In my very limited life experience, I have learned that creating something gives you purpose. It allows you to make something to impact the world around you and to leave something when you’re gone. Since realizing this, I have made an effort to keep making things, no matter what. I have painted some, sculpted some cups, I even bought a film camera and learned how to use it. Basically, anything I could get my hands on in an effort to create. I have always had this burning desire to make things, and it has just gotten stronger. The biggest reason why I wanted to apply to this scholarship to have the money to buy a good music creation program and a laptop to make it on. I have been writing poetry ever since I was a little girl. I even kept the notebooks of my old songs. I also played the piano when I was younger. Unfortunately, I lost touch with both of these outlets as I grew up. I have been getting back into writing lately as an outlet for everything that is going on in my life. I listen to so much music as it is, I thought I should try my hand at making it. My favorite thing I’ve recently written is “did you know those nights were my favorite/I’d never felt so high, so elated/so hard to break the silence/but once we started it was never quiet/you’re never quiet” which was about my first heartbreak. It’s so funny looking back because I can feel the same emotions I felt, but in such a different way now that it’s in the past. I think that everyone has a voice that should be allowed to be heard. The moment I wrote that about what I was going through, I gave my emotions up to the world. If I were to eventually put it into a song, it would be an even bigger release. I would be allowing anyone and everyone to hear the things I went through. I think this is what pulls me to create. Allowing someone to see the deepest parts of yourself is, in a way, freeing you from those parts of yourself. I also think that those things could help people. Sometimes the only comfort you can bring someone is letting them know that you have been through the same thing. That is what I hope to accomplish.

My playlist is titled “A Love Letter to Lakeville” and encompasses my whole life. I grew up in a town called Lakeville. Every idea, relationship, heartache, win, loss, and dream I have ever had was somehow shaped by the county lines of that town. Now I live somewhere else, but I feel a piece of my heart is still there. It has songs my friends used to scream on the backroads, songs that my dad would sing to me, songs that got me through my first heartbreak, and everything in between. Listening to it feels like home.

Self-love is hard. Plain and simple. Being fully accepting of yourself is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. Especially in today’s world, you are almost forced to constantly be comparing yourself to someone else. There are ads to make you look thinner, give you fewer wrinkles, make your hair longer, make your eyes a different shape, and any other thing you can think of. We force ourselves to adhere to this overblown idea of perfection that is amplified by social media. There has never and will ever be a life that is completely perfect, even though it seems like it on Instagram. We are fed these hyper-simplified ideals are expected to project the same thing. The only saving grace in this type of world is learning how to love. To be able to spread love, you have to have a source of love to spread. I have found that for me, this love comes from myself. By loving myself, I can allow myself to give more out to the people around me. While it seems like a generally easy thing to do, it has been the opposite for me. There have been, and continue to be, so many times in my life when loving myself has seemed like the biggest and hardest chore. My journey with myself has been full of ups and downs. Forgiving myself for the bad times and congratulating myself in the good times is something that I have been working on for a while. During this ongoing journey, I've also learned a lot about the relationships that I have been in. So many of these relationships have been hindered by issues that stemmed directly from a lack of self-love. I have learned that once you love yourself, you can love others better. Making a commitment to work on yourself is as important as making a commitment to work on the relationship as a whole. This was a very hard lesson to learn, especially because it takes both parties to understand and make it work. There were many trial and error periods, but once I learned this I have consistently had more fulfilling and meaningful relationships. This is because I realized that before I gave love to someone else I had to give it to myself first. This self-love journey has also impacted my aspirations in life. I have seen how important it is to spread love to people who need it. Since learning this, I have started to volunteer at places with children, especially ones who lack love in their lives. I have seen kids’ lives change because of the simple act of someone showing them a little love. It has not only helped them with their own self-love journey, but it also makes me more conscious of how I spread my own love. I learned that you never know what someone is going through and that something as simple as a smile can change someone’s whole day.

