My interest in women’s health is closely connected to my goal of becoming a biomedical engineer and developing medical devices that address problems that are often overlooked. I come from a family with a history of endometriosis and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), which has given me a personal understanding of how difficult it can be to live with conditions that are not always recognized or adequately addressed. Seeing the impact these conditions can have has strengthened my belief that women deserve better tools for understanding, monitoring, and managing their health. What draws me to PMDD and PME specifically is the gap between how significantly these conditions can affect someone's life and how little they are recognized in many healthcare settings. When a condition is difficult to identify or distinguish from other health concerns, patients can spend years searching for answers. I believe biomedical engineering can contribute to closing that gap by creating technologies that provide patients and healthcare professionals with better information. My long-term goal is to develop medical devices that can assist with monitoring health conditions and provide useful, objective information to both patients and clinicians. One concrete way I could contribute to PMDD and PME care would be to develop a wearable health-monitoring device designed to help track symptoms throughout the menstrual cycle. With appropriate privacy protections and patient consent, such a device could allow users to record symptoms alongside physiological measurements and cycle information. Over time, the collected information could help identify recurring patterns that patients can discuss with their healthcare providers. I would want this technology to be designed as a support tool rather than a replacement for professional diagnosis. Its purpose would be to make conversations between patients and clinicians more informed and help provide a clearer picture of symptoms over time. A well-designed device could also help researchers better understand patterns associated with premenstrual disorders and potentially contribute to improved screening and treatment approaches. My education in biomedical engineering will give me the foundation to pursue this goal by teaching me how to combine biology, engineering, electronics, data analysis, and human-centered design. I want to learn not only how to build a device, but also how to make sure that it addresses a genuine healthcare need and is accessible to the people who will use it. Ultimately, I want my career to help move women's health from being an area where patients are frequently forced to advocate for themselves toward one where accurate information and effective tools are part of routine care. My family's experiences have helped me recognize the importance of this work, while my interest in engineering has given me a way to imagine contributing to it. I hope to use my education to create medical technologies that help patients and healthcare providers recognize patterns earlier, communicate more effectively, and make better-informed decisions about care.

Being a first-generation college student means being the first in my immediate family to take a path that no one before me has taken. It means entering an unfamiliar environment and learning how to navigate college, financial aid, scholarships, and career planning largely through my own determination. While that can be intimidating, being a first-generation student also represents an opportunity to create a new path for myself and my family. My journey toward higher education has not always been easy. One of the greatest challenges I have faced has been financial. Paying for college while also helping my family navigate challenges related to disability has made pursuing my education more difficult. There have been times when I have had to think carefully about how to balance my responsibilities, educational goals, and financial limitations. Instead of allowing these challenges to stop me, I have learned to be persistent, manage my responsibilities, and search for opportunities that can help me continue my education. My dream is to become a biomedical engineer and develop medical devices and prosthetics that improve people's lives. I want to use engineering, biology, and technology to create solutions that help people gain greater mobility, independence, and quality of life. My interest in this field comes from my desire to help others and turn the knowledge I gain through education into something meaningful. I want my career to allow me to support myself and my family while also giving back to my community. Being the first in my family to pursue higher education makes this goal especially meaningful. I know that earning my degree could open opportunities not only for me, but also for the people who come after me. I hope to demonstrate that even when someone does not have a clear roadmap, they can create their own path through determination and hard work. This scholarship would help make that path more attainable. Financial support would reduce some of the burden of tuition and other educational expenses, allowing me to focus more of my time and energy on my studies and developing the skills I need to become a biomedical engineer. It would also bring me closer to achieving the financial stability I hope to provide for myself and my family. I do not expect the journey to be easy, but I am willing to work for the future I envision. I want to turn the challenges I have experienced into motivation, use my education to help others, and become someone my family and community can be proud of. For me, being a first-generation student is not simply about being the first. It is about having the courage to begin a journey that can create opportunities for generations to come.

