My name is Josey Wickersham and I am a senior at Brandon Valley High School. My goal in life is to help as many people as I can. I have always loved knowing that I impacted someone’s life and made their day just a little bit better. Whether it be through volunteering, supporting others, or even something as simple as a kind word, I believe that helping people is the most fulfilling job possible. When I was little, I thought I might want to become a pilot or a chef, but my dad always told me that my heart was too big to be wasted on such a job. He saw how much a cared and he knew what I now know; my calling is to help people. I will only be satisfied with my job knowing that I did everything I could to change someone’s life. I think that becoming a medical doctor would be the best way to achieve this. Specifically, I would love to become an OB-GYN and help bring life into this world. Childbirth has such a high mortality rate and so many things can go wrong in the blink of an eye. Pregnancy and labor can be so unpredictable and the death rates have slowly been climbing over the years. I think that something needs to be done about this. Even if I can only help a handful of women, I still think that is better than nothing. I want to make the biggest difference I can, but I know that is going to be a challenge. As of now, I do not know what that entails or how I am going to impact the labor and delivery field, but I can not just stand by while women go through such traumatic experiences. Losing a child can cause long-term mental and emotional damage that could be avoided with the proper care. And, even if your child survives, the havoc that labor can wreak on your body can be detrimental. Not to mention the emotional damage that occurs when you go through such a traumatic event. With technology advancing the way that it is, I believe that there must be something that I can do. Right now, I am young and do not fully understand how I am going to make the impact that I want. I hope that someday, by furthering my education and following my passion, I will achieve my goal. My plan is to get my degree in biomedical engineering at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and then continue on to med school. I know it will be a long and difficult path, but I think it will be worth it in the end. Few people are willing to go through that much school, but someone has to and I think it will be me. I refuse to just sit back and take a simpler path just because it might seem easier. I am capable of greatness and I know that one way or another, I am going to help people and make a difference in this world.

I am going to get my degree in biomedical engineering: a degree that covers all the pillars of a STEM major. I want to pursue this degree because I believe it is the best way for me to help people. Whatever path I decide to follow in my future, I want to impact someone’s life and know that I made the world a little better than before. My plan is to use bioengineering to further advance the medical world. A dream of mine would be to work on prosthetic devices and help amputees have the best technology possible. My heart specifically calls out to war veterans because I know people who are in the service, and if something were to happen to them, I would only want to best prosthetics and technology for them. This in itself could go a few different directions. I could develop the prosthetic itself and make them have better mobility, comfort, or technology. One of the big advancements in today’s world is connecting devices to the mind so that a patient can move the prosthetic with their thoughts and even have a sense of feeling or touch. Or, I could work more directly with a patient to find the one that will work best for a specific person. Finding the best device to work for a person can be challenging. Depending on their hobbies, they will want different things, and tailoring their prosthetics to best fit their lives would be a very fulfilling job. Knowing that I helped them take back whatever brings them joy in life would be an amazing job. However, another path that I could see myself taking is becoming a medical doctor. Specifically, I would love to become an OB-GYN and help bring life into this world. Childbirth has a high mortality rate, and so many things can go wrong. Pregnancy and labor can be so unpredictable and the death rates have slowly been climbing over the years. I think that something needs to be done about this. Even if I can only help a handful of women, I still think that is better than nothing. I want to make the biggest difference I can, but I know that is going to be a challenge. As of now, I do not know what that entails or how I am going to impact the labor and delivery field, but I can not just stand by while women go through such traumatic experiences. Losing a child can cause long-term mental and emotional damage that could be avoided with the proper care. And, even if your child survives, the havoc that labor can wreak on the body can be detrimental. With technology advancing the way that it is, I believe that there must be something that I can do. Right now, I am young and do not fully understand how I am going to make the impact that I want. I hope that someday, by furthering my education and following my passion, I will achieve my goal. I know that one way or another, I am going to help people and make a difference in this world.

