Throughout my life, I have faced various challenges that have wavered the path I committed to walking. Still, none tested it more than navigating the financial hardships within my family. Years ago, growing up, my father abandoned the family, took some money that both my parents had saved up, and left us for Mexico, leaving my mother alone with two children to raise alone. Not to say that if he were still present, our financial situation would improve because it has always been bad and has made it even worse for my mother since he left. For a few years before she met my stepdad, she had to take up long hours at McDonald's because that was the only workplace she could qualify for, had to ask for handouts to the dozens when rent was tight, and sacrificed her own mental and physical health, to stabilize of what pitiful family we remained. This made it difficult for me to focus on my academics throughout most of my school years, as the worry of my mother and making ends meet has always loomed over me. However, rather than allowing my circumstance to hinder me, I made it my own and embraced it as the driving force of my ambition and determination to succeed. During high school, mostly during my freshman and sophomore years, rent was raised, and my mom needed to find another source of income besides my stepfathers, something that she could do. She then decided to prepare and sell Latino dairy products. This, however, affected me academically as I was the one to prepare and pack the product, which sometimes took hours. I adapted soon after, knowing that education was the path towards success. Instead of succumbing to adversity, I developed time management skills, perseverance, and an appreciation for the opportunity education had bestowed upon me. Ultimately, the challenges I faced taught me that success is not just reliant on my talent but also on resiliance and effort. One pivotal moment in my journey towards my future success, during my sophomore year, was when I reflected on my journeys to Mexico and El Salvador during my time in elementary school, times when my mother, along with any family that would scrape up enough money to send me and my older brother to them. I reflected on the conditions of living that my families were living through and remembered the poor infrastructure, networking-wise. I kept thinking about potential solutions, reinforcing my passion for problem-solving and highlighting how I needed the knowledge and skills needed to effect change. I appreciated what I had and understood that the opportunities given to me should not be taken for granted, and I made up my mind in that moment on what I wanted to do, to not just to make enough money to give back to my mother and help the community that surrounded me and her, but to ultimately pursue a career in Electrical Engineering. Education was no longer a means to personal success but a way to uplift others. This fueled my desire for solutions to real-world problems by developing innovative solutions, particularly to underprivileged communities globally. I want to use my education for the better and create sustainability and universal access to technologies that will, hopefully, improve the overall quality of life for others, including the many in financial struggle. The obstacle that I must now overcome with one last leap of faith, funding for college, did not just shape my personal growth but instilled a purpose worth pursuing, one where I can alleviate the burden to one's potential.

While I've always known that I would pursue a career in STEM, and likely Engineering, it wasn't until my sophomore year, only after reminiscing on the past, that I decided to pursue a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering. Years ago, while I was still in elementary, I remembered when I went to Mexico for a few months and El Salvador for a month later on, only after my mom saved enough money and accepted hand-outs from friends and family. I remember my family receiving me at the airports, in the more urban and modernized areas of their country, and thinking nothing much of it. The drive home took hours in Mexico and two in El Salvador, where we traveled and arrived at what you would consider the countryside of their countries and where impoverished populations reside. Their wifi was scarce in the town where the families resided, I was told it was too expensive to set up, although some were luckily able to afford it after running a somewhat successful business stunt. The overall network infrastructure such as cell towers and the cables that ran miles to provide electricity to the town's residences, that surrounded the towns was poor, I was told it could not be improved due to the cost that it would take to achieve improvement. To be more precise, there were a few cell towers in the areas that surrounded towns and were spaced apart by miles, cables were tangled and messed with some sections showing wear and tear, and power outages were something of a normal occurrence. Although most of everyone in the towns had access to data, it was poor and often had maintenance issues. Although as well they also had access to TV, relying on satellite dishes which everyone with a TV had, their signals were weak most of the time due to how cheap and small they were. Looking back at what I've seen, although improvements have been made since my time away from the two countries, I began to wonder about something. I thought about all the things I've seen and how much worse these inconveniences may be in most third-world countries. About how much of the innovations are out of reach to the impoverished due to costs or difficulties with the geographical (Terrain, Natural Disasters) costs of a country. Then, a question popped into my head, "What can I do?" Solutions poured into my head, solutions ranging from improving and finding a way to decrease the price of wireless connections to requiring innovation to create new inventions that I have yet to plan or have the knowledge to expand on. So, in thought, I decided that Electrical Engineering was the path I wanted to pursue.