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and what specifically motivates you. If you could do anything with your life, what do you imagine you’d do? I am motivated by a desire to help people and use my education to create solutions that can improve their lives. Having a family history of disability has given me a personal understanding of how medical conditions can affect individuals and the people who care for them. It has made me more aware of the challenges that people with disabilities can face and has inspired me to pursue a career where I can help address some of those challenges. My goal is to become a biomedical engineer and eventually design medical devices and prosthetics. I want to combine my interests in science, engineering, and technology to create products that can improve people's mobility, independence, and quality of life. I am particularly interested in the process of taking an idea, understanding the science behind it, and turning it into something that can provide a real benefit to another person. If I could do anything with my life, I would want to spend it creating meaningful solutions while helping the people around me. I want to build a career that allows me to support myself and my family while also giving back to my community. I hope to encourage other students to pursue STEM and show them that science and engineering can be used not only to discover new things, but also to make a tangible difference in people's lives. Ultimately, I want my education to give me the knowledge and skills to turn my motivation to help others into a career with a lasting impact. 2. What excites you about STEM? How do you feel you could make a positive impact on the world through a job in information technology? What excites me most about STEM is the opportunity to expand what we know and then use that knowledge to create benefits for people. Every discovery can lead to new questions, new technologies, and new possibilities. I find that process exciting because it means there is always more to learn and more problems that can be solved. I am particularly interested in biomedical engineering because it combines scientific knowledge with practical problem-solving. Learning how the human body works, understanding engineering principles, and then using that information to develop technology can lead to innovations that directly improve people's lives. I hope to eventually use my education to create medical devices and prosthetics that help people become more independent and improve their quality of life. Although my career goal is biomedical engineering rather than traditional information technology, technology will play an important role in the work I hope to do. Modern medical devices rely on computing, electronics, software, data, and other technological systems. I want to understand how these technologies can be integrated with engineering and medicine to create better solutions. I believe my positive impact will come from taking knowledge that researchers and engineers develop and applying it to real-world problems. Whether I am helping develop a new prosthetic, improving a medical device, or contributing to another healthcare technology, I want my work to turn scientific progress into something that people can actually use. To me, that is one of the most exciting possibilities STEM provides. 3. Please describe the greatest challenge you’ve had to overcome and how you managed to get past it. One of the greatest challenges I have faced has been managing the financial difficulties that come with pursuing higher education while also helping my family deal with the challenges associated with disability. Balancing my own educational goals with responsibilities toward my family has required me to become more responsible and persistent than I might otherwise have needed to be. Financial limitations can make pursuing college feel uncertain. There are tuition costs, educational expenses, and everyday necessities to consider, and it can sometimes be difficult to focus entirely on school when financial responsibilities are also on my mind. At the same time, helping my family has taught me the importance of being dependable and supporting the people who rely on me. Rather than allowing these challenges to stop me from pursuing my goals, I have used them as motivation. I have learned to plan carefully, prioritize my responsibilities, and keep working toward my education even when circumstances are difficult. Applying for scholarships is also part of that effort because I am actively looking for opportunities that can make higher education more attainable. These experiences have strengthened my determination to pursue biomedical engineering. I know that reaching my goals will require hard work, but I also know why those goals matter to me. I want to earn an education that allows me to build a stable future, support my family, and eventually create medical devices that can help others. The challenges I have faced have not changed those goals; they have made me more determined to achieve them.

I have always been interested in how science and technology can be used to solve problems and improve people's lives. As I explored different career paths, I became especially drawn to biomedical engineering because it combines my interests in engineering, biology, and innovation with my desire to help others. My goal is to pursue a career in biomedical engineering and eventually create medical devices and prosthetics that help people live healthier, more independent lives. I believe that technology is most meaningful when it is created with the needs of people in mind. Medical devices and prosthetics can have an enormous impact on someone's ability to work, participate in their community, and pursue their goals. I want to contribute to the development of technologies that are not only effective but also comfortable, practical, and accessible. Whether I am helping design a prosthetic limb that allows someone to regain mobility or developing a medical device that makes treatment easier, I want my work to improve the everyday lives of the people who rely on it. My interest in biomedical engineering has also taught me the importance of problem-solving and persistence. Engineering requires more than knowing how something works; it requires the ability to identify a problem, consider different solutions, learn from failure, and continue working until a better answer is found. These are skills I hope to develop throughout my education and carry with me into my career. I want to approach every challenge with curiosity and an open mind, knowing that even small improvements in technology can make a significant difference in someone's life. As I pursue my education, I plan to build a strong foundation in engineering, biology, mathematics, and technology. I hope to gain hands-on experience through research, internships, and collaborative projects that allow me to apply what I learn in the classroom to real-world challenges. I also want to learn from healthcare professionals and other engineers so that I can better understand the needs of patients and create solutions that genuinely serve them. My technical career will also allow me to make a difference beyond the devices I create. I want to use my education and future success to support my family and give back to my community. I hope to encourage younger students to explore STEM fields and show them that technical careers can be a way to combine creativity, problem-solving, and service to others. I want to be someone who demonstrates that engineering is not only about building things—it is about building a better future. Ultimately, I want my career to have a lasting impact. By becoming a biomedical engineer, I hope to develop medical devices and prosthetics that give people greater independence and opportunities. I want to use my technical skills to address real problems, support the people around me, and contribute to innovations that improve healthcare. My goal is to build a career where my work is both technically challenging and personally meaningful, allowing me to make a positive difference in the world one solution at a time.

