My motivation for pursuing STEM was brought about by my own childhood. Throughout it, I witnessed the prolonged suffering of the people in my life. My grandmother would break her knees and replace them, over and over, unaware of the underlying problem until she was 70. My grandfather had cancer. My mother was paralyzed, hospitalized, brought back to life, and diagnosed with breast cancer in a series of hospital visits that spanned 2 years. My father suffered from an eating disorder, brought about by depression from bombing schools in Iraq during his time in the military. Every woman in my family is suffering from PCOS. These ailments, be they psychological or physical, ended in multiple deaths and changed the trajectory of the lives of everyone involved. I witnessed this and can say that watching my cousin turn into another statistic because his mother couldn't spend an adequate amount of time parenting him without painful symptoms was heartbreaking. I want to go down a path to help people - My people. So I chose to go down a path that would minimize the number of these stories within our communities. Every year, thousands of black and brown women suffer from breast cancer. It's not just breast cancer, either. Misdiagnosis and ignorance regarding symptoms in the black community kill millions of us every year. It seems like an issue that no one cares about, one that no one discusses, opting to quietly bury their brothers and sisters rather than push towards a solution. I want to study the black body in its totality. For years, I've studied disease and witnessed it alter the nervous systems of African American individuals differently than our white counterparts. For example, from my own personal observation, primarily Black people develop fevers in later stages of sickness than primarily white people do. My mother didn't develop a fever for her ruptured spleen until she was already in the hospital and on the brink of death, with suspicions and a lowered blood pressure. The only reason she had even gone to the hospital was that she was highly attuned to her regular bodily functions and had attended nursing school. Had she been an average black woman with an aching stomach and lightheadedness, the internal bleeding would have killed her. There are countless tales of doctors dismissing patients like this because their symptoms don't match what they have studied for years, but a society that didn't even include half of the population in clinical trials until the 1980's certainly wouldn't include a minority. So I'll just do it for them. The next step towards this dream is a degree in biological engineering.

My life has been a complicated one, with 2018 marking the year I officially moved from a brick and mortar to an online, self-paced school. The things that led to this withdrawal were, unfortunately, tragic. 2018 was the year I'd lost everything, in my eyes. After my father, close family friend I'd called uncle, and grandfather had passed, we'd moved from our home to seek comfort from our family and school simply became too much to handle. My grades plummeted, I hated it, I hated myself. I was angry and resentful, but more importantly, I was completely alone. I'll never forget the excitement I felt when my mom said she was enrolling me in high school; in my mind, it was an opportunity to feel normal again, to blend in the way I'd always wanted to. Reality, however, wasn't so pretty. My first day in George Bush High School was a nightmare. Teachers hadn't put me on their schedule, the counselors were having a hard time processing our homeschool credits, I had no idea what my student ID number was, so getting lunch was difficult, and I was in was an overstimulation nightmare. I ate lunch in the back hall, feeling like Cady from Mean Girls, but without two people to swoop in to save me from the title of loser. Math ended up being the worst, there was a test on domain and range. I was always terrible with graphs, so I already knew it'd blow up in my face, but a 30 on my very first test? Yikes, way to ruin your GPA before you even start school. I started to cry in that cold corner of the classroom, but there was one shining light in that moment: Mr. Farayibi. He came over, sat down, and explained that since I was new, he'd give me an 80 on the test, then he smiled and left. It was a short interaction, but it certainly changed my entire perception of how my high school life would go. He and I only grew closer as time went on. I'd ask him for advice, for recommendations, or to record him for school projects for my A/V class. On occasion, when I was in my lower moods, he'd offer me extra help or raise a grade for me. He's probably the only reason I didn't totally fail the 9th grade. He knew my circumstances and the way I wasn't super comfortable with people, so he was always patient and understanding. He expressed this in so many ways, even with small gestures, like not expecting a fist bump at the classroom's door. One of my last memories with him was at the end of the year, when I'd begged him to let me throw a classroom party. He agreed, saying that if I could get the materials, he'd cover for us with the higher-ups. And the party was awesome! We played Super Smash Bro's, Just dance, and Mortal Kombat. We ate pizza, cupcakes, and other assorted unhealthy items. It was a blast! We took a class photo to commemorate our time together, and as everyone was leaving, and I was helping to clean, he said how proud he was of how much I've grown. I replied "I couldn't have done it without you." I transferred schools after that, but I'll always remember when he gave me that first 80 in his class.

