I was fourteen when my older brother took his own life. It was like someone took the instruction manual away from a LEGO set I had spent my whole life building. The pieces were still there, but I didn’t know what to do with them anymore. He was the one who first showed me how to build. Not just with bricks, but with purpose. After he died, I felt directionless. My grades slipped. I stopped creating. The only thing that made me feel anything was helping others. I started noticing the way people’s faces changed when they felt seen, understood, or encouraged. If I couldn’t fix my own world, maybe I could help fix someone else’s, even just for a moment. That idea stayed with me. It’s why I threw myself into Boy Scouts more seriously, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout. It was something my brother had started but never got the chance to finish. Completing that journey felt like honoring both of us. Later, I earned a degree in Business Administration. But the truth is, I didn’t know what I wanted from it. I ended up working in the ski industry, and while the job wasn’t my long-term goal, I loved one part of it deeply: helping people. When first-time skiers walked in nervous and unsure, I was often the one who helped them feel ready. I’d calm their fears, make them laugh, make them feel capable. And that’s when I started realizing what I really wanted, to teach. I want to be the kind of teacher who sees each student as a person first. Someone who doesn’t just deliver information, but who builds trust. Who knows that sometimes the best lessons come from falling down and getting back up. That’s the beauty of learning. It's messy, it’s personal, and failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s how success happens. STEM education can be intimidating, especially for middle schoolers. But that’s where I want to be, where curiosity is raw and confidence is fragile. I want to make science feel like building with LEGO again. Where experimenting, failing, and rebuilding is part of the fun. I’ve learned that words alone don’t change the world. But words, encouragement, and guidance can change someone’s world. And that’s enough. That’s everything. This scholarship wouldn’t just help me finish school. It would help me become the kind of teacher I wish I had when I was lost. Someone steady. Someone kind. Someone who remembers what it’s like to need a reason to smile. Not every student will love STEM. But every student deserves a chance to discover how their brain solves problems. My class wouldn’t push everyone in the same direction. It would help them build on their own. Like laying out a big shared table where each student brings their own pile of bricks, and together they learn what’s possible. That’s the class I needed. Not one that told me what to build, but one that handed me the pieces and said, “Let’s see what you come up with.”

I didn’t grow up with a plan, but I grew up with potential. I was the kid staying late after school for First LEGO League. I loved solving problems. I loved creating. But at fourteen, everything changed. My older brother, my role model, died by suicide. It felt like someone had taken the most important pieces out of my set. I stopped building. I went quiet. I made it through high school and earned an associate degree in business, but I didn’t know who I was doing it for. I followed the path I thought I was supposed to take. Completing the set that was given to me, not the one I got to pick out. After college, I moved to Colorado and started working in the ski industry. I loved helping people try something new. I moved up, took on leadership, and managed teams. I was helping operations run, but the further up I went the less connected I was to the people. I didn't have any passion for work. That’s when I realized my dream: to teach middle school STEM. I want to help the next generation build the skills and confidence to solve problems. I want them to know that failing is part of learning, not the end of it. I’m currently attending community college to get there. I live on a tight budget, have no safety net, and am making this work through student loans, part-time jobs, and extensive planning. This scholarship would ease the financial pressure and help me stay focused on my goal. Not just someone who gives out a worksheet, but I want to hand them the pieces and says, “There’s more than one way to build this. Let’s see what you come up with.” This time, I’m building my dream.