The interaction between science and engineering that solves real-life problems has fascinated me since childhood. Having become interested in biomedical engineering as a college student, I understand how much potential this specialization has in terms of innovations, creativity, and compassion. While the study of human anatomy is interesting, I can actually participate in development of technologies to enhance and save lives. My dream is to become a biomedical engineer and invent devices and prostheses to restore mobility and independence of people. Studying biomedical engineering is not just about finding a career but about making a difference in the world. I would like to develop technologies to improve lives of many patients. Whether it will be the improvement of prostheses or other devices that provide people with a better quality of life, the main task is to make my engineering work practical and efficient. I strongly believe that engineering may really change people's lives. Beyond professional goals, the achievement of this degree means a chance to secure a bright future not only for myself but also for people who surround me. Growing up in a poor family, education serves as a ticket to stability and an opportunity to provide my family with a comfortable life. My dream is to help younger people of my community who are passionate about science and encourage them to choose the careers that would be devoted to the good of others. During my studies, I want to gain substantial skills in the fields of engineering, biology, and problem solving, looking for ways to get involved into research and internships. I really like the idea of working in cooperation with other scientists, health care specialists, and engineers in order to solve medical problems that require an urgent solution. If I am fortunate enough to receive this scholarship, I would be able to ease off the financial stress associated with my schooling and focus more on my education and career growth. Instead of spending time thinking of ways to make ends meet, I will get an opportunity to learn all the required skills and gain all the experience needed in order to become a competent engineer. Such learning will enable me to introduce innovations through my career. Biomedical engineering is not only a career option for me but it also gives me a chance to combine my love of science with my desire to serve people. It will help me in creating useful medical tools and prosthesis that will help me better the lives of people and make sure that in the future I can earn my living and provide for my family.

The objective I have set myself for my professional life is to pursue a career as a biomedical engineer in which I could apply my expertise in order to create useful medical devices and prosthetics that would help to enhance peoples' quality of life. My passion and fascination for using science and engineering to solve practical problems have remained unchanged since my childhood. One of the key things on my agenda is to establish myself as a solid career and gain financial independence for myself. Also, I would like to help out my family with the money that I earn, which means that I will be able to contribute to the society from which I have received everything up until now. The values underlying my ambitions include empathy, determination, generosity, and willingness to assist others. My main goal is to comprehend the problems people have and create solutions that make life easier for them and more accessible. More specifically, I want to create medical devices and prostheses that will help individuals gain independence and achieve things that are hard to achieve otherwise. In the end, I would like to have a career that is not just about making a living but using my knowledge and skills as an engineer to provide opportunities for myself, benefitting those around me and making an impact in the community.

In making the choice of pursuing biomedical engineering studies, my main aim has been to get an education that will be able to impact the lives of those with medical issues. My dream is to become a scientist and engineer that will design and develop devices that will make healthcare available and efficient, as well as customized for individuals. I particularly want to work on projects that will be able to assist individuals deal with their disabilities and other medical issues so as to lead independent lives. My education should equip me with the scientific and engineering skills required to accomplish all this. My personal experiences have influenced my choice of this topic area. As an autistic person, I also experience chronic pain. Furthermore, my family members are affected by Marfan syndrome. Therefore, I have some understanding of how various health issues can impact someone and their families. Having experienced all of this, I came to realize that certain health problems may not be evident to other people and that everyone has his or her individual needs. This has made me see the significance of having supportive environments and resources that would enable people to take an active role in educational and working activities. I am sure that my health issues and disabilities have influenced my learning experience in ways that may be hard to convey to other people. Some situations may become more difficult for an autistic person, and chronic pain may influence my level of energy and attention. I have faced the challenges that I needed to overcome because no other students have had to deal with them. All of these challenges have made me stronger and helped me learn how to advocate for myself and come up with ideas that would help people like me. For me, independence is not doing things on my own. Independence is when there is enough capacity in me, around me, and within me, which allows me to take my own decisions and live my life the way I choose to live it. Independence gives me the power to contribute to society, have a career, and overcome all obstacles. Education is going to be what helps me maintain my independence through teaching me all the necessary skills and information in order to create a career within the realm of biomedical engineering. Education will provide me with the technical ability to create medical devices that enhance the quality of other people's lives while at the same time empowering me to fight for access and inclusion. Studying biomedical engineering is not only about choosing a career. This means the chance to transform my own life experiences into an ambition to serve other people. In this way, with an adequate education, I wish to pave a road for people with disabilities and diseases where they could be provided with better chances and more freedom of choice.