From a young age, I didn't have much other than my mind and eyes to explore the world that works in marvels, questioning how certain contraptions, tools, and machinery were even able to function. Taking apart old devices that I find thrown and abandoned in forests or the nearby dumps. To understand the function behind the works that were mysterious to me. Along it, from a young age, I have found math and science subjects to be of wonder and fascination, prompting me to pursue a STEM-related field. Ultimately, leading me to pursue a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Growing up, it was not always all sunshine and smiles like what I would've wanted it to be, with the conditions of living imposed on me that belittled what I could have possibly reached. Financially, my family was in a terrible position, made worse when my father abandoned us. As time passed, values of perseverance began to form as I made up my mind that I needed to escape my impoverished lifestyle by pursuing an education that none in my family had or could think of achieving. So I began to work, developing problem-solving values that have helped me resolve issues regarding trying to improve academically, although hindered by personal life, so that I may be able to retain the grades that I want. Besides that, with the help of family members and months of saving money from my mom after my father had left, I was able to go to Mexico and some few years later, El Salvador. Neither family, from my father's in Mexico and my mother's from El Salvador, were rich or considered middle class in their economy, so they didn't live in cities or nice apartments. But instead lived in the rural or country side of things, where they had dirt roads and internet access was scarce and expensive to even own and operate. Their network infrastructure was a mess, but at the very least their communication systems were somewhat imposing for their impoverished area. There I learned and saw the many hardships that people of such must experience to at the very least sustain themselves or others, even if it's only for another day or week. The reason as to why so few or none of the areas are even eligible to pursue their education passion if they were even lucky to gain one. I learned of empathetic values, which was grazed on before, now emphasized of what I've seen. Going back to the reason for pursuing an electrical degree, I, after everything I have seen and experienced, had led me to wonder just how bad the situation is in places that suffer imposing poverty where electrical elements are scarce. To which I have only reminisced about in my freshman year, the year before where I made a clear decision of what I wanted to do, and thought about what I could do. I thought about the many things that I could improve upon, starting with making things like the network infrastructure, communication systems, or maybe even renewable energy more cost efficient, making it more available to the communities I could reach. Hopefully to create a positive impact in not just the community that surrounds me, but as well as the global population. I hope that the future goes as I have envisioned, after all, the future can be quite unpredictable and hard to control.

For my decision in pursuing an electrical engineering degree, STEM has always been something that has connected to me, not just mentally but in my heart as well. And I have always found math and science fun as it stimulated my brain in a way that no other subject. And so in my sophomore year of high school, I decided that engineering was a degree that I wanted to pursue. However, we will have to travel a few years back, the deciding factor that ultimately led me to pursue an electrical engineering degree. As I was deciding what exactly to study in engineering, I pondered my memories and reminisced about my travel to the impoverished areas of Mexico and El Salvador when visiting family. I remembered how scarce the internet was around those areas and how poor their network infrastructure was, making a connection to similar and worse areas. "What can I even do?" I pondered before ultimately looking towards electrical engineering. There, I decided that electrical engineering was exactly what I wanted to study. With that degree, and any other engineering certification test that I may take, I wanted to make an initiative towards innovation. I wanted to improve the network infrastructure by not just making it better, but making it cost-efficient. Along with communication networks and telecommunication or any other concept I can grasp, I wanted to make them better and more available to those I can reach. To have a positive impact in not just the States, but globally if I can. The future may be unforeseen, so I cannot guarantee success and only the beginnings of what's to come.

Being a first-generation college student, from a family from all sides who cannot afford to even think of pursuing and me being one of the only ones to not only be accepted but have the most likely chance of achieving so, was sort of a surprise and something I want to live up to as my mom is hesitant to even send me due to financial problems, Ultimately, this has influenced my career goals as I realized that not only did I have to have to pursue something that will bring me and my family out of poverty, but as well as something that I find passionate about so that I won't lose drive. There, after much thinking, I decided to pursue a career in electrical engineering. Not just because in that career they pay well, but because I find math and science subjects are pleasurable stimulants to my mind. I found my passion and my career goal; however, it is not the ultimate. Being a first-generation college student, also got me thinking of the possibility of achieving a business, a successful one at that. Entrepreneurship is something I considered before engineering, thinking that it was a path that I could likely succeed in had I had the funds for the future. Together with my electrical engineering degree and entrepreneurship, a business plan began to formulate, although I don't know exactly what it will be more specialized in just yet.

With my future education in electrical engineering, I want to create a way to make safety equipment that is cost efficient and reliable. This is mainly to reduce the price of current safety equipment that electricians would use had it not been for the price, that could potentially save them from their own demise. Reducing causalities in work related accidents for people who work on electricity. Also to encourage people who would otherwise work in that field had it not been for the probable risk involved with the industry, increasing the workforce and hopefully bringing in innovative minds. There's also the possibility, after some experience, that I may be able to make communication systems more accessible. This simply means to make means of communications more available to people who suffer from poverty, more specifically in the continent of Africa and the impoverished populations of the masses in third world countries. To begin, I would need to reduce the cost of manufacture through design and material efficiency. There's also the need to make it easy to implement, as most of the infrastructure will be hindered by the un-modernized structure of these third world countries. All to make wireless communication and telecommunication more available while also making the network infrastructure more cost-efficient to place, no matter the environment it's surrounded by. Giving people of such places, an opportunity to not only communicate to people that they would have otherwise have to wait for them to come towards them or the other way around through long travel, but as well as grasp working opportunities more efficiently. Along with it, mobile networks or wi-fi will allow accessibility to the internet. This will give people access to much of the online resources that they would have otherwise remained oblivious towards. People can also use this to find job opportunities much more easier, allow for an opening of the eyes and understanding of what's really going around them, whether that's politically or economically, so that they find a way to escape their obsolete life. Students of all ages, having gained access, will be able to scour for online resources that can help them educationally. They can find math formulas, maybe be able to learn English, find financial scholarships to help them pursue their education, find scientific textbooks that explore biology or physics, and apply for an opportunity to pursue a better education in another country that will accept foreign students if they show exceptional potential and merit. Ultimately with the goal to pursue their passion and goals that would have otherwise not been realized. Besides my the use of degree, with the money earned, I hope to financially support my little sister pursuit for education 12 years from now and younger cousins who are in El Salvador and Mexico for the chance to pursue a higher education if they so wish for.