I am currently working on applying to a cyber-security boot camp program and becoming a Google Ads Specialist. Apart from that, I am a full-time student at the University of Minnesota studying biology and leadership. I would use the grant money to cover a couple of my rent payments so that I can focus on the two programs and my degree without having to work. Throughout my life, I have been almost obsessed with the act of learning. I think one of the reasons we are here on the earth is to gain new knowledge and share it with others. That is one of the reasons I chose to study biology. Not only do I get to learn about the inherent abilities of humans, but I also get to learn how to accurately communicate that knowledge to people who have different skill sets. While I am constantly learning about Biology, I also have a deep interest in technology. This is what led me to pursue the cyber-security boot camp. Not only am I very interested in the topics, but I also know that cyber-security is one of the fastest-growing job markets today. The world today is constantly changing, which means that the digital world is changing even faster. Also, as the world turns more and more digital, the safety of the people is always at stake personal freedom is very important to me, and so I want to learn more about keeping people safe. Also, I have always been interested in marketing. Since I was a little kid, I have been creating small businesses and learning how to grow them simply out of passion. My latest is a cake business where I sell cute and affordable birthday cakes to college kids. This passion for marketing led me to look into the new area of digital marketing. I love trend following and data collection, so it seemed almost too good when I found a certification that encompasses both. Also, by becoming a Google Ads specialist I open myself up to new part-time job opportunities working for smaller local businesses and helping them grow. I always will put the most importance on my degree program, but being able to expand my knowledge in so many other areas is something that I am determined to do. This grant will alleviate some of the mountain pressures of money so that I can create a better world.

Self-love is hard. Plain and simple. Fully accepting of myself is one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. Whether it is my body, my hair, my face, or the things I have, I feel like I am forced to constantly compare myself to others. I know many other people also have this issue, especially in today’s world. We are fed these simplified ideals and are expected to project the same thing. The only saving grace in this type of world is learning how to love. I have found that for me, this love comes from myself. By loving myself, I can allow myself to give more out to the people around me. While this may seem like a generally easy thing to do, it has been the opposite for me. There have been, and continue to be, so many times in my life when loving myself has seemed like the biggest and hardest chore. My journey with myself has been full of ups and downs. Forgiving myself for the bad times and congratulating myself in the good times is something that I have learned how to do. During this ongoing journey, I've also learned a lot about the relationships that I have been in. So many of these relationships have been hindered by issues that stemmed directly from a lack of self-love. I have learned that once you love yourself, you can love others better. Making a commitment to work on yourself is as important as making a commitment to work on the relationship as a whole. This was a very hard lesson to learn, especially because it takes both parties to understand and make it work. There were many trial and error periods, but once I learned this I have consistently had more fulfilling and meaningful relationships. This is because I realized that before I gave love to someone else I had to give it to myself first. This self-love journey has also impacted my aspirations in life. I have seen how important it is to spread love to people who need it. Since learning this, I have started to volunteer at places like the Children’s Hospital. Many of the kids that I work with battle these insecurities along with their illness. I feel like my own journey has given me the tools to help them. It is so rewarding to let these children know that they are not alone. This has not only helped them with their own self-love journey, but it also makes me more conscious of how I spread my own love. I have learned that something as simple as a smile greatly impacts those around you in a positive way. I also started to volunteer in places with children who lack pure love in their lives. I have seen kids’ lives change because of the simple act of someone showing them they aren’t alone. These experiences have opened me up to become a better person. I now see the world around me as a place to foster love, rather than a place that is lacking it. Although, this was a very hard thing to convince myself of. When I was younger, my great Aunt took her life. At the time, I was too young to understand what was happening. All I remember is my mom telling me that she “decided the earth wasn’t her home anymore.” This is the first time I can remember questioning the world around me. Before that experience, it had been a place full of love, light, opportunity, and happiness. I had never dealt with the fact that it wasn’t that easy for everyone else. When I was going through the worst of my own mental health issues, I finally understood what my mom meant. There were times in my life where I felt like I was in the wrong place or I had made the wrong decision. Now that I have gotten through that darker time, I have learned that it is okay to feel like you’re in the wrong place sometimes, as long as you remember that there will again be a time to feel right at home.

I am a sophomore student at the University of Minnesota studying Biology and Leadership. While my specific degree isn’t related to fitness, it is still a very important thing in my life. I take steps every day to get my body moving because I have learned that a healthy body means a happy mind. Growing up, I was involved in many different sports and activities. I never really viewed them as “working out”, but rather as fun things to do. My family was also very involved in my active lifestyle. We seemed to constantly be hiking skiing, or playing basketball in the front year. Being active was an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. This kind of changed when I went to college. During my freshman year, I was barely working out. My only exercise seemed to be walking to class. I completely forgot about staying active because I was focusing on so many other things and because I wasn’t playing a sport anymore. As this continued, I felt myself becoming more and more unhealthy, both physically and mentally. My lack of exercise took a toll on me without even knowing it. This started to affect everything in my life, from school work to relationships to my own mental health. It wasn’t until I moved home for the summer that I began to realize how bad it had gotten. I started to go on walks with my dogs, play tennis again, and generally do more active things. To my surprise, I saw almost everything in my life improve. This I when I really learned the importance of having a healthy lifestyle. To me, it doesn’t mean workout out for hours every day, or playing an organized sport, or counting your calories. It simply means finding active things that you enjoy doing. I have now integrated this mindset into my everyday life. Now that I’m back in school, I make it a priority to do something active every day. That might just mean doing a five-minute yoga stretch in the morning or setting aside an hour to go run on a treadmill. No matter what it is, I do it with a happy heart because I know how good it is for me.

