Everything can change in a moment. For me, it happened more than once. Three weeks into my 10th-grade year, I was in gym class playing basketball. I jumped up for a rebound and heard a loud POP! When I landed, I couldn’t get up. My lower leg was in searing pain and seemed to have stopped working. At the hospital, doctors told me that my tendon had snapped, and in the process, it broke my kneecap. At 6’9” tall, I had simply grown too fast for my body to keep up. I spent three weeks on bed rest, followed by months in a cast stretching from my thigh to my ankle. When I finally returned to school, I faced a mountain of missed homework and tests. My grades suffered terribly. I’ve always been an honor student, so I hustled and worked extremely hard to catch up. Just as I began to regain momentum, I made a decision that set me back again. I got into a fight on the bus and was immediately suspended from school and placed in online learning for the rest of the semester. Missing social time with my friends was tough, but the hardest part was the self-paced online learning. If I ever wanted to earn my way back into traditional school, I had to watch all of the online videos and keep myself on track with homework and testing. I am the youngest of four children and the final one in my family to pursue a college education. My oldest brother was the first Black male nurse to graduate from Indiana University Bloomington. My sister is graduating this month with her Master’s degree in Social Work, and my brother, just one year older than me, earned an athletic scholarship to Marian University to play basketball. Their accomplishments have set a high standard. So, I buckled down and finished all of my required assignments and was allowed to return to traditional school. I returned to Pike High School a very different student from the one I was before. I leaned into my love for building and problem-solving by pursuing the Engineering Technical Honors diploma. I got a job at Taco Bell, and became involved in church. Two years later, I am graduating from that same high school with a 3.5 GPA. I received a promotion at my job to trainer, where I now help guide and support new employees, and I am very active at church as a student leader. I am honored to have received a full-tuition scholarship to Anderson University, where I plan to pursue a degree in Civil Engineering. Receiving this scholarship would help me offset the costs of room & board and make it possible for me to attend Anderson University. One of the primary reasons I chose Anderson University is its strong commitment to mission-centered learning. During my campus visit, they talked about student-led mission trips where engineering students applied their skills to serve communities, including a project where students designed and built a solar-powered battery-charging vehicle to support the construction of a school. Faith and service have become central to who I am. My long-term goal is to give back through mission work. By earning a degree in civil engineering, I hope to help improve infrastructure and quality of life in underserved communities, both locally and globally. My journey has taught me resilience, humility, and purpose. I know I am not defined by my worst decisions, but by how I respond to them. Through education, faith, and service, I intend to make a meaningful impact on the world.