Inspiration is broadly the feeling of enthusiasm or excitement bestowed upon someone by someone else. This being a feeling I can both sympathize with both experiencing receiving and giving inspiration. Although I have many idols and people that motivate me to be the best person, a lot of historical, a lot of relatives, and a lot are even fictional; but there comes one that specifically comes to mind when I think about what drives me towards success. That person, the individual I would declare as my role model, is Barack Obama for what I would consider the exceptional and exemplary life he's lead not only as 44th President of the United States but also prior through his work in and out of the Illinois Senate. As an African American Barack Obama demonstrates that you can achieve whatever your goals are and fundamentally shatters the glass ceiling, that most people of color perceived to be placed above them and barring them from achieving what many Americans would consider the highest office in the land. Not only that but he lead a very impactful and successful presidency despite constant cynicism, threats, racialized conspiracy theories, global turmoil, financial crisis, and a six-year-long obstruction congress. He made moves on climate through the pairs climate accords, foreign policy through the Iran Nuclear Deal, brought the economy back from the recession, put Judges on the supreme court that legalized gay marriage, and made significant strides on the part of healthcare through the Affordable Care Act. He made several social strides and broke certain taboos in favor of creating progression, such as admitting to having smoked when young while advocating for drug reform or appointing a Vice President who was one of the first lawmakers to come out in favor of same-sex marriage being legalized. He before becoming president had only been a two-term senator and did not have nearly as much government experience as the people that ran against him in 2008. Although these are exceptional feats he also managed to graduate from Harvard University and become a civil rights attorney. Which would transfer greatly when he eventually went to become president. He also spent time throughout his life teaching constitutional law, which once again is information that became relevant as someone who used executive orders quite frequently throughout his presidency, namely the DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals brought down near the end of his administration. His fearlessness and boldness to stand alone and take stances that are shared by a minority without fear of all the criticism or condemnation while maintaining his moral compass and acknowledgment of those principles being right is something I've adopted in my own life. Learning to be a leader and knowing that regardless of my race, sexual orientation, or childhood household income I can accomplish anything If I put my mind to it, as he did through his own hard work and dedication. Barack Obama is someone who directly inspires my life as a role-model and drives me to complete all I can especially as I pursue my computer science degree, his life story motivates me to accomplish my life's goals and dreams.

I think that in terms of academic and educational development the moments that matter a lot are those that take place outside of an educational institution or learning environment aside. These moments or instances that occur are valuable if not just as valuable as those that happen within the actual academic environment. For many college students, not academic experiences include but are not limited to; work, extracurricular activities, sports, and hobbies. Some of these environments and experiences can even blend into one another and create a genuinely new experience. I have had several of these experiences that have not only boosted my academic performance and achievement, which not only indirectly and directly benefits my skills and eventual career goals. Being part of an esports team during my sophomore year of college has been an experience that's firsthand shown me valuable knowledge about working with a team in an extremely competitive environment. It's taught me discipline with working with complex nuance and intricate strategies that consistently change. In a game like Overwatch, which I play for my university, the key strategies for this game change every month and it requires my teammates and I refreshed the fundamentals and re-engineer strategies to bring to tournaments. This type of pregame planning fosters and hones a creative and imaginative mindset which is ideal for someone who, like me, is pursuing a computer science degree to be a programmer where you often have to pursue a new outlook on a problem in order to reach its solution. When actually playing the game, when introduced with unfamiliar or unique strategies on the part of the enemy team, you have to react quickly and follow a strictly logical and analytic mindset to fulfil the win condition or momentary objective of the game. Something also a promising quality for someone looking to be a computer programmer that requires a concrete and analytic thought process to reach solutions. In terms of indirectly or not endemic to competitive gaming benefits there is the fact that when I go to compete it involves me being at a computer and actively utilizing a computer. Which I by necessity need to be comfortable with to work in computer science and definitely with programming. Not just utilizing one but optimizing one and constructing one that's effective for practicing my skill and making sure that I know how to enable my computer to be perfect to participate in gaming events. That type of on the go knowledge or knowledge that I've picked up in my free time not only moves me ahead of future possible units I'd have to cover in college but can also transfer into skills in the workplace and internships. In my own personal experience, extracurricular activities have been one of the biggest sources of external non-academic experience and have honed my skills for computer science nearly as much as my general academic learning activities. I believe that people taking advantage of not only taking advantage of classroom time is important but I see a lot of value and importance in securing the time you have outside of the classroom to build your skills and actively engage with opportunities to further your career goals