From a young age, I had a lot to look up to, because in my opinion. My family members were the coolest people alive. My grandmother had been an aeronautical engineer, so had my father. My mother was a successful business owner and pharmacist, my aunts were lab technicians, college professors, and pharmacists, my uncle's firefighters and engineers. Everything was amazing... Until I got older, and the smoke and mirrors became a clear picture. In reality, my family wasn't as amazing as I thought they were. My successful aunts could barely hold jobs and hadn't gotten a degree, my mother struggled and had to make her business work because her original degree was in religious education, and many other amazing jobs I'd heard about were actually military ones. Then, in 2018, it got worse. My family fell apart once my father, grandfather, and a close family friend died. Many of my aunts turned to addictions, my mother was battling cancer, and we all struggled with money, the following pandemic only magnifying our struggles to an absurd degree. A connection I made at the young age of 10 was that "foundations are everything." A plant couldn't grow without soil, and even if I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, I'd always know where I'd go as my whims followed me. Kinesiology or Civil engineering? Montana State University. Engineering? Rice University. Art and Storyboarding? The New School or CalArts. Even when my plans were outlandish, they always existed. But I couldn't keep it up in the air forever. What did I want to do with my life? Two years ago today, I was in a cabin that we could barely afford after moving, pondering that question. My Mom's medical bills were stacking after her ovarian cysts and breast cancer had been fought, and my freshly adopted little brother's cries broke the air, reminding me of how incredibly costly he could get at times. What would I do? In my mind, life in Idaho was perfect, aside from bills that we so expensive they rendered us with only top ramen and pancake mix in the cabinets. The more I thought, the more I realized; every problem in my life had been brought on by someone's untimely death. Addiction, depression, stress, and heartache were all weighing on my family once its pillars were gone. And for what? Heart failure and Brain cancer? Certainly, there had to be some sort of fix for it. All I needed was a good foundation. The perfect school and the perfect major. I landed on Biomedical Engineering because it was simple enough to be versatile. I decided natural based studies would be my focus so we could have more "paclitaxel" breakthroughs and fix the problems I'd had, ensuring children that young wouldn't have to face and go through what I did. "I have to protect children and heal a 10 year old me from the pain of grief and the destruction of a family."

Going to college means everything to me. It's a simple sentiment, but in my mind, there's no other way to voice my feelings on the matter. From a young age, I had a lot to look up to, because in my opinion. My family members were the coolest people alive. My grandmother had been an aeronautical engineer, so had my father. My mother was a successful business owner and pharmacist, my aunts were lab technicians, college professors, and pharmacists, my uncle's firefighters and engineers. Everything was amazing... Until I got older, and the smoke and mirrors became a clear picture. In reality, my family wasn't as amazing as I thought they were. My successful aunts could barely hold jobs and hadn't gotten a degree, my mother struggled and had to make her business work because her original degree was in religious education, and many other amazing jobs I'd heard about were actually military ones. Then, in 2018, it got worse. My family fell apart once my father, grandfather, and a close family friend died. Many of my aunts turned to addictions, my mother was battling cancer, and we all struggled with money, the following pandemic only magnifying our struggles to an absurd degree. A connection I made at the young age of 10 was that "foundations are everything." A plant couldn't grow without soil, and even if I didn't know what I wanted to do yet, I'd always know where I'd go as my whims followed me. Kinesiology or Civil engineering? Montana State University. Engineering? Rice University. Art and Storyboarding? The New School or CalArts. Even when my plans were outlandish, they always existed. But I couldn't keep it up in the air forever. What did I want to do with my life? Two years ago today, I was in a cabin that we could barely afford after moving, pondering that question. My Mom's medical bills were stacking after her ovarian cysts and breast cancer had been fought, and my freshly adopted little brother's cries broke the air, reminding me of how incredibly costly he could get at times. What would I do? In my mind, life in Idaho was perfect, aside from bills that we so expensive they rendered us with only top ramen and pancake mix in the cabinets. The more I thought, the more I realized; every problem in my life had been brought on by someone's untimely death. Addiction, depression, stress, and heartache were all weighing on my family once its pillars were gone. And for what? Heart failure and Brain cancer? Certainly, there had to be some sort of fix for it. All I needed was a good foundation. The perfect school and the perfect major. I landed on Biomedical Engineering because it was simple enough to be versatile. I decided natural based studies would be my focus so we could have more "paclitaxel" breakthroughs and fix the problems I'd had, ensuring children that young wouldn't have to face and go through what I did. So, when asked the question "What does College mean to you?" I'd have to say it means everything to me. It's simple, but it's shorter to say that then "I have to protect children and heal a 10 year old me from the pain of grief and the destruction of a family."

