I always knew I wanted to pursue a career in the STEM field. During grade school, I would constantly design little contraptions and nose around through my father’s toolbox. Despite me infuriating him by constantly messing up his screw organization, he never hesitated to help me with a project. One of my favorite projects I worked on with him is a life-size trebuchet. Me and my father made it big enough to shoot a watermelon; therefore, the trebuchet was about 7 feet high. This invention was highly disapproved from our neighbors. This is one of my strongest core memories, and it was one of the times I’ve seen my father smile the most. This memory motivates me to become an exceptional engineer and continue to improve my creative abilities. To pursue this inspiration, I enrolled into University of Illinois Mechanical Engineering program. With great appreciation and gratitude, I was accepted into the program. Soon before I knew it, I was given the remarks “Wow a woman in engineering, impressive!” I knew they were trying to sound encouraging; however, it sounded slightly condescending. I thought to myself, “Why does it matter if I am a woman? I just want to become an engineer.” Immediately after my first mechanical engineering CAD class, I understood where this slightly condescending remark originated from. There were only four other girls in my CAD class, and the girl ratio was rather small. Originally, I thought that the underrepresentation of woman was an over exaggeration, so I always disregarded it. One of my main goals is to support the increase in woman representation, so that in the future it is normal for an engineering classroom to be filled with women. Women should be congratulated for their intelligence and accomplishments, not for the fact that they are solely a woman. Therefore, I want to help other women feel comfortable as engineering by becoming a women in engineering mentor this upcoming fall. Along with desiring to support women representation, in the future, I plan to design and manufacture robot parts. Specifically, I plan to design robot parts through CAD software, such as through a software called Fusion 360. Some of my favorite projects I have completed through this software is an assembly line robot, an Iron Man helmet, and a portable keyboard. These projects I rendered and animated to portray a life-like simulation of how they work. Aside from CAD, I also will implement my Python and JavaScript skills to aid the coding aspect of the robot design process. The Machine learning and AI field is growing exponentially, and I want to become more a part of it by using my Python skills. Artificial intelligence can impact the world in numerous ways. One way that it can help people is through increased help in medical practice. The precision and accuracy in robots can help cure people who are sick faster and more efficiently. This opens up many opportunities in the medical world and field. With hard work and support from others, I can easily achieve these goals. I hope that these aspirations can guide me into an increased chance of an exceptional future. Aside from myself, I aim on helping other women with my newly acclaimed experience and support them achieve their STEM related goals. Finally, I intend for my father to see his former "tool box destroyer" will become an official robot designer.

One of the wisest quotes I have ever heard is said by one of my favorite artists, who is Pablo Picasso. He stated that "Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up." As an engineer and designer, this quote inspires me everyday not to give up. This quote highlights the idea that people are easily uninspired and discouraged. It is easy for me, especially being surrounded by numerous brilliant minds, to believe that my ideas are invaluable compared to theirs. However, sometimes I forget that my ideas are my own; therefore, they are special by themselves. No one's ideas can compare to mine because I came up with them. I can't give up my creative drive just because someone else harshly criticizes my abilities. In this world, there will be plenty of people to tear others down. It is only a matter of whether people choose to rise above it and find self worth in themselves. This is exactly what Pablo Picasso has warned through his quote. Many people have criticized his work to possess "no talent" and be "created by a five year old" due to his artwork containing an abundance of abstract elements. However, the ironic thing is that Pablo Picasso is one of the most renowned abstract artists in history. Picasso is living proof to overcome the criticism directed at people because with time it will be irrelevant.

