I have always had a strong love for aerospace and engineering. I am fascinated by the way engineering turns ideas into things that can actually change the world, and becoming an engineer has been a goal I have taken seriously for years. Being accepted to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is an opportunity to finally begin pursuing that path. The challenge now is making that opportunity financially possible. My family and I have pursued the funding available to me through financial aid, grants, merit scholarships, and federal loans, and we have reached the limit of what those resources can provide. We were also denied a Parent PLUS loan, leaving me with a remaining financial gap that I cannot realistically cover on my own. That is why receiving funding for my education is so important to me. I am not looking at this scholarship as simply money toward tuition; I see it as an investment in the foundation I am trying to build. I have always had plans to become involved in philanthropy, and becoming an engineer is one part of how I intend to make those plans possible. My long-term goal is to build a career that gives me both the knowledge and financial capacity to fund projects that directly improve people’s lives. One of those projects is establishing and eventually running at least three shelters for women and families who need stability and an opportunity to get back on their feet. This particular goal is personal to me because of my mother. Before I was born, she spent time in shelters while she was pregnant with my older sisters. She understands firsthand what women in those situations may need, what they may be going through emotionally, and how difficult it can be to move from simply surviving to actually rebuilding your life. My mother and I have talked about creating these shelters together. I would love to take on the financial and funding side of the organization while she helps lead and operate the shelters, bringing her firsthand understanding into the way they serve women and families. Philanthropy, however, is not the only part of the future I am building. I am also deeply interested in entrepreneurship and the world of finance, including investing and creating businesses. I want to develop multiple avenues of success that allow me to generate resources and direct them toward causes and projects I believe in. There are many areas of philanthropy I want to explore throughout my life, and I know that having the education, career, and financial foundation to support those efforts will give me the ability to do much more than I could by simply donating when I have the opportunity. That is why funding my education matters beyond my immediate ability to attend college. I want to become an engineer because it is the field I genuinely love, but I also know that my education can become the foundation for everything I intend to build afterward. I want to create a successful career, build businesses, understand finance, and ultimately use those resources to fund meaningful work in communities that need it. My education is not the end goal. It is the first major investment in the future I have already planned for myself. With the opportunity to become an engineer, I can begin building the career and financial foundation that will allow me to give back on a much larger scale and one day, build those shelters alongside my mother.

For much of my childhood, I learned how to hide how I was feeling. I experienced depression and suicidal thoughts from a very young age, but instead of reaching out to my family, I kept everything to myself. I became accustomed to appearing okay even when I was struggling. I learned that it often felt easier to pretend I was fine than to explain why I wasn't. My social anxiety made reaching out even more difficult. I struggled to talk to teachers, make friends, and allow people to see who I really was. I was bullied in elementary school, and growing up, my parents did not always get along. I never felt that I knew how to explain what I was experiencing at home, so I became increasingly isolated. I spent most of high school without true friendships, often feeling as though I had to mask my struggles or be “high functioning” so that no one would notice how much I was hurting. Over time, this affected my education. It became difficult to participate, communicate, and fully engage with school. My academic performance suffered because I was trying to manage emotional difficulties that I did not know how to talk about. I eventually transitioned to online schooling, which unexpectedly gave me an opportunity to begin changing. At seventeen, I found myself thinking seriously about my future for perhaps the first time. For years, whenever someone asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I never had a real answer because I had never truly pictured myself reaching adulthood. Suddenly, I had reached an age I had never imagined reaching, and I realized I had to decide what I wanted my life to become. My relationships with my siblings also became more important during this period. Having more conversations and social interaction helped me realize that I could be myself without constantly pretending. I also found mentors online whose lives represented possibilities I had never allowed myself to imagine. They gave me something I desperately needed: a reason to believe that my future could actually be worth looking forward to. Eventually, I realized something that changed my life: I did not want my life to end; I wanted my life to become different. I wanted the happiness, purpose, relationships, and accomplishments I had never believed were possible for me. Instead of remaining trapped in the past, I began building toward a future I could finally see. As my mental health improved, so did my academic life. I became interested in subjects and activities I never expected to enjoy, including chess, reading, debate, science, and engineering. It felt as though clearing some of the darkness in my mind created room for curiosity and passion. I began believing that I could actually pursue difficult fields that had once seemed beyond my abilities. Today, I am pursuing engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. I am beginning in Mechanical Engineering with the goal of transitioning into Aerospace Engineering, a field I once never imagined I could be capable of pursuing. My diagnosis has affected nearly every part of my life, but it does not define where my life ends. It taught me how deeply untreated struggles can affect a person's education, relationships, confidence, and ability to imagine a future. More importantly, overcoming those difficulties taught me resilience. I have come farther than I once believed possible, and now I want to see just how far I can go.