I used to dump my LEGO bricks all over the carpet and just start building. No plan, no rules. I’d find pieces that didn’t belong together and try to make them fit anyway. That’s how math feels to me. It’s not just about solving for x. It’s about building something from parts that don’t look like they belong. It’s looking at a problem with no instructions and thinking, What can I make out of this? Math isn’t cold or mechanical to me. It’s a tool that lets me turn ideas into structure. Like LEGO, it gives shape to creativity. I fell in love with math early, especially through First LEGO League. We weren’t just solving equations, we were applying math and logic to build robots, gain points, test solutions, and fail in public. That mattered. Because when you’re a kid, failing doesn’t feel like the end. It feels like a new piece you didn’t think would help, suddenly clicking into place. But when my older brother died by suicide, everything I was building collapsed. It felt like someone had taken away half my LEGO set. Pieces were missing. The rest didn’t make sense anymore. I started building things that didn’t look like me, copying what others thought success looked like. I went through the motions, did what I was supposed to do, but nothing fit right. Years later, working in the ski industry, I found myself climbing a ladder I didn’t want to reach the top of. The higher I went, the less I felt connected to people. I wasn’t building anything meaningful. That’s when I stopped and asked myself: What do I actually want to make? Now I know. I want to teach. I want to show students the side of math that isn’t about memorizing steps. I want to hand them the messy pile of pieces and say, “Try something. If it breaks, great. Now you’re learning.” I love math because it teaches us how to think when the instructions don’t make sense. And I want to help others build something real, even when pieces are missing.

Crossing the graduation stage felt like finishing a race I never meant to run. I had followed the instructions I was given: go to college, get a degree, find a path that makes sense on paper. But when I looked up, I didn’t feel proud. I felt lost, like I had just built something without really choosing the pieces myself. After graduation, I worked in the Colorado ski industry. At first, I loved it. I was good at the work, kept getting promoted, and eventually stepped into a role with more responsibility. But as I climbed, something shifted. The higher I went, the more distant I felt from the people around me. I wasn’t teaching lessons anymore. I wasn’t helping guests face their fears on the slopes. I was managing schedules, solving logistical problems, and slowly losing touch with what made me love the job in the first place. I hit a crossroads: keep building this version of success, or take a hard look at what actually matters to me. To answer that question, I had to go back to when I was a kid surrounded by LEGO bricks, building without fear of failure. Building for the fun of it and because I wanted to. In sixth and seventh grade, I competed in First LEGO League with my older brother and friends. We built robots, solved problems, and came up with ideas that were half genius, half nonsense. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that we had space to create, to imagine, and to fail freely. It was one of the few places in school where failure wasn’t punished. It was expected. There were a number of ways to get points from the board. It was our job to find out how we wanted to capitalize. Totally up to us and there was no wrong answer. When my brother died by suicide, I was 14. It felt like someone had taken away part of my LEGO set. The world didn’t make sense the way it used to. I stopped building. I stopped imagining. I still went through the motions: school, graduation, jobs. But I wasn’t choosing the pieces, I was just following instructions. It took years to realize I had picked up the wrong instruction manual. I was trying to build someone else’s idea of success. That realization didn’t come from a single moment. It came slowly, piece by piece, as I kept returning to what brought me joy: helping others learn, creating room for curiosity, and connecting with people on a real level. Now, I know what I want to build. I want to teach STEM to middle schoolers. I want to create the kind of classroom where failure isn’t feared, where students can tinker and test and reimagine the world around them. I want to help students keep their imagination intact before the world convinces them to stop dreaming. STEM, when taught this way, becomes more than a subject. It becomes a mindset. It teaches patience, communication, and how to keep going when a design fails. It shows students that progress isn’t always linear. Sometimes you need to tear down a whole section and start over. That’s not failure. That’s learning. I may not be able to change the world. But I can change someone’s world. That’s enough. That’s everything. My story isn’t linear. It doesn’t fit into one box or follow one blueprint. But it’s mine. And every choice I make from here is another piece I’m putting down with intention. I’m not done building. Not even close.