When I was much younger I was under the assumption that everything in life was meant to be fair or set up to be equal. I had managed to convince myself that everyone had equal opportunity and that in life everyone would have an equal chance towards achieving their dreams, optimal success, or a piece of what we would consider the American dream. Regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status, I believe all people had an equal shot to capture their ultimate goals. Now not to say just because my outlook on this changed doesn't mean it's futile for people that belong to underprivileged groups to try less or that even I try less and definitely doesn't mean that over privileged groups should try less. That's just not the message I was conveyed throughout my childhood, I still think that people that recognize they experience some level of systemic oppression should still engage with the world and interact as if all things are equal. I think a defeatist attitude or an attitude that focuses on how things are rigged against you are negative and wholesale counterintuitive. This personal transition or evolution on my perspective was gradual although the key moment I can cite for being the most pivotal for my progression occurred in my transition from highschool to college. I noticed that the ethnic breakup from my relatively diverse highschool environment was a lot more mixed than the college environment I was introduced to. It also broguth me back to a memory of my senior year in highschool when I noticed certain students going to school and others weren't. After realizing this I did a little bit of research and came to an understanding to realize the broader ethnic breakups of universities and realized that my circumstance was not unique. Broadly this is due to socioeconomic status present in the United States that controls for who can attend university due to the financial barriers and that disproportionately affect ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities who are more likely to be poorer. This transcends through all facets of life the phenomenon is called in the field of economics as the stickiness at the ends. Where people who are born of a higher income bracket are much more likely to live lives in that same income bracket than not and people who are born of a lower income bracket are much more likely to live to live lives in that same income bracket than not. Meaning essentially where you are born determines where you will end up in life and this is because of a whole set of advantages associated with being born wealthy as a stable family life, opportunities associated with status, and a reduction of the amount of financial barriers. Learning this makes me more empathetic towards people less fortunate than I and to understand how a lot of people are unable to achieve the same opportunities as me. In this sort of understanding I can reach out in the future to people born to less fortunate circumstances and offer a helping hand to make the world more like I initially perceived it. It will also make me more effective in my work ethic because I won't always expect the output from others and instead focus on improving myself to maximize my own efficiency.

This is me right before college performing before my high school a song my best friend and I spent workshopping over summer and the school semester. It was an exhilarating experience especially since I performed it in front of the whole school, not just my class, and certainly not in front of people my age. It was my first time performing a song in front of an audience that big (and they really loved it) and the five images are us in front of the microphones performing our song. I'm on the left and he's on the right.

Tech is a large field with a multitude of avenues for exploration, I have become familiar with this in recent time. There are so many new fields dealing with technology and the expectation is that there are plenty more to come. Personally due to my experiences dealing with programming through highschool, I have become fully interesed in computer science. Computer Science is a field that is in high demand right now especially in a country like the United States, where a lot of automation is starting to transition the economy towards much different jobs. I spend a lot of my free time programming, have entered the skill into science fairs, competed with the skill, and have worked on websites and applications for people who have reached out for those services. Computer Science is the field of infinite possibilities and when you're programming you are able to not only exercise you analytic and logical brain but also your creative and imaginative brain. Purusing a pathway in tech is not only about career opportunities but it's me being able to do great things with a skill I find myself to be very talented with. I imagine once out of college I will be able to work with tech companies and utilize my programming to create applications and websites, that will perhaps make certain tasks easier for people or improve their experience while exploring the web. I think we live in a very online and interconnected society and I think the more we lean into that and make it more accessible for everyone the better. A challenge a I find in the way of completing my degree aside from the obvious financial barrier would have to be the competition and the pushing the limits that most computer programmers have to experience. Due to computer science being a relatively new field that has high demand It appears that tons of programmers end up pushing their own limits out of passion and for newer programmers that work can go uncompensated. So an important thing to keep in mind not only in my academics but in any internship opportunities I pursue I have to maintain a general sense of my limits and know not to push myself more than I can handle. I have a great work ethic and always push myself to the best of my ability towards thing I'm passionate in, which computer science definitely is something I'm passionate in, and I hope to scale that back by the end of my college tenure and be able to gauge an accurate and complete view of my limits and abilities to better assess it for future work and creative endeavors I embark on post-college.

