From the beginning of deciding what I wanted to study, I’ve held an interest in design. It started off as wanting to create art covers for books, posters for advertisement and billboards for clients. I was interested in the idea that I could help promote ideas and influence an audience with an understanding of design. I was set on becoming a graphic designer graduating middle school. Entering high school however, opened up new options for me when I entered a technical competition my sophomore year. “Destination Imagination” was the title my English teacher brought up when I mentioned I was interested in design and crafts. Wanting to challenge myself, I attended their recruitment meeting with the initial intention of joining the fine arts team. However I found myself joining technical, something I just then found curiosity towards. My change of plans within that moment had opened a new opportunity in expanding what I was interested in. The challenge our team received was to create a 3d puzzle made out of a minimum of 14 parts that could also be broken apart by taking out a “destructive” part within the puzzle, alongside this was a story with acting to go with our puzzle to present in front of judges. This immediately was new and challenging for me. It was going to be the first time I would ever get to work on something like this. I’ve only had experience in designing visual content, not designing a product, even less in physically building a product. Throughout months of drafting ideas, collaborating with my team, and building the actual puzzle, I found that I really liked the process of doing this kind of work. Managing materials that were available to me, choosing which was the most effective way of building pieces of the puzzle, to decorating and painting over the entire thing. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed hands-on crafts until I started this contest. I ended up loving the entire process, and what came out of it was one of my most prized works to come out of me, and a spot in competing in nationals. This project made me reflect further over what I wanted to do in the future. I still wanted to do design, however I found building together a product was something I now was interested in doing too. After a while, I found out about industrial design. It was the mix of what I was interested in! Looking further into the job description, skill sets, and areas of study, I figured it was definitely something I wanted to continue learning about. As of now, I am currently enrolled in my local community college, Lone Star College, with the intention of transferring to a university after I gain my associates of art. Keeping up with my new college life, I'm also looking for ways to insure financial stability as I'm continuing my education. I’m hoping to reduce as much financial stress I may face when attending a university, community college is my first step towards that. This scholarship will certainly help me on my goal of reducing financial stress regarding my education and allow me to focus more on my studies without these worries.

I hold a strong interest in pursuing design. I’ve involved myself in many activities that not only get me to dip my toes into what several professions would be like, but to also explore and develop skills to be able to carry them into other activities/roles. From managing social media platforms for organizations, creating advertisement posters, and simply decorating my room walls, I find immense pleasure in involving myself in activities where I can practice visual creativity. Finding ways in which I can push myself to create influence onto whoever comes across my work is an interesting experience for me. Alongside this interest is another I have in software development. I’ve found the process of creating and developing pieces of a project that would ultimately come together to serve as a functional tool amusing from my time working with programming. The act of building something together isn’t the only amusing thing to this field, in fact I've found design to flow through my works and research as user interfaces. From this, it really felt like a great combination of what I would like to do in the future. As of now, I'm currently a student at Lone Star College working to get my associate's in computer science with the hopeful intention of double majoring with graphic design once I transfer. I’ve found my time starting this pathway with Lone Star as an opening experience in finding out what I would like to make my career out of and how to achieve that. Other than keeping up with my classes, I’m also involving time into clubs/organizations, events, and projects in and outside my college campus. I’ve found that being engaged within communities has been beneficial in networking and most importantly allowed me to participate in wonderful experiences while also helping me develop several skills I can carry over to tasks or responsibilities I may have. Apart from community, I’m also looking forward to working and exploring personal projects that are aimed to further develop my skills in either design, programming, or both. While I currently feel that becoming a software developer is in my best interests, I still want to continue branching out towards other professions that may also share the fields I want to pursue. In the beginning, it was such a hassle trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to study. I found that I was stuck between several interests I even wanted to simultaneously pursue altogether. What I managed to do was simplify my areas of interest into smaller chunks to be able to easily focus on what options were available. I want to have a sense of security and confidence in what I end up doing, though the world is always changing and so am I. The possibility of there being a chance that I can wake up one day and find myself wanting to change professions is seemingly scarry… all the work I put in for the job I previously wanted would go to where? This is what I'm aiming to prepare myself for. Exploring careers can help me feel more confident in what I want to do, plus even if I do change my mind, the process of figuring out how to smoothly switch would be easier. Through projects, communities, and connections, these will help act as steps towards reaching my goal of obtaining further confidence in my career path. By encouraging myself to explore my already and potential interests, and continue learning skills within these experiences, I’d be better prepared for whatever changes or requirements my path to success will need.