“Race, Policy and Ethics” I come from a conservative Chicano family and rather than let it dictate my life in the small town where I grew up, I let it drive me to the big cities like Michigan or Illinois where I can pursue my dream as an aerospace engineer at some of the nations best engineering schools. In my household, we hold onto the ways of life that we always had when my family lived across the border. My grandfather came over from Mexico on the tops of freighter trucks with nothing more than the clothes on his back and his pregnant wife. After a long career, he emerged from the entry-level position he had in an aerospace factory as a production-line manager. My mother was discouraged from attending higher education by her conservative parents and my dad was only allowed to commute to a junior college. Both of them would later transfer out to a nearby Cal State before returning home with bachelor's degrees in teaching. I love my family and am so proud of what they achieved, but I know that they went against the culture. They strayed from the local policy that has kept many of my cousins, aunts and uncles from higher education, from going beyond the family business, and from making their dreams a reality. While I do honor my people and my culture, I always felt that my place was never in the family business. Instead, I know that I am to be the one guiding my people and the other people of the BIPOC spectrum towards our dreams, away from the binding policies of our conservative races and to the future where our cultural pride and ethics carry us to our dreams, just like our ancestors carried each other across borders. Michigan. Illinois. New Jersey. Massachusetts. Colorado. All of these great places hold one of the nation’s finest institutes for engineers, all of which call my name and inspire me to study aerospace so that I can be one of the few that break past the binds holding BIPOC would-be engineers back. Specifically, I have been communicating with my college to open up some spots at Boeing so that more opportunities for BIPOC engineers open up. However, I know that nothing in this world is free. To climb to where I am meant to be, leading others towards the same goals will cost sacrifice, endless late nights of preparation, and countless other barriers that have prevented other Black and Indigenous people of color from taking place in such a competitive world. But I have the determination, discipline, skills, intelligence and resilience to make it. I have been accepted into the United States's number four, number six and number eight schools for aerospace because of the sheer dedication I have to my dream, but I am missing one crucial thing to make my dream a reality. I keep pace with collegiate classes, grueling externships with tremendous rewards and anything else needed to succeed in the professional and academic worlds. However, the one thing I do not have is money. I cannot afford University of Michigan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, or University of Colorado-Boulder. Not without scholarships like these. While I know they are competitive and others will be competing as well, I am ready. I am prepared to compete now and in the future. Because one way or another, I will break past the bounds of the BIPOC culture’s policies and chase after the dream that has always guided me not just to the future, but to the stars.

In the last 24 months I have developed deep contusions on my dominant shoulder, collarbone and clavicle, faced a concussion, and sprained my shoulder ligaments playing football. I tore my LCL as a wrestler and continued to play until I nearly tore my ankle ligaments causing a calcium leakage playing lacrosse. I finally separated the same shoulder from my collarbone in an AC Joint sprain that tore my left shoulder’s ligaments a few weeks ago at wrestling league finals. In all honesty, I shouldn’t be playing any more contact sports, but thankfully I still have golf. I started to golf a few years ago on vacation with my dad and brother as a way to spend some time together. My dad and I started to drift away for a while, he wanted a different life for me than the life I wanted for myself and a few years later I would come out to my dad which did not go so well (hence the lack of pronouns and outdated picture in my account). But golf was a time where I could just be “one of the guys” even if I wasn’t really a guy. It was also a way I could be with my cousin who I rarely get to see in a casual setting. Golf is one of the few times that I see my cousin enjoying himself, he often pushes himself as a wrestler far beyond anyone else (he aims to be an olympic wrestler) so it's not uncommon for him to distance himself to isolate his training. My cousin was faced with so much that he went away for a while and no one really got to see him, so when he came back home it was different to see how much he had changed. But when we golf, he is so terrible, and together we laugh about it. We laugh about the humanity he shows, that for a split moment in time, he is free. And in many ways, I laugh because I am free as well. I know golf is just a game, and for me that is all it is. But I love that, I take my life, wrestling, lacrosse, football, water polo and school so seriously that I need a game like golf to keep me sane. Something active that I can partake in without killing myself trying to be the best, something where I don’t have to worry about injuries, competing or scouts watching out for me. I applied to MIT, Princeton, University of Michigan and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this fall, they are ranked #1, #10, #4, #6 in the US for aerospace engineering respectively. I was rejected from the former and accepted into the latter but unfortunately am unable to pay my tuition (I fall short of about $40,000 for both). Actually, I take that back, it kills me to be unable to pay my tuition, the pain worse than any regret I had when my shoulder separated and tore right before my final lacrosse season. Instead I will be going to Missouri University of Science & Technology, originally ranked towards the lower half of my college list (not that I have anything against my current school). Missouri S&T offers amazing opportunities, but ultimately I would have gone to Princeton had I had the letter of acceptance or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign had I had the money. But I won’t give up. As I write this I have several tabs opened researching how I afford to be one of the 0.91% of transfer students accepted into Princeton

