I love math for quite a few reasons. The first one is the sheer amount of applicability it has in day-to-day life. From allowing us to accurately know the ratios that we require for food preparation, to allowing us to enjoy our video games through formulas and calculations handled by the backend of our computational devices! Math has a ton of uses not just in our daily life, but in allowing us to make calculations about the direction that we should take for the day! It allows us to analyze the patterns and make risk assessments preventing us from making a poor choice! One of the greatest reasons why I love math so much is that it allows me to make an earning for myself! I am entering the field of computer science for my career, a field in which math carries a lot of meaning, importance, and significance! Without math, I would be forced to use binary in every single of my application that I design! Thanks to math I am better able to simplify and shrink the amount of code that I need to make my program do as I desire it! Math has a ton of uses in our daily life! What isn't there to like about it?

The biggest challenge that I have had to overcome would be my lacking desire to do work that would benefit me. Historically I struggled to complete my work in the past, often doing it late or not at all. I would just be unable to do work due to some reason that I'd make up at the time, whether that be "Oh, I'll just do it tomorrow", or "Oh my parents need me to do this instead", and maybe even "But I don't wanna!". Altogether this would result in me lacking grades, and creating a general sense of distrust about me when it comes to my word that I would get that assignment done at all. It also resulted in me having poor grades that reflected my desire to do nothing but laze around. I have successfully overcome this, while not entirely, at least to a far greater degree than in the past. I still need to work to fully overcome this, to reflect this improvement in all aspects of life rather than just in some of the choices I make and the words that I use. I have learned quite a few things from this. One such thing that I have taken away from this is to never let my work pile up to an unchangeable degree as I have in the past. Another thing that I have taken away is to manage my schedule and set aside time in the day to do my work in an unstressed manner, typically towards the end of the day so that I feel relief when I go to sleep, which helps to reinforce that positive habit driving me to do my work in a more and more timely manner. The final thing that I have taken away from this is to just own up when I have made myself too much work and to not be afraid to ask for help or for a deadline extension.

I became interested in Computer Science through the childhood games that I played on my computer. I actually began to pursue it as a career after I suffered from burnout in my Junior Year, because I had been requiring 5 classes I figured that I would go for the class that would be the easiest to pursue. Turns out that I loved computer science in its entirety and decided to base my career and goals off of. I'd say that the job that I'd love to have the most is an AI Engineer. I love AI and all of the possibilities that it has for the world and the future as a whole. From the ability to give those with no one someone to speak to, to a potential trainer and teacher for students in any number of careers and fields. It could also function as an aide for people out in the field, telling them where to cut or tie off the ending of an injury, to warning people about any potential danger that may be occurring. It could also replace so many dangerous jobs such as Sky Scraper construction, and virology sample gathering, to so many other situations that I can't even begin to name them all. I feel that the primary reason behind why I am the best candidate to receive this scholarship comes from a primary reason. That is that I am a very gifted student who may be unable to attend college to the level that I wish without the support that this Scholarship would provide. Simply put, my father and family have to put me and 4 others through college within a short few-year period of one another. My family also funds incredibly costly activities for my family. One such activity would be sending my brother to Serbia for a week for him to get training to better his skills with Water Polo.

The greatest adversity that I had to overcome in my life came in my Junior Year towards the end of my 1st Semester. The reason that I call this my greatest adversity at this point in my life is that not only was I stuck in bed for a few months due to both a wisdom tooth removal, but also surgery on my ankle that immobilized me for 2 months. To make matters worse regarding this situation, I also suffered from burnout due to a minor period of depression. This situation caused not only my grades to drop like a sack of hammers but also to remain low due to my inability to complete any work at all. I was unable to even open my computer and do any schoolwork. This situation persisted even when I eventually came back into the classroom, more specifically I was unwilling to do any work even if it was just a simple submission of a form. What caused me to snap out of this was seeing my grades 5 weeks from the conclusion of the semester. All Fs, were the worst my grades have ever been in the time that I was a student. I managed to recover my grades thanks to the support and drive of my parents, teachers, and the fear that I felt that I would not be able to graduate. Without these driving factors, I would most likely have had to repeat a year of high school. Some of the takeaways that I gained from this situation are of course, a greater drive to work, which comes in the form of taking care of work before it is due, instead of after, as well as putting greater effort into the work which causes my grades to average at a higher amount. Before this situation occurred, I averaged an A-C level of grades. While this is not necessarily a positive situation, a positive takeaway is that I now have A-B-level grades. Another positive takeaway is that I was put into classes that have driven me toward things I would never have enjoyed otherwise. More specifically thanks to it, I ended up entering Drama which has led me to my love of the performing arts and coding, which I have been blessed to be skilled enough in such that I will be able to make a living off of it. Altogether, the manner in which it has made me the person I am today is that I am a more driven and focused person, I am more confident as a human being, and I have the potential to make a large amount of wealth enabling me to have the comfortable lifestyle that I have come to enjoy.