Art is readily available to anyone and everyone. It's an amazing outlet for emotions that anyone can do with few materials. My contribution to the world would be to allow and create places with abundant materials where people can freely create art. Art is a window to each individual soul that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comforted. In any form, it functions as a free, therapeutic experience, but isn't available to everyone. Be it the prejudice on who can do art and be taken seriously, or the less fortunate being unable to produce due to a lack of material, art is seen as more of a luxury than it should be. This is a small thing, and of course, it won't fix the world, but in my opinion, it's a good place to start. Giving people a way to express their raw, uncensored emotions away from the judgmental eyes of the world can be a necessary stride towards a more peaceful society. Especially today, where being emotionally suppressed "nonchalant" is praised and hailed as a good thing while your emotions scream for help.

One of my earliest memories is of my mother, my sister and me dancing around in a room flooded with blue light, at the young age of 5 or so, I'd thought that colored lightbulbs were the coolest things in the world. More than that, it was a rare moment of peace in my home. One where the three of us could have fun without the pressure of the world on our shoulders. It would be 9 more years until life was like that again. Every morning, at about 5 or 6am, my mother would leave for work and wouldn't return until it was dark. It was a sacrifice she'd make for our 3-story home and quiet life away from the toxicity of our family members. Unfortunately, that life didn't last long. We were forced to make a move from Pennsylvania to Florida so we could stay with our grandmother, at the same time, my mother grew more distant and angrier, I didn't understand why. Eventually, we moved back to my mother's childhood home in Texas with my grandmother. My two aunts and my grandmother took turns taking care of my sister and me while my mom seemingly disappeared completely from the equation. The adults would make comments, say that they were going to take custody of us, saying that we were unwanted and abandoned. Realistically, it was only a few years, but it felt like a lifetime. My mother came back - with a baby and working crazy schedules, but at least I could see her for the short time I did. It only took another couple months before we were taken to Louisiana with my grandma and great grandma, my mom staying behind in Texas. My father moved down to support us, but that peace only lasted a while. My mom came to Louisiana too, and the unspoken tension between my mother, grandmother, and father was always present. Eventually, both he and she got their own places and my sister, my newly born younger sister, and I visited him, and peace almost came once again. But my father died. We left Louisiana, too grief stricken to stay. The following years, however, weren't much better. It always seemed like something was actively working against us. Admittedly, I held a lot of resentment for my mother. She hadn't been there the way I needed. Not properly comforting me in times where I couldn't brush my teeth and would freely bleed all over my sheets because I lacked the motivation to get out of bed. Nor when my father or grandfather died. It wasn't until 2 years ago that my mom broke down, admitting that she had been absent because of illnesses that eventually rendered her paralyzed. She explained how hard she fought through her colon and breast cancer in the years following her paralysis recovery while maintaining a job to support us and her two sisters. She apologized for those moments that she should've been there for. It changed my entire perspective on her. Before, I'd seen her as an unfeeling witch who never wanted us, but with the knowledge that she was fighting every day to be with us again filled me with a new understanding and hope. I was an angry, emotional child because of her doings, while I've forgiven her and now our peace and relationship has been restored, the damage has been done. But we'll heal together, one step at a time.

