Before I begin discussing what change I would like to make to the world of education, I must mention that the single most important issue that is impacting education today is the number of students who live without their needs being met. There are far too many students who live with insecurity of food, housing, healthcare and other essentials. These students cannot be expected to learn at a high level when they have larger concerns in their lives. Although these issues are the most critical right now, they are not something that can be solved by a change to our education system alone, so I will focus instead on a different topic. The major change I want to make in education is to put the control of the classroom back into the hands of the students. What the last few decades have given us in education has been an overwhelming focus on the “STEM” courses. Schools have shifted their focuses to embracing technology and preparing students to find jobs in the new workforce as career opportunities in both the humanities and labor realms have shrunk. These courses have also further taken the students’ control out of their own education. While I can see the positive intentions in this focus on STEM, there are several unspoken negative impacts. Students are pushed towards science and technology as subjects that require specific knowledge while providing them with tangible skills to translate to future careers. This represents a major challenge to the humanities in school, and also much of the basis of science and mathematics. I can recount many times in my own experiences as a student where teachers in a history or literature class have been asked, “Why do I have to learn this?” This is the impact of structuring school to only be a building block towards a career. Students are challenging the current structures of education in place because education has become so banking focused, that they cannot see the benefit in a traditional history or literature class. In many ways, I agree with the students in their challenges towards banking education in the humanities. A class where teachers lecture and provide a traditionalist education are not beneficial to anyone. This is why I desire to put the students in control of the classroom. With students in control, the teacher takes on the role of a facilitator. Students are engaged and encouraged to talk about what they believe is important. The true role of a teacher in this situation is to include students and allow them to feel heard. In my own experiences student-teaching, I have seen both of these situations play out. Working with both urban high school students and suburban middle school students, I have seen similar results. When a teacher lectures, makes students take notes, and passes out worksheets, the classroom runs smoothly and the teacher remains in control. Some may groan and resist doing the work, but most students are used to this, especially in an age of chromebooks as this mirrors so much of the impact that the COVID-era had on education. I have also seen that many high schoolers are so adapted to this system that they hate nothing more than when the teacher does something else. When you try to start a debate or activity with students who are adapted to consistent computer work, it can be incredibly frustrating. Let’s be honest here; the majority of these students are not learning anything that they won’t forget in a few months and the major concepts (which I must stress, are far more essential than the content in humanities classes) go completely without conversation. Not only does this style of education fail to get students to effectively apply the concepts they are learning, but it also influences students to give in towards authority and cooperate without criticism. You learn very quickly in a traditionalist classroom that the easiest way to succeed is to do what your teacher tells you. There is no challenging the system and students who ask “why are we learning this” are shot down quickly by teachers. Much like the leaders in the corporate and political world, our teachers are, inadvertently, teaching our students to obey to authority. This is why I call for a radical change to a system of education that puts the students in control, so they can build self-advocacy and learn to work with one another. The American classroom is built around a structure that is inherently undemocratic, which exposes students to the idea that they cannot make decisions for themselves. I would like to see the classroom become a place where students can take control. Students should decide what content and concepts they are interested in learning about and they should shape the lessons. The students should also decide how they want to learn on a given day, either through class-wide conversation or individual research. Giving students individual autonomy as well as providing the students with more control as a whole class will inspire them to have more initiative and drive in their lives. I can see how this can seem like a challenge, but in practice, it is not impossible to have a democratic classroom. Last semester, I was able to provide a group of sixth grade students I was teaching with a lot of autonomy in the classroom. The students mostly decided how class discussions would go and they were often responsible for inspiring me to change how the next day’s lesson would go. Students took on a lot of autonomy for the final project in the course as well. They were assigned to create a museum exhibit on one of the four empires of Mesopotamia, but the presentation style and what they wanted to say with their exhibit was up to them. I still provided guidance through a rubric, but by introducing the project through stages, the students were able to shape the project to their own interests. While shaping your classroom to become more student driven will look different across grades and age ranges, this practice can succeed in a variety of ways. Ultimately, I believe that the most important thing that school can teach students in this current moment is that they have a voice. This is why I believe that the most essential change we can make in education today is putting students in control.

