When I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression, I felt like my character was not with me, simply a shell of my former self. My body and mind were more intertwined than they should be. Irrational fears and a disordered relationship with food stripped away who I was. I felt like time was being taken from me. I am still learning to live my life how I choose to and not how the groundless voices tell me I have to. With the support of my therapist and family, I adopted invaluable coping skills. I turned to my artwork and I focused on truly caring for myself, both physically and emotionally. For the first time in my life, I set aside time for family and friends. And I aligned my priorities with what made me happy. Creating artwork has played an essential role in my pathway to recovery. Art and writing served as a tool to effectively communicate myself and my passions. Through the power vested by creativity, I created healthy coping mechanisms and developed invaluable skills of tenacity that I still use today. As I encountered challenges in life, art served as an outlet for my emotions. Thus, I utilized my painting and drawing to decompress and share a piece of what I enjoyed with my family and peers. I radiated with pride in my ability to create. Through the exploration of new ideas and perspectives, art can serve as a medium of communication itself as well. I was motivated to create even more, as I gained a deeper appreciation for the world and its many different kinds of people. I began to admire the interconnectedness of humans, and thus began my attempt to portray it through both my artwork and my nature towards others. I also developed an understanding, that to continue my personal “research” of humankind, I must be here. So I stayed, and I explored. I spent time outdoors, admiring nature and investigating life, and how it all works and comes together. I painted flowers, people, and clouds. Through my exploration of the world around me, I developed a love for biking and being outside. Sometimes, I still feel as if I hold no purpose on this Earth, but I am someone. I am someone who admires the experiences of others, yearns to learn, and is prepared to take on new and different opportunities. I am someone who doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary to prove my existence. I am someone who has realized she quite likes learning and experiencing new things. There has always been an instinctive desire to understand everything and anything around me. Learning, regardless of the subject, has always provided me with a sense of purpose and accomplishment. By attending community college first, I can obtain an Associate's in Computer Science, and then continue my education at a university to earn a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. This way, I can provide for myself and attempt to lower the burden of large student debt. I hope to productively utilize my passion for creative thinking and problem-solving in a career where I can also implement my competency in science and technology. I believe that the interconnectedness of humans is greatly impacted by technology and the craft of technological advancement is all around us. Therefore, I wish to be a competent software engineer that is creative and is always actively learning. I feel, accepting of the future to come. I look forward to meeting new friends, exploring with my family, and falling in love with life all over again.

When I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and depression, I felt like my character was not with me, simply a shell of my former self. My body and mind were more intertwined than they should be. Irrational fears and a disordered relationship with food stripped away who I was. I couldn’t concentrate on my studies, my memory deceived me, and I wanted nothing more than to fade away in a heap on my bed. I felt like time was being taken from me. I am still learning to live my life how I choose to and not how the groundless voices tell me I have to. My family has a shadowy history of mental illness. I grew up around many family members who coped with their struggles through substance abuse. I have an older aunt who was diagnosed with a multitude of mental illnesses as a teenager. I am very close to her and, as a child, I often looked after her. Learning about how my trials with mental health were also the challenges of my family before me caused a particular sort of worry in me. The idea that this cycle of pain could continue scared me from facing my future. Thus, I often discredited my ability to pursue opportunities that were very important to me. I succumbed to self-doubt and insecurity. I truly believed I would not do anything worthwhile in my lifetime. However, I often remember my aunt and her ability to always cheer me up. She is funny and likes to watch movies. She loves American diners and her family. She brings joy to those around her through her unconditional kindness and by always being herself. Without discrediting the challenges she faced in her journey and the hopelessness I felt within myself, she helped me realize an important belief I stand by today. I began to align my priorities with what made me happy, rather than what made me successful. I set aside time for family and friends. I turned to my childhood love for creating artwork, inherently neglected, and I allowed myself to enjoy admiring the simplest things around me. I at times, critiqued and judged my path, a path where I focused on my well-being. Sometimes, I still feel as if I hold no purpose on this Earth, but I am someone. I am someone who admires the experiences of others, yearns to learn, and is prepared to take on new and different opportunities. I am someone who has realized she quite likes learning. I like watching animated shows and films. I like Thai food. I admire these things in people I meet, but I can admire these things within myself too. I am someone who doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary to prove my existence. My goal in life is no longer to “make it big”, but to slow down and absorb all the detail in the world around me. I want to experience anything and everything, by traveling, learning and spending invaluable time with my loved ones. I want a career that challenges me and can support the adventurous lifestyle that I dream of for myself and my family. I’ve come to understand that continuous learning and remaining open-minded to new ideas are not only paths to “success” but are transformative and rousing growth. Today, I look forward to meeting new friends, exploring with my family, and falling in love with life all over again. I am still learning to grow with my disability, but the journey here has fundamentally revolutionized my perception of life and what it “should” be.