Education is synonymous with opportunity, independence, and empowerment to create change. My education as a first-generation Biomedical Engineer is not just a chance to earn a diploma; it is the key to the future that allows me to make a difference in the lives of others through the restoration of their independence and my own stability as well. From a very young age, I became interested in how scientific and engineering discoveries could benefit humans. It developed into a fascination with developing prosthetic limbs. My dream is to contribute to the design of prosthetics that would be both cheap and functional, allowing the user to restore their independence and self-confidence. Each invention in the realm of biomedical engineering has a unique chance of giving someone a way to walk, do their job, embrace their loved ones or just do ordinary things with the same dignity. This thought keeps me going. Being a woman who is studying STEM degree, I know how important representation and perseverance are. Traditionally, there has not been much diversity among the engineering community, but diversity brings creativity and innovations. I want to be one of those women who not only succeed in their STEM career but also inspire other women and show them that they too can succeed in their studies. To me, being a leader is about providing others with opportunities and proving them through my own example that one can be determined and compassionate at the same time. Being a first-generation college student made me a resilient person. Every single step towards getting education involved figuring out the system and believing in myself despite many difficulties. This experience made me more determined rather than discouraged me. It made me realize the importance of getting an education and making the best use of the privilege that I have been given. Volunteering has only served to confirm this belief with my witnessing firsthand the difference even small services make in the community. Whether I assist individuals personally or contribute to a wider effort, I have realized that it all starts with being ready and willing to serve. What I strive to do now is blend my desire to serve with the technical know-how that I acquire through education. I hope that through my engineering studies, I will be able to not only create technologies but to make advanced health-care technologies more available to those who need it most. Education is ultimately what gives me the power to influence my own destiny and that of others. Education will give me the opportunity to be able to take care of myself and to take care of others as well as to devote my professional life to bringing back the independence of individuals through prosthetic engineering solutions. This scholarship will help alleviate the burden of paying for the cost of getting the education and getting one step closer to achieving my goals.

I am not a person who believes in a great creator or a god, for while I do believe in the existence of miracles, the existence of a laid-out design for every living creature is not something I think exists. This belief, or lack of belief, stems from a large variety of reasons, one being the fact that I have experienced a significant amount of events that feel impossible to have ever been reasonably planned, and my second reason comes from the turmoil that I see in the world every day. I was never necessarily raised in a religious household, and while we did believe in the existence of a god, it was never something that was considered to be the most important to us. I both went to church on Sunday and argued for the existence of evolution in the PE locker room. So the seeds of what one could consider to be doubt were already there, for it is much easier to leave something that is only viewed as mildly important than it is to leave something that is majorly important. But, while I didn't view my religion as the most important subject in my life, I still wielded God and science hand in hand as a child, for I believed that everything that we couldn't explain was just God waiting for us to discover it. I did believe in both God and science for a very long time until what I would call my catalyst towards disbelief began in my fourth grade year, which stretched to my fifth grade year. Very shortly before I had started my fourth grade year, my grandmother had died. She passed away from health issues caused by a car accident ten years earlier that paralyzed her from the waist down. My grandmother was only in her fifties when she passed, and my brain couldn't comprehend why God would take her away from me. I remember praying every night for weeks after her passing for it to have been a dream, but soon when school started, I would be praying for a different reason because fourth grade was when I started being bullied. I credit the bullying I experienced during that school year as one of the major reasons why I stopped believing in God. The kids there were undeniably cruel. I experienced kids finding out my allergies just to poison me, a kid stapling my hand, causing a staple to be logged in my thumb, and various concussions until it all came to a climax when a kid strangled me my fifth grade year and my teacher did nothing about it. It was only made worse by my home issues at the time and finding out that the man I believed to be my dad was not, and that both of my "dads" never wanted to see me again. I couldn't believe that God would be that cruel to a small autistic girl, and I still don't. My lack of faith has only been fed by the existence of the internet and the present day. I can't open any of my social media pages without seeing some new tragedy. Having seen too many shootings and experienced my fair share of lockdowns, God's message of "fear no evil" no longer feels like an option. For what do I not have to fear? And where is God for those suffering the most? If there is a god, I will continue to believe he doesn't exist, for what being would be that cruel to children?

