When I was six years old, I watched a movie: Astro Boy. It was about a boy who ended up being killed by an evil robot due to his carelessness. The parent, a grieving prodigy who engineered the fundamentals of robotics, made a robot boy with the son's look and memories to replace him, but things didn't end up working out. Astro Boy, the robot, was therefore forced to leave and has to save the world. That movie was where my interest in technology truly started. As a boy who had way too much free time, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to replicate at least a subset of the incredible things that happen, hoping that there was a way to improve our environment that easily. And, while I was a small child and there was no way for me to improve things to that level, the idea of creating technology and improving the world has always been something that I've kept in the back of my mind. Right now, there's a crisis haunting all of us. No, it's not the threat of war that people are always concerned about. No, it's not the stock market dropping. It is the lack of power that's threatening to break us. In other words, it's the lack of community engagement in civics matters that has let us down again and again, which has resulted in the disappointment that our country has been. Consider, for example, the lack of urgency by the federal government to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. As of this date, the second set of stimulus checks has been far too small. It's personal because even my Congressperson voted no on an improved stimulus bill. And it's been affecting my community, where I've talked to local business owners and noticed some going bankrupt. This has partially been caused by us, as we live in a democracy where many people do not vote for a myriad of reasons or have checked out of participating in civic engagement. However, a lot of the blame also goes to the broken system that we've inherited. People of color, specifically Latinxs, hold remarkably little power in terms of political and organizational power and have been affected extensively by conditions we can't control. The simplest personal example I can give is the lack of enforcement of regulation of living spaces: all of the houses I've lived in have had problems that landlords have stalled out, and gentrification has forced us to stay in the same place as wages stagnate. This problem is exacerbated as people of color aren't represented in fields like computer science. Even worse, there is no centralized authority or community that can either hold people accountable. It is because of that, that I want to specialize in computer science and learn data science. I think technology can improve the way people learn and support each other. Case in point: I've spoken with and done work with volunteer groups that deal with software development for grassroots organizations (even some relating to rent relief and tenants' rights), and I've seen that they're far behind in terms of technology when compared to the well-established, corrupt, groups: Be it adequate access to contacting people at a large scale or allowing people to support others better and hold negligent ones to the fire, we will need to learn technology well to evolve and improve life. I already have some experience solving these sorts of problems, as well as programming. However, I feel like I still have a lot of things to learn from university. There's a lot of room for improvement where we, the future generation, can (and will) have to help, including reaching out to people to inform them of their rights, educating them, and organizing to improve lives. I know I can help by building platforms for citizens to help each other out. And that is why I want to pursue a degree in computer science.