The focus of my career as a teacher will be to inspire young people to be their authentic selves. I want every student to feel like they have the ability to do difficult things once they enter my classroom. As a teacher I want my students to have the power to explore whatever interests they have through our learning experiences. Not only will I continue to provide my students with constant positive affirmations, but I will engrain exploration and self-discovery within my lessons. The greatest teachers I have ever had would often allow their students to explore whatever topics interested them instead of forcing something uninspiring and saturated onto them. As a teacher I want to build my courses around the interests and passions of my students. If the students who pass through my classroom leave with the confidence that they should chase their wildest dreams, I will be forever happy. One unique way that I intend to inspire the youth as a teacher is by creating leadership training opportunities that students can be selected to attend. From the first year of my college education, I have found conferences that take the time to help students participate in self-discovery and leadership development to be particularly valuable. As a teacher I am devoted to creating an annual leadership conference that will give a number of students the opportunity to explore their own identities for a weekend. I know from my own experiences attending leadership conferences in college that students who are given the chance to see the power within themselves can shine. The beauty of these conferences will be that they will be student-led, so not only will participants grow their abilities as leaders, but the facilitators will also develop their leadership skills. The conferences will allow students who have struggled to express themselves to really shine. My goal as an educator is to go above and beyond to fill my students with the confidence to become the people they have always wanted to be.

I want to become a teacher because I know that teachers can help young people to see the power and beauty within themselves. When I was in high school, I was having a difficult time finding my sense of self confidence. I struggled to talk to others, and I always believed that people looked at me as an outcast. I felt completely powerless to create change. I went through all of high school and the entire pandemic with the mentality that I would never be able to overcome my own anxiety. When I finally decided on which college I would attend, I elected to go to a local school to study sport management. I went through almost the entirety of my first year in college overwhelmed by the big personalities and I was terrified when anyone would try to have a conversation with me. After going through the majority of my first year of college, I was nominated to attend a leadership conference of about 40 first- and second-year students by my advisor. The leadership conference was a lifechanging experience for me, and I left the trip realizing that all I wanted to do in life was help people who I shared feelings of loneliness and powerlessness with to live better lives. In the months after this conference, I came to the realization that the best chance I had to help other young people develop their own sense of self confidence was to work as a teacher. As someone whose parents constantly put them down, teachers were always some of the few adults I could count on to share positive opinions of my character. I want to become a teacher because I want to make each and every one of my students to see that they deserve to be confident in who they are. When I decided to transfer into the education department, I knew that I wanted to become a high school history teacher because of the impact my senior-year AP government teacher had on me. I took AP Gov during the 2021 school year, right after my high school had fully opened back up from its closure during the pandemic. The return to in-person classes was incredibly strenuous on my social skills at the time and I clearly did not want to be back at school. My AP government teacher would not sit by and let me struggle in this way. He was one of those teachers who would show up to class every day wearing a full suit, and he had a larger-than-life persona. The confidence he gave off when he talked was something I desperately craved for myself. One day after class the teacher pulled me aside and told me that even though I was struggling with returning to school, he knew that I had something great within me and that I had the power to be who I wanted to be. I left school that day in complete shock that for the first time in years, someone had told me that they believed in me. From that point on the teacher would always address me as MR. FONTAINE (shouted at the top of his lungs whenever I entered the classroom) and he got me to get up in front of the class and give longer and longer presentations without lapse. Because of the decision of this teacher to tell me that he believed in me, my whole life change. As I begin to hone in on what my purpose as an educator is, I am constantly reminded of the impact this teacher had on me.

