My story begins on the day I saw The Lion King for the first time. Even now, the vibrant colors, the astonishing craft of music, and the powerful themes of identity empower me with a deep love for the medium of animation. Through high school, I studied animation books to understand the process and studied famous movies and shows to understand how to make quality animation on my own. Most of my most memorable experiences in college have been working on short films, joining screenwriting clubs, and continuing to teach myself animation. After graduating from college, I hope to create an animation studio in Houston. While this seems to be a typical story of an animator, my identity as a black man shifts the goal I have for the medium. Even though my story in animation began when I saw The Lion King, my mission began when I first saw a racist image of African Americans when I was watching an old animation. When I first saw those hateful stereotypes of black people, my heart felt tearing away from me as I saw for the first time how a medium, I loved wholeheartedly was used to make me hate my own identity. Unfortunately, animation has a long and hateful history of racism and prejudice that underlined many of its most famous works. Yet I want my career in animation to break away from that stain in the medium’s history. Even though I cannot and should not erase the inherent prejudice that has existed in animation, I know I have the power to shift away from it in the future. My mission to create animation that empowers people of color through the medium and give underrepresented groups a platform to express themselves. I am striving to create a minority owned animation studio that creates films and shows that respect other cultures and races not often shown in mainstream media. I also hope the studio can be used to inspire creatives from diverse backgrounds to pursue animation, and work toward ending the history of racial prejudice in the medium. Animation is the maker of dreams, yet it also should empower us to live a better reality. I hope to make films that inspire us to be kinder, more curious, and form relationships built on mutual trust. I hope to inspire people to use what they learn through animation to become better people in their own lives and spread messages further.

When did silence become so draining? Those were my thoughts that permeated my mind during my adolescent experiences with mental health. When I was twelve, I moved from my hometown to a new city, leaving behind my beloved friends, family, and memories. It cut me deeper than I anticipated, leaving me with emotional scars of loneliness and alienation. This should have been a time where communication and relationships were placed in the center of my life. However, I chose to tackle this battle with silence and ignorance. Even though I was directly taught, I subconsciously formed the image that a man had to grow through challenges with a resilient silence. I needed to be strong. This would go away. I can do this myself. The years I spent hiding my pain and hurt away were the most soul-crushing and empty years of my life. I hid myself behind smiles to hide a deep, gnawing sadness that had developed from being away from my loved ones. I denied the fact that I was dealing with social anxiety and depression when I was spiraling further into a quagmire of mental turmoil and horrible coping mechanisms. I began to distrust my family, believing they would shame me from dealing with something so minor. The turning point came when I attended a church camp when I was thirteen. Despite growing up in a Chrisitan household, turning to Jesus was the last thing I ever had in mind. I thought of Him in human terms, believing He could not heal me or would shun me like the rest. Yet on the final night, I saw God move in my heart like never before, showing His divine love and care for a sinner like me who could not find love in himself. When the church camp was finished, I was overcome with a sense of joy and wholeness that I have never felt. I realized how I was living a life at odds with the identity God had sent out me, and I realized the extent of my mental health battle was having on my life. I began to make changes in my life for both my spiritual and mental health. I started reading my Bible with more attention, listened to my parents’ sermons and looked for ways to implement in my life. One of the most profound changes was my addiction to pornography as a coping mechanism, taking steps not to rely on it and recognizing it for the evil that it was. However, the most frightening change came from talking to my parents about my mental health. I remember trying to step around it and lay it down gently on my mother, but as the conversation continued, I broke down. I saw my parents’ love for me more clearly during that time, listening to my distress and offering me unconditional support. My experiences talking with my parents showed me the importance of a strong support network and the value of healthy relationships. It also showed how mental health needs to be addressed and should never be viewed as a minor problem. My life has been shaped by my experiences with my health. After college, I hope to use art as a venue for people to express their mental health in a meaningful and positive coping mechanism. I hope to create community environments for people, especially young people, where they acknowledge their mental health. I prioritize being a listener and having an empathetic personality in my relationships. Instead of judging people or thinking the worst, I understand how someone who values what you have to say is important for people to have. Furthermore, I understand how the consequences of ignoring or undervaluing mental health can affect communities. As a black man, I have to recognize how relying on toxic masculinity and hostility to seeking help only further hurts people, not just in our own community. I hope to become an example to people of how normalizing vulnerability and openness helps people. Even though I still experience issues with my mental health, I am nonetheless grateful for the opportunity to grow and learn more about myself. Mental health affects everyone and its effects are on everyone. I hope to use my experiences to make people take their mental health more seriously, and to share their own stories to create a positive community.