The black and white one on the right is named Obeezy (a nickname we gave him because we adopted him back in 2012 during the reelection of Barack Obama) was playing around with the little chunky one on the bottom left named Bigsby (because of how chunky he was when we adopted him and certainly hasn't changed a bit) and ended up pushing him over in the cutest way possible, I had to get my phone out immediately and I managed to get this picture of Obeezy sitting right here standing up victorious like the cutest pet ever!!!! @howtounderstang

When I was growing up, I was told education is the great opportunity equalizer. Essentially that no matter where you come from in life, in a country like the United States, you were afforded the opportunity to at least a public schooling education. This makes it so everyone begins to equal the playing field for everyone, so that when people begin to pursue other educational opportunities or even career opportunities all people have at least that first initial benchmark or achievement. Education also builds character through developing skills, interests, and relationships. When you go to school you take classes that teach you how to do certain things that may or may not personally be of importance to you, while all at the same time making friends and meeting people in places of authority. Although when you get to college this is substantially different and your ability to pursue higher education is a mix of former life merit and financial capabilities. Meaning this could disproportionately impact who has the ability to achieve the highest levels of education. As a computer science major who has been enthralled with the field my entire life and has used every opportunity issued at my institution to further my future in programming I view education as a pivotal part of my life. When I see education I see it as the single most important avenue for success in my life at the current moment and that's why when I wake up I devote every fiber of my being towards superb performance. So when I'm asked what education means to me or what role it serves in my life, the simplest and most succinct way I can answer that question is an important and highly consequential role as I imagine it does for a lot of students and the difference is with me is passion and confidence in my own abilities.

All my life I have been enthused by maths and sciences, such courses I have performed my best throughout middle school, high school, and now much more similar in college. This informs why I have begun pursuing my Computer Science Degree, as programming and general computer science have not only piqued my interest due to the rising popularity and demand for participants in the field but also because of its utilization of both math and science. With the field of computer science, you build an understanding of the inner workings of computers via software and hardware while also coming to understand the interconnected web of computers that communicate with one another. When we look at binary, we build a unique mathematical understanding that does not find itself visited in such detail in any other course. Computers also teach us about data, both handling, and interpreting, which reinforces both scientific and mathematical concepts. Programming can be used to represent mathematical concepts with modeling formulas, as well as science that can be used to model abstract concepts both visually and non-visually. Throughout college pursuing my degree in Computer Science, I hope to accomplish a plethora of things. Initially, I intend on building my knowledge and understanding within the field. This will be done by practicing programming as I take classes and participate in projects, homework, and test, also I will also be engaging with clubs that either competitively or casually deal with coding. Secondly, I hope to participate in internships and explore part-time opportunities in the field. Likely working on the front end or back end of web design eventually trying to build out to programming or designing applications or working near teams that deal with applications. Pursuing those opportunities will almost certainly assist in building my resume while also giving me experience not only in programming but also in working in the field. Thirdly and finally, I also intended on working with programming in my free-time practicing new languages and doing new or inventive stuff with the languages I already know. It's important to not only hone these skills in my schooltime or within my academics but also allow it to be practiced on my own and asses to myself what I need to practice or try to engage with concepts I consider myself personally weak in that my academics may not necessarily deal with. Although post-college I have a clear vision and goal for my future and career with my then-achieved Computer Science degree. I will reach out to businesses or companies that gave me internships and utilize my prior time working there or reputation to begin working there. If not successful there or maybe stalled on that endeavor I will simultaneously pursue newer tech companies dealing with hardware or programming with software to build up in the field and work for full scale mobile or web applications. This degree will not only enable me to be a better programmer and improve my computer science knowledge but will open multiple doors and improve career opportunities for the future. I have high hopes for what goals I will be able to achieve with a computer science degree not only personally but in terms of work aspirations and the creative endeavors, I will explore to my fullest abilities.

