For the first nine years of my life, I was faced with birth parents who abused substances. I was rapidly moving around and never was able to keep a steady place to rest my head. Throughout moving around, we were unfortunately homeless for a period of time. The police noticed this and took me into a foster home. My uncle and aunt soon picked me up, and adopted me years later. For years, I attended adoption therapy and they all recommended that I write in a journal to write my thoughts down on paper. Although I did not like it at first, I soon started to do it every day. I started to branch off into writing other things, such as short stories and poems. As I went into highschool, I knew I had a passion for writing. I went into journalism my freshman year, which then led me into a newspaper class for the three remaining years of highschool. During my time in this class, I wrote about news stories, sports articles, and features. I became sports editor in my junior year and focused on writing articles about my school's sports teams and student athletes. Although I mainly write about sports now, that is not all I want to do in the future. I want to be able to give people a voice by allowing them to be heard through news. I want to be able to write articles on people’s hardships and accomplishments that are not usually heard. I think that there are many people that deserve to be acknowledged and seen.

My favorite science discovery is the cancer treatment. I think this discovery is very impressive, especially since it was done back in the 19th century. When Marie Curie discovered a new way of treating patients without surgery, it changed the world. This led other discoveries to help people with cancer and to recover. This discovery has changed the world for the good.

In the early years of my life, I struggled with mental health due to the situations I was brought into. I always had trouble figuring out my emotions and how to express them. I later went to therapy for a couple years and they suggested writing down my feelings on paper, and as I got into middle school, I realized that it genuinely helped me find where my head was at. In eighth grade, I had an amazing English teacher who gave me the confidence that I needed to write exceptional essays and excel in her class. Towards the end of eight grade, we got to choose our high school schedules and I saw journalism as an elective choice. I knew that I liked writing, and I was pretty good at it, so I chose it. Now going into my senior year in high school and having journalism and newspaper for all four years, I have realized that writing is not only for yourself, but it is for others. In newspaper, you cover important current events and topics that some people might not be knowledgeable. You could also write articles that some other writers might be too scared to write about because they might find them controversial. I have had the privilege to be known as a staff writer and a sports editor in my newspaper class, where I would go to sports events, take photos, and cover the games for my high school. In my sophomore year, I wrote an article about my high school's new bowling team, and although they were not too good, I still wanted to write about them and give them the recognition they deserved. In my junior year, I wrote a feature about an excelling student athlete that I thought was being overlooked and put his story into words so others could really see him. In saying this, I want to pursue a career in writing, not only for myself, but for others around me. I think there are many different stories and people that do not get the recognition that they deserve, and I think with me being a journalist, I could write the stories the people need to hear.

Hello. My name is Madison, and I was in the foster care system. From the age of nine, I lived with my birthparents, and then as I got older, I got adopted by my current parents. My birth parents were not able to take care of me in any way, for example, we had no resources. My birth parents had no jobs, no money, and rarely a place to sleep at night. With the money we did have, they would spend it on drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. Although we had obstacles, I still went to school and found education. On August 23, 2014, my birth parents and I found ourselves homeless on the sidewalk with nothing, but black trash bags filled with our clothes. Soon the police came and took me to a foster home where I slept the night and then met my future parents the next morning. To my surprise, my new parents would be my uncle and aunt, who I have never met before and was clueless of their existence. I stayed living with my uncle and aunt until I was 13. During that time, my birthparents and I would have scheduled meetings to see me, which they slowly stopped showing up to. Also, during this time, my uncle and aunt taught me a lot, such as, how education is so important and basic life skills. On April 13, 2017, my uncle and aunt became my legal parents, and I could not be happier. Although I believe they were my true parents before I was officially adopted, the label is always nice. Now I have been living with them for almost half my life and I am so grateful. I am so lucky to be able to have a good education where I will succeed. Going into education, I am hoping to study journalism in college. I think it is so important to have people, such as journalists, write about important events in the world and get different sides of the story. In this day and age, there are so many overpowering news stories that still valid news articles do not get written or seen. The positive impact that I would like to make is to allow different types of people or news stories to get seen and to have an article written about the situation. Many people do not get heard or get the recognition they deserve, and I would love to change that.