The most challenging obstacle I have had to deal with throughout my life has been my struggle with mental health. From a young age, I have dealt with overwhelming anxiety and social exclusion. During my middle and high school years, I was bullied and felt worthless. I only had a few friends during this period, and I never spent time with anyone outside of school. The worst part of this all was that the anxiety I developed prevented me from being able to express myself. I was really quiet and never expressed myself. During the pandemic, my social anxiety and exclusion hit an absolute low. Without school providing somewhere that I would interact with other people my age, I was utterly alone. Even with the bullying that I witnessed in school gone, the exclusion from my usual social groups was more negative on my mental health. Without school, I would go weeks without communicating with people outside my family. My anxiety made me afraid to use social media to talk with people either. The situation with my mental health put me in a miserable and dangerous situation. The second semester of my senior year in high school was the first time since I was very young that I felt truly happy for long periods of time. Returning to the classroom allowed me to make a few more friends I did not have before. Outside of the social element of my friends at school, my teachers did a fantastic job of improving my mental state. I was incredibly unsure of what I would do after graduating, and the passion my teachers displayed convinced me to attend college. After all the time I had spent struggling through the pandemic, I fed off my teachers' positivity toward life. My art teacher even convinced me to engage with painting while I was recovering from an ACL injury I had suffered. The care I received from my teachers during my senior year improved my trajectory and restored my faith in humanity. The first semester of college for me was a brief step back. My anxiety came back in a big way, and I struggled to make friends. Due to my participation in several clubs and charity groups on campus, I was invited to attend a leadership summit mid-way through the second semester. The summit finally got me to overcome my social anxiety. Since the summit, I have been inspired to express myself in more creative ways, such as filmmaking. In the weeks after the summit, I reflected more on my high school journey, and I decided to change majors to become a high school teacher in the future. My motivation to become a teacher comes from the struggles that I had as a student. I always enjoyed learning, and I was successful academically. However, academic success is not the most essential part of school. The emotional impact that my teachers had on me changed my life in a positive way that nobody else could have. For many students, including myself, teachers are some of the only adults that treat them positively. I want to use my platform as a teacher to inspire students to be themselves and be creative. Without the teachers I had throughout my school career, I would be trapped in a cycle of self-censorship. Teachers can help young people gain the self-respect needed to be who they want to be.

Reading is an experience that increases our understanding of the perspectives of others while simultaneously challenging the creative parts of our minds. Powerful literature does not just provide entertainment; it inspires people and allows them to see the world in a new light. Many books I have read have captivated my imagination and changed the way I lived, but none in the same way as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Even though Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a children's book written in 1865, the themes of the book still ring true today. The most significant aspect of the story is how it challenges the reader creatively. Unlike the typical story, many of the creatures and characters in the book had fantastical names and little descriptions. Readers are forced to imagine their own version of things, such as the iconic Jabberwocky. Outside of the names in the novel, the setting enhances the creative perspective of the reader. The story takes place within the dreams of Alice, promoting the reader to see the setting not just as a specific real-world place but somewhere that blends with their own subconscious thoughts. Every aspect of the book allows the reader to create their own story. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland would be a fantastic book for every person in the world because it was intended for children, and everyone could understand it to some degree. Alice's cheery and positive outlook teaches readers that curiosity and happiness can make any life better. Everyone could benefit from reading a book that would make them happier. There is a tangible amount of creativity in the book that inspires people who read the book to enjoy life in a new way. One part of the book that stood out to me is when Alice is speaking to the Cheshire cat and asks, “What road do I take?” to which the cat asks, “Where do you want to go?" “I don’t know,” Alice answers. “Then,” says the cat, “it really doesn't matter, does it?" People are all unaware of what the future will bring. As a college student, there is a great deal of uncertainty that I am hit with at every turn. This brief interaction reminds me that you have to enjoy the small things in life and go along with wherever the journey takes you.

Volunteering has opened up my perspective to see the impact we can have on improving the lives of those in need. When I have faced my own struggles, I have forgotten how much even the smallest act can brighten someone's day. Social media consumption in the post-2020 world has led many young people, including myself, to develop a pessimistic attitude toward the goodness of human nature. Outside of the adverse mental health effects of the pandemic, the polarization and selfishness in the news at the time discouraged so many young people from volunteering. When I joined my high school's honor society, I was not incredibly motivated to volunteer. I had just been through the first year of the pandemic, and my outlook on life was not positive. I did not believe I could have any impact on improving the lives of others in my depressed state. In spite of my indifference toward volunteer work, I eventually decided to help with the after-school program at my district's elementary school. At first, seeing what the program looked like only hurt my attitude toward volunteering. Students were relegated into sections of the school, separated from each other, and only a few teachers and helpers were available to assist with each group. I grew to feel sympathetic for the teachers who helped these students. Many were spending more time away from their families to help others. As someone whose parents spent a lot of time away from home working when I was younger, I related to many of the students who were in a similar situation. I continued to show up for the program throughout the year, mainly helping with the first-grade students. We spent time using Halloween-themed worksheets to motivate the children to practice math, watching live streams of penguins to pique their interest in penguin books, and debating who had the best collection of Pokemon cards. I grew to enjoy the after-school program more than anything else I had going on during the time, and the program made me see the world in a positive way. I couldn't ignore the impact I was having on many of these students, which helped me to see what I was capable of helping people in my community. After spending my senior year of high school helping with the after-school program, I faced the challenge of finding consistent volunteer work in college. College presented a different challenge with being in a completely different community and not having a car to provide transportation to off-campus opportunities. At first, it was a real struggle to find ways that I could contribute. Thankfully, the desire to help that the volunteer work with the students gave me pushed me to find ways to help. At first, I started supporting smaller events on campus that performed tasks such as creating supply bags for victims of Hurricane Ian, decorating birthday cards for impoverished children, and cleaning the yards of older adults in the city of Springfield. These activities connected me to other students participating in volunteer work, leading to me working with bigger groups such as Habitat for Humanity. Volunteer work has taught me just as much as I have learned in any classroom. Without all of the volunteer work I have taken part in over the past few years, I would not have the positive attitude I have for the world today. I have also developed my work ethic a great deal through volunteering. As I move into my career as an educator, I will bring everything I have learned through volunteering into my career.

