Monet inspires me a lot and his work "Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son" is my favorite by far. The beautiful use of light and shadows is so impressive and gives the viewer so much depth to look at. Monet always uses beautiful texture and colors to give his work more value and impression. My personal style is inspired by him so much and I can see his messy and unblended style in many of my own personal works. The movement of the fabrics of the woman's dress and face covering, as well as the weeds and flowers that she is standing on, convey such a beautiful and fluid movement. The splotchy and whispy clouds add a background that is neither flat nor overwhelming, and still gives the focal point, the woman, the focus and detail she deserves. I think that Claude Monet was such a beautiful artist and all of his work inspires me and my style so much every day. His use of color allows me to develop my style so much since I never used to be comfortable using color, but primarily his work has driven me to develop and experiment with my style. I think that any artist that inspires you to move past your comfort zone should be appreciated, and Monet and his work "Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son" is one of the works that has moved me out of my comfort zone. I will always appreciate his works and I am inspired every day the more I look at each of his works.

Volunteering and giving back to your community allows another generation to have the same privileges as you did growing up. I was given so many opportunities to live in a community where I never went a day feeling unsafe, hungry, or scared I had no one to turn to. I try to give the same feeling to everyone by helping at community suppers, tutoring, driving elderly neighbors to doctors' appointments, and always being there and listening to those who need help. Giving and helping others by giving them your time, attention, and energy not only helps those people but also encourages others to do the same and continue the trend. The more people willing to help, the more people who are helped. I always try to show others that it is not weird, embarrassing, or wasteful to help everyone I come across. Taking every volunteer opportunity I can allows me to be this role model so ultimately more people are helped and given something they are missing. No one should feel as though they are alone in this big world, or feel as though they are a lost cause that no one wants to help. I try to be the one person that everyone I meet can rely on. I can only wish that my efforts will help another young child, older person, or anyone, feel as though they are never alone.

Art is pivotal to human success. Every day we as humans consume art, whether we know it or not. Music is an art, as well as everything we do. Creativity stems in the oddest places, and if you put your mind to it, you can make art by simply being a human. STEM advances the body, while art advances the mind. Physics, math, music, writing, photography, painting, physiology, clay making, geography - all of these are forms of art. The way someone expresses themselves is art. No one can decide what is and what is not art, and I think that is the most important thing about it. Society can connect, engage, and bond together over art because it requires no words, no understanding, and no explaining. The only thing that art requires is appreciation. If someone is there to appreciate it, art is born and a love between the creator and consumer is born. You do not need to understand the meaning behind an art because it is subjective, and that allows all of the world to bond over a single piece despite language and cultural barriers. Those barriers are broken down once a common appreciation is formed among people. Love does not need words, and appreciation does not need explaining; just as an art piece does not need to be explained because it speaks for itself, and cultivates love through the senses of a human. My art, photography, allows people to appreciate the beauty that is often overlooked. Time never halts, and beauty moves just as fast. To be able to capture a moment in time where beauty seems to stand still is fascinating. I wish to cultivate love, appreciation, and honesty through my photography. Raw emotion, natural beauty, and our Earth presented in a way that she can be appreciated and loved is my main goal through my art. I wish to be defined as my art, because my art is me, and my art is not mine alone but something that is everyone's, something worthy of love and appreciation. Not only does art define a society, art influences society. What we call "society" is different to everyone, just as art is defined differently by everyone. Values, opinions, change. Art is a vehicle for all of these things. Art transcends time and space, art crosses borders, and art instills values and translates experiences between opposing figures. During a time of conflict, war, and fear, art brings comfort. Art brings order, and peace of mind to hatred, while never discrediting those who fought to bring the art alive. Through a world where sound is infinite, and silence is never felt, art hushes voices and brings the quiet. The quiet that is necessary for the silenced voices to finally speak. Art will speak for those voices through all of the noise. Those who cannot find the words to express what is need to be said can find comfort in knowing their art will speak for them. I personally can never find the words that need to be said. I allowed myself to be hushed and pushed to the side my entire life, but once I found an art that I could express myself in, I finally felt free. Free to say what needed to be said, without making a sound at all. My art speaks for itself, and I know that art speaks louder than anyone ever will be able to.

My hometown is dear to my heart and a community that will also stay close to me because it has taught me the most about character building, leadership, and most importantly; community service. With a small population of under 1000 people, everyone knows most everyone and there will always be someone there to lend a helping hand, no matter the occasion because that is the community spirit. We all depend on each other and being a young adult in a mostly older town, many of my older community members rely on my youth and strength. I am often found in my very little free time outside helping weed my neighbor's garden, moving wheelbarrows of fill, raking leaves around the school sidewalk, driving elderly neighbors to their doctor appointments, shoveling snow, catching escaped pets, and helping at community suppers whenever I can. Every month, I spend over six hours helping at community suppers, cooking, cleaning, and helping older people in and out of the building. Giving back to our elders in any way possible should be encouraged among everyone, not just in my small little town where it is necessary to keep the town running. I also participated in an EMS Explorers Program that ran over five hours a month that has exposed me to so many new opportunities and education that I am proud I have received. Through this program, I have received my CPR certification, learned how to administer various medications, and how to provide emergency medical attention to patients in various circumstances. This program has taught me leadership skills, how to interact with professionals in the field, how to stay calm under pressure to act rationally, and many other skills that I think will benefit me in any future career. I also tutor all ages of students when I am able, averaging one to two hours per week. I primarily tutor underclassmen at my school, Milford High School, but I also tutor elementary and middle school students who need help with their academics. I currently am enrolled in the highest math class available at my school, AP Calculus, take AP English classes, successfully completed AP European History, and have completed Latin Studies through Level III, so I am able to help a wide range of students in many subjects. I enjoy helping people, and have learned many things about myself and improved my character through community service. Being an officer in my school's National Honor Society Chapter has also held me accountable for accurately recording my hours of community service and always staying consistent, even when I'm busy with my job. Doing all of these things since I was young has built my character and made me grateful for all that I am able to do and grateful for my health that allows me to help others in physical labor.

