As a Catholic, and as I got older, a bible verse always stood out to me and kept appearing to me. It said, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5). It makes me feel special and deserving because how great is it that God knew me. He set me apart for something like we all do once conceived. When I was 15, my mom shared about her pregnancy with me. She said that she suffered a lot when I was in her womb and cried because the doctors told her I would be born with Down syndrome. She was allowed to abort me because of my possible genetic disorder. She told me how I could abort you when God sent you to us for a reason, and as parents, we are to love you no matter what and look at you now. It amazes me how parents can kill the fetus because of a genetic disorder or illness. After all, they are imperfect, which is not true love from a parent because their love is unconditional. I often sit and think I wouldn't be here if my mom had decided to abort me. My purpose would have never been fulfilled because someone else decided I was unworthy of living. Tragically, others can determine anothers right to live, especially defenseless fetuses. As a Catholic, I have attended the OneLife LA protest and event, a program where many people gather to speak about pro-life issues and protests. As a pro-life advocate, you must be informed to tell others about the topic and reinforce one's beliefs. Take, for example, Plan B and IUDs don't only prevent conception but are abortifacients that cause miscarriages. I am a feminist and believe that as a woman, your rights matter, but the fetus' life also matters. Who are others to decide on their life? The fetus is not it and is often characterized as unalive by people only because the chance is not given for them to grow and live their life. This idea of deciding over one's life seems like taking a role only God should control, which is others' lives. When a person kills, it's a crime. I see no difference in terminating a pregnancy. I have also attended the March for Life, which took place in Sacramento. Until a couple of months ago, I was still underage; thus, I could not vote, so I made my voice and be heard through protests. Life is the most precious thing we experience, and it's something we can't buy with anything. Over our lifetime, we share so many emotions which uniquely make us human, and we should stand up for the right to live because those fetuses can't defend themselves. We can be selfish most of the time, but in this case, we have to have empathy and grace to understand and appreciate a life of any kind because that is a miracle.

My greatest treasure on earth has been my parents, and they have suffered so much trying to give me and my siblings the best they could so that we could truly live out the "American Dream." Unfortunately, because they gave my siblings the world on a silver platter, they seemed to lack empathy and have zero aspirations. My parents became incredibly disillusioned with my older siblings. It wasn't until the world seemed to come crashing down on me that my dad's health started failing. He was born with an enlarged heart from birth, and I was so angry at him because why couldn't he ever be selfish and think of himself instead of us all the time he worked hard since he came to the USA and never stopped until his body couldn't work anymore. During my high school years, he underwent open heart surgery, in which he made it out alive, which I was so grateful for. Due to this, my dad was forced to retire because he was weak. I clearly remember sitting in the waiting room outside the ICU and thinking, I want to help kids like my dad with heart problems, but beyond just being a pediatric cardiologist, my goal is to form a non-profit organization to help kids whose parents don't have the money for their surgery. Since my dad has many regular cardiologist visits, I've been very aware of their environments and what makes a good doctor vs. a bad one. I learned from my parents to do everything to my most remarkable ability. They always said, "If you're going to do something midway, don't do it at all," I want to give it my all to accomplish my goal. I want to help ease kids the already overwhelming situation that they are going through and make them feel important and like they matter. I am the first in my family to attend university; my parents are very proud. My parents gave everything to me, and I want to make them proud by doing something that I will love. My first semester of college was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was very humbled after it. I failed a class, and I was so upset, but after talking to my parents, they made me realize that this was a new challenge for me and that I would learn from my mistakes, and I did. I avoided everything I did my first semester, then the next semester, and passed all my classes. Since I'm a science major, almost all my classes are also science classes. I am fascinated and mortified (I'll be honest because they are academically challenging) with the content.