When I think about why I want to study engineering, I think about the future of space travel. I am fascinated by the possibility that the technologies we develop today could eventually allow humanity to travel farther into space than we ever thought possible. One area that especially interests me is laser-based propulsion, also known as beamed-energy propulsion. Light carries momentum, meaning photons can transfer momentum to an object. In a laser-driven lightsail, for example, a powerful laser could theoretically accelerate an extremely lightweight spacecraft by directing energy onto a reflective sail. The technology is still in its early stages, but that is precisely what excites me. I want to be part of the generation of engineers that helps determine how far this technology can ultimately go. The problem of distance is one of the greatest challenges in space exploration. Our universe is unimaginably large, and even our nearest neighboring stars are measured in light-years. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, meaning conventional spacecraft speeds make travel to other star systems extraordinarily difficult. If humanity hopes to explore beyond our solar system on meaningful timescales, we will need propulsion technologies capable of reaching much greater velocities. We cannot overcome the laws of physics, but we can continue developing technology that allows us to operate closer to the limits those laws permit. That is where my interest in Einstein's theory of special relativity comes in. Relativity is not something I view as a limitation that makes space travel impossible. Instead, it shows me how much there is still to understand and engineer within the universe's physical limits. The fact that massive objects cannot reach the speed of light makes the challenge more difficult, but it also makes the pursuit of faster and more efficient propulsion more meaningful to me. I am beginning my college journey in Mechanical Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, with the goal of transitioning into Aerospace Engineering. My current cumulative GPA is 3.3, while my more recent academic performance has reached a 4.0. I need a 3.5 cumulative GPA to make the transition, and reaching that goal is something I am actively working toward. My academic path has not always been easy. There was a period when my transcript did not reflect my ability or potential. I struggled mentally and emotionally, and those difficulties affected my academic performance. Eventually, I decided they would not determine my future. I began developing discipline, setting long-term goals, and holding myself accountable for making progress even when it was difficult. My grades improved, but more importantly, my mindset changed. I stopped interpreting difficult subjects as proof that I was incapable and began treating them as challenges I could overcome through persistence and work. Today, I face another significant obstacle: paying for the education I have worked so hard to reach. I was denied a Parent PLUS Loan, and my mother and I have also been denied by private student-loan companies because of her credit history, which was affected in part by helping my sister with college years ago. My financial aid is not enough to cover my tuition, housing, and meal plan. Even with that obstacle, I am determined to continue. I do not know exactly how far laser propulsion or other advanced technologies will ultimately take humanity. That uncertainty is part of what makes engineering exciting to me. Centuries from now, I hope people will look back at the engineers who built the foundations of advanced space propulsion and recognize that their work helped make today's impossible ideas possible. I want to be one of those people.

I believe motivated and high-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds deserve opportunities because financial hardship should not determine who gets the chance to reach their potential. When a student has the determination to succeed but lacks the resources to pursue their education, a scholarship can be the difference between having a dream and being able to act on it. My own journey has taught me how difficult it can be to pursue higher education without financial security. I come from a single-parent household and have had to navigate college with limited financial resources. Despite these challenges, I have continued to work toward my goal of becoming an engineer. I chose to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University because I want an education that will prepare me for a career in engineering and, ultimately, allow me to contribute to the aerospace field. Getting to this point has required persistence. I have had to actively search for scholarships, financial aid, vocational rehabilitation resources, and other opportunities instead of assuming that funding would simply be available. I have contacted offices, submitted applications, appealed decisions, and continued looking for solutions even when the financial obstacles felt overwhelming. I have learned that succeeding sometimes means continuing to ask questions and find another path when the first one does not work. I am pursuing engineering because I want to build a future where I can use my education and abilities to create opportunities beyond the circumstances I started with. I know that earning an engineering degree will require discipline, resilience, and years of hard work, and I am prepared to put that work in. Financial support through this grant would give me more than assistance with an educational expense. It would give me greater stability and allow me to focus more of my energy on my education rather than constantly worrying about whether I can afford to remain enrolled. It would help me continue pursuing my degree and move closer to becoming the engineer I have worked so hard to become. I cannot control the circumstances I was born into, but I can control what I do with the opportunities I receive. I am determined to make the most of them.