Throughout my life, I have aimed to leave behind a legacy of empathy and care through using my skills to connect with people. The countless hours I have spent volunteering with community centers and organizing service projects have deepened my understanding of social issues while also growing my love for people into an active element of my life. My experiences in community service have given me the valuable skills to pursue a career of servitude while also showing me how simple actions can help people in a large way. One of my most prominent service roles has been with the Student Activities Board, an organization aimed at raising student morale through recreational activities and community service work. Growing up post-Covid 19, the effects of mental health became more significant amongst my generation, specifically with the rise of depression, social anxiety, and suicide. By planning recreational events that students could use to relieve stress and form connections, I have fought against suppressing mental health and have deepened bonds in the student population. Furthermore, I have contributed to food banks, community gardens, and hospices, combatting various societal illnesses such as food insecurity, homelessness, and community neglect. These projects have helped me understand the crux of these issues through shadowing leading organizations and understanding how to create effective solutions that will address them in the future. My experience in serving my community has developed in me the drive to help people, the knowledge into the issues themselves, and the skillset to combat them. My academic interests have also aided my goals to serve people by providing me with the knowledge and skills that will contribute to a career in service. Through classes such as Communicating in a Global Society and History and Foundations of Media and Communication, I have understood the long history of stereotyping and whitewashing in pop culture that will make my journey difficult. Furthermore, my experiences in clubs such as the Tech Creative Media Association have deepened my artistic abilities and have connected me with talented people. As an animation student, I hope to use the medium to build empathy between people, inspire more bold expressions, and broaden career choices for minorities. Both my academic and service activities have strengthened my commitment to my mission while also nurturing skills in creative production and collaboration which will aid me in the future. My experiences have provided me numerous opportunities to grow in my love for service, aiming to use the medium of animation to provide a broader impact on people. In the long-term, my mission is to create a minority-owned animation studio that gives underrepresented creators the opportunity to tell their stories through animation. I also hope to continue to serve people by creating artistic campaigns and projects that educate people on issues affecting their community and how they can aid it. I hope that my skills and experiences can be used to deepen the strength of my community, create stronger community bonds, and empower underrepresented groups. I want to leave behind a legacy of care and empathy, which can inspire people to leave behind a similar and stronger legacy in their own futures.

Making the choice to work on a project alone is simultaneously stressful and stimulating. It means that every failure is yours to carry, and every mistake forces you to understand your deficiencies. Yet it also means testing your work ethic, diving into what makes you succeed, and pushing you to overcome your weaknesses. The first time I made a video game by myself, these were ideas floating around my head along the way. One of the classes I took as a college sophomore was a course titled “Intro to Game Development.” It intrigued me because even though I viewed myself as a casual gamer, the opportunity to create something new and gain a new skill delighted me. Throughout the class, a passing interest transformed into a profound adoration for the medium as I became enamored with the history, effort, and techniques that went into making video games. The decision to create a game by myself seems paradoxically due to the collaborative nature of game design and the large scale of the projects making the idea less feasible. However, I chose to test my skills in game design, wanting to uncover what I learned and how it would come to light in a video game. Even though I was nervous, I boldly chose to create a game on my own. Over the course of twelve weeks, I dedicated an hour a day to completing my game, working to deliver a game that showed my understanding of game theory in practice. From the coding stages to the artistic style, I poured my knowledge and my own personality into each stage of the process. It proved to be one of the most draining and time-consuming projects I have ever taken yet also one of the most rewarding. When working on a game by yourself, you immediately recognize why working on games by yourself is not a good idea. When you work on every stage of production instead of delegating tasks, it’s like constructing a building with only a half-complete blueprint. It was often difficult to understand where the project was headed because I was working with unfinished sprites and incomplete code which prevented me from making progress. Furthermore, the project soon revealed my own difficulties with coding. The process of learning the program, GB Studio, was a draining learning experience due to my inexperience in both the program and coding. I often spent hours even days, debugging and improving my coding to get one scene to work properly. I was often frustrated and angered with myself, believing I was failing a simple task anybody could do. However, it was exhilarating to learn a new set of skills and create something new. I was excited about learning how to create a video game, and I was enthralled with the prospect of gaining a deeper perspective into the intricacies of the medium. In fact, the more times I ran into failures and confession, the joy at overcoming them by understanding the problem and improving was more genuine and earned. When I finally completed the project, I was filled with this sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Throughout the difficult and time-consuming production, I often wanted to give up and submit subpar work. However, I pushed myself to complete the game, which turned into a well-received by both my peers and teacher. I was happy to see what I could accomplish with technology, and that feeling of satisfaction really made me happy.

