Money. One of the biggest rollercoasters in life, something that helps bring you up, but through a few fumbles, can bring you crashing down. I was born to parents who had substance abuse problems, they expectedly had money problems. It wasn't a safe place for me. Eventually I was taken out of that situation, I had moved to my grandmas house. A tiny one floor home with three family's living there. My grandma broke her back and could no longer take care of me. I was adopted into a more than not, wealthy family. I have had a unique experience with finance. From being in an unsafe environment because of a lack of money skills, to transitioning to a wealthy home I have a rich range of financial experience. I have been lucky enough to go to school in a state where financial education is required, Utah. During the first half of my junior year I took a class called "Financial Literacy". It taught you infinitely valuable skills about finance management, scholarships, and making your first time financial decisions. One thing that they made sure to drill into us was "don't go into debt, for anything, ever" (later in the course they labeled houses as an exception). They taught us everything we needed to know about opening your first bank account, debit cards, and credit cards. They wisely taught us the history of credit and subsequently discouraged the use of them strongly. So you can imagine the stress I have when my mother has no choice but to use them while my parents are going through a prolonged divorce. Just compounding debt, disguised as survival. So here I am. At the crossroads of my future, praying I have the ability to aggregate all of my knowledge to prevent the financial disaster I have seen so many times. After everything I've learned I've come up with a few ways to implement the financial knowledge I have compounded through academia and personal experience. First up, apply for scholarships. This is the single best thing you can do to avoid compounding debt and secure your future, and look at what I'm doing right now! Second, avoid credit cards at all costs. Credit cards teach you that you don't have to deal with your bad financial decisions until much later, and they use this to, as I'd put it, exploit their users. Lastly, make sure your on the good side of interest. Einstein once said "The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest", while likely satirical, it holds lots of truth and adds valuable weight to debt which is deemed normal. I learned strategies for investing, and the amazing outcomes that it can have. I surely have been on the rollercoaster of finance, being born into poverty, moving to a wealthy home, and experiencing the financial impacts that divorce can have. And I am making a choice right now, a choice to be wise with money, to avoid the traps that I have learned of and experienced my self, and to ultimately grow. (Writing this essay, particularly at the beginning, has been a bit emotional. Please excuse the choppiness of some of the sentences)