In the field of computer science, information technology, or technology in general, the opportunities for software to positively impact society are seemingly endless. We are already seeing technology working in motion for society through A.I. products such as ChatGPT. With products such as these, one disadvantaged person may be able to aid himself (using ChatGPT or other chatbots' A.I. technology) to be on the same playing field and have the same opportunities as everyone else in society. This might not have been possible for that person, whose circumstances and environment do not benefit him or her, in the absence of such technology. Innovative software at an affordable price or for free can greatly benefit those who use it. It can be a stepping stool out of a disadvantageous environment and propel a person into heights once thought unattainable, the light at the end of a dark tunnel. It can level the playing field for that person and provide fair opportunities. One example of this might be a free education software that allows the disadvantaged to become educated in their field of choice, study for the appropriate certification tests, become certified in their field, and then become great members of society. In fact, a software similar to what I described already exists. Khan Academy is a free education platform created by Sal Khan in 2006 to promote free education in various subjects such as math, science, and others for students that cannot afford traditional education. The only problem is that because Khan Academy is not an accredited school, their students cannot earn any certificates or diplomas that they can then use in job applications. A software like this can definitely contribute to the well-being and resilience of a disadvantaged community. It would promote inclusivity because it is an open platform, welcoming and including everyone who is interested in bettering themselves through education and those would like to have the same opportunities as everyone else in society. The software I just described is one that I am aiming to work on in the near future after I have obtained the relevant knowledge and experience to do so. I would like to provide an equal opportunity for everyone to obtain an education and the relevant certifications and diplomas. In brainstorming what this software might look like, I have ran into a few challenges. One of these is finding the funding for such a project, not just in the initial stages, but also continued funding for maintenance and supervision of the software. Another challenge might be getting the publishers of certifications and diplomas to agree to allowing anyone in need to obtain one for free. These are several challenges associated with this project, but these challenges are what makes projects like these exciting, and the payoff of creating real change in society is more than worth it.

If you told me four years ago that I was going to be a weightlifter, bench pressing double my body weight and squatting nearly four times my body weight, I might have called you crazy. This is where I'm at today. My story with athletics has been one that has not only transformed my physical side, but my mental and spiritual side as well. Four years ago at end of 2019 and the beginning of Covid-19, I was insecure about my body image; I didn't like the curves my body eminated nor my love handles. I thought that the only way I would be happy with my body image would be to eat less of the junk food I was consuming on a daily basis, and I was horribly wrong. Fast forward a few months, and I had taken a long look at myself in the mirror. Enough was enough. I had previously thought about lifting but decided against it due to not having what I thought was ample transportation. With a glint of determination in my eye, I decided that my reason was simply an excuse and decided to take the nearly 3 mile bike ride to my local Planet Fitness gym. I started going by myself everyday that summer then eventually went with an old schoolmate. We built a great friendship over going to that Planet Fitness, the accountability we projected on each other, and the discipline we both developed. I started noticing great changes in my body, then I eventually discovered dieting which brought my gym journey to new heights. Fast forward a few years, and I am achieving weightlifting feats I once thought were impossible, constantly propelling myself to new heights and setting higher limits after breaking my previous ones. My weightlifting journey has very much affected the physical side of me in a very positive way, giving me much more body mass, giving me definition, and significantly improving my overall health. However, the positive effects of weightlifting are not limited to just the physical. The positive habits I developed from disciplining myself to lift everyday and give 110% of my effort has transferred from the gym to the mental field of my life. That discipline has made me much more disciplined in everything that I do, from academics to personal self-help projects. It has brought me from a spontaneous, get it done last minute way of living to a structured, ordered, peaceful way of life. It has boosted my spirit in that regard as well and has changed my perspective of life from negative to positive. I am aiming to implement my weightlifting skills into competitive weightlifting and bring home gold to Florida International University this coming fall.