I always knew I wanted to pursue a career in the STEM field. During grade school, I would constantly design little contraptions and nose around through my father’s toolbox. Despite me infuriating him by constantly messing up his screw organization, he never hesitated to help me with a project. One of my favorite projects I worked on with him is a life-size trebuchet. Me and my father made it big enough to shoot a watermelon; therefore, the trebuchet was about 7 feet high. This invention was highly disapproved from our neighbors. This is one of my strongest core memories, and it was one of the times I’ve seen my father smile the most. This memory motivates me to become an exceptional engineer and continue to improve my creative abilities. To pursue this inspiration, I enrolled into University of Illinois Mechanical Engineering program. With great appreciation and gratitude, I was accepted into the program. Soon before I knew it, I was given the remarks “Wow a woman in engineering, impressive!” I knew they were trying to sound encouraging; however, it sounded slightly condescending. I thought to myself, “Why does it matter if I am a woman? I just want to become an engineer.” Immediately after my first mechanical engineering CAD class, I understood where this slightly condescending remark originated from. There were only four other girls in my CAD class, and the girl ratio was rather small. Originally, I thought that the underrepresentation of woman was an over exaggeration, so I always disregarded it. One of my main goals is to support the increase in woman representation, so that in the future it is normal for an engineering classroom to be filled with women. Women should be congratulated for their intelligence and accomplishments, not for the fact that they are solely a woman. Along with desiring to support women representation, in the future, I plan to design and manufacture robot parts. Specifically, I plan to design robot parts through CAD software, such as through a software called Fusion 360. Some of my favorite projects I have completed through this software is an assembly line robot, an Iron Man helmet, and a portable keyboard. These project I rendered and animated to portray a life-like simulation of how they work. Aside from CAD, I also will implement my Python and JavaScript skills to aid the coding aspect of the robot design process. The Machine learning and AI field is growing exponentially, and I want to become more a part of it by using my Python skills. Aside from my main job, I aim to open a freelancing industry, which will focus of UI/UX design and web development. As a side project, I made my own website through Visual Studio Code using programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I enjoyed the design process for web development so much that I knew that I had to pursue it in my future career somehow. With hard work and support from others, I can easily achieve these goals. I hope these future aspirations will make my father proud and smile. I plan for my father to see his former "tool box destroyer" will become a robot designer.

This picture features a pop art piece I created called "Melancholy Days". The style of pop art was incorporated in this piece in order to highlight the modern feelings of an American teenager. Often, it is hard for others to understand mental health and what is going on in an individual's head. This problem was further increased due to the pandemic and the limited opportunities provided for teenagers. Clubs and sports were all terminated, leaving kids without a creative outlet. This left kids my age devastated and trapped because no one could fully understand their unhappiness. Their problems to outsiders seemed like "first world problems" and "unimportant". Just like in the picture, these teenagers would naturally shed tears due to this rejectment of sympathy; however, these tears naturally blended in with the rain, which implies a theme of irrelevance. With this art piece, I hope to highlight the need for raw expression and encourage kids to openly express their feelings without fear. People should not be afraid to show their lowest points because their lowest points formulates their character and who they are.

Kid with drink) Goodbye zoom university 👋🏼 Guy with gatorade) Justice is best served cold 🥶 3rd) When you realize your calculator is in radians and not degrees :(

Aerospace engineering, specifically the creation of rockets, has always been a field of study that has interested me. At a young age, I often visited Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and begged my parents to visit the space exhibit each time. I marveled over the rockets in the exhibit and dreamed of being able to build one in the future. During quarantine, I eventually grew restless and my childlike wonder encouraged me to create a rocket. My journey started with an endless search through YouTube videos to get a base level of information on designing rockets. On YouTube, I discovered innovative and inexpensive ways to build a rocket, which is very appealing to a broke high school student like me. As I continued to research, I learned from the videos that rocket fuel can be made out of sugar and potassium nitrate. When sugar and potassium nitrate react, they give off heat that excites metal fillings in the mixture, causing them to be oxidized and emit light. This process gives thrust to the rocket, which is one of its main sources of power. After hearing about this chemical reaction, I decided this mixture would be a suitable chemical compound for my rocket fuel. As I did more research, I learned that a PVC pipe was a perfect container to hold the mixture of potassium nitrate and sugar. In theory, after this step, I would almost have a functioning rocket. Unfortunately, I couldn’t follow through on these steps because I couldn’t find any potassium nitrate. This wasn’t very surprising to me because potassium nitrate can be explosive with other chemicals and not easy to purchase. But my determination to build a rocket encouraged me to finish my project, so I switched to Plan B. I decided that I would just stick to designing a rocket on CAD instead of threatening to destroy my neighborhood. Therefore, I started to design my rocket off a program called Fusion 360. On this program, I followed the original design from the YouTube video and added some more detail to resemble the rockets from the museum I visited as a child. Although I was not successful at building a rocket in real life, I really enjoyed the design process. I hope that if I study aerospace engineering and mathematics in college, I could successfully build a real rocket.

Does hiking in the hot sun with limited water sound fun? This sounds like a thrill to me. Two summers ago, me and my family hiked up Mount Leconte in the Smokey Mountains. This excursion took us a full day to complete. The journey was all up hill and the elevation was 6,500 ft. With great effort we made it up the hill; however, we had to spend the night on the top of the mountain. Therefore, we could not take a shower. Despite this setback, it was worth staying on the mountain to see the sunset.