"Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold', my mother said to me at a mere four years old. I walked away, shrugging it off. What does my mom know anyway? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, she was right. The business industry is held by seventy percent men. Every group every program in my small town is run by men and quite frankly I am sick and tired of it. I am tired of knowing that every club I join will almost always be only men. I have thought about quitting a number of times too many to say, but every time I try I find myself back with this quote. "Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold." So no, I will not let my passion for accounting be ruined by the abundance of men. As a woman, I know that wherever I go I will be put down for my dreams and goals no matter what, I might as well be doing what I want. So I continue to join these groups, only this time I run them. I refuse to let a man control what I do in my career and stop me from frankly being better and more successful than them. I continue to let education be my strongest weapon and will not let anyone tell me otherwise.

I am not much of a leader. When you envision a leader I assume your mind strays to valedictorian or student council president, but I am neither. And quite frankly, I do not aspire to be anything along the lines of either. This is because these run-of-the-mill positions are not helping anyone but their college applications. How is being the captain of the tennis team leading anything great? Modern-day leadership is what we all know best, but is it truly leadership? I understand that I quite seriously sound like a salty tennis team captain loser, but truly what is leadership if it all vanishes once you graduate? I believe that real leadership shows itself in what you leave behind. This is why I am in the start-up club. In this club, we create and manage businesses, speak and inspire others about entrepreneurship, and lead others from high school into the world that lies ahead of us. By leading others into business I provide a sense of independence and sustainability for my peers. Being a leader to me means that I lead others onto a better path. Knowing that I can influence other's entire careers and interests for the better with just a twenty-minute conversation is mind-boggling. In this club, I have learned what it means to be a leader and how I can apply this to my outside life. I am the eldest of three sisters and take on responsibilities my parents can not. My parents both work full time not only to support my two sisters and me but family South of us as well. With the leadership skills I have gained I have learned how to take care of my siblings by inspiring them to be their best selves every day by leading as example. I do not hold the position of being either of their parents, but I still choose to leave behind a positive example. This is comparable with leadership; it does not matter the position you hold, but what you do with the position you have. Leadership is important for our world and shows itself in many different ways. However, for leadership to leave any mark you must be wise of what you do. To me, leadership is not the highest position one can hold, rather what you do with the positions you are given. Leadership is a privilege that shall not be mishandled nor abused but rather used for lasting good.

"Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold', my mother said to me at a mere four years old. I walked away, shrugging it off. What does my mom know anyway? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, she was right. The business industry is held by seventy percent men. Every group every program in my small town is run by men and quite frankly I am sick and tired of it. I am tired of knowing that every club I join will almost always be only men. I have thought about quitting a number of times too many to say, but every time I try I find myself back with this quote. "Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold." So no, I will not let my passion for accounting be ruined by the abundance of men. As a woman, I know that wherever I go I will be put down for my dreams and goals no matter what, I might as well be doing what I want. So I continue to join these groups, only this time I run them. I refuse to let a man control what I do in my career and stop me from frankly being better and more successful than them. I continue to let education be my strongest weapon and will not let anyone tell me otherwise.

https://www.instagram.com/the.half.ginger/ I was the first child in my entire bloodline to come out as a lesbian. My southern family disapproved of my lifestyle, but the hardest part of coming out as myself was losing all contact with my friend of eight years. I a proud to be LGBTQ because this a community that continues to persevere throughout hardships, yet is still a loving community that supports you regardless of your flaws.

Stress is my sole motivator in life. This sounds terribly painful as I write it, but as I lay here on my couch exhaustedly, it is the truth. I have always been a go-getter and this mentality is what has kept me on my path. I must get the most out of everything I do. Why go to school if you're not at the top of your class? Why are you in this club if you are not the leader? This attitude grants me the drive that has brought me where I am now. Challenges are what motivates me. I am passionate about business, so instead of only participating in school-sanctioned clubs, I might as well begin working at a firm. I refuse to live my life simply and easily. I feel that accomplishments are most well-deserved when challenges are most apparent. You get that full feeling in your soul when you accomplish a task that was hard worked for. The tasks that bring me an abundance of stress are the ones I work hardest for. My stress is my inspiration.

The world is not what you make it. I learned this the moment my mother sat me down when I was fifteen and my younger sister twelve years old. This was the first, surely not last, time the words "Bipolar Disorder" came out of my mom's mouth. Like a bullet, I sat there in shock fully knowing what this meant; my sister sat in a confused state. She did not even know we had a step-sister because of how distant she was in our lives. The last time we saw her at that point was when she broke the news of her pregnancy in a gas station hours away from home, not exactly a high point for the average person. So when my younger sister asked who this woman with this 'crazy' person disorder was, it was heart-breaking. The effects of any mental illness no matter the severity take a toll on everyone involved, but the family looks like the villain in their story. Seeing my father at six years old persuing screaming matches with a woman I had only ever met twice over the phone was not the bedtime story I ever hoped for. My father began deteriorating day by day. Months went by without any contact, and then followed with the oh-so-common 'I love you' and 'I am sorry' calls. I will never define her mental illness as a burden that was placed on me, but rather a learning experience. She now has two wonderful boys and a husband in a stable household and is able to hold down a job. She taught me in the most exposed way that you are not what happens to you, no matter the scenario. It is not my fault what happens to me. I understand that the world keeps on going regardless of what has happened to or around me. However, the most important message of all I took from this was to never accept the destiny you do not crave. I continue to live my life by this. Mental health and illnesses are not the monstrous tragedies that society makes them out to be and I am proud to be my sibling's sister even through a mental illness and will never be able to thank her enough for the lifelong messages I continue to live by daily.

"Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold', my mother said to me at a mere four years old. I walked away, shrugging it off. What does my mom know anyway? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, she was right. The business industry is held by seventy percent men. Every group every program in my small town is run by men and quite frankly I am sick and tired of it. I am tired of knowing that every club I join will almost always be only men. I have thought about quitting a number of times too many to say, but every time I try I find myself back with this quote. "Education is the strongest weapon a woman can hold." So no, I will not let my passion for accounting be ruined by the abundance of men. As a woman, I know that wherever I go I will be put down for my dreams and goals no matter what, I might as well be doing what I want. So I continue to join these groups, only this time I run them. I refuse to let a man control what I do in my career and stop me from frankly being better and more successful than them. I continue to let education be my strongest weapon and will not let anyone tell me otherwise.

My mother taught me ever since I could understand words that education is the strongest weapon women can hold. I bumped around from school to school as a child and that taught me that my mom was definitely right. The way education brought so many people together amazed me. In Texas, I could relate with someone who was born and raised there over a common core math test. I have felt this way even as I moved up in my k-12 education, bonding with peers who came from halfway around the globe over our shared hatred of IB Chemistry. The way education brings so many people together is the reason why I know I desire higher education. With the abundance of hatred in our modern-day world, I choose to focus on what can bring us together. I have participated in countless extracurriculars over the years. Tennis, martial arts, women leadership; you name it and I have most likely done it. With the way everyone pressures you nowadays to do everything you can for colleges, I genuinely believed that extracurriculars were just something to fill up your college applications. This was until I heard of the start-up club. Learning how to create and run a successful business and entrepreneurship inspired me. As a woman in the twenty-first century, I had never been given an opportunity such as this. This group has taught me what it means to be like my dad by beginning and running a business you started and grew from the ground up. With a passion for business, I put all of my time into this start-up club. Advertising for more members, creating presentations; overall it included countless sleepless nights. With a decaying passion for groups and clubs, my father informed me of a program called Meals on Wheels. At first, I used this program just as a way to spend more quality time while I could with my father. However, as I became more and more invested with the entire program and all aspects of it, I fell in love. It brought me genuine joy knowing that every Sunday I could not only spend real time with my dad but also see all of the new lifetime friends I have made at every stop. Helping the elderly and unable gave me a new perspective and allowed me to become passionate about a whole new aspect of life; community. I am passionate about my small, loving community and not only what they do for me, but what I do for them. I have done Meals on Wheels for a year and a half now and along the way, I have made forever friends along with people I now call my family. It gives me a new feeling of passion and fulfillment knowing my community is in good hands and will always have their ginger friend next door.

I hate math. I know this is not what you are desiring to hear here, but I do. The long, confusing equations make my head spin and ultimately leave me in a confused and upset state. The nights I've spent attempting geometry are the nights I dreaded the most as a high school student. I believed that throughout my entire educational career I was going to be this way, and I mean could you blame me? The way television shows display the smart bookworm as antisocial and a freak drove me away from ever being smart in the third grade. Society favors athleticism and sociability, not how well you can solve an equation. I believed this for the longest time until my father enlightened me. My father grew up in nowhere Texas where it was cool to knock over beer cans instead of learning. He broke these standards and created his own accounting firm and made a name for his family. He worked harder than ever before and made it out of that town and that leads us back to me. At 15 my dad asked me on a Sunday morning in March if I would like to do his bookkeeping, to which I replied no of course. Now if you know anything about southern parents you know that you only answer no to a question about 3 times a year. So I began keeping his books and records, dreading every moment of it; until I didn't anymore. It became rhythmic, soothing almost. I was able to go to my bedroom and add these numbers all night long without a single thought. This was my escape from the world. You asked me what draws me to math. Quite frankly, it's the absence of the mind. I've learned when I am in difficult life situations and I do not know how to be alone with my thoughts, I can just turn my desktop on and add for hours. It gives me this sense of reason. Two plus two equals four for a reason, unlike the drama in high school. This gives me the opportunity to put the world around me that seems to be going faster than I can keep up on pause. Then, when the adding is done, I understand the world around me. The repetitiveness of adding makes me understand the repetition of the world around me. It makes me understand why high school drama repeats, why my parents' lack of understanding repeats. In a way, mathematics made me understand the world around me more. My future is going to be math.

My favorite scientist was the notable Stubbins Ffirth, a man who would not be put down by others. Not only did he attend my dream school of The University of Pennsylvania, but he also worked best when those around him doubted him the most. If you are not familiar with him, he believed that yellow fever is caused by heat and stress in the Summer months rather than contagiousness. Not only did he make a monumental discovery in the medical field via science, he did it while everyone told him he could not.

Growing up, college was probably my first word. My mother graduated from the prestigious Villanova University and if you were to ever meet her, you would know this too within the first of five minutes of meeting her. My mother has also given birth to three children living in a middle-class world where you're too poor to pay for college but too rich to get anything to help. I need this scholarship because my going to school to get an education should not prevent my younger siblings from getting the same opportunities.

My boldest picture has got to be my vaccine photograph. As excited as I was to not only protect myself but others as well, I was immensely anxious about the poke. However, this is my boldest photo not only because I protected my country, but also because I got over the fear of the necessary pokes!