Art and STEM create unity between people of all backgrounds. People can connect with each other, empathize, and learn from each other through art even where there are cultural and language barriers. STEM advances our world in ways that were unimaginable in the past, creating better lives for everyone. Together they foster creativity, innovation, and advancements past logical or practical application. The world is a better place with art because it helps push the limits of the mind, and STEM pushes the limits of the body and the physical world. I would like to be part of the advancements in both of these fields together because they go hand-in-hand in all facets. STEM and art have always played a large role in my life, inspiring my choices, giving me hobbies, and allowing me to express myself in ways that words could never convey. My dream career is advancing STEM further than before and helping everyone I possibly can. Specifically, I want to advance medicine and medical treatments for those who are struggling with a disease. The world is so hard for everyone but even harder for those who have a crippling disorder with no treatment available. I aspire to help those people specifically by researching and developing pharmaceuticals for diseases with no treatments or cures. I've been heavily involved with disease, disorders, and struggling medically throughout my life. My father works as a volunteer EMT and I have shadowed him and worked as an unofficial apprentice since I was young. I go on calls with him, do TEMSIS reports, and wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a pager going off all with the desire to help people. I have experienced my own family struggling with disease, and not being able to provide anything other than emotional support because of the lack of medical treatment hurts the family as much as the patient. Watching a loved one, and strangers, struggle because there is no cure and very few treatments available for their disease is hard. Doing what my father and I do is not enough for me. I want to help people even further and at the source. Providing emergency medical response doesn't treat the cause and I want to be part of the change. Not only does the medical field need more pharmaceuticals available, but existing drugs also need to be developed and advanced so they can be more accessible to everyone. Even if there are pharmaceutical treatments available for certain diseases, they are not always accessible to everyone fairly. This could be due to the availability of the drug, financial cost, or severe side effects that outweigh the pros of the drug for a patient. Drug costs are rising, and many people can not afford the out-of-pocket costs of a treatment that could improve, or even save, their life. Drug companies raise prices on drugs and are left unregulated, so it falls to the consumer to pick up the additional cost. There are also so many communities throughout the world that have no access to modern treatment, simply because of where they live or the state of their government. Medicine and modern treatment should be accessible to everyone, so there is no one left to suffer from a disease that can be treated. There are so many politics in the medical field, and I'm not particularly interested in that. But, if advocating and working politically is what it takes to make drugs more accessible to those who need them, then I am willing to do that. Many diseases also have a lack of variability in their treatments, making it hard for anyone who cannot have those medicines to receive effective treatment. I want to help make more options available for everyone, so there is no discrimination or inequality for those who experience adverse effects from certain treatments. There needs to be a change in the availability of drugs so patients and their families all over the world can receive the help they need to live a meaningful and comfortable life. All that I aspire to accomplish holds more weight than what I as a single person can manage. But, if I can be part of this change, the impact will live past me and my work. I aspire for great things, and without the help of others, I cannot carry on the will and dreams of the people before me who wished they could further their education but were not able to. I want to be the missing link for those people who were never given the chance to help the world in the way they dreamed.

The world is so hard for everyone but even harder for those who have a crippling disorder with no treatment available. I aspire to help those people specifically by researching and developing pharmaceuticals for diseases with no treatments or cures. I've been heavily involved with disease, disorders, and struggling medically throughout my life. My father works as a volunteer EMT and I have shadowed him and worked as an unofficial apprentice since I was young. I go on calls with him, do TEMSIS reports, and wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a pager going off all with the desire to help people. I have experienced my own family struggling with disease, and not being able to provide anything other than emotional support because of the lack of medical treatment hurts the family as much as the patient. Watching a loved one, and strangers, struggle because there is no cure and very few treatments available for their disease is hard. Doing what my father and I do is not enough for me. I want to help people even further and at the source. Providing emergency medical response doesn't treat the cause and I want to be part of the change. Not only does the medical field need more pharmaceuticals available, but existing drugs also need to be developed and advanced so they can be more accessible to everyone. Even if there are pharmaceutical treatments available for certain diseases, they are not always accessible to everyone fairly. This could be due to the availability of the drug, financial cost, or severe side effects that outweigh the pros of the drug for a patient. Drug costs are rising, and many people can not afford the out-of-pocket costs of a treatment that could improve, or even save, their life. Drug companies raise prices on drugs and are left unregulated, so it falls to the consumer to pick up the additional cost. There are also so many communities throughout the world that have no access to modern treatment, simply because of where they live or the state of their government. Medicine and modern treatment should be accessible to everyone, so there is no one left to suffer from a disease that can be treated. There are so many politics in the medical field, and I'm not particularly interested in that. But, if advocating and working politically is what it takes to make drugs more accessible to those who need them, then I am willing to do that. Many diseases also have a lack of variability in their treatments, making it hard for anyone who cannot have those medicines to receive effective treatment. I want to help make more options available for everyone, so there is no discrimination or inequality for those who experience adverse effects from certain treatments. There needs to be a change in the availability of drugs so patients and their families all over the world can receive the help they need to live a meaningful and comfortable life. All that I aspire to accomplish holds more weight than what I as a single person can manage. But, if I can be part of this change, the impact will live past me and my work. I aspire for great things, and without the help of others, I cannot carry on the will and dreams of the people before me who wished they could further their education but were not able to. I want to be the missing link for those people who were never given the chance to help the world in the way they dreamed.