Self-love is hard. Plain and simple. Fully accepting of myself is one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. Whether it is my body, my hair, my face, or the things I have, I feel like I am forced to constantly compare myself to others. I know many other people also have this issue, especially in today’s world. We are fed these simplified ideals and are expected to project the same thing. The only saving grace in this type of world is learning how to love. I have found that for me, this love comes from myself. By loving myself, I can allow myself to give more out to the people around me. While this may seem like a generally easy thing to do, it has been the opposite for me. There have been, and continue to be, so many times in my life when loving myself has seemed like the biggest and hardest chore. My journey with myself has been full of ups and downs. Forgiving myself for the bad times and congratulating myself in the good times is something that I have learned how to do. This self-love journey has also impacted my aspirations in life. I have seen how important it is to spread love to people who need it. Since learning this, I have started to volunteer at places like the Children’s Hospital. Many of the kids that I work with battle these insecurities along with their illness. I feel like my own journey has given me the tools to help them. It is so rewarding to let these children know that they are not alone. This has not only helped them with their own self-love journey, but it also makes me more conscious of how I spread my own love. I have learned that something as simple as a smile greatly impacts those around you in a positive way.

Self-love is hard. Plain and simple. Being fully accepting of yourself is one of the hardest things you will ever have to do. Especially in today’s world, you are almost forced to constantly be comparing yourself to someone else. There are ads to make you look thinner, give you fewer wrinkles, make your hair longer, make your eyes a different shape, and any other thing you can think of. We force ourselves to adhere to this overblown idea of perfection that is amplified by social media. There has never and will ever be a life that is completely perfect, even though it seems like it on Instagram. We are fed these hyper-simplified ideals are expected to project the same thing. The only saving grace in this type of world is learning how to love. To be able to spread love, you have to have a source of love to spread. I have found that for me, this love comes from myself. By loving myself, I can allow myself to give more out to the people around me. While it seems like a generally easy thing to do, it has been the opposite for me. There have been, and continue to be, so many times in my life when loving myself has seemed like the biggest and hardest chore. My journey with myself has been full of ups and downs. Forgiving myself for the bad times and congratulating myself in the good times is something that I have been working on for a while. During this ongoing journey, I've also learned a lot about the relationships that I have been in. So many of these relationships have been hindered by issues that stemmed directly from a lack of self-love. I have learned that once you love yourself, you can love others better. Making a commitment to work on yourself is as important as making a commitment to work on the relationship as a whole. This was a very hard lesson to learn, especially because it takes both parties to understand and make it work. There were many trial and error periods, but once I learned this I have consistently had more fulfilling and meaningful relationships. This is because I realized that before I gave love to someone else I had to give it to myself first. This self-love journey has also impacted my aspirations in life. I have seen how important it is to spread love to people who need it. Since learning this, I have started to volunteer at places with children, especially ones who lack love in their lives. I have seen kids’ lives change because of the simple act of someone showing them a little love. It has not only helped them with their own self-love journey, but it also makes me more conscious of how I spread my own love. I learned that you never know what someone is going through and that something as simple as a smile can change someone’s whole day.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is “Nothing in nature lives for itself. Rivers don’t drink their own water. Trees don’t eat their own fruit. Sun doesn’t give off heat for itself. Flowers don’t spread fragrance for themselves. Living for others is the rule of nature. And therein lies the secret of life.” It was painted on my wall in my childhood bedroom for some time, right next to a diagram of a butterfly wing and a pressed bouquet of wildflowers. When I first read it, I liked it simply for its imagery. The idea of the sun giving off warmth and fruit growing on trees was a very peaceful vision to me. It was only as I grew older when I started to realize the immense truth behind it. In my opinion, our current world is plagued by the disease of self-importance. Everything someone does is done, more often than not, solely for the benefit of themselves. I believe that if we were to live more for the people and animals around us, our world would be in a much better place. Along with the issue of self-importance, our world has also lost a sense of where things come from. It is so easy to go to a grocery store and buy six ears of corn, so we can forget the work that went into producing it. The soil it took to grow it, the water it took to water it, the farmer it took to harvest it, the gas it took to transport it, and the people it took to stock it. Behind everything we eat, there is a greater system that allows us that luxury. The more we are able to ignore these larger systems, the more strain we put on them. Soon enough, this strain will be too much for them to take, and the entire system will break down. This proposes a serious threat to the way that people around the world live their daily lives. If we are able to resolve some of the pressure, the better off we will all be. The hard part of this is that it is so easy to ignore these problems. Most people see almost no effect of the slow degradation of the earth’s systems in their everyday life. They have the “out of sight, out of mind” lifestyle. This allows them to give up their responsibility to the earth. An even bigger problem is that a lot of time, it is not the fault of these people. There is so much information and so many issues, it is hard to digest. So, instead of taking the time to learn, they simply forget about it. This is why one of the most important strategies to protect species is the education of the public. It has been proven time and time again that education is imperative for the advancement of societies. This same logic can be applied to the conservation of animals. One specific example from my life was learning about the conversation of water when I was young. There were representatives that came into my elementary school and taught me about taking shorter showers and turning the faucet off when I brushed my teeth. These are such simple strategies, but I always think about them when I shower or brush my teeth. These are very small steps in a very large picture, but they are still steps. The more someone is informed about the issues, the more they are going to care about them. When you educate a person on the serious risks that are imposed by the segregation of our environment, you are educating a future politician that can pass laws, an entrepreneur that can create a business or an engineer that designs a machine, all in the name of conservation. Every movement has been started by groups of dedicated people, so there just has to be enough people who care enough about the cause to create change. Especially in today’s world, it’s all about ease. The general public won’t get on board with something unless it is easy. This means that signing online petitions, sharing links, and creating shareable posts are also a big part of educating people. These are relatively easy things to do, and they can reach a lot of people in a short amount of time. Also, if enough people share and sign, they can reach people who have the actual power to do something about it like lawmakers. It might take a while to see actual change, but a little bit is better than nothing. The health and wellness of the Earth and the ecological systems within it are of concern to every single living thing on the planet. That being said, it's so easy to ignore these huge issues. By educating people and helping them understand the problem in easy ways, we will start to see positive change.

