I am the two percent—the one black woman for every 50 people holding paying STEM positions. Although daunting, the same brilliant two percent made history in a predominantly white male field. I never once found it discouraging whether I am the only one of 50 people who “look” like me or when I am the only one in my family who likes to code and talk about computers instead of medicine. Learning new things has gotten easier since I believe nothing is out of my reach because of my passion for coding. I embrace change even when faced with obstacles that seem out of my control. When I took a career and research class in my first year in middle school, we got to research and write about different career fields. Searching for careers was limited to my family's jobs, which were all in the medical field, so venturing into a field like technology never crossed my mind. My first online class, Digital Information and Technology, opened the door to the hidden features of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which opened my mind to other classes where I learned more about computers. Finding similar classes at my school was hard since my schedule consisted of core classes and two electives that never had technology as a focus, so I took my curiosity for tech to the Internet. Through Florida Virtual School, I started taking all of their coding classes, and by my first year in high school, I had learned my first programming language, Python. It was then that I established my first goal of creating a website. During the summer of 2021, everything changed. I was part of a program called “Girls Who Code,” which broke me out of my shell and became one of my most significant accomplishments. During this two-week program, I realized that I was “falling in love with the process,” by the end of summer, I only confirmed that the “process” was programming. I left with the foundation of a personalized website that showcased my finished and current projects I made using Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and a community of girls who were exactly like me. I felt so accomplished! I also got a headstart on applications like GitHub and LinkedIn, where I show off projects built from my experience. This artificial, yet extraordinary, love was a revelation and my motivator in high school. I began to focus on developing a mobile app and learning new languages like Java, C++, SQL, and JavaScript. With high school coming to an end, one of the biggest things that being the “two percent” has taught me was that I was born to be a leader. I am the captain of a step team—a team that guides me and allows me to teach the crucial values needed as a young lady. This has altered my long-term objective, which is to assist young women in emerging from their shells and receiving more opportunities to pursue education in fields related to science and technology. Like my step team, I want to form a sisterhood of women, but instead of using it for that purpose, I am devoted to increasing the two percent of black women who work in STEM fields. I intend to keep working toward this objective until I exceed the statistics.

My freshman year of high school was the most nerve-racking time of my life because I was entering a new stage in life. Although I was both scared and shy, I had my eye on my high school’s Step Team. From the second I joined clinics my freshman year until today, when I am now the captain of the Step Team, I always felt like I had found my home. It was because of the sisterhood that we pride ourselves on and the values taught during the time spent there. We learned steps and choreography to perform at basketball games, prep rallies, and other huge school events. When we are not performing, we become each other’s mentors and share experiences on every topic. In my freshman year, I learned that a team moves and acts as a unit; when one person is down, we all are down. When I was a sophomore, I experienced a dramatic shift in leadership in which my team and I learned how to be independent yet respected as young adults. Junior year was the time I was officially promoted to lieutenant, leader-in-training. I took the time to learn and teach my new steppers what being a part of the team meant. My senior year became the most challenging when I was named team captain. As a rising leader, I must guide people from various age groups. The hardest group to lead is people the same age as me because I am not used to leading people whom I would consider to be a friend. Teenagers like me love to express their opinions, so I have a harder time taking control and keeping control. This is where I would use a facilitating leader approach. I make sure I lead without taking control. This way, not only do my group collectively feel like their opinion was heard, but I also lead more creativity by combining ideas while teaching others that more minds are greater than one. My experience as the captain of the Step Team now shows that I care about creating a strong bond within the team while looking like one. The values I teach to my team are ones that I now see are similar to those in the real world, such as teamwork, responsibility, integrity, and creativity. Although it took me many years to gain a strong foundation of those values, I plan to take the time to progress the level of every value in every young woman I meet. I will continue to strive to be a stronger leader, to teach these values to young ladies who have yet to break out of their bubbles and to help get them to speak their truth as independent women. I plan on joining and creating safe communities that uplift and mentor up-and-coming leaders who will lead the world to a greater society with the support this scholarship.

Sometimes being optimistic means changing your perspective in your goals. My family was suffering financially during Covid last year, my father lost his job and my mother had to cut her hours to take care of our family and support us financially at the same time. Some days it was hard because we had to cut back on a lot of things we usually had and that took a toll on everyone since we are a family of nine. But the moment we make things work and we spend time focusing on the things we are grateful for, it changes how we view life for the better. Staying optimistic has made me look at the bigger picture on life, sometimes you just have to take a step back and know that it’s only a challenge you’re going to overcome so staying optimistic was the fastest way I was able to get through it. Helping my mother was cleaning and taking care of my Family was my goal. The feeling of them being taken care of keeps my mind at ease while creating more time for us to spend together which is always the best. Building that positive “muscle” will help me learn and be stronger for the next tough obstacle I will encounter.