I think that the most important learning opportunities arise in times of failure or rejection. There is no better time you will be able to know how you would respond to certain stimuli or situations other than the moment you experience that situation once already and have time to reflect. That's why whenever I fail or face rejection I immediately take the time to analyze what I did wrong, what I did well, and what I can do to better engineer things in my favor. To explain that a little bit cause some of those may sound like the same thing, but essentially analyzing what I did wrong means picking apart every single decision I made in response to the situation or test and figuring out which of them were bad or counterintuitive to my goal. When I speak about analyzing what I did well that's essentially me looking back at the decisions I made and assessing which of them were good or essential to my success condition. Looking at what I can engineer to do better is essentially looking at which of the wrong decisions I can convert to correct decisions and on top of that looking at a way to alter the things out of my control and find ways to situate them in better positions before I encounter the situation. These tenants for improvement and self-guidance and overall philosophy have always been relevant but have been the most relevant in my experience with my senior year of high school when I participated in the science fair taking place that year. I worked really hard on a project that was a mobile application that was available on the android AppStore that allowed a user to use an interactive simulation of our solar system with a specific focus on earth and the damage done by anthropogenic climate change. In this, I managed to make it through the school level and managed to get some positive feedback for when I went to the county level. I went to the county level fair and did not perform well enough to advance to the state level. While reflecting on that experience, I have a couple of key moments that I look upon for reflection. With what I did wrong, I waited way too long to work on my display and instead focused too much on the actual program and project instead. While I should've taken multiple weeks in the lead-up to putting together a display/poster board that was entirely presentable. I feel that others who attended the fair had much more glamorous, maybe not as interactive as mine, but a much more colorful or eyecatching poster board. I feel like people's initial perception or the first glimpse of something can almost entirely influence the way they see it. On things I did well, I had a great concept and in the preface for the initial school-wide science fair, I think it was great in that it was unique, as no one not only did nothing relative to a hot-button issue like climate change or did anything that involved programming or coding. That intrigued a lot of judges and led them to take a special interest in my project. On top of that, it was very interactive and any judge could come by and use the simulation as well they could download it to their own phones and try it while judging. For what I could manipulate or engineer for the future there was the option to talk to past winners/competitors and see what advice they could give me or if they know anything specific the judges are looking for or enjoy more. That type of information would've been much better going in and could given me a better ear for how to promote and design my project entry for the fair. Although that rejection was not my failure, it was merely a moment for improvement to send me for bigger and better goals. After designing the game I implemented significantly more variables and added many more features and rolled it out as a full game. In this losing the science fair wasn't the end of the project, it was just an avenue that sent me towards working on the game and pursuing an avenue that could allow the game or my work to flourish just as much or even to my surprise possibly twice as much. Especially with the fear that losing the science fair could've cost me college opportunities having a successful game out or a good game out in general could not only help with college opportunities but also help me find career opportunities in the Computer Science field. This opportunity did not as one expects shatter my confidence but on the contrary, re-emboldened my faith in my abilities and my creativity for applications for my skills, which has only grown to help me realize that in the face of what seems to be a defeat there is always room for improvement and the opening of bigger and bolder opportunities.

Mental health has long been misunderstood by the public and even to some extent disputed by those in academic fields. To even those who are the most trained on the subjects dealing with our minds and mental health there are still a lot of questions yet to be answered. So it is safe to say that the average and relatively uneducated person, who attempts to utilize their own personal experiences to shape an opinion or understanding on our physiological states will have significantly more questions and confusion. This is exceptionally true for my own life, where I have had friends who are under the impression that they have infallible mental structures and that the same struggles with depression and anxiety that effect average people all the time cannot affect them. In high school, I had a friend of mine commit suicide and having to move past that was hard and it really strung home the importance of building long meaningful friends; where not only I'm dependable to the people I consider friends but also empathic and emotive with them. In this way there's the understanding that we can be open with one another. This not only extends to those that are my friends but also my family and romantic relationships, where I try my hardest to make time in the middle of my career and hobby goals in order to share meaningful and openhearted moments with each and everyone of these people I consider close. The biggest takeaway I've had in the latest years with my personal and general experiences with mental health is that these types psychological issues affect everyone and not always in equal amounts or ways. On top of that I have come to understand that mental issues are just as important and sometimes worse than physical issues often because of how little people understand they are linked or rank against each other. These experiences that I have shared and personal familiarity with, will continue to shape my view on mental health in the future and as I learn more and gain newer experiences, I will be able to form newer opinions and likely the ones I have now may be subject to change. Hopefully, I will gain newer experiences and evolve the way that I think of not only mental health but the world.