The little things are big things. That is the mantra that I follow in life. Selflessness is not just about performing larger-than-life tasks that require lots of time and effort; it is a way of living. When I was first introduced to the concept of volunteer work, I was overwhelmed thinking about how I could possibly help to solve all the big issues facing the planet. One fact that has proven true in my journey is that there is always work that you can do in your community. During high school, it can be easy to overlook all of the opportunities surrounding you. In my school district, there were a lot of issues rebuilding the afterschool programs at the elementary school after the pandemic. There had been a whole reshuffling of staff, and many young students were just beginning their academic journeys. In my senior year, I dedicated myself to helping out the afterschool programs in any way I could. The main role--and my favorite role--I took on this year was tutoring first-grade students. I didn't have any experience tutoring, but I had so much fun helping the kids with their math and English work. There wasn't always a lot of work done because of all the fun we had sharing stories and watching live streams of penguins at the zoo. Helping with the afterschool program was time-consuming, but I am glad that I was able to help the program in the way that I did. My dedication to improving my community did not just start and end at my school. I have always been willing to help anyone who is looking for support. Through my grandfather's connections to the local senior center, I have helped many older people in my hometown by assisting with a variety of tasks such as pet sitting, helping with technology issues, and even building several dog pens during the pandemic. Over the last few years, I have always felt like I have been contributing to the improvement of my neighborhood. Moving to college, I was met with a completely different environment to find opportunities to contribute. Early on, every student is met with promotion from a variety of clubs that are volunteering all across the state. I was overwhelmed for a period of time until I was reminded that the little things are important too. I started slowly, holding the door open for others and helping people with their homework. After a while, I built on what I was already doing and began to help run smaller charity events and collect donations for local food pantries and fundraise for childhood cancer funds with the B+ Foundation. By the end of the year, I was not only a student who was an invaluable supporter to fellow students, but I was helping with an array of volunteer projects, including accepting a spot on the board of the Habitat for Humanity club. There is always more that someone can do to help others and practice better selflessness. I believe that I still have a lot more that I can do to help people that are in need. In all my selfless actions, I have learned that if you stick to selfless actions in your day-to-day life, you will inspire yourself and others to treat each other with more respect, therein living happier lives.