My favorite thing about Disney is that we can all be vulnerable to being kids again and share that joy whether we watch a Disney movie or go to Disneyland. Whenever I'm feeling down, I watch Beauty and the Beast ( the animated version) because it is my favorite movie, and with it comes many lovely memories. Memories I made with my mom ever since I was a kid we would always watch it, and the moment we watched it, my mom wasn't mom. She was different. She was vulnerable and carefree. My mom immigrated to the USA young with her family, and ever since, she had to grow up at a young age to help her parents take care of her siblings. It wasn't until too long ago that the live-action of Beauty and the Beast came out, and you can always find my mom and me singing the soundtrack. Particularly the song "How Does a moment last forever always makes me cry because a mother's love is the greatest thing I've ever witnessed. My mom gives everything to me; she doesn't matter in her eyes because she's selfless and truly a great mom. Recently, a close family friend died, and I can help but cry at the realization that life is so short. "how does a moment last forever?" Every hug, every smile, and every interaction, how can I stay as my mom's little girl? "how can a story never die?" My mom is my greatest treasure. She's made of gold. How can I share her story, and what type of person? My mom tells me that no matter where life heads, she will always be in my heart, but how could I ever live without her? Over the span of my 18 years, this movie has evoked so many emotions in my and my mom's safe space, and I am so grateful for it because it is me and my mom. I am also friends. So much of myself, I found my mom always cheering me on, referencing me to Belle. An apparent memory was when I got bullied for always reading during recess, and she told me, "Listen to me, mariquita Belle teased me for being different because she liked to read just like you don't let that get you down. You'll be a queen one day" My small naive self felt like a princess because I was like Belle, and I thank my mom because she taught me how to dream and brought me up like a princess who knows her value and most importantly got to create an unbreakable bond with her.

As a woman in a heavily dominated men's industry it is hard to get your point across without being taken in.On average a woman uses about 20,000 words a day compared to a man who uses about 7,000 to get their point across. That is about a 13,000 word difference because as a woman and especially a woman of color it is hard to be heard in a heavily men dominated world. What’s even harder than being a woman in a men dominated industry is being a woman of color which many people treat as inferior. Diversity is also a very important thing when it comes to a workplace. It's essentially the deal breaker because so many of us want a diverse environment because we want to feel comfortable and have people who can relate to us. Women are constantly questioned on the decisions and being criticized by men who should worry about themselves. It personally is offensive that I was asked if I “was sure?”, “was ready for the challenge?” or that I “should pursue something easier?” These questions insinuated that I was not at the standards to have a science major and why? Because I was a woman? Or because I was of color? Or because I was a first generation college student? Whichever the answer may be doesn't matter because at the end of the day I knew what I wanted to pursue who could know me more than myself. My degree of choice is important because my pursuit of happiness is important and I must be passionate about my field of study if I want to contribute to society in the future in a positive way. Not only that but I would contribute to not only being a woman in STEM but a latino one at that which is a big deal for me. My roots are a part of who I am and the more I not only know about them but am also in contact with them help not only know more about me but strengthen my essence. Diversity is something that I have seen around me my whole life which I am thankful for because It has allowed me to be around people that are like me. It has also allowed me to notice details of another culture that those who have not been exposed to a diverse group of people might see as uniform like the idea that all asians or caucaisons look the same. Although some may think of that idea as racist it particularly isn’t for some people because the type of people you were raised by as a baby created attention to detail to those certain features like for example if you are latino you can distinguish one another because you grew up with people of that ethnicity. As a person of color a diverse workplace is important to feeling welcomed and to be able to fit in. If I had a workplace with a heavily dominated person of only one ethnicity I would be open to more struggles like my voice not being heard, people not understanding certain things about your culture or straight out racism which could be more easily covered up . That is a bias against women that will not change until we set a new standard in this field. A study compared essays of women's vs mens with name and without name and concluded that the reader gravitated towards the men's essay when the gender was known as opposed to when they had no name more of the women's essays were picked.

Gaming forums, although rapidly becoming a worldwide phenomenon that allow many to connect online and meet new people as well as be entertained, have created a huge gap among society preventing interaction and use of social and intellectual devices. The way that people wishing gaming forums make friends is through the game and not through in-person meetings. While "gaming" does allow some critical thinking to an extent it limits the brain on what it can do not only does it only really focus on the use of one of our senses but it also creates a social barrier among society. This social barrier can be seen with the different generations like Gen z vs the boomer generation. Gen z is often viewed as a crazy generation but a big part of us being seen as crazy is because we lack social interaction with people of the other generations because we tend to spend most of our time on online forums. Social norms are things that although we are taught we mainly learn through experience and as we get more advanced into technology the younger the kids that are on online gaming forums which don't allow them to learn from one another and on how society works. According to a study by health line it was found that kids who play violent video games (which is the majority of games out there) are more aggressive as well as impulsive. Aggressiveness is a problem in these people because it causes yet another barrier with interaction with people. Aggressive people always tend to think they are right and will not know how to fix a problem instead face it head on. If another consequence of gaming is impulsiveness it means that sometimes that person may lack the use of empathy towards one another making it hard to interact with another person. The online gaming forums are in itself a world of their own. In these forums there tends to be a lack of interaction, and there is a thin line between what is reality and what is the game which is why so many people find it so hard to interact with people outside of gaming.