Throughout my time in high school, there have been many challenges that I have had to face, some of which have had a tremendous impact on who I am today. The first challenge I faced in high school was balancing academic life while being a student-athlete. Going into high school, I never needed to worry about homework or difficult courses. However, I soon learned that high school was a different story; with course rigor increasing along with the length of school practices, I began to drown in the workload. Faced with the need to solve this challenge I went to my parents to see if they had any advice for me. After telling them what I was going through they gave me some valuable information on managing my time, such as eliminating procrastination. I decided to implement this tip into my daily life and saw drastic improvement, to this day I continue to exercise this form of time management. Another challenge I faced during my sophomore year was finding my cultural identity. Like many other Hispanics, I was very proud of my culture and heritage; however, as I began to take more and more APs and other difficult classes, I began to associate less and less with my fellow Hispanics, as very few Hispanics take challenging courses. This had a tremendous impact on my cultural identity as I experienced this rapid shift from being surrounded by my fellow people to being the only Hispanic in my class. Before I knew it, I began to slowly lose my culture; it felt like I was losing a part of me. This was all magnified whenever I went to visit my family in Colombia. While there, I realized how much of my identity I had truly lost, and it reminded me of how much I missed it. Whenever I returned from this trip, I decided to take matters into my own hands and set aside time outside of school to reconnect with my Hispanic heritage and culture. This was one of the best decisions I had ever made, as it rekindled many friendships I had lost in my academic pursuit. In the end, I learned that balance is important in life and that I could preserve my culture while pursuing my academic goals. As a result of these ex[experiences I plan to give back to the community that has given so much to me, the Hispanic community. I will achieve this by setting up programs that show low-income Hispanic teenagers the importance of receiving a high-level education. As someone who has seen the little effort that most Hispanics put into school, mainly due to ignorance, I know that if they are shown all the benefits of focusing on education they will succeed.

Throughout my time in high school, there have been many challenges that I have had to face, some of which have had a tremendous impact on who I am today. The first challenge I faced in high school was balancing academic life while being a student-athlete. Going into high school, I never needed to worry about homework or difficult courses. However, I soon learned that high school was a different story; with course rigor increasing along with the length of school practices, I began to drown in the workload. Faced with the need to solve this challenge I went to my parents to see if they had any advice for me. After telling them what I was going through they gave me some valuable information on managing my time, such as eliminating procrastination. I decided to implement this tip into my daily life and saw drastic improvement, to this day I continue to exercise this form of time management. Another challenge I faced during my sophomore year was finding my cultural identity. Like many other Hispanics, I was very proud of my culture and heritage; however, as I began to take more and more APs and other difficult classes, I began to associate less and less with my fellow Hispanics, as very few Hispanics take challenging courses. This had a tremendous impact on my cultural identity as I experienced this rapid shift from being surrounded by my fellow people to being the only Hispanic in my class. Before I knew it, I began to slowly lose my culture; it felt like I was losing a part of me. This was all magnified whenever I went to visit my family in Colombia. While there, I realized how much of my identity I had truly lost, and it reminded me of how much I missed it. Whenever I returned from this trip, I decided to take matters into my own hands and set aside time outside of school to reconnect with my Hispanic heritage and culture. This was one of the best decisions I had ever made, as it rekindled many friendships I had lost in my academic pursuit. In the end, I learned that balance is important in life and that I could preserve my culture while pursuing my academic goals. As a result of these ex[experiences I plan to give back to the community that has given so much to me, the Hispanic community. I will achieve this by setting up programs that show low-income Hispanic teenagers the importance of receiving a high-level education. As someone who has seen the little effort that most Hispanics put into school, mainly due to ignorance, I know that if they are shown all the benefits of focusing on education they will succeed.

My entire life I have been surrounded by tennis for the first three years of high school it shaped everything that I did, From spending over 30 hours a week to attending varsity after-school practice. Throughout my tennis career in high school, I was able to reach a peak ranking of top 150 in the state of Texas. From playing tennis over all of these years I have learned many important lessons. As you may know, tennis is a highly mental game, although skill plays a very important part in tennis another similarly important part is the mental aspect of the game. As a result, one of the most important lessons that I have learned from tennis is mental fortitude. This mental fortitude has aided me in many instances, from handling the pressure of a tennis match to balancing all my extracurriculars with my school work. This skill has allowed me great success in my extracurriculars, such as helping me become a 2024 FBLA National winner. The second lesson that I have learned from tennis is adaptability. In the sport of tennis one of the most important skills is the ability to adapt, this is the essence of tennis as the entire time you are playing you are reacting to whatever your opponent throws at you. To beat your opponent in tennis one must adapt to whatever their play style, whether it is pushing, heavy spin, power, or counterpunching. For example, if you see that your opponent's main weapon is to finish the point-up net, then focus on hitting deep shots to not give him any opportunities to go up net. This philosophy has come in handy in various circumstances and will continue to come in handy for my future, as a great part of life is learning to adapt, whether it be in your job or in your family life, adaptability is a must. These two skills listed above have had a great impact on my life and have shaped my future to be one of success. With these two skills up my sleeve, I plan to conquer the corporate world and become a CEO at a Fortune 500 company, just as I conquered my opponents in tennis. I will use these skills given to me during my time in tennis to solve any problem or obstacle thrown at me to win in this match that is called life.

Throughout my time in high school, there have been many challenges that I have had to face, some of which have had a tremendous impact on who I am today. The first challenge I faced in high school was balancing academic life while being a student-athlete. Going into high school, I never needed to worry about homework or difficult courses. However, I soon learned that high school was a different story; with course rigor increasing along with the length of school practices, I began to drown in the workload. Faced with the need to solve this challenge I went to my parents to see if they had any advice for me. After telling them what I was going through they gave me some valuable information on managing my time, such as eliminating procrastination. I decided to implement this tip into my daily life and saw drastic improvement, to this day I continue to exercise this form of time management. Another challenge I faced during my sophomore year was finding my cultural identity. Like many other Hispanics, I was very proud of my culture and heritage; however, as I began to take more and more APs and other difficult classes, I began to associate less and less with my fellow Hispanics, as very few Hispanics take challenging courses. This had a tremendous impact on my cultural identity as I experienced this rapid shift from being surrounded by my fellow people to being the only Hispanic in my class. Before I knew it, I began to slowly lose my culture; it felt like I was losing a part of me. This was all magnified whenever I went to visit my family in Colombia. While there, I realized how much of my identity I had truly lost, and it reminded me of how much I missed it. Whenever I returned from this trip, I decided to take matters into my own hands and set aside time outside of school to reconnect with my Hispanic heritage and culture. This was one of the best decisions I had ever made, as it rekindled many friendships I had lost in my academic pursuit. In the end, I learned that balance is important in life and that I could preserve my culture while pursuing my academic goals. As a result of these ex experiences I plan to give back to the community that has given so much to me, the Hispanic community. I will achieve this by setting up programs that show low-income Hispanic teenagers the importance of receiving a high-level education. As someone who has seen the little effort that most Hispanics put into school, mainly due to ignorance, I know that if they are shown all the benefits of focusing on education they will succeed.