Every single person to have ever lived could identify you the leaders they have known throughout their life. Athletes, musicians, parents, fourth-grade history teachers, and people of any other qualifications you can imagine are looked upon as leaders, not due to the titles they hold but the way in which they carry themselves. My experiences learning from these individuals who lead, not from pretending to be someone they are not but from being their genuine selves, have inspired me to lead while remaining uniquely myself. Creativity is a critically undervalued trait in discussions about leadership. People quickly forget the importance of being different in defining leaders. Jean Michel-Basquait was not seen as a leader in the field of art because he was painting the same way artists were centuries ago. The added touch of creativity needed to form a strong leader does not have to be loud. I am not someone who tends to get loud or take charge in groups verbally, but my patience and ideas get people to listen when I decide to speak. I find creativity of peak importance because I always aim to inspire others to be themselves. There is beauty and goodness in everyone, and I am unapologetically myself because that is the best way to provoke the human out of everyone else. All great leaders must have a goal that is carved out of their love of life and people. I can honestly say that I do love people, and I want to see everyone get their chance to succeed. I have spent a lot of the last year of my life considering how I can act in a way that puts the love that I have back out into the world. During my last semester at college, I had a life-changing experience attending a leadership summit at a YMCA facility in Silver Bay, New York. After the summit, I was left deeply questioning whether my current path in life was going to allow me to make an impact on others. This led to me changing not only my career path to become a teacher but the way in which I interacted with other people. The positive energy I bring to conversations with people has dramatically strengthened my ability to lead. I also understand that I will not be able to create change through my leadership unless I work hard for what I want. I have always put a lot of physical and emotional energy into my goals. Recently I have used my work ethic to increase support for many community service projects, such as Habitat for Humanity at my college. Great leaders can combine their work ethic with tasks that will help others. My honesty is another key to my leadership. I am honest to a fault and will let people know every belief I have. My honesty allows me to build trust quickly. Leadership is not something that can be broken down into areas for qualification. Even if someone lacks a few skills that are commonly associated with leadership, they can still become a strong leader by their ability to utilize their strengths. The last few years have taught me much about leadership from both the world and my personal life. I struggle to give myself the gratification of calling myself a leader because I do not feel deserving of that title. However, I do believe that my way of acting has permitted me to lead in many settings, and I hope that I have helped others to be themselves.

Volunteering has opened up my perspective to see the impact that we can have on improving the lives of those in need. When I have faced my own struggles, I have forgotten how much even the smallest act can brighten someone's day. Social media consumption in the post-2020 world has led many young people, including myself, to develop a pessimistic attitude toward the goodness of human nature. Outside of the adverse mental health effects of the pandemic, the polarization and selfishness in the news at the time discouraged so many young people from volunteering. When I joined my high school's honor society, I was not incredibly motivated to volunteer. I had just been through the first year of the pandemic, and my outlook on life was not positive. I did not believe I could have any impact on improving the lives of others in my depressed state. In spite of my indifference toward volunteer work, I eventually decided to help with the after-school program at my district's elementary school. At first, seeing what the program looked like only hurt my attitude toward volunteering. Students were relegated into sections of the school, separated from each other, and only a few teachers and helpers were available to assist with each group. Seeing the faces of these children served as a reminder of why they were in after-school programs as well. These students did not have anyone at home who could pick them up when school ended at 3 pm, and as a result, they had to spend two to three additional hours at school, separated from their families. I also grew to feel sympathetic for the teachers who helped with these kids. Many were spending more time away from their families to help others. As someone whose parents spent a lot of time away from home working when I was younger, I related to many of the students. I continued to show up for the program throughout the year, mainly helping with the first-grade students. We spent time using Halloween-themed worksheets to motivate the children to practice math, watching live streams of penguins to pique their interest in penguin books, and debating who had the best collection of Pokemon cards. I grew to enjoy the after-school program more than anything else I had going on during the time, and the program made me see the world in a positive way. I couldn't ignore the impact I was having on many of these students, which helped me to see what I was capable of helping people in my community. After spending my senior year of high school helping with the after-school program, I faced the challenge of finding consistent volunteer work in college. College presented a different challenge with being in a completely different community and not having a car to provide transportation to off-campus opportunities. At first, it was a real struggle to find ways that I could contribute. Thankfully, the desire to help that the volunteer work with the students gave me pushed me to find ways to help. At first, I started supporting smaller events on campus that performed tasks such as creating supply bags for victims of Hurricane Ian, decorating birthday cards for impoverished children, and cleaning the yards of older adults in the city of Springfield. These activities connected me to other students participating in volunteer work, leading to me working with bigger groups such as Habitat for Humanity. Winning this scholarship would allow me to commit more time to grow volunteer work on campus and promote the benefits of volunteering to other students.