I was born in a sleepy town of warehouses and often fruitless agriculture in Kansas. As a child, I spent my days playing outdoors with my grandmother while my mother took college classes at a local university. I would skip along dirt roads as my father arrived from work smelling of livestock, his apron more often than not coated with blood. It was a town of hard workers, but not necessarily a place of opportunity. My mother attempted to envision a future for her daughters in my birthplace, but she could not. So she decided to move our family, not based on comfort or familiarity, but on hope for change. I continued growing up in a suburb, where I was surrounded by others who were always so sure of their futures. My peers were always confident in their goal to attend university after high school, with the support of their families. I was always sure I wanted to go to college, as there has always been an instinctive desire to understand everything and anything around me. Learning, regardless of the subject, has always provided me with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. I believe my mother wanted more than anything for me to feel that same confidence as my peers, but I could not. Not when my peers had generations worth of college education. Not when their parents had clinics or firms. College was a dream, not a guarantee. I needed an additional dedication to secure a spot on my school’s top ranks, so that I may earn a place. So I did, I achieved my shorter-term goal of withholding an excellent GPA and securing a spot in the top twenty students of my class. I had hoped to get sufficient scholarships to start my education comfortably, but unfortunately, I could not begin with the little financial assistance I received. I had to hold off on my plans. Even today, as I have taken a year off to work, to save, and to apply myself vigorously again to scholarship applications I am afraid. I hope to advocate and do justice through the change my mother had much faith in many years ago. By attending community college first, I can obtain an Associate's in Computer Science, and perhaps work for a bit and continue working with an associate as I further my education at Colorado State University to earn a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. This way, I can provide for myself and attempt to lower the burden of large student debt. I hope to productively utilize my passion for creative thinking and problem-solving in a career where I can also implement my competency in science and technology. I believe that the interconnectedness of humans is greatly impacted by technology and the craft of technological advancement is all around us. Therefore, I wish to be a competent software engineer that is creative and is always actively learning. Growing up, I often witnessed a constant worry, and the inability to be truly comfortable. Now, I worry for my future and the future of my parents, I do not want them to have to continue working well into their senior years just as my grandparents and their parents have. I am immensely grateful, but I do not want this cycle to continue. I have the abilities and the resolve to improve both my life and my loved ones. I have a vision not just for my future but a dream founded on ensuring my family that things can change and I am determined to improve and make a difference for my community.

