of anxiety have deviated my focus away from the academic setting and brought to me unwanted avoidance behaviors. Unfortunately, my anxiety had worsened drastically during my junior year, leaving me scrambling to find a way out. I attempted homeschooling but decided that the credit system was not for me and returned to my high school, becoming more closed-off and antisocial than before. On top of the crippling anxiety, I am wrestling with intense gender dysphoria as a non-binary identifying individual. Every day my mind brews with intrusive thoughts about my body not matching my identity. Parts of me do not feel like they belong; I feel trapped in my own skin without a way to alleviate the mental distress suffered as a result of such an incongruence. Although I do not possess a formal diagnosis of OCD as of yet, my corresponding symptoms have been noted repeatedly by multiple healthcare professionals. Completing school assignments poses a challenge to me when I feel like I need to do them in a certain manner; ultimately slowing my progress down. All three of these mental health challenges interconnect and are made worse by the presence of one another, but my whole worldview changed when I started seeing my therapist in early July of this year at the Westminster Center for Resilience Strategies. Since I first met her, my therapist has worked with me on managing my anxiety through the use of various calming techniques - box breathing, anger processing exercises, and establishing a calm location I can turn to within my mind - all of which I have incorporated into my daily routine. Her teachings have helped me understand where my emotions come from and how I can process them appropriately. I now know how to properly relax my body when it becomes tense and trudge through stressful situations with less anxiety. Additionally, my therapist provides guidance when it comes to managing gender dysphoria. She has supplied me with strategies meant to redirect the wandering mind back to a main point of focus and has even lead me down the path of obtaining a WPATH letter for gender-affirming surgery when I become of age. Although this fight is far from over, my self-esteem and confidence has risen, giving me a positive outlook on life. My primary plan for supporting others with mental health issues is being there for them as a friend and ally who has firsthand experience and knowledge with said challenges. Being heard and understood is often the first step others need in order to pursue care for themselves and ask for help in the future. Moving forward, I plan to generate awareness for mental health challenges by breaking down the stigma attached to them. I hope to eventually publish my planned novels ‘Valedictorian’ and ‘War Against Womanhood’ as a way to highlight my own mental health struggles with anxiety and gender dysphoria whilst inspiring others to take charge of their mental wellbeing. I am hoping that these books can serve as role models to anyone with a mental health challenge.