Passion is the most crucial trait of any leader. How can you be seen as a leader if you are not passionate about what you are doing? Throughout my childhood, history teachers always stuck out to me as the most passionate adults I knew. I cannot count the number of times I have seen a history teacher cover the whiteboard with information off the top of their head, spend the whole class period discussing some obscure fact about Abraham Lincoln, or point out some minute detail in an old Chaplin film about the industrial revolution. History teachers taught me about the past and ignited the passion within me to motivate me to become who I am today. History has always stuck out to me as a subject of extreme importance. I have many passions, including film, art, music, literature, and sports but history is the subject that best envelopes all of my interests. History is my most significant source of inspiration. When working on making a film, I am inspired not just by great historical films but also by past events. As I have grown, I have begun to understand just how much of what I enjoy is inspired by the past. History can summarize how humans live in a way other subjects cannot do. I have read dozens of non-fiction and fictitious books to better understand how I can enjoy my life. History has shown me that there is a path to a happy life that is achieved through self-reflection and understanding who you are. I have often been overwhelmed with thoughts about what I wanted to do with my future. I never felt like any specific career would allow me to achieve exactly what I wanted to do. I am passionate about creativity and putting my unique self into the world. Still, it wasn't until recently that I realized the impact that educators can have on others by just being their passionate selves. I am someone who has very much leaned on the educators in my life. When I become an educator, I will be able to inspire students the same way I was. I cannot wait to utilize my passion for history to help students understand how to build a life they will enjoy. As an educator, I plan to go above and beyond for all students. I want to start new clubs, help grow sports teams, and create plenty of new experiences for the students. I have spent so much of the last year growing through the numerous opportunities I have found on campus. All students should be able to share similar experiences to me, and I will use my passion for history to help students to become who they want to be.

The little things are big things. That is the mantra that I follow in life. Selflessness is not just about performing larger-than-life tasks that require lots of time and effort; it is a way of living. When I was first introduced to the concept of volunteer work, I was overwhelmed thinking about how I could possibly help to solve all the big issues facing the planet. Eventually you see how all of the little things you do can contribute to making someone's life better. One fact that has proven true in my journey is that there is always work that you can do in your community. During high school, it can be easy to overlook all the opportunities surrounding you. In my school district, there were a lot of issues rebuilding the after-school programs at the elementary school after the pandemic. There had been a whole reshuffling of staff, and many young students were beginning their academic journeys. In my senior year, I dedicated myself to helping out the after-school programs in any way I could. The primary role--and my favorite role--I took on this year was tutoring first-grade students. I didn't have any experience tutoring, but I had so much fun helping the kids with their math and English work. There wasn't always a lot of work done because of all the fun we had sharing stories and watching live streams of animals at the zoo on Wednesdays. I enjoyed being a resource for so many of these students who were just beginning the journey that I was about to end. The best part of the volunteer work was not just helping the teachers who would typically have to handle a whole grade of after-school students on their own, but seeing all the fun the first-graders were having in the programs. Entering college I was bombarded with a variety of student-led volunteer programs. During the club fair I signed up for just about every volunteer group on campus. I didn’t know what I wanted to go yet, but I knew I wanted to do something. By the end of the first semester I had helped with just about everything you could imagine. I helped clean garages of people in the local area, I assisted in running food drives, I helped organize fundraisers to fight childhood cancer; if there was a volunteer opportunity on campus I was aware of, I took advantage of it. Through the second semester I built relationships with the YMCA and Habitat for Humanity. I genuinely loved every second of volunteer work I did during the school year. I observed that even the small actions I did could have a positive impact over time for others. The relationships I have begun to develop with many of these volunteer organizations should help me to continue to help others after I graduate. Undoubtedly, it will be more difficult to find the same volunteer opportunities in my everyday life post-graduation that I can find on campus. The worries I have about finding volunteer opportunities outside of school lead me back to my thoughts about the little things. When times get tough and I can’t find anything to do, I have to return my focus to the little things. Holding the door open for others and extending kindness to everyone you meet are simple ways that I can carry community service into my everyday life. I will never put myself before others and regardless of where my career may take me, I’ll never forget the impact that the smallest act of kindness can have on others.