I am a trans man in the state of Texas and this has unfortunately led me to many financial difficulties. I have found that I am unable to get an on-campus job due to my gender identity therefore making college impossible to pay for. Being a college student in Texas has put me in a position where I have to choose whether or not I am out because I don't know if the person I am next to is accepting or transphobic. This issue is only egged on by the fact that I am going into a STEM field. I am going into biomedical engineering, which is a born male dominated field which means I am going to have to work twice as hard for my position in the workplace. I am going to have to deal with sexism and transphobia. My goal is to get a bachelors and immediately start working to help others by entering the work force. I am planning on using my education to help people with limb loss by providing prosthetics. Once I am established in the field I want to try to raise a charity to help pay for people's medical bills because no one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare. Due to my position as a trans person and growing up poor, I am well acquainted with the sad fact that queer people are treated unfairly in the medical world. I am finding it difficult to get healthcare in my state due to who I am myself. I am also well aware that there is a large intersectionality between queer people and people who are disabled with LGBTQ+ people having a higher chance of being disabled than people in other communities. Since I am going into prosthetics, I will be able to help the disabled community first hand. I will be able to provide queer people with a safe and reliable place to receive help with their disabilities without the overarching fear of getting harmed or hate crimed by their doctor. I want to use my position to help pay other queer people's medical bills and be a pillar in my community and an example for younger queer and trans people who are aiming for a career in STEM. A "you can do it" for the younger generation and proof that who you are doesn't matter and that anyone can be a scientist. Being queer should not inhibit anyone's ability to be happy and succeed in life.

I am a trans man in the state of Texas and this has unfortunately led me to many financial difficulties. I have found that I am unable to get an on-campus job due to my gender identity therefore making college impossible to pay for. Being a college student in Texas has put me in a position where I have to choose whether or not I am out because I don't know if the person I am next to is accepting or transphobic. This issue is only egged on by the fact that I am going into a STEM field. I am going into biomedical engineering, which is a born male dominated field which means I am going to have to work twice as hard for my position in the workplace. I am going to have to deal with sexism and transphobia. My goal is to get a bachelors and immediately start working to help others by entering the work force. I am planning on using my education to help people with limb loss by providing prosthetics. Once I am established in the field I want to try to raise a charity to help pay for people's medical bills because no one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare. Due to my position as a trans person and growing up poor, I am well acquainted with the sad fact that queer people are treated unfairly in the medical world. I am finding it difficult to get healthcare in my state due to who I am myself. I am also well aware that there is a large intersectionality between queer people and people who are disabled with LGBTQ+ people having a higher chance of being disabled than people in other communities. Since I am going into prosthetics, I will be able to help the disabled community first hand. I will be able to provide queer people with a safe and reliable place to receive help with their disabilities without the overarching fear of getting harmed or hate crimed by their doctor. I want to use my position to help pay other queer people's medical bills and be a pillar in my community and an example for younger queer and trans people who are aiming for a career in STEM. A "you can do it" for the younger generation and proof that who you are doesn't matter and that anyone can be a scientist. Being queer should not inhibit anyone's ability to be happy and succeed in life.

I am a trans man in the state of Texas and this has unfortunately led me to many financial difficulties. I have found that I am unable to get an on-campus job due to my gender identity therefore making college impossible to pay for. Being a college student in Texas has put me in a position where I have to choose whether or not I am out because I don't know if the person I am next to is accepting or transphobic. This issue is only egged on by the fact that I am going into a STEM field. I am going into biomedical engineering, which is a born male-dominated field which means I am going to have to work twice as hard for my position in the workplace. I am going to have to deal with sexism and transphobia. My goal is to get a bachelors and immediately start working to help others by entering the workforce. I am planning on using my education to help people with limb loss by providing prosthetics. Once I am established in the field I want to try to raise a charity to help pay for people's medical bills because no one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare. Due to my position as a trans person and growing up poor, I am well acquainted with the sad fact that queer people are treated unfairly in the medical world. I am finding it difficult to get healthcare in my state due to who I am myself. I am also well aware that there is a large intersectionality between queer people and people who are disabled with LGBTQ+ people having a higher chance of being disabled than people in other communities. Since I am going into prosthetics, I will be able to help the disabled community firsthand. I will be able to provide queer people with a safe and reliable place to receive help with their disabilities without the overarching fear of getting harmed or hate crimed by their doctor. I want to use my position to help pay other queer people's medical bills and be a pillar in my community and an example for younger queer and trans people who are aiming for a career in STEM. A "you can do it" for the younger generation and proof that who you are doesn't matter and that anyone can be a scientist. Being queer should not inhibit anyone's ability to be happy and succeed in life.