I’ve always been unsure of myself. What was I? An artist? A poet? A jewelry maker? An athlete or a trainer? A thespian, maybe? My passions have always been as broad as my imagination, but down in Houston, Texas, imagination isn’t the most prized possession. Southerners have a nasty habit of hating things different from them, and being a young, imaginative black woman never bode well with the white dominated spaces I found myself in. People told me my ideas were too large and crazy. And sure, an eight year old declaring she’d single handedly make an animated series or run a successful jewelry store? It was a crazy thing to believe in. But soon after, my entire life was changed, plunged into despair when March 6th, 2018 hit. My Grandfather died from cancer. It hit hard, but with support, we all managed. But 2018 wasn’t done, it robbed us of my Father, my Uncle, and we were with the sadness again when it threatened to take my mother with breast cancer. At the time, it felt like torture, overwhelming everyone around us with a sadness that was indescribable. As I’ve grown, however, I reflect on that time, on how I felt, on how the thousands of other children who were my age or younger who’d suffered through similar pain. I had to know if there was any reasonable way for me to help all those suffering people. I did my research, and finally found something of a solution: Researching and implementing natural cures to ailments that remain untouched and seem impossible to decipher; this is my dream. Animals and nature have played a huge part in the improvement of human lives in the past. From small roles, like coating, waxes, and dyes from the lac beetle, to larger ones such as the paclitaxel harvested for taxol, which helps cure breast and ovarian cancer. This is what I want to do, and I need a biological engineering degree to do it. I’ve pondered it for months, I’ve wondered if I was only doing it for the ones I’ve lost, because as noble as that seems my Momma and my Daddy both told me not to dedicate a life to something I think they would’ve wanted. But I realized it was for my own sake; I deserved a normal childhood, one where I wasn’t depressed to the point I ignored my own hygiene and wanted to die. I realized that many people everywhere suffer with both illness and loss, so I owe it to my younger self to at least try and make things better for those around us.

In 2023, my family was on the brink of collapse. My dog ran away. The landlord had turned out to be a creep and we were forced from our home. Our family turned us away, claiming a family of our size was too much to handle. My mother was still struggling with her breast cancer and the stress of making money in what seemed like an uphill battle, additionally, her business couldn’t stay afloat while living from hotel room to hotel room. We could hardly afford food, raiding the hotel breakfasts in the morning like madmen, trying to get enough for the day. And eventually, we were forced to drop out of school. It felt like God had abandoned us, like we were completely alone in the battle. What were we going to do? God had started yelling at us years ago, in 2018 everyone close to us that tied us to that state had died, telling us to our faces that Texas and our remaining family were no good for us. But we’d refused to listen and were facing the consequences. One day during this struggle, my Grandmother offered us clothes that she bought with her impossibly large amount of coupons, among them were winter clothes. It was strange, offering clothes like that during a Texas summer. But God had his plans. We were nomadic for months, my mom deciding that mediocre AC wasn’t going to cut it for the 105° Texan heat. We started driving around the country. Going from place to place in search of a home. We stopped in Pennsylvania where my mom had to have emergency surgery. That not felt hopeless and scary. I was terrified I’d lose my mother too. But God knew better. In that hospital, we found my beautiful baby brother and my mom had her ovarian cysts removed. That was another sign. My Mom had tried for years for another baby, when it failed, she worked hard for adoption papers, but never had time or opportunity to get the baby. In a move that may be seen as reckless to anyone else, she brought him back to our hotel room. God had set it up perfectly. Still, I sobbed, praying for passing through the hard times. Gift after gift, yet I still couldn’t see an end to the storm. It was difficult. Later, we’d ended up in Idaho. We’d lived there briefly before, but ran back to the safety of toxicity when my aunts both broke their ankles. Our time there however was wonderful, we all knew it. More-so, we knew it was the perfect place for my little brother. We made it there and found a home in the cold winters of November, God knew those clothes would be handy at that time. My sister and I got part time jobs for better jackets and we slowly, but surely found our footing again. Now? We’re looking for a home to purchase, colleges to attend, and we’re all happier than ever.