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company, stated that "success represents 1% of your work which results from the 99% of failure." This quote excellently projects the notion of embracing failure and "What could go wrong?" People who embrace this mentality are truly unstoppable in any career, field, or study that they are in. It is also a mentality that is truly limitless in its nature, encourages its embracers to think limitless, and unlocks true potential. This is probably a thought process that many people who started off with all odds against them had. Soichiro Honda, the previously mentioned founder of Honda Motor Company, definitely embraced this thought process. He started off in his father's workshop where he went to go work for another automotive company. He had great ideas for new types of pistons for automotive engines. He brought these ideas up to his bosses at the time, who thought that the ideas were flawed and refused to give them any kind of funding. Honda then went to form his own company and manufacture more pistons. He took these pistons to the largest car manufacturer in Japan at the time, Toyota. Of the hundreds of pistons he brought to them, Toyota accepted only a handful and scrapped the rest of them. This devasted Honda, who had sunk a great deal of money into his company, going so far as to pawn his wife's jewelry and sleeping in his workshop day and night. Most people at this point might have closed up shop and cut their losses, not Honda. Honda was unfazed and inspected what went wrong with his product; he performed an autopsy on his own operations. He eventually came to the conclusion that the manufacturing process was flawed. He spent the next few years meticulously attending engineering classes and studying the manufacturing process. Honda's troubles were still not over; during WWII, one of his factories was bombed by American forces, then, another one of his factories was destroyed in an earthquake. Despite this, he manufactured some new pistons and presented these to Toyota. The pistons were a hit product, and the rest is history. "What could go wrong?" This is a question that has fueled my passion for what I'm studying in college (software engineering) and has fueled my aspirations to create real change in the world after college by advancing the field of A.I., an emerging lucrative technology and another passion of mine. It is a mantra that has most definitely kept me from thinking average and has elevated my perspective to new heights I once thought were unachievable. It challenges the normal thought process of "I can't do it" and transforms it to one that empowers a person to achieve anything they want. It has challenged me in such a way that has kept my vision laser-focused on my goals when external distractions almost derailed me from the path to my goals. It has made me embrace the fear of failure, and accept that it is inevitable in every successful person's journey.

My favorite aspect of the game would have to be survival mode, specifically with my friends. Playing in survival mode alone for the first time had me carefully gathering my resources and allocating them to the appropriate mining expedition, farm, garden or a structure that I wanted to build. It gave me the thrill of surviving on your own, away from your parents, responsible for your resources and well-being that you would not typically get in real life. In a way, it was an escape from the sometimes mundane happenings of reality. However, playing survival mode with friends had a much deeper resonation with me. Taking the elements of lone survival mode and implementing them with friends that you were already well acquainted with in the real world opened the door for much more bonding, arguably more bonding than typical friendship activities as children. In playing survival mode with your friends, you quickly learn to work as a unit; each friend in survival mode has incentive to help each other out through either fighting enemies with them, upgrading each other's armor, feeding one another, the possibilities are endless. The friendship in Minecraft survival mode can be thought of as a table with legs. The friends are the legs, and the tabletop is the friend unit as a whole. If one leg falls, the whole table falls. The combined experience of the pure fun that Minecraft survival mode is and the group effort of the friends in survival mode is a perfect recipe for bonding and community, and that experience has left a deep impression on me that I still carry today.

What legacy means to me is the story that one leaves behind for others to read. It is how people will remember someone after he or she passes away. Legacy can paint either a good picture or bad picture about someone, and that is dependent on how he or she has lived his or her life and impacted those surrounding them. As one can see, legacy is a huge deal, and there are plenty of people in history who prove that. A prime example, in my eyes, is the legacy of well-known former basketball player, Shaquille O'Neal. Even though he is still building his legacy today, his past years have left a large legacy behind for others to see. I watched an interview with Shaquille O'Neal where he spoke about his first time in the NBA, National Basketball Association. He spoke about how he spent one million dollars in less than 24 hours if I remember correctly. With the right guidance, Shaquille O'Neal learned to control his spending and grow his money even more. He is now worth more than quadruple his net worth when he was in the NBA. Shaquille O'Neal's legacy taught me that anyone can be successful, given the right discipline and guidance, and this reflects into my everyday life. Legacy means this to me because it is important to me, and I want to leave a good legacy behind, not only for my name's sake, but for the name of my future generations. Coming from a low-income household taught me to conserve the things I have as much as possible. It also taught me to cherish the things I have before they go away. It has taught me hard work, prioritizing, gave me a focus on education, and countless other things. My life, for the longest time, has been education-oriented, and I have my upbringing to thank for that. I plan to continue this cycle by keeping focus on what's important to me right now, mainly education. I am already doing this because I have set a weekly schedule for myself that is centered around my education, I have made a to-do list for each day of the week, and I have everyday constant reminders on my cellphone, computer or any other frequently visited place of my goals for the day. I am strongly confident that as long as I follow this routine, I will continue the cycle.