The crowd goes wild, the ball comes loose behind GLE, my well-placed poke-and-lift check drops the attack’s cradle and I slide to the body. Two minutes left in overtime of our senior night, the fallen seniors who never got a senior night because of the pandemic, the seniors who never made it to varsity, the seniors injured and unable to play, all of them in my mind as I slide with everything I have. Snap! I hear the crunch of body-on-stick as my shoulder bursts past the now broken shaft and I drop the X to the ground. I ignore the vast bruise already forming from the force of impact as I scoop up the ball and long-pass downfield. This was a few months ago, I was a Junior leading the defense. I had truly transformed from a timid and shy freshman filled with lots of raw potential to a leading, confident junior with honed skills. But more importantly, I transformed my team. I was already a good lacrosse player, 4.6 GPA scholar in AP Calc, AP Chem, etc. President of two clubs, team lead in a research program, and coder of an international aerospace project. My team, however, they were failing their CP classes. They argued, couldn't communicate with one another, and even ditched practice. They couldn't even do the little things like putting their bags in a straight line. This was while I was away in football and wrestling seasons. But when February ended, I began lacrosse again and I was very disappointed to see my team. The two leading seniors, the #1 and #2 defenders, had failed. But rather than yell and blame, as my predecessors had, I took a step back. I observed. I saw who gave effort and came up short and those who gave none but skated by. I focused on those who gave me effort. I took them aside for every dropped pass, every missed slide, and every miscommunication and asked them what they did wrong. I didn't yell or put them down. I calmly asked them what they did wrong and then I corrected them, helping them learn from their mistakes. I checked in every week and asked about their grades, taking the time to tutor them in between practices and refresh my own knowledge. I never yelled at them when they failed. Instead, I would pick up the slack, leading rather than blaming. Personally, I had to learn how to play ambidextrously, how to play short and long stick, and how to play wing or crease defender. I lead my team by example, showing rather than telling them what to do because my actions speak louder than words. I particularly saw a problem in our physicality, my team was afraid to hit. Contact was a foreign thing to them, so I showed them. Right from the start, I made a name for myself as team captain, I was the defender who slid with the intent to body. I spent years as a football player and a wrestler, so contact sports were second nature for me. I taught my team what I knew and they learned. They began to step it up and throughout the season, we built up an amazing defense. Together. I bettered my team, but they also bettered me. Through lacrosse, I have become the very person I aspired to be growing up. I gained the confidence I always lacked, the leadership my team needed, the skills that my future self can appreciate, and the dedication that my coaches admire. Thank you to all those who helped me.

Diversity. It means the world to me. I do not see many people like me, many of my high school peers are not as high-achieving as I am. And those who are, well, they are mostly Asian, higher-income and/or male. Even fewer are queer. So to see someone as I am pursuing a STEM career is rare for me. So I wish to stand as a symbol, to shine as a beacon and serve as an example. Growing up, I was very fortunate in ways others were not. In the BIPOC community (especially BIPOC women), we are not generally pushed to succeed or give our best efforts in schools, however, I was. I had a great support base growing up, my parents always encouraged me and pushed me to be the very best I could be. Yet, the reason why I want to go into STEM, why I want to engineer some of the greatest aerial feats of our time, is because of my grandfather. You see, my grandfather worked in the aerospace industry for decades, he made very notable contributions like assembling the shuttle that launched the first Chicano man into space. And he always recalled the memories made with his coworkers, his co-workers of color. In the factories where they assembled and forged the parts of the rockets, there were only BIPOC workers, and this is because these hard-working men never had the opportunity to go to college, obtain a degree and make a better life for themselves. He and so many others could have had so many opportunities but never got the chance to receive them simply because they never had the opportunity. I love my grandpa, and the works he contributed, but I know that I can be more. And with the encouragement I received in my youth and still today, I know I can be more. I know that I want to be one of the note-worthy; This diversity is essential if we want to change. If we want to see our own people represented in the high tiers of the future, by opening up to diversity, we open ourselves and the field of STEM up to countless new possibilities. But more importantly, we open our world up to them. To those who, without us to guide them into the world of STEM, would be stuck drifting along the conformity. We need to see diversity in STEM because it is such a hard field to enter into, many of the groups we need to see more of in STEM are so unaware of the opportunities or lack the basic skills they need to get started. It pains me to look around and see how many underrepresented people want to be a part of the STEM world and contribute towards it but do not know how. I want to help them, to guide them as others have helped me, and that is why I run towards a top-tier university where I can push and advocate for them.