Researching and implementing natural cures to ailments that remain untouched and seem impossible to decipher; this is my dream. Animals and nature have played a huge part in the improvement of human lives in the past. From small roles, like coating, waxes, and dyes from the lac beetle, to larger ones such as the paclitaxel harvested for taxol, which helps cure breast and ovarian cancer. My Mother, only a few years ago, from 2018-2023, suffered from breast cancer. She fought hard to survive for her children, the four of us completely helpless to do anything as we watched her slowly dying. We were scared, her father, my grandfather, had died only years earlier in 2018 to a similar fate. My father died later that same year due to his own ailments. We were unsure what to do. In a world where people don’t have equal access to information and resources to help them get through their journey, the sufferer was just as helpless. In my world, I’d harness our given gifts to act as a cure with us instead of against us. Cancer isn’t the only thing suffered from, either. Many diseases go untreated due to a lack of resources when there is an entire world around us with potential left untapped. I am a young, black woman in America. Seeing people left and right suffer to a lack of help was always a problem. Be it their own stubbornness or the systematic oppression that longed to see us eradicated, it was incredibly difficult to track who would die next and how. 2018 especially was difficult. I’d lost my father, grandfather, uncle, and almost my mother. We’d moved around from place to place, looking to escape the pains, but being a child, they always seemed to linger. I was hardly 10. My Grandfather had died 3 days before my birthday, so I remember very well the ride to my father’s house for comfort as my mother explained she was going to his funeral. By September, there was no one to comfort my younger self. My mother was stressed and busy with work and pain. I was essentially alone since My Grandmother held more of a “good riddance” attitude than she did care in her heart. In 2020, I was severely depressed. My family of 4 moved to Idaho, far away from the rest of my family. I couldn’t brush my teeth, shower, do my hair, or even move some days. My first period came and I silently bled rather than find energy to clean and properly care for myself. I tried to take my own life, twice. I was 12 then. I’d devote anything to avoid a child suffering the way I did. Disease has caused a sorrow in my life, a hole that erased memories that were too painful. I cannot allow it to rob anyone else of their happiness, their childhood. If I have to chop and peel back the bark of every tree, scrape the insides of every lizard, or study monkey bile, I will. Because the ailments suffered that are out of our control will succumb to it. I know, I’m not the only person who’s wanted to cure cancer. A person aiming tirelessly into the dark, praying their efforts become some discovery. But I cannot rest knowing how many are suffering and will suffer in the future. I cannot allow it. It breaks my heart every moment at the way the world bends to the will of viruses and bacteria so small and uncertain. It is said that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer at some point in their life. 1 in 43 women will die from breast cancer. Even those who don’t die don’t deserve to fight the unforeseen battle, and face the lifelong consequences.

My favorite part of playing is exploration and building countless homes in countless places. I always lead a dangerous, nomadic lifestyle within the game that reflects the one I live in real life. I began playing Minecraft on my cousins Xbox 360, in the earlier days, when I rarely played I tried to collect every piece of knowledge and ground myself in the game. I was obsessed. It all culminated in me trying to learn every function of the game. I would explore and build redstone creations. Overcoming new creature after new creature. Coming from a military family, I’ve moved around my fair share in the real world, as well as had my share of difficult experiences. Being able to get stronger and overcome challenges is simply apart of who I am, so doing it in games felt natural. My favorite way to spend time has always been making different forms of art, always trying new things to improve and challenge myself. So while my sister took the homey, farming lifestyle to contrast her experiences, my excitement chasing personality traveled around the worlds, building wherever I went to imprint myself onto it. Minecraft has come a long way. And it’s come a long way with me. I’ve grown, just as my goals have. Now, I want to run the world. To leave my mark and show everyone who I am and what my background has made me.