Ever since I can remember, I have been passionate about sports. In high school, while I excelled in the classroom, the only thing that I could ever focus on was football practice. I became obsessed with football. The motivation, the physicality, the emotion, the strategy; everything about the sport intrigued me. I spent much of my high school life daydreaming about how exciting my Junior and Senior year would be as a football player. I had always been an introvert, and I hoped that through sports, I could finally express myself in a way nobody could look past. I loved painting and art in general, but people overlooked that in high school, and I felt that I needed to succeed as an athlete to prove myself as someone special. I see sports a lot differently than most. From my perspective, athletics are more of a competitive ballet than a brutal test of power. The slight body movements and control over oneself demonstrated in football drew me in as my preferred art form. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country, the conditions required the state to condense my Junior and Senior football seasons into one calendar year. Usually, this would not have been too much of an issue, but I suffered a torn ACL in the first practice of my Junior season, ending my chances of ever playing another snap of the sport I had grown to love. The injury changed me in a variety of ways. I went through all of the phases of coping with the trauma from my injury. Fortunately, the trainers I met during my rehab at the Shriners Children's Hospital were incredibly motivational and gave me a more positive perspective. They got me to return to help with the team in the fall, and that was when I began to realize my passion for coaching. Helping out with the team made me feel like I had earned a piece of my identity back. I began to see that my love for athletics extended beyond competing off the field, but I wanted to help out with other young athletes to make them the best athletes they could be. At the same time, when I was starting to come to this realization, I was facing a difficult question about where I would attend college. I had always been fascinated with engineering, and in my junior year, I received a sizeable academic scholarship to attend an engineering school in New York. During the last phase of my decision process, I came across the Sport Management major. I had never seen myself going to college for sports management, and I hadn't known anyone who had graduated from the major, so I began researching it on the internet. After attending a few information sessions, I was sold and decided to bet on myself and pursue a career in athletics. Currently, I am determined to become a football coach when I graduate. I have already worked to earn a position as a team manager for the football team at Springfield College. When I graduate, I want to gain experience working for many high school, intercollegiate, and professional teams. I have not decided what level I want to work at in the future, but my mission is to become a high school football coach. I have observed just how impactful a high school coach can be. Overall, I love teaching, and it would be my dream to spend my career developing people and building relationships so I can see my athletes thrive on and off the field.

Creative thinking combined with science has lead to numerous discoveries over history, and it could easily be argued that the most important part of discovery is not shear knowledge or intelligence, but an open mind and determination. Our current world is facing dozens of large issues at the current time, such as disease, global warming, and natural disasters. To solve these issues we need not only creativity, but to come together as humans across the globe. One idea that represents innovative solutions is a Photovoltaic Balloon created in 2013 by three French scientists. The balloon is able to supply solar energy to areas ravaged by natural disasters. Natural disasters are becoming more and more common unfortunately due to various man-created scenarios. Along with the destruction these disasters cause, the people in the areas are left without food, water and power, for hours to weeks after the disasters. This is a imminent problem because not only are these things essential to survival after a disaster, many people have specific circumstances such as having insulin that needs to be refrigerated. Imagine a scenario where a large hurricane leaves your diabetic family member without insulin because rescue groups can't reach you in time or from where you are. These scenarios where electricity is needed are exactly where the Zephyr balloon comes in to save the day. The balloon uses water to inflate in an encampment after a disaster. The film made of copper, indium, gallium and selenide that makes up the balloon allows for it to capture solar energy. The energy travels down the cable that connects it to the base where several large batteries are charged. The balloon can also travel high into the atmosphere and withstand winds of 43 mph. The balloon systems are relatively simple to create and they inflate in under an hour. The Zephyr provides useful generators for less intense storm scenarios too, that are also eco-friendly, unlike most generators powered by gasses. If these generators were produced and kept in areas often ravaged by disasters and/or dropped into areas after disasters, this could lead to large encampments of survivors getting electricity and potentially save hundreds of lives. The real exciting part of this creation is how unique it is. Generators are very static objects that are traditionally cubes that use gasses to create electricity. The creator of the Zephyr, Karen Assaraf, took a huge leap forward in imagining a balloon that could generate solar power instead of another eco-friendly rendition of the traditional model. The creativity Assaraf used in this invention not only made something more practical that other similar creations but something that is more eco-friendly. The Zephyr generator is an incredible idea that we can only hope if further developed and eventually rolled out across the world. Since the Zephyr was first designed in 2013, it appears that the team working on it has creating several functioning models. While the Zephyr is an exciting creation it remains just one idea of hundreds. The overall growth of creative thinking and science working together is just starting to have an effect on the modern world. As the world continues to face larger issues, we should support and work to come up with our own ideas for creative scientific solutions to everyday issues.