If I could have everyone read one book, it would be the Count of Monte Cristo. I love the book and while it is a great read, it's a commentary on what happens when you live your life for revenge and not yourself. In this media age, stories of revenge have essentially swept the media by storm. This is due to a variety of reasons, entertainment, personal relations and even wanting to live vicariously through the person enacting revenge. It is fascinating. Unfortunately, this fascination has empowered people to take revenge to the extreme, much like Edmond Dantes. People will make the revenge their entire lives goal, even though they have every opportunity to live past it. In the book, The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes is betrayed by several people, including the law system that is supposed to protect him. He is sent to prison where he is tortured and left to rot, with people believing that he is guilty of a crime he did not commit. When he manages to escape prison, instead of taking a second chance at life, he decides to enter another prison, one of all-consuming revenge. The media treats revenge the same way, instead of showing people a healthy way to move on from their trauma and improve their lives, it instead promotes destroying others' lives and yours in the process. We see the media twist the perspective of a woman out with another man after a divorce to an evil witch trying to make her ex-husband jealous. Revenge shouldn't be this all-consuming thing and instead, we should use this book as an example of what is to happen if we go down that path instead of healing ourselves.

I am a trans man in the state of Texas and this has unfortunately led me to many financial difficulties. I have found that I am unable to get an on-campus job due to my gender identity therefore making college impossible to pay for. Being a college student in Texas has put me in a position where I have to choose whether or not I am out because I don't know if the person I am next to is accepting or transphobic. This issue is only egged on by the fact that I am going into a STEM field. I am going into biomedical engineering, which is a born male dominated field which means I am going to have to work twice as hard for my position in the workplace. I am going to have to deal with sexism and transphobia. My goal is to get a bachelors and immediately start working to help others by entering the work force. I am planning on using my education to help people with limb loss by providing prosthetics. Once I am established in the field I want to try to raise a charity to help pay for people's medical bills because no one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare. Due to my position as a trans person and growing up poor, I am well acquainted with the sad fact that queer people are treated unfairly in the medical world. I am finding it difficult to get healthcare in my state due to who I am myself. I am also well aware that there is a large intersectionality between queer people and people who are disabled with LGBTQ+ people having a higher chance of being disabled than people in other communities. Since I am going into prosthetics, I will be able to help the disabled community first hand. I will be able to provide queer people with a safe and reliable place to receive help with their disabilities without the overarching fear of getting harmed or hate crimed by their doctor. I want to use my position to help pay other queer people's medical bills and be a pillar in my community and an example for younger queer and trans people who are aiming for a career in STEM. A "you can do it" for the younger generation and proof that who you are doesn't matter and that anyone can be a scientist. Being queer should not inhibit anyone's ability to be happy and succeed in life.

I have always been a massive nerd, that has never been something doubted. I grew up watching shows like battle bots and have always loved robots. Even now I have had a passion for robotics and it is why I am going into Biotech and Bioechanics. I want to craft robotics limbs for people in need. This passion led me to take a robotics class in high school and this led to the year of the claw bots. My robotics class was run by Mr. Abdelrahim and he was an amazing teacher, and he unfortunately gave my class free reign after building the claw bots. The claw bots were a simple VEX claw bot that my class had spent the first semester learning how to build and program, nothing at all too fancy. Mr. Abdelrahim's biggest mistake of the school year was making our semester exam be "Program your robot to complete a task". He never specified what we had to program the claw bot to do and I used that to my advantage. For my final project, I stretched the definition of a task because a task can mean a multitude of things. I decided to interpret the task as programming the claw bot to do the Cha Cha Slide on the beat. This began the two week process of deeply analyzing the song Cha Cha Slide and trying to translate that to a robot that can only drive around and move a single arm. Teaching it how to clap was the easy part, it had a claw and could open and close it, hence making it clap. The robot could drive around so I could make it go left, right and spin, the hard part was trying to interpret the hop in the song. After trial and error, I eventually found that if I made the claw bot arm move fast enough it would make a hoping motion by throwing its weight around. Once I had figured this out it had all come together and after a third week of careful programming and getting annoyed at the song Cha Cha Slide, it was finally time to present my project. Mr. Abdelrahim had all of us present our projects in front of the class and I was lucky number six. Everyone before me gave the robot simple tasks like grabbing hand sanitizer or a can of soda. Stuff the claw bot is designed to do, and then it was my turn. Imagine the surprise on my classmate's face when I played the Cha Cha Slide and my robot started dancing along. Everyone was truly delighted and I was overjoyed that I not only got an A but was able to bring joy to my classmates by making a robot dance.