In my childhood bedroom in Minnesota, I have a whole wall completely covered in maps. One, given to me by my space-obsessed grandfather, is a map of the solar system. Brightly colored planets against the deep black background entice you to wonder about them, almost begging to be explored. Another, found in the basement of an estate sale, is a map of Italy during the Renaissance. The stories of royal monarchies, powerful families, and rising iconic artists are beautifully illustrated in its margins. Lastly, my favorite map, which happened to be picked out of a bin in an old antique store. I bought it while it was still rolled up, so its hidden treasure wasn’t revealed to me until it had already found its home on my wall. This unassuming, yellowed, plain old map turned out to be the detailed diary of a world traveler. Pinpricks put in by the anonymous artist were scattered around the world. Little handwritten notes of someone who seemed to always be in a hurry accompanied the pinpricks; small anecdotes of their travels. I did not know who this person was, what they did, where they came from, or anything else about them. All I knew were the small stories left behind on their map. I looked at this map as an art piece, hung in the gallery of my room. It was my first lesson on the connection between travel and art. While I didn’t know anything about this traveler, I felt more connected to them than anyone else in my life. As I laid in my bed at night, I dreamt of their travels to faraway places and started to fall in love with the idea of discovery. Discovery on its own can mean many things. Discovery of new food, a new religion, a new language, a new tradition, and the rest of the wonderful things that are waiting to be found. Diving into these new ideas enriches your life by tweaking your perception of the world and inviting you to look at things differently. While I do think that this type of discovery is very important, there is a different type of discovery that I think is even more valuable. That type of discovery is self-discovery. No matter what happens to you in life, the one constant among all of the variables is yourself. You will always have you. This means, at least in my opinion, that knowing yourself to the best of your ability will allow you to truly live your life as it was meant to be lived. In every new experience you have, there is a new part of yourself that gets uncovered. To me, traveling gives you exponential amounts of experience. So, by those terms, traveling allows you to uncover your true self. This is why I am so in love with traveling. It lets me be my own person, my truest self, and the best version I can be. It is when I feel my truest self that I feel most like creating. That is why, to me, traveling is so important to art. Not only does it give you a clearer mind to find inspiration, but it also allows to you create from a multitude of different perspectives. Also, art is found in everything on this earth. The drive and passion to create can stem from anything in any place. Traveling lets you see more things in more places, allowing you to find a deeper passion for every place you go to. In short, I believe that art is everywhere, and traveling allows you to see it. It allows you to understand yourself enough to find your purpose, and making art is a way to translate that purpose to the world. Art, travel, and discovering yourself are inextricably intertwined. In my opinion, they are what make life worthwhile.