Crossing the graduation stage felt like finishing a race I never meant to run. I earned my associate’s degree in business because it looked like the right piece to snap into place. It fit the instructions I had been following for years, but it wasn’t the piece I would’ve picked if I had built the model myself. If I could create one required class for every student in kindergarten through twelfth grade, it would be the kind I loved early. A STEM class built not around tests or rigid outcomes, but around creativity, choice, and experimentation. A class that gives students a pile of bricks and says, "Show me what you can do with these." The goal wouldn’t be to turn every student into a scientist or engineer. Some students won't love STEM, and that's perfectly fine. This class would exist to help students learn how they think. It would give them space to explore. It would give them permission to try something messy and learn from it. Just like building a LEGO set without the instructions, some structures might fall apart. But students would learn how to rebuild stronger. When I competed in First LEGO League, I wasn’t just playing with motors and sensors. I was learning how to break down a big problem into smaller pieces. I saw how different teammates brought different strengths. Some loved design, others took charge of coding, and a few made sense of the whole strategy. It was like dumping out a LEGO bin and realizing the value of every piece. Even the weird ones. Especially the weird ones. The class I’d create would be built the same way. Students would have access to hands-on tools, collaborative projects, and open-ended questions. It wouldn’t be about one right answer. It would be about how many different ways you could approach the challenge. There would be no single blueprint, just lots of possibilities. Like when you realize you don’t need the exact piece to finish your build, you can make something better with what you’ve got. Some students would connect right away. Others might struggle to find their place. That’s part of the design. Too often, school rewards the students who already know how to stack things neatly, quickly, and by the book. This class would reward those who take risks, who take something apart just to see how it works, who keep looking for a new solution when the first one doesn’t fit. Because real learning happens when you’re building something without knowing exactly how it’ll turn out. STEM, when taught this way, becomes more than a subject. It becomes a mindset. It teaches patience, communication, and how to keep going when a design fails. It shows students that progress isn’t always linear. Sometimes you need to tear down a whole section and start over. That’s not failure. That’s learning. Not every student will love STEM. But every student deserves a chance to discover how their brain solves problems. This class wouldn’t push everyone in the same direction. It would help them build on their own. Like laying out a big shared table where each student brings their own pile of bricks, and together they learn what’s possible. That’s the class I needed. Not one that told me what to build, but one that handed me the pieces and said, “Let’s see what you come up with.”

Crossing the graduation stage felt like finishing a race I never meant to run. I had followed someone else’s version of success, one where you earn your degree, find a respectable job, and keep moving forward without asking too many questions. But as I held my diploma, I wasn’t proud. I was confused. I had done everything right, but none of it felt like mine. That was when I started looking backward, not at the classes I took or the grades I earned, but at the moments that meant something. The ones that stuck. And most of them looked a lot like building LEGOs. Not just the toy, but the way it made me feel free to try, fail, and try again. I remember my older brother and I spent hours building wild contraptions with no instructions. We’d combine pieces from different sets, invent rules as we went, and destroy half of it just to make something better. It wasn’t neat or efficient. But it taught me how to think, not just what to do. That’s what learning looked like before school made it about being right. I had a number of great teachers growing up. Some were kind, patient, or passionate, but they weren’t the ones who changed my life. It was the activities that did. The hands-on projects, the open-ended challenges, the freedom to think on my own. One of the most formative was the First LEGO League. I joined with my brother, not knowing what to expect. We had to build and code robots to complete real-world challenges, work in teams, and present our ideas to judges. There were no guaranteed outcomes, just problems we had to figure out with trial, error, and creativity. That experience stuck with me far more than any lesson I memorized. It gave me a space where I was encouraged to fail, try again, and come up with new solutions. And it proved that learning could feel like building, not just studying. Unfortunately, those kinds of experiences were the exception. Most of schooling felt like a rigid instruction manual. Follow the steps, get the right answer, move on. It rewarded accuracy, not creativity. Efficiency, not persistence. That’s not how you build. And it’s not how kids build confidence in who they are. That’s why I want to teach. I want to make the classroom a place where students get to build, not just comply. Where a wrong answer is just the start of a better idea. Where success has many paths, and “A” doesn’t mean “first try.” A place where they’re allowed to learn like real people with curiosity, frustration, surprise, and pride. I didn’t arrive at teaching right away. I worked in the ski industry, where I was building a career. But I kept coming back to the teaching moments. Helping a kid navigate their first slope. Watching someone fall, get up, and finally make it down with a smile. That shift from fear to confidence felt exactly like the click of two LEGO bricks snapping into place. That’s when I realized what I truly cared about: not the systems, but the breakthroughs. Now I’m at Reading Area Community College, working toward becoming a STEM teacher, especially for grades 7 and 8. I want to teach in that sweet spot between childhood and high school, when students are still open to play but ready for real challenges. I want to be the teacher who hands them the pieces and says, “There’s more than one way to build this. Let’s see what you come up with.”