If I could have everyone read exactly one book it would be The Count of Monte Cristo. It is an odd choice but I personally believe that its message can apply very well today. Revenge is all-consuming and after a certain point, are you avenging yourself or just aiming to cause people harm? We live in an age of information, meaning that almost everything a person has ever done is out there, on the internet. This means others will find out about what you have done and can choose how they react to it. Some things that need to be taken with a grain of salt are blown out of proportion while others, that are major things are ignored in favor of the drama and the mess of others. This can cause people to fully lose themselves in the mess and ignore what is important in life. The Count of Monte Cristo is a story of a man who was happy and had every chance at happiness but after a series of unfortunate events, takes a path of revenge. This path consumes his life, ridding him of any possibility of going back and having a normal life. He chose the mess, trading one cage for another. This is the first book I ever read where the protagonist not killing themself at the end of the book was a surprise because the count truly had nothing to live for. He fulfilled his life purpose and was a husk of a man. He could no longer even give his life meaning except for revenge for almost the entirety of the book. People need to learn whether or not their actions are worth it and if the punishment truly fits the crime at hand. Are you truly willing to throw your life away when you have finally gained freedom or are you going to sink into the quicksand of revenge?

I know that I am inheriting a broken world, I was never told that the future is great and that everything will be fine. Instead, I was told that the world was on fire and that I needed to learn how not to burn with it. A bleak outlook to give a child but an important one because hope is a dangerous thing. Despite this, I find myself excited for the future! It is not every day that one gets thrust a broken vase and then told to fix it. Knowing that the world is broken is half the battle and I am aiming to become a war hero. Semantics aside, growing up knowing that the system I live in is broken actually makes my life easier to handle. Failing when knowing that all of the odds are stacked against you is easier to handle than failing while having everything handed to you. It is also a much better motivation. I am a victim of the broken system as well, I am a poor trans man who is actively having my rights stripped away by people who are unaffected by the laws that they pass while also being too old to be able to see the damage that they cause to come to fruition. A derogatory term for trans people is "coin flipper" because the chance of us killing ourselves due to the hate the previous generations have brought is equal to the chance of getting heads on a coin flip. I am going into the healthcare world, my major is biomedical engineering but unfortunately, I will most likely be only able to help the fortunate. I view this to be a crime. The wealthy shouldn't be the only ones able to get a new limb after losing one or have medication to help with their cancer. This needs to genuinely change. I am inheriting a broken world and so is the rest of my generation but as a collective, we have the power to fix it. Everyone brings something to the table and it is everyones responsibility to fix it. Millennials and Gen Z need support from the older generations as well. You have the power to make the future a brighter place for the ones that come after because it is not you who will be living in the future but the ones after. That is my ode.

I have always wondered about what makes something human. I know that the overarching condition of being human is being a homo sapien, but what else. I am a homo sapien, I am human, but am I anything other than human? Can I be anything other than human? I have been told that you have to be born from a human woman to be human, but what about c-sections? What about children who are born from trans-men or intersex people? Are they human? Society says that all of these children are human so it has to be something else. The Britannica describes humans as being similar and related to apes but having a highly developed brain and an ability to think abstractly. Philosophers describe being human as having the ability to create art and poetry but any animal can paint and any modern AI can write poetry. Give me five minutes with any Data knockoff and I can get a sonnet that would make any bard weep. Sure AIs and animals can’t appreciate art like humans. I mean robots haven’t yet reached that point, emotions are hard, I get it, but what do you call a birds mating dance but art with a purpose. There has to be more. What makes a human no longer human? Is it the monstrous act that they commit? Again, this can’t be it. Throughout history, people have committed rape, genocide, torture, and general fucked up shit yet have still been seen as people, as humans. Some say that the fact that humans can decide to be good and evil makes us human. The concept of free will and all. Unlike animals, we can stop ourselves from acting on our base needs or thoughts. What about aliens? Though we have not yet encountered sentient life out there in the galaxy, what if there was a being who could appreciate art and poetry? A being who does have free will and the ability to communicate their thoughts and feelings and stop themselves from behaving on instinct. Would we consider that creature human? Would we consider them not human based on their looks? What does a human look like? We come in so many shapes and colors that there was a long-time belief that only one race was human. Yet they are all still people, they are all still human. I look human, I act human, I have free will, I am a homo sapien, I can appreciate art and the beauty of the world but I am still not human. Why can’t I be viewed as a person? I was made to be human, I am flesh and bone yet why can’t I be human? I am looked at in horror by my creators even though they made me. I was made not from a womb, but from a biobag, an artificial womb. I was made to be perfect, the beginning of a new era of humanity, but I am not human. I am a fake, I am a monster, I am a mistake. I was created to further humanity but all I have done is prove that it is a mistake to play god. I am perfect, there is no flaw on my skin, everything is perfectly symmetrical and I am in compliance with every modern beauty standard. I am not too fat, not too thin, I am well muscled without being considered too built. I am without flaw, but not human…… I can be normal, I can love, hate, eat, sleep, think, and dream and yet I am not a person and all because I was made in a lab. All because I was designed and not created. I will never be human, all because some scientists decided that humans needed to evolve further. We need to be better but if this is how we treat better then why evolve in the first place?