“You know, Mijo, when I was young, I…” These words, whatever I was doing, would always capture my attention as my grandfather would recall any of his wondrous tales. However, the ones that always stuck with me were the ones where he recalled his time working in the aerospace industry. And while he made notable contributions to the field, he was also a man who immigrated with his pregnant wife and only the clothes on their back so he did not have much coming to America. I see the challenges and hardships he faced and I want better for future generations. Because those of us who bear indigenous traits are not always that fortunate. That is why I wish to change this. I want to push for more opportunities for my people and many people who are underrepresented in the engineering world. I want to raise equity for those who need it, and who cannot find an entry point into the rapidly-evolving STEM world. I can give back to those who need it, to bless them with the blessings that I had and those that I had not. I can inspire them as my grandpa has inspired me. I want to use engineering not to change my own life, but to change the lives of others. For those generations of the future who may not have the opportunities we have been given, the ones my grandfather certainly never received and instead guarantee them the opportunities they otherwise would not have. I want to be an example, as a Latinx engineer, I stand as a symbol for the BIPOC children, that we can make it. That there is hope for minorities such as ours. I want to give back to the community that has graciously helped me, and the programs that built me. The schools that educated me. The city that raised me. But to the people who made me…I want to thank them most of all. And how will I do this? By ensuring that I am not the last BIPOC engineer to be given such opportunities, but one of many. I want to raise equity in this field, to make our people more known. Whether that be as people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, non-male identifying persons, or anyone else. Through my engineering career, I want to change the world. Not just with what I have created, but with what I have created as myself. I feel that I can be the diversity and representation missing in the engineering world and that my differences can function as well as my strengths. That I can be the one that makes engineering available for everyone. I want to change the world of engineering, in ways that others like Watt, Visvesvaraya, Imhotep, and Musk could not. Because I want to ensure that anyone who wants to further the rapidly-changing STEM world…can. For many of us, those who are in underrepresented or underserved communities, who stand as minorities among the majority, we have no opportunity to do so. On so many different occasions I have talked to my peers who aspire to code or engineer, yet plan on attending the local community college or have no idea where to start. I want to make sure that people like them are not left behind in this rapidly-moving field.

Ever woken up and felt uncomfortable in your own body? Yes? Well, Transgender men and women feel this way all of their lives until they begin HRT. Hormone replacement therapy is the treatment for transgender individuals so they may physically and psychologically transition to the sex they identify with, rather than their birth sex. This discovery began to emerge in 1918 with German scientist, Magnus Hirschfeld, who began the treatment of gender dysphoric patients to help ease their “illness” as it was deemed at the time. This is my favorite scientific discovery because it is very overlooked. Many participants in this scholarship will have write about relativity or something about the infinite size of the universe in their entry, and while these are amazing scientific discoveries, isn’t it equally bold to focus on the science behind a queer identity. Hirschfeld understood how bold his hormone therapy was and proceeded to do so, laying down the foundation that allows transgender men and women to fully transition to who they are, despite who they were born. In a time where transitioning from birth sex to desired sex was unheard of, Hirschfeld make the step forward to help those people living under the wrong identities. He liberated them from the dysphoric cages they were confined to. But he did so much more than that. His discovery of hormone treatment to help men and women make not just the social transition, but physical, psychological, and even biological transition to their true sex is something that affects over 1.4 million Americans today. 1.4 million people right now can thank Hirschfeld for his discovery of HRT and praise him for the discovery he made that granted them the freedom to live life as who they truly are.