“When I’m an engineer and you’re an architect, you’ll design things and I can make them”, I told my best friend at lunch in second grade. Though I haven’t spoken to him in years, my excitement for engineering has not dwindled since. Back then, I knew I liked engineering because it meant building, and I loved constructing with Lego and woodworking with my Dad. Nowadays, having furthered my interest through leading my school’s rocketry club and building model airplanes, I’ve learned that engineering is truly about perseverance and taking risks, with a little building on the side. My biggest model airplane project to date drove these principles home. My favorite plane of all time is the Czech-designed L-39 Albatros, a jet used for training and airshows. After seeing a model of one at the flying club I belong to, I knew I HAD to fly one myself. However, every kit I saw was prohibitively expensive. My solution: 3D printing. With virtually no prior experience with 3D modeling, I plunged into this new project. I found 3D files of an L-39 model online and modified them for my use. Then, using money I earned over the summer tutoring and teaching robotics, I bought a used 3D printer. Including all the hardware and electronics I needed for the build, my total expenses were only half of the kit’s cost. I spent the next two months in anticipation. My printer worked tirelessly, churning out each of the 70+ lightweight plastic parts one by one. I set alarms, sometimes even in the middle of the night, so I could start the next print as soon as possible. After assembling the parts, I wired the engine, retractable gears, and control surfaces to a receiver. Eventually, the 4-foot-long plane was printed, assembled, wired, and painted. The only thing left to do was fly! Showing up to the flying club field with the L-39 felt like the culmination of the last 5 years of honing my flying skills. As I positioned myself on the runway, the voices of the other veteran pilots at the field faded away. I paused, then pushed my controller’s throttle to 100%. Every part of my body felt tense as the plane accelerated along the runway. “Please, please, please take off”, I muttered, pulling back gingerly on the elevator stick. Slowly but surely, the nose of the plane lifted, and I was airborne. No sighs of relief yet. I needed to focus. Every twitch of my trembling fingers translated to the plane, rocking it back and forth. I needed to focus. At nearly 100mph, each whooshing pass of the jet drained me. I needed to focus. Soon, the plane and I were both running out of energy. As the L-39 neared the ground for landing, the air in my lungs thickened. Just as I was about to suffocate, the wheels touched down, and I finally, finally, breathed a sigh of relief. I live for the satisfaction I feel after each stressful airplane flight or rocket launch. The reward from meeting my goals is unmatched, not only because I feel the relief that comes with their culmination, but because the journey of effort, learning, and progress is the essence of why I do it. I didn’t 3D print that plane merely to save money; I did it for the months-long designing and building process. This passion gives me confidence that I will thrive while pursuing an undergraduate degree in engineering at Yale University. I live for what higher education embodies: perseverance and focus towards an objective, and soaring among the clouds at the end.

“When I’m an engineer and you’re an architect, you’ll design things and I’ll build them”, I told my best friend at lunch in second grade. Though I haven’t spoken to him in years, my excitement for engineering has not dwindled since. Back then, I knew I liked engineering because it meant building, and I loved constructing with Lego and woodworking with my Dad. Nowadays, having furthered my interest through leading my school’s rocketry club and building model airplanes, I’ve learned that engineering is truly about perseverance and taking risks, with a little building on the side. I live for the moments of intense focus, the anticipation before a launch, the exhilarating uncertainty as a plane I’ve poured months of work into leaves the ground. The pursuit of knowledge and the drive to create fuel my passion for STEM, and I want to apply that passion to be an engineering leader in the future. I am primarily motivated by working alongside others who share my passion and drive for engineering. I am a founder and co-leader of my school’s rocketry club. Together, we have built and launched rockets that have reached speeds of 1,300 mph and altitudes of 12,000 feet. However, being a co-leader of the rocketry club entails more than just building rockets, soldering and coding flight computers, and accidentally setting off the fire alarm when making parachute ejection charges in the chemistry lab. I have been able to share my love for rocketry and the world of engineering to my peers through rocket design competitions and individual projects where every member built and launched their own rocket. Additionally, I created a proposal with the other leaders to get funding for future projects from our school. While the things I have done as a leader of a high-school rocketry team are very specific, they apply well to the greater scope of STEM as a whole. With the importance of science in our future world becoming increasingly clear with technology permeating nearly every facet of our lives, leadership has played an indispensable role in catalyzing this innovation. Firstly, good leadership has a vision for a project and directs a promising idea into something spectacular. Without the efforts of me and the other co-leaders, our club would not exist in the first place, nor would the experience and excitement that came from the time spent getting funding, planning, building, coding, and painting. