Many fail to take a step back and truly appreciate the beauty of our bodies, more specifically our organ systems. They are the foundation that allows us to breathe and live comfortably yet they are the most overlooked. As a person who’s attempting to understand and cherish my body for how it looks and what it is, I find technology to really help me with this, and I believe it can help many others cherish their body as well. The microscope inspires me to look beyond what I can see and contribute more to the world, for this technology can help save lives. The microscope allows us to view the structure that requires the most precision and dedication that comes with powering our body and it’s so tiny that one can’t even see it. The cell. This tiny thing is so small in size yet has a responsibility greater than me and it is this aspect that inspires me to look beyond what I know and what I think through the microscope. Not just about how this cell works but how it connects to my body and how millions of them work together. It has the power to operate and organize every single living thing with the mitochondria and the nucleus and I feel the need to expand my knowledge on it. The fact that this knowledge can benefit me and someone’s else’s health inspires me even more, it’s the main reason why I plan to pursue a career in STEM as a doctor. I want to be able to help my community understand their body more and teach them how to take care of it, the microscope is a vital tool I'll be using to achieve this. The department of STEM that I'll be going into have achieved great things with years of research that wouldn’t have been possible without the technology to study it. Whether it be microscopes or Seismometers, these technologies have been able to recognize cancers/viruses and the vibrations of earthquakes which have and will continue to save lives. To put it quite simply, science and the history of science would not have been possible without the help of technology. It’s given us humans the ability to study our hypothesis and a reason to keep on studying and theorizing.

I am the first woman in my family to be pursuing a career in STEM and my journey up to this point has been a battle. I've been told to just stay with what I'm familiar with and not do anything that might be too overwhelming for me as a woman and though its discouraged me before, it's now the driving force for my perseverance. Going into college, pursuing my Doctorates and spreading diversity while doing so is incredibly important to me because I can encourage others to do the unthinkable. STEM has been a predominantly white male department for many years now and it's simply ridiculous. Although minorities and women have the same if not greater amount of knowledge these men have, they simply aren't encouraged and asked enough about pursuing a much greater career. This is ultimately why diversity is so important to me, because it can stop the normalization of such racism and inequalities within the school system and give every single baby, child, citizen in America the chance to succeed and the chance to be represented. Representation is also one of the main reasons why I'm attempting to become a doctor, to be looked up by young Latina girls and encourage them to work towards what they love. Every single person has the ability to achieve greatness, and when the workplace becomes more diverse, I'll know that the system believes in them too. I am my own driving force, but I hope to be others as well. The force encouraging small kids to achieve and therefore the force encouraging diversity in the workplace in America.

I believe that representation is everything. The world is made up of different people with different cultures, sexual orientations, identities, pronouns, etc. and it’s time that our society not just accepts it, but welcomes it. I want television and education to depict a diverse range of people and change the common white straight protagonist/model into someone much more inclusive. When it comes to why making sure the media and television being inclusive is important, it's about having exposure to different cultures and also about feeling seen. Being able to see a character or model one can relate to. Being able to say “look they look like me” at least once as a child, every single person in the world should have that right. This change in the world can help bring love and acceptance within oneself as well as others. One begins to normalize things after seeing them so often, maybe if we start to see natural bodies and cultures, we’ll learn to welcome it as a society. Understanding other cultures, bodies, sexual orientations, pronouns/identities, etc. can help bring communities together and connect us as well. As we begin to see these unknown ideas and traditions more frequently maybe then we are able to explore and educate ourselves of more than what we are limited to. The world is full of so many different people and it's always been this way. It's always been so diverse and rich in cultures and we can celebrate all of them with something as simple as a character/person.