Last summer, I had hot lentil soup on a hot summer day. I had a headache and was ravenous, sweaty, and exhausted. The soup didn’t help with these physical ailments. Nonetheless, I ate the soup in the warm stuffy kitchen of my grandmother’s house. Her air conditioner did not work that well, but mine was broken completely, and so was I. Hours earlier, I had to make the most difficult decision to put down my best friend. Yet, I never felt more loved than I did eating that spicy lentil soup on a Texan summer day. When my baby bird passed, I could only feel like something was inherently missing from me. I felt suffocated like my life was fundamentally wrong from that point on. Something about grief I don’t hear many people speak of is the confusion. As adults, we understand the concept of death, but when she died I just, didn’t. I was so confused and I was perplexed by my confusion at the same time. It was as if I was wondering where she was, yet I also felt like she never existed at all. Our birthdays were only a couple of days apart, yet I turned eighteen and she remained seven. When I felt like my world was crumbling on top of me, my grandma made me lentil soup. She took me into her home and let me sleep in her bed. She held me as I let out wave after wave of emotions. She spoke to me about her own experiences with grief, with her father. Which, at the moment I felt horrible about, because how could losing a bird be compared to losing your father? Yet, I now realize that my grandmother was hurting as well because she saw that same devastation of grief in me. So she did all she could to help me get through it. I was heartbroken, however, I also felt so incredibly loved. This past year during the most painful experiences, I have been reminded of the support and love that I have always had, and I realize now that my pain was real and valid, but so is the love around me. A bad habit I’ve had for years is bottling up negative emotions simply because I did not think they were reasonable. My grief was the tipping point at which I realized that my feelings were valid, and my grandmother helped me. Because if she, who lost her father, could see and feel the grief inside of me, she who told me that it was okay to cry, could understand the intensity of my emotions, who was I to continue to deny myself my feelings? Emotions are always real, and when I allowed myself to understand this, I also allowed myself to feel everything else. Such as the unalloyed steel of love and kindness. I no longer want to prevent myself from experiencing life and its many emotions. I have amazing people around me that uplift and support me. If I had not taken that chance to feel everything and anything, I would’ve missed just how loved I truly am. So, I will live each of my days to the fullest by allowing myself to feel: love, grief, sorrow, felicity, and everything inbetween. I learned that living on Earth, at its core, is about the experiences and emotions we feel throughout our lifetimes. I now believe it is incredibly important that we embrace our human emotions and even sometimes our negative experiences because these experiences can teach us about our connection to life itself.

Whether it was an instinctive desire to understand how everything and anything works or an unfettered passion for all things tech, I have always been eager to learn about the inner mechanisms and processes of technology. I was only three when I would witness my older sister playing on our old family Dell computer. I was three when I begged my mother to let me pick out a video game disc and insert it in the slot on the computer case and watch the monitor come to life. As I grew into a young adult, like many others, I enjoy spending time on social media to witness and learn about the variety of experiences of others, often very different from my own. I realized the significance of the social media I was using for diversity and inclusivity and the possibilities that this meant for my future. The creation of software and the development of new technologies can greatly impact many reaches of human advancement and connection. I wish to be a part of this inevitable venture both to facilitate positive change and do my best to prevent technology from becoming something inherently negative. A degree in computer science will also allow me to productively utilize my passion for creative thinking and problem-solving in a career where I can also implement my competency in science and technology. My goals in life have always been to experience the world around me by traveling, never stop learning, and spending time with my loved ones. After receiving my degree I hope to find a career and workplace that allows me to do this. My dream job would have to be in software engineering. I want a career that challenges me, includes active learning (technology is always evolving!), and can support the adventurous lifestyle that I dream of for myself and my family. I want to change the pace for my loved ones. I do not want my mother, father, or my grandparents to worry about their financial well-being as they grow older. I especially do not want my family worrying about my ability to look after myself either. Growing up I often witnessed this worry, the inability to be truly comfortable. I listened to these worries and I felt them. Now, I worry for my future and the future of my parents, I do not want them to have to continue working well into their senior years just as my grandparents and their parents have. I am immensely grateful, but I do not want this cycle to continue. With this scholarship, I will be a step closer to graduating with a degree with positive job prospects with as minimal student debt as possible. I have a vision not just for my future but a dream founded on ensuring my family that things can change and that my future is something they do not have to worry about. My vision is security, stability, and always cherishing invaluable moments and experiences.