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, good leadership can involve others into a subject, passing along passion for a project to current and future scientists. The majority of our club’s members are underclassmen, and I am proud to have instilled into them the passion for rocketry that I felt when starting the club. In the future, I hope to follow in the footsteps of my predecessors in the aerospace industry, the stories of whom are highlighted in the book ‘We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program’ by Richard Paul and Stephen Moss. When I read this book, I was struck by just how many people work behind the scenes of innovation. Learning about the accomplishments of these people, especially given the hardship they persevered through both immensely inspired me to do similar work and drove home to me the importance of grit and dedication in the field of engineering. Whether I will be leading a team pushing the boundaries of aerospace engineering or teaching future engineers, I hope that I can take those lessons from those leaders before me and leave my mark on the engineering field as a leader as well. Getting this scholarship will help realize this dream. I will be attending Yale University this fall, and help with tuition will allow me to focus more on furthering my passion and experience with engineering outside of the classroom. I am hoping to join the Yale rocketry team as well as participate in model vehicle design competitions and challenges. Being able to more closely dedicate my energy towards these passions will benefit me in the long run with connections and experiences that will undoubtedly be useful for the rest of my life.

When the familiar nerves of a rocket launch arrived, I was huddled in a crowded bunker with ten other people, all of us staring unblinkingly at the speck of the launchpad in front of us. That morning, we had woken up in our tents in the California desert and driven out to the launch site, the product of several months of work laying in the trunk. This rocket was our biggest yet; standing at eight feet and projected to reach over one-and-a-half times the speed of sound, the stress we all were feeling was definitely justified. After hours of last-minute assembly and triple-checking, the countdown began and my finger stood poised over the launch button. Now was the moment of truth. As a co-leader of the rocketry club at my school, I have not only fueled my own passion for engineering, but I have had the experience of guiding a group of people to shoot for the stars together (literally). As a group, we have built and launched three separate rockets, the largest of which reached 12,000 feet, and earned our level 1 and 2 high-power rocketry certifications from the National Association of Rocketry. However, being a co-leader of the rocketry club entails more than just building rockets, soldering and coding flight computers, and accidentally setting off the fire alarm when making parachute ejection charges in the chemistry lab. I have been able to share my love for rocketry and the world of engineering to my peers through rocket design competitions and individual projects where each member could build and launch their own rocket. Additionally, I created a proposal with the other leaders to my school’s administration for club funding. Although the initial proposal was unfortunately rejected, we did receive a small sum of money for projects and managed to have our club trips and launches covered by the school. While the things I have done as a leader of a high-school rocketry team are very specific, they apply well to the greater scope of STEM as a whole. While the importance of science in our future world is becoming increasingly clear with technology permeating nearly every facet of our lives, the role leadership has in catalyzing science might be less obvious, but no less indispensable. Firstly, good leadership has a vision for a project and directs a promising idea into something spectacular. Without the efforts of me and the other co-leaders, our club would not exist in the first place, nor would the experience and excitement that came from the time spent getting funding, planning, building, coding, and painting. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, good leadership can involve and intrigue others into a subject, passing along passion for a project to current and future scientists. The majority of our club’s members are underclassmen, and I am proud to have instilled into them the passion for rocketry that I felt when starting the club. It will soon be time to pass along club leadership to them, and their excitement about the club’s future endeavors has me looking forward to our upcoming achievements. The future will undeniably be shaped by science, and it is in the hands of great leaders to inspire the next generation of innovators.