I have always been interested in engineering since I was in elementary school. I’ve lived in Memphis, Tennessee my entire life. I enjoy working on performance cars at my summer job, small electrical projects, small engines, and creating small vehicles such as electric skateboards and minibikes mainly due to my budget constraints from being a highschool student. I have stretched myself very thin in my highschool career by participating in as much as possible. This kept me from getting a job during the school year, and only allowed me to work during the Summer. My work ethic has taken me to the top of my athletics department as well as the academic department. I have received departmental awards within the STEM program at my highschool as well as a prestigious award for service. I have been a two sport varsity athlete all four years of highschool while maintaining above a 4.0 GPA. I have been voted team captain by my peers for both the football and lacrosse teams. Between both sports I have been awarded All-Region, All-State, Defensive MVP, and the “Heart Award,” which is the highest honor at my high school. I will graduate with a 4.56 GPA, ranked in the top 12 of my class of 150 students. I am enrolling in Colorado School of Mines next year. I aim to graduate as a mechanical engineer. As an engineer that is interested in the automotive industry, I will contribute to a solution to fatalities resulting from vehicle submersions. I have a friend that passed away in a vehicle submersion in 2021. She flipped off of a bridge and into a creek. She fell about 15 feet to the surface of the water. Between the airbags causing a hazard and the doors/windows remaining shut, she was not able to escape. In the autopsy, they found that she had no injuries other than those sustained drowning. If she had been able to escape the car, then she would be here today. Although this problem only causes ~500 fatalities per year in the US, it is very important to me. I hope that reaching this goal would not be the pinnacle of my career. However, if this project took me many years to complete, then I would still feel that it is a worthy cause. If I could save 500 lives per year with my innovations, then I feel I am making the world a much better place through my engineering. There are problems that would impact many more lives than this, but due to my connection with this problem I have motivation and passion to produce an effective solution.