At my heart, I am an artist and creativity has played an essential role in how I interact with the world around me. I can be a creator of space or time, a communicator that translates emotions or feelings into visuals, or a composer of experiences. Understanding the fundamentals of art has allowed me to slow down and absorb all the detail in the world around me and will continue to impact many reaches of my personal development, sense of self, and avidity to understand the world I live in. Creating artwork has played an essential role in my upbringing, my confidence, and my exploration of connectivity and diversity. My mother always told me that my head ran a mile a minute; “So much faster than mine that I can’t keep up!” So it is not surprising that as a child, I often struggled to contain myself. It was a mental challenge to not share every single detail of my ideas. However, art and writing served as a tool to effectively communicate my often complex emotions. As I encountered challenges in life, art served as an outlet for expressing my goals. I grew into an individual that relished sharing stories of both myself and others. I continued to develop invaluable skills of tenacity that I still use today. As a young adult, I utilize my artwork to decompress and share a piece of what I enjoy with my family and peers. I feel all the more accomplished and confident in myself when I demonstrate my artwork to others. When I showcase this passion, I radiate with pride in my ability to simply create. As an impressionable teenager, when I allowed surface-level features to define my self-worth, art is always there. Art holds me up and says, “Look at what you can do!” Growing up, I always wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, something I could create that would not just benefit myself, but establish a place of common significance. I began to investigate a new form of language; communicating feelings, emotions, and entire experiences through artwork. I began to understand that art can mean research and active learning. Through the exploration of new ideas and perspectives, art can serve as a medium of communication itself. I was motivated to create even more, as I gained an appreciation for the world and its many different kinds of people. I began to admire the interconnectedness of humans, and thus began my attempt to portray it through both my artwork and my nature towards others. The ability to be creative is not a particular skill, technique, or years of practice; but an understanding of the world around you. I am honored to have the opportunity to explore different identities and ideas and create a space where they may be diffused and appreciated. My creativity defines my interpretation of experiences, my character who is open-minded and kind, and my passion to share and learn about others.

My mother tells me that as a child, I had an innate curiosity about myself. I was only four and often felt like the questions cultivating inside me fell behind my ability to seek out answers. My mother concluded to have me sit on her lap as she would search for the answers to my questions and more on our old Dell computer. “That building we pass by on our way to grandma's house used to be an old factory where they made clothes” or “The leaves outside are green because of a thing called chlorophyll”. I had her look up what chlorophyll was, but I didn’t understand the deeper explanations. What I was left with, however, was that leaves had this thing called “chlorophyll” and the single word would stick with me until I was ready to learn more. As I grew I was excited to come home and search for details on buildings, road signs, or new words I had heard throughout the day on the computer. That Google search engine encouraged my curiosity about our world and with the development of the first Apple iPhone I now carry that knowledge with me. Today, I like to watch the map GPS as I travel through a new city and I look up buildings, what goes on inside, and the foundation of it all. I ask the search engine why there is a national cash shortage, how to protect myself against contagious viruses, and the best ways to reach my goals and dreams. There has always been an instinctive desire to understand everything and anything around me and the internet helps me realize this. I am a deeply curious person, who now strives to visit and see the world I’ve learned about. One could’ve never expected a single lifetime to be enough to see and learn everything about our Earth, but I do believe we can get very close thanks to the World Wide Web. The internet and its ability to ask anything and receive an answer developed an innate curiosity in me, and it created an urge to discover and learn that I still hold today. Our Earth needs curiosity. Our planet is diverse and confusing, but the technological creation of a search engine and the wide expanse of the internet allows us to better navigate, understand, and build upon the world around us.

This piece created with instant coffee and soft pastels is just one piece of many that symbolize the experiences and emotions felt in the life and the upbringing of a Mexican born in America. Coffee was used as a medium to symbolize its influence in our homes and how the use of coffee in Mexican American homes encapsulates the Mexican value of family. As a second-generation Mexican American, I can demonstrate and explore different aspects of my life that have been influenced by Mexican tradition, customs, ideals, and what it is like living in America with a biracial identity through my creations. To show others a perspective that is so personal and intimate through artwork is incredibly powerful. In the future, I wish to learn and explore significant and unique customs of a variety of cultures that could be portrayed in ways other than physical appearances; to portray how not only Mexican experiences and history in America can have a direct impact on one's character, feelings, & thus future could be incredibly eye-opening, not just for myself but for others. Through artwork, design, animation, or even storytelling; in my future I see myself creating and sharing the perspectives of others.