I am a high-achieving and extremely organized student who spends the majority of my extracurricular time in Future Business Leaders of America and competitive dancing. Dancing with M&M Dance Academy over the last fifteen years has been my favorite activity and it takes up to ten hours per week. Dancers have to take corrections and apply those lessons to improve; this helped me develop the valuable skill of accepting criticism and growing from feedback. I have developed my organizational skills by participating in school-sponsored clubs such as Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) and the National Honors Society (NHS). I am the president of my FBLA chapter, which means I am responsible for things like signing off on the fundraisers, overseeing our meetings, and attending the events we participate in. Because one of the four pillars of the NHS is service, members are required to earn at least 25 hours of community service per year. FBLA also provides opportunities for serving the community. One of my favorite service opportunities is Junior Achievement Day where high school students volunteer to teach elementary school kids about being smart with money. I love to help little kids and I get to spend the whole day teaching them and leading them through different activities and crafts. Serving on the altar at my church is something else I love volunteering to do. In this role I have assisted the priest on the altar, trained new servers, and helped the social committee with fundraising events. This is one of my favorite ways to volunteer because it makes me feel closer to the people who attend my church and feel more engaged in the church service. Another service activity I enjoy is volunteering at my brother’s swim meets as a timer and statistician. I like to volunteer this way because it allows me to get to know people in the community and support my brother. I also volunteer to help the younger dancers learn the choreography at my dance studio. I love dancing and I love little kids, so helping them learn choreography really makes me happy. I truly love volunteering because it makes me feel good, get involved in my community, and meet and connect with new people. Many young people spend their time on their phones and it is hard to find people who want to spend their time volunteering. Most of the people who volunteer at JA Day just want to hang out with their friends or get out of school, but I volunteer because I love little kids. At my church there are not many altar servers and there are only a few teenagers that do it, and the congregation, as well as the priest, love to see young people serving. Usually the only people who volunteer at swim meets are parents of the kids swimming, so it is unusual that a teenager would choose to spend their night timing a swim meet.

I had an eye-opening experience when I was a sophomore and visited Kalahari Resort and Convention Center with Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA); it really helped me step into a leadership position and learn new things about myself. This opportunity led me to the decision to pursue a business degree. When I earn a marketing degree, I will impact the world by creating enough product transparency to prevent a company’s economic downfall. Making a positive impact would require that the businesses I represent maintain social responsibility. As a marketing manager, I hope to uphold values like determination, respect, and passion. Consumers are smart and do not want to buy products that do not align with their values. For example, if a business is selling shampoo, that product should be cruelty-free because most people think animal cruelty is wrong. Another example is when Band-Aid released more inclusive shades of adhesive bandages. The marketing team had to promote that product in a way that appealed to people who value equity and diversity so everyone could feel included. Being a part of a team that helps to prevent problems from damaging a company's reputation would be my ideal job. Deciding what kind of major I wanted to study was challenging. I decided that I wanted to study business when I was in ninth grade because I thought I would enjoy it and be good at it. I joined FBLA in tenth grade to start networking and getting involved in business. One day my mom told me I am creative and casually suggested I would be good at marketing. I took that seriously and started learning what people in marketing do. In eleventh grade, I ran for president of FBLA so I could take on a leadership position. I won and I am extremely excited to be the president of my high school’s FBLA chapter. FBLA does many things that can help me in the future, including networking and attending different workshops and leadership events. The annual conference is an extremely good way to network with others and learn about things that have to do with business like getting a job and creating my personal brand. I can’t wait to keep learning new things about business and marketing as I graduate high school and go to college. The person who really helped me figure out what I want to do is my aunt. She told me about her new boss who gets to travel all the time, fly business class, and experience black car service. In addition to that, the company pays for everything. I want to work up to that kind of job. I think it would be so fun to travel to different places on business trips without worrying about transportation because I would have black car service. For all of these trips, I would be able to get dressed up in my business attire. All of this sounds like so much fun, and I can’t wait to start my business career. Making the world a better place can not only be done by one person, but if we all work together I believe that we will be able to get there. When I get my marketing degree, I plan to work on the important things like making sure that people know the good and bad about a product or service they are purchasing, and maintaining social responsibility in the business I will be working for. There are lots of problems that can be solved by marketing services and products, and I plan to work on fixing them.