1. My story is that I have always been in love with computers. Ever since the first time I used a computer, I knew that I wanted to work with computers for the rest of my life. More specifically, I wanted to know the magic that made computers run, and I wanted to know it well. This led to a childhood of exploring computers, various computer functions, and essential programs; I remember in the 5th and 6th grade enjoying most of my free time exploring and customizing my computer's settings, and I learned some of the HTML programming language from a small booklet my mother gave me. In the 7th grade, I learned the fascinating computer program, Adobe Photoshop. This eventually led to me pursuing a computer science degree. My first years learning computer programming further solidified my passion for computer science. After obtaining my Associate's Degree in Computer Science, I am now pursuing my Bachelor's in the same field. 2. After receiving my degree, my goal is to work in the computer science field, analyzing computer code and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, the idea of a non-living machine exhibiting lifelike properties, is absolutely fascinating to me, and I would like to combine aspects of computer science and artificial intelligence to make new discoveries in this field. I would also like to develop solutions for all of our current artificial intelligence problems and figure out how to have artificial intelligence more useful in our everyday lives. I would like to make some groundbreaking discoveries in both the computer science and artificial intelligence fields and better society as we know it. A company I would like to work for to make this possible might be Microsoft, Apple, or another prestigious tech company. 3. I feel that I am the best candidate for receiving this scholarship because I share the same ambitions as Mr. Chris Jackson to build a rewarding and impactful career in technology all while battling the affordability of the degree.

Living in a single-parent household has shaped my career goals by turning my attention towards a career that I know would be worth it in the long run and would be one that I love. This is because living in a single-parent household, where resources can be scarce, made me greatly appreciate higher education and those who help me along the way; I am extremely grateful for the latter. I knew that with these limited resources I have, I had to make my career count, so I chose to pursue a career within the computer science field and solve problems relating to artificial intelligence. I did this because I truly believe that computers and artificial intelligence are the future, and these are both things that I grew a passion and deep interest for. Artificial intelligence has the potential to not only change our society but to revolutionize it. I would equate this revolution to that of when the computer was first created. I will implement this passion into pursuing my goals during and after my time at college. I plan to pursue my career goals during my time in college by being in several internships relating to computer science, doing my own studying on the subject outside of class hours, and generally just improving my skills as someone seeking a career in the computer science field. I imagine most of these internships will be for coding and other related careers, but I'm going to try my best to find an internship relating to artificial intelligence, one that perhaps has me experimenting with the program of the artificial intelligence and developing new ways that artificial intelligence can interact with us and the world. Pursuing my career goals in college will serve as the bridge for pursuing my career goals after college I plan to pursue my career goals during my time after college by looking for a job that has me working with computers and/or artificial intelligence. By now I will be equipped with the knowledge that college gave me in order to pursue my career goals and my dreams. I want to experiment, reflect, and better artificial intelligence so that it serve us and the world better. Not only that, I'm seriously considering starting my own research study on artificial intelligence after college in order to gain my own insight on potential new developments regarding computers and artificial intelligence, and I'm hoping to make some great changes in these fields.