I am going to get my degree in biomedical engineering: a degree that covers all the pillars of a STEM major. All aspects of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are important to me, but science specifically stands out. Science is the foundation for understanding biology and how to help people. Without science, people could not know the physiology of the human body. Healthcare has grown so much and it continues to do so, but only through the advancement of science. For example, in order to help fight off infections or diseases, they have used science to discover how different substances can assist our body’s natural reaction and better people’s chances of winning the fight against said infection or disease. Using science, we have created vaccines to help people form an immunization. Viruses that used to be deadly and wipe out populations have now become nearly harmless. Surgeries, big and small, have given so many people a better life. I have had knee surgery so that I can continue playing sports and doing what I love and that would not have been possible without the advancement of science. That would be an example of a smaller, less necessary surgery; however, many people need life saving operations such as transplants or trauma surgery Science is the reason that life expectancy has gone from around 30 years to 67 years. Science not only helps us understand our bodies, but also the world around us. Science is also about the Earth itself: plants, animals, geology. This is important to understand because you need to know more about our environment in order to improve our society. For example, knowing why and how tornados form makes it so that we can be prepared in conditions that have a high chance of a tornado. Also, knowing what animals are poisonous or venomous can be helpful so people can be educated about it and not accidentally get in harm's way. We can understand animals better and know why one might be dangerous while another might be harmless. This is also important in the aspect that we can learn from animal behaviors. We know that animals in the desert tend to travel at night in order to avoid the blistering heat and animals in the tundra build burrows or dens in order to provide insulation and warmth. Humans have learned from this and have used this knowledge to live in extreme environments as well. Science is also important because it helps us understand our solar system as well. Knowing how our Sun affects Earth is vital to our survival as a species long term. If we want to predict how climate change, weather conditions, water levels, and more will affect us, we need science. Science is the best way to hypothesize what our future has to hold and prepare society to ensure our survival. On a small scale such as bettering our healthcare, or on a larger scale such as how to make sure Earth will still be habitable. No matter what we use it for, science is needed in all aspects of life to better our society as a whole.

Engineering is the best way for me to help our society better itself in the future. There is nothing more satisfying in life than helping others and knowing that you made a difference. I want to make the most out of my life and I know that engineering is the best way to accomplish that. Both of my parents and two of my brothers are engineers and I continuously watch them change the world one day at a time and I am inspired to follow in their footsteps. Even though they all have different jobs, engineering is so versatile that they can use it in so many ways. When growing up, I loved hearing about my dad’s job; he got to build weather balloons and satellites that would go up into the atmosphere. Those satellites would bring the internet to remote locations and give people access that they never had before. My oldest brother is a power linesman and uses engineering to help bring electricity to towns and repair damage after storms. He helps communities grow and get back on their feet when nature gets destructive. These two jobs are very different, but both are equally important and help so many people. Some type of engineer designed or installed everything around me. Without them, we would not be as advanced of a society as we are today. I want to use engineering to further advance the medical world. My goal in college is to get my degree in biomedical engineering. I can help so many people by designing the technology, operating the machines, and more. Engineering is so flexible that there is an abundance of ways that I can use my degree. A dream of mine would be to work on prosthetic devices and help amputees have the best technology possible. My heart specifically calls out to war veterans because I know people who are in the service, and if something were to happen to them, I would only want to best prosthetics and technology for them. I am passionate about engineering because I know that one day I will make this dream a reality and use engineering to change people's lives for the better.

From the very beginning, math was always something that was interesting to me. It started when I was in about 3rd grade. I remember timetables had just been introduced and we would spend about 10 minutes trying to get through as many as we could. I loved the challenge and the competitive nature of trying to beat my last record. This strive to become better only amplified year after year as they introduced new topics. 6th grade was when I was challenged to a whole new level; it was then that my parents thought I should advance 2 years in math and go straight to an 8th grade level course. This was very frightening for little 6th grade me, but I knew I could do it. Although frustrating at times, I found myself enthralled with how much there was to learn. I knew that that was just a taste of what math had to offer me. Now, as a high school senior, I still have only just scratched the surface and do not know everything there is about the world of math. I am still challenged every day by new topics and ideas. Not only the new lessons but also how there are different ways to solve the same problem. I may think about solving an equation one way, and a friend or teacher shows me a whole new way to think about the problem. This makes me even more curious about the problem because I want to know every solution possible. Also, I love how math can be applied to the real world and other subjects. I find myself using math in so many of my other classes: physics, personal finance, woodworking, and more. Math has been a part of my life for so long, and I know that there will never come a time when I will not need it. No matter what, there is always more to learn or more ways to apply math to help me in whatever area of life I need. I love math because it is an essential tool to help me succeed.