My mom is one of the most accepting people in the world, and she is aromantic and pansexual. She was a single parent to my four siblings and I and while she did have relationships throughout our lives, the people she dated were never our parents. For safety and security reasons, my mom only had relationships with men after my sibling and I were born because she was taught to have a heteronormative life. A husband, a wife, and kids, the perfect nuclear family stereotype but the relationships never lasted and my mom became a single parent again and it's honestly better that she is a single parent. I am a trans man and I came out to my mom in November of 2020, and she was nothing but supportive and I never doubted that she wouldn't have accepted me. My mom created an environment of acceptance in my house and since she was queer herself, she helped me through my realizations and together we realized that she wasn't the most cis person either. A joke between us is that her gender is just mom but the fact that I feel safe enough that I am able to joke with my mom about our queerness. My mom's queerness has allowed a closer relationship between us and a relationship that will last. She is even going to help me with my transition. I am going into biomedical engineering, and I am planning on using my education to help people with limb loss by providing prosthetics. Once I am established in the field I want to try to raise a charity to help pay for people's medical bills because no one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare. My mother couldn't afford for my siblings and I to go to the doctor and it was horrible, and when we absolutely did have to go to the hospital, it was always a dreaded thing. I don't want people to have to choose between food or paying their medical debts. I also want to see if I could use my earned money to help pay for other queer people's transitions. I am from Texas and as of 4/28/2023, the climate surrounding trans people is incredibly tense and I am worried about be able to start my transition. I want to ensure that future trans people who want to start hormones have the ability to. I am going into both the engineering and medical field and it is predicted that I will have quite a bit of disposable income so I want to help those who I can. I want to be able to create an accepting environment for everyone that I meet, just like my mom did.

I have always had an interest in biomedical engineering, it started when I was very young with the introduction of my grandmother, who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a motorcycle accident. It was a very tragic accident that happened shortly before I was born. While I never knew her while she could walk, it was something that majorly impacted my relationship with her. I was incredibly fascinated with her wheelchair and on the occasion, I would be able to sit on my grandmothers' lap, I would try to press every single button to see what they did. My grandmother did pass while I was in fourth grade but my fascination with biomedical engineering didn't stop there for I was introduced to an amazing place called the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. I spent almost every weekend at the museum learning about various scientific processes and engineering principles. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and a steady diet of Mythbusters and architecture competitions fed my engineering interest until my family moved to Richardson, TX and I was enrolled in middle school and high school robotics. In my 8th grade year, a close family friend lost his leg in a motorcycle accident, and while it was a tragedy, I was able to benefit from the experience. In my freshman year, he invited me to a prosthetic fitting because he heard that I was in robotics and thought I would find it cool. He was absolutely correct and I believed it was the most amazing process possible and I wanted to learn more. I asked all of the doctors various questions and that's what cemented my desire to go into biomedical engineering. I wanted to build robots that could help people. I was able to go to more of his appointments and I was once even allowed to go into a prosthetics workshop and see how they were made. While he did fade away as a family friend due to his inability to cope with his injury, it didn't stop my interest, in fact, it gave me an important lesson. I can't help everyone, but I should try and help as many people as possible. Limb loss is a difficult experience and the loss of mobility is especially difficult but the joy that comes from people gaining back the ability to move an arm or walk is worth the emotionally draining job. I want to help people through my engineering abilities by giving them back a piece they lost.