My story is as follows: I was raised by a Filipina mother who immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines to be with my dad. When I was around 2, they both divorced, so I spent much of my life growing up with a single mother in relative poverty. I have good relations with my dad today though. Throughout most of high school I made a great effort for my academics all while battling poverty, and this carried on into college as well. Many of the interactions that I had with computers during my childhood and early adulthood shaped my passion for computers and made me want to work with them, and this passion is what lead me to pursue an Associate's Degree in Computer Science from South Florida State College. Now I am pursuing my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science at Florida International University, and I'm aspiring for a PhD in Computer Science after my Bachelor's. Specifically, I want to be a computer programmer or software engineer and solve problems regarding artificial intelligence. Not only that, I want to make a change in the field of artificial intelligence, a breakthrough in the science. This translates over to how I would like to impact my fellow brothers and sisters in the Filipino-American community as well. I notice that there is a gap in representation for Filipino-Americans in the STEM field who made a remarkable change in their field, such as how Albert Einstein did in the field of physics. I would like to help fill this gap, and this is the main impact I would like to make on the Filipino-American community. In addition, I would help draw more attention to our lovely community and expose others to all that our amazing culture has to offer, such as our delicious Lumpia and Adobo dishes. I am hoping that I can impact the Filipino-American community in America and bring that impact abroad to the Philippines, inspiring the young men and women there to follow in my footsteps and make an impact on the Filipino-American community and the Filipino community in general.

Throughout my two-plus years at college, I have focused heavily on all my courses, especially those pertaining to computers and coding. I have had many sleepless nights trying to figure out which one command is wrong in an ocean of code so that I can get my program to function correctly. I do this because getting my Bachelor's degree in computer science is more than just an achievement. It is a passion that will resonate with me for the rest of my life. From a young age, I have always been interested in computer software and how they work. I remember in the late 2000s playing a computer racing game supported by the Flash Media player and thinking to myself: "I would like to design a game like that one day." Fast forward to my college years, and I am learning to write the code to do just that. Past me would be so proud of myself right now. I'm sure I would be so proud of future me when he gets his Bachelor's degree with no debts owed. As evident from my passion for computers and coding, my dreams for my future career are to be a computer programmer. I would like to write code for software, watch my creations come to life, and hopefully help those using the software. The frustration that may come with writing code is no big problem for me because I actually like solving big problems. Everyone has problems. Some have better problems, and some have worse. Solving such a big problem as creating software makes me very happy and makes me feel very accomplished.

Something I have learned about myself that I've found valuable is that I will inevitably make mistakes, and that is okay. It is okay because it is all part of the process of getting to where I need to be. Knowing this enabled me to do things that I would have never done. It instilled in me a new confidence and a new outlook on life. It also taught me to love myself more and to stop being so harsh on myself whenever I make a mistake because there probably will be many more to come before I can even move an inch forward towards my goal, and that is okay. This knowledge is very valuable to me. Knowing this, I'm not afraid of failure anymore. The greatest people of our time had to fail many times in order to get to where they were going, so I know that as long as I keep trying I will eventually achieve my goals. Without this knowledge, I couldn't imagine that I would be where I am today.

One simple pleasure in my life that I appreciate very much is eating/snacking. There is nothing more satisfying to me then coming home after a long day of work/school to some good tasting food. For me, eating allows me to let loose even more in that moment of relief you may have after stepping foot from outside territory to inside territory where you may have some moments of relaxation. I eat in moderation though and don't let it become a habit. Another simple pleasure I have in life is reading books. Reading books stimulates my mind while also teaching me something new. It is good to learn something new everyday, to be a better person than you were yesterday. Yet another simple pleasure I have is exercising. Exercising allows me to work on my health and body while also relieving stress, and this makes sense because scientific studies show that exercising releases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals, in the brain. I always feel relieved, relaxed, and accomplished after a good workout.

This is a question I have thought of time and time again. After reading a book by bestselling author Mark Manson I was faced with this existential question that many do not want to answer because they are too busy living in the moment, but it's good to ask this question because our legacy is all we have after we are gone. I also know that asking yourself this question tends to motivate you to do more good for the world as that is a part of your legacy. As a student pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, I want my legacy to be that of an innovative computer engineer/programmer that created a world-changing app. I want this app to be able to help people somehow, some way. A good example of such an app is Headspace, created by former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe. This app helps people relieve stress and anxiety through guided meditation and mindfulness. It makes stress and anxiety relief more accessible while doing so for a low price. I want this to be my legacy because I want my legacy to be that of good while also integrating my passion for computers and computer software. All people should definitely strive to make their legacy that of good. Mahatma Gandhi says "In a gentle way, you can shake the world."