I think one of the most important and foundational freedoms presented within American society is the allowance of anyone to venture into what ever economic opportunity they wish to pursue. If someone people that pertains to entrepreneurship and a person has an idea or innovation they can pursue that manifest that into a full blown career. One entrepreneurial business endeavor I've embarked on deals with website design and putting content such images, text, videos on a web page for a user to come and interact with. To speak to the importance, success, and significance of what I do with this business, I find that in the interconnected online world we preside it becomes almost essential to have an online presence. In today's world if you aren't able to be discovered via the online channels, which a lot of business are unfortunately having to learn due to the ensuing pandemic, it may be lead to the failure or erosion of your business. This is why people who have businesses will contact me in order to design or put together a website to their liking. Likely to simultaneously manage this website with the flow of information and data such as user information and traffic. In terms of inspiration for starting this business, it basically started in noticing what I had in the prior few sentences. On top of this I already had an affinity for programming with HTML and other web languages. I spent several years through high school and college taking classes that taught all types of programming languages such as HTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL, while I simultaneously spent time in my private time learning and practicing these languages as a hobby. To top it off once becoming experienced or decently understood in these languages, I started to receive offers to work on roofing business and furniture businesses in my local area. This caused me to understand or become more in tune with how these sorts of websites are supposed to look or supposed to be situation. In this I can add a type of format to reach into for these types of business contact me and I know the type of look I want to go for. The specific components of these types of designs that I have to take into account are the colors, the layouts, and the wording of certain titles and phrases. In terms of what I want to achieve, I want to build a strong network and inflow of people throwing me offers to be involved with my services and request certain designs whatever they maybe. On top of this I want to have a positive impact on the business landscape by bringing some businesses who have a reliance on past marketing tactics to the modern era of digital advertising and service. I have learned a lot through my personal experiences with business and my personal business endeavors. I hope to be able to continue these such endeavors and the future be able to expand and improve on the foundation I've set forth-ward. I have heavy faith coming from a long line of African American Businessman I'm sure to continue on and as this idea has benefited and taken to be a promising or successful endeavor I hope to pursue to a greater extent in the future and continue, with hard work, along this trajectory I've been observing over the last few years I've been working to it.

The Visual Medium is unique in the complexity of an individual image and all the information or emotion that can be carried along with art visually consumed. For a viewer as opposed to a listener/reader there are a significant amount of components to pay attention to. There are a multitude of opportunities I have been able to really show my skills as a visual artist. Many of these circumstances I have also experienced being one of the only black people present. Although throughout these experience and the inherent interest I've taken to visual media and visual artistry I've noticed it's convergence with culture. What people see can often be their reality not only informative graphics or media but also entertainment. People can start to parrot themes or the expressions of the things they see. In my own work this phenomenon taking place, I have experience working on an interactive visual piece. A video game coded in Unity that informed the user but through a visual form. This was a sort of simulation tasked with demonstrating the negative effects of anthropogenic climate change, throughout the playing and viewing of the artistic piece. An example of this would be as the time in the piece progresses, there is progressive gradual damage done to the planet that a prospective user would be involved in averting or delaying the global catastrophes associated with global warming. Themes of heroism, bravery, and leadership are visibly displayed throughout the games and these could inspire or bring a viewer towards incorporating them in their own personal lives. If someone for example sees the importance or learns the importance of combating anthropogenic climate change, it may lead them to inform their friends, find other means of becoming informed, to vote differently, or change their own personal habits. With enough people this could influence entire communities to act a certain way and if promoted on a national scale lower carbon emission. This could create a society or culture focused around climate science as opposed to the alternative. Although that's just one example. Another example I can cite of a situation like this could be the time I expressed through the visual medium of web design or in literal terms HTML. I managed to design a website that was a engaging to viewers and designed to inform or teach them how to acquire a job in the workforce. One thing that I've learned here is how to make a website look comfortable, either that's through using bright colors, simplistic design, or approachable interface. Regardless through that you can keep a viewer engaged and continuing to view your page. From there you can influence not only the way they think but also have a direct impact on their actions. If I include advice on how to set up a resume, it may inspire a reader to create a resume that resembles that advice. In this it could have a similar effect as described before where it could on a national scale lead to significant improvements on our quality of life and be permanently cemented into our culture. With regards to an issue like this especially when African Americans are statistically more likely to be rejected in job offers promoting this type of advice or help through a visual and quick to consume medium provides a lot of help. It could improve the conditions in black communities, as could a promotion of climate science because we are already aware of evidence that these climate catastrophes disproportionately affect black and brown communities. I greatly enjoy being a visual artist because not only can I use it to impact culture but the culture around me can also drive me to speak to certain issues. For example a rising drive or movement of climate denial-ism is what brought me to develop my interactive visual piece. Although beyond my personal satisfaction and enjoyment of the positive cultural and social benefits my visual art can bring and I know others work to bring as well I enjoy even more satisfaction from the future un-thought of or unfinished plans for visual art that I will embark on or be invited on. These will likely spawn from future rising issues or culture phenomenons and due to this I plan on venturing out and seizing those opportunities to explore new creative visually artistic avenues. (Link to first interactive game interstellar safeguard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxzlnrOZtfI)(The first 9 Images are unmentioned but important works of visual art I've worked on over the last 2 years, that encapsulate their own either explicit or implicit thematic meaning.) (The last image is a screenshot from the website mentioned in this essay about how to acquire a job, in this it shows the qualities best suited for success and shows exactly what I wrote about with creating a conformable and engaging website.)