I sat on that bedroom floor, crying and shaking with visceral emotion, convinced I will never be enough because of who I am. Gay. Something different. Something “other.” The people who should have protected me told me I was “doing it for attention” and “acting out in a phase that would pass.” Those moments taught me a false lesson; people in power will not see me for who I am. They will judge me by what they fear and do not understand. I know what it feels like to be seen as a threat when I am trying to exist and what it feels like to have no one believe you. And I know that trust can feel impossible to rebuild once broken. But trust is a system and systems can be rebuilt. Not by pretending the past did not happen, but by confronting it. The relationship between the law and African American communities has been defined by segregation, redlining, blockbusting, and over-policing designed to control rather than protect. Trust cannot be rebuilt without acknowledging how it was broken. Despite being 13% of the US population, 37% of those incarcerated are African American. Those numbers are the results of decades of policy designed around oppression. Rebuilding trust means starting with transparency: stops, searches, use of force, and disciplinary records. Communities cannot trust what they cannot see. Accountability is the next step. Many high-profile cases—George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and far too many others—have shown what happens when accountability is absent. The lack of consequences for excessive force sends a clear message: some lives matter less. To rebuild trust, body cameras must be mandatory and footage must be promptly released. Officers who use excessive force must face swift and transparent discipline. Prosecutors must be willing to hold law enforcement under the same laws as everyone else. But accountability without a relationship is not enough. Law enforcement cannot be something done to communities but with them. Civilian oversight boards with real power. Regular town halls where officers listen more than they speak. Recruitment that reflects the communities being served. When people know the officers that protect them, trust begins to grow. I know trust can be rebuilt, because I have seen it happen in my own community. I have learned that trust is about listening, showing up consistently, and acting with integrity. As president of Beta Club with 185+ members, I put service before ego and listening before acting. Those same principles of building trust apply anywhere, here too. Law enforcement agencies can build trust by listening, showing up consistently, and acting with integrity. These same principles of listening, consistency, and integrity can rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

I will enter aerospace engineering, with plans to pursue a PhD. I chose it because I am obsessed with why things fly. When a fin sheared off my team's model rocket during a flight test, I scavenged for the pieces and found that the adhesive on a fin failed. I learned that small decisions ripple into catastrophic failures if made wrong. I want to understand the physics that drives aircraft so I can build a safer world. When I was younger, I watched the Perseverance rover land and understood that would be my work someday. Those rovers are tools for discovery, searching for signs of life on other worlds. I want to build tools like that. I want to design more efficient aircraft wings to reduce carbon pollution. I want to be part of the missions that carry the next rover to Mars. I have been building things from scratch my whole life. When my high school's Beta Club lost its sponsor junior year, I refused to let it die. I reached out to teachers, found a replacement, facilitated finding a new sponsor, and rebuilt. We started new traditions—Paws of Appreciation, where every staff member gets letters posted publicly. That is entrepreneurship. Seeing something broken and deciding you will fix it. When my mechatronics team built a hovercraft and half the group could not show up, I led anyway. I scavenged screws from home, figured out the PVC assembly, and patched leaks with duct tape. The craft was slower than we wanted, but it worked. Making something from limited materials with limited people is entrepreneurship. Plus, I understand failure differently. I tried to fail my AP Chemistry class sophomore year—and failed at that too. I was drowning at home, CPS was involved, and I thought giving up was the only control I had left. But you cannot fail your way to freedom. That realization reshaped how I approach everything. Now I see failure as data, a point to iterate and build something new from. The rocket fin taught me that and the hovercraft taught me that. I am successful because I outlast. I asked for help—something I learned is strength, not weakness. And, I build communities, not just organizations. My friend group became my family when my biological family failed. I learned that the strongest engineered systems have redundancies—multiple points of support. I bring that to everything I lead. The 185+ member Beta Club I now lead shows up for each other. Building something that lasts is failing and getting back into the ring for another fight. Successful looks like building something that works, failing at it, and building it better. It looks like the moment a friend calls because they need someone, and I am there—because I built that trust, that redundancy, that support. Success is independence. It is never having to ask permission to become who I am but looking at the distance between the sophomore who wanted to fail and the person I am now and knowing I closed that gap myself. It is designing something that leaves the planet and knowing that the people I love are okay because we built a community that holds each other up. Maya Angelou wrote: "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." Still standing and still building. That is what success is.