There are several things that an intelligent planet means to me. For one it means a planet that is not only sustainable and runs upon a circular economy rather than the current linear one we have based ourselves off of. It also means to have a planet that is truly connected with one language reigning overall, something akin to the Galactic Common in Star Wars. Another thing that would make a truly Intelligent Planet is one in which we cease our political squabble and quibbling over resources that dwindle further and further. The final thing that an Intelligent Planet means to me is one in which we have restored the Earth to a state that is similar to or better than one from before the European Industrial Revolution! There are several ways that I wish to and will be myself doing, to better enable such a vision. One of the things that I wish to do to better the world and drive it towards a more "Intelligent" standard is through the development of Artificial Intelligence and its usage in daily life. I wish to create an AI that would be at the level of Siri in its daily use by the public. But instead of Siri's limited functionality, I wish to develop an AI that would have the infinite possibilities of a human in terms of the functions it can complete. Something like Chat GPT's AI is what I wish to create but I want it to have a body that can move around so that it has more effective uses in the world. Another thing that I will hopefully do is create more intelligent prosthetics, similar to those that are found in Science Fiction novels, movies, and games. I want to create a prosthesis that would allow people to truly feel as if they were walking around on their own two legs, to truly feel that they are holding the items they grab, and eyes that truly replicate what we as humans see as we move around and interact with the natural world in which we find ourselves. One last thing that I wish to do to create an Intelligent Planet, is to develop food items and crops that put less of a strain on our soils. More specifically, I want to develop crops that can feed large amounts of people, with less cost to the time and energy spent growing them. Another thing that I wish to do, is to lower the amount of food waste that we currently are generating. Rather than adding more farmland or a new plant, I want to take all the food that we throw away and not use and use it to feed those who cannot afford to buy food or those who cannot acquire clean and healthy food.

My whole life has been affected by mental health issues. I was born with autism. This has severely affected my life in several different ways. Primarily it has prevented me from making connections with people due to my awkwardness and inability to read social situations as a result of my autism. Another struggle that I have had regarding my schooling is an inability to do work at times. This comes in the form of myself just being unable to pick up a pen or pencil and write. I don't know what causes this to occur, only that when it does, I am unable to do work. A separate struggle also regarding my schooling comes through my interactions with classmates. That is, I am unable to communicate my desires when it comes to group work. I also found that earlier in my life, before I managed to control this, I always sounded rude, or off-putting, to those around me. Namely, I would make jokes or comments that I thought were just fine to make, but in reality, they turned out to be highly awkward or uncomfortable to those on the receiving end. While I am not yet entirely resolved with these issues, I am far and away better than I once was. Currently some of the issues that still plague me come from the fact that while yes I can read social situations better than I once could, I am far more likely to misread a situation which leads to even more awkward and uncomfortable interactions with peers and adults. Another issue that bothers me more than it used to, is that I find myself observing people more often, this leads to situations where people misunderstand that instead of me merely observing them, they interpret it as me either stalking or staring at them. While I more often than not manage to resolve these by explaining it away as me drifting off in thought, or that I thought they were someone I knew, it, unfortunately, has ruined several relationships of mine due to them thinking that I was creeping on their partner or that I was more interested in the people around me, rather than the story or tale that was being recounted at that moment. Of course, it is not just all doom and gloom. I have been very blessed to have people around me who understand the meanings behind my actions and mannerisms which has led me to have friends and allies who care more about me as a person. Thank you for taking the time to read this, have a wonderful time of day!