Before I even started school, my admiration for education was built by my parents. They used their education to uplift themselves from impoverished upbringings to earning high-paying jobs in their adulthoods. Yet they did not stop there. My parents’ upbringing never left them, fueling their compassion for people who were facing similar issues. They have worked diligently as teachers and advisors, educating people on how they can uplift themselves and build a better life for their families. I am inspired by their example of using education to transform people’s lives, and I hope to follow that path. I have always achieved academic excellence in school, earning As and awards from childhood through building a strong work ethic. However, education gave me the opportunity to make a true impact on people by showing me how to use my skills to improve my lives. As an aspiring artist, my education has given me an avenue to pursue more effective servitude. Through pursuing a degree in multimedia arts, I have learned the history, significant work, and future trends of the industry, giving me the knowledge needed to make an impact. My project work has strengthened my skills in art such as completing a working video game that is tested by coding and artistic ability. Yet the richest experiences have been using my education to help people and grow in my love for others. The collaborative nature of the arts has given me opportunities to connect with people on a deeper level through understanding their thought process and working together to create something great. Furthermore, I have also held leadership roles in food drives and service initiatives that have aided my community through our commitment. After graduating, I hope to create a minority-run game studio that prioritizes culturally authentic representation and storytelling. My aim is to give people of color the chance to use games to tell their stories while also building audiences’ empathy for perspectives outside their own. Through my education, I have achieved sufficient skills to achieve this goal. However, while I am confident of the success of my goal, I fear that my future will be hindered by the shadow of debt. I have acquired more loans to pay off my cost of attendance than scholarships, totaling $47,808. Despite my parents making an effort to alleviate the debts, I fear that I will have to spend my future paying them off instead of serving people. This scholarship will not only keep me in education but also remove hinderances to pursue a life of servitude. I do not want to use this money for myself, but to further my service to people in my community. I pursue education focused on how I can help people, the true way it should be used. Link for Website: https://noahacastille2024-lgtm.github.io/Animation-Magazine/ Link for Game: https://noahcastille.itch.io/final-guin

My story begins before I was even born. Both of my parents were born in a lower-income environment, which was a result of the shackles of generational poverty my family has been forced to endure. Even though many factors, both external and internal, that buried us under that curse, education became the tool we used to dig ourselves out of that pit and into the light of financial security. Growing up, I was shielded from the most personal reasons behind my parents’ pursuit of education. Both my parents worked hard to achieve their degrees, and to earn high-paying careers so they could give me in a comfortable home and environment to grow up in. I was free to shine in academic excellence without knowledge of the dark shadow of race and finances that had defined my parents' journey. As I grew older, I became aware of the racial constraints that my family overcame to give me a good education. I grew up during the increase of cases of police brutality against young black people and the increased infringement of rights of minorities in America. My parents started to show me what to do when a police offer stopped me, paying attention to how certain people viewed me, and began to emphasize how my blackness would affect how I lived. Furthermore, they revealed to me our family’s roots in generational poverty that they have only recently started to break against. However, the scars of poverty and financial insecurity still take root in my parents’ mind, keeping them anxious at how it could all be taken away. I still remember the fear in my father’s voice, a man who has had success in his career and has a loving family for him that cherishes him, when he admitted that he still feared he could become broke again. One of the worst things I have ever been called is “ungrateful” because it means I do not value the life or experiences I have been given. It strikes the part of me that wants to complain and whine about the barriers and limits. However, it uproots that part of me that wants to charge toward them without fear. My experiences as a racial minority have not only shaped my appreciation for education’s transformative power but has also influenced my career goals. After graduating from college, I aim to create art that showcases diverse human experiences and gives a platform for underrepresented voices. My long-term goal has been to launch a black-owned animation studio, using the medium to provide opportunities for black animators to create more racially resonant and accurate depictions of black life. Attending college has been an important steppingstone for me due to continuing to break away from generational poverty and pursue a financially secure future. However, the prices of college forced me to use student loans, totaling $47,808 for a $29, 903 four-year degree. The pressure to pay off those debts will constrain my ability to pursue financial independence and create my own financial hurdles. However, my journey into financial security and unshackling my family from cycles of poverty has taught me the skill of resilience. I continue to pursue education using scholarships and grants to aid me, reducing the pressure of debt for my future. I do not want the sacrifices and struggles my family faced to be repaid with the weeds of failure or regret. Instead, I hope to repay it with the fruit of success and peace.

Art and science have always fascinated me since I was a child, being amazed at how humans can use the God-given gifts of creativity and intelligence in so many unique ways. While I have become very interested in the intersection of these two mediums, video games fulfill that itch but also have the greater opportunity to do something more. As a form of storytelling, video games give people the opportunity to step into lives they could never inhabit and build their empathy for people through the interactive nature of video games. As an African American and a lifelong lover of the arts, I am both in awe of art’s ability to transport us to unknown worlds while also being painfully aware of how it reflects our own. From film to television to video games, art’s history of enforcing stereotyping and racism has defined these mediums and have been barriers for more respectful representation for people to see. However, the power of art to showcase lives and experiences to people remains a powerful tool that should be used to build relationships between people through the medium. My short-term goals are both building the technical skillset for game design but also building my love for people. My degree program has instilled in me the versatile skills needed to pursue excellence in video game design through building my writing, animation, design, and business acumen through classwork and projects. I have also strengthened my love for people through community service, serving 100 hours in community gardens, homeless shelters, and orphanages to give people the love they deserve. My long-term goal in video games is to create an independent, minority-owned studio that will prioritize accurate representation of underrepresented groups through their work. By hiring video game developers from diverse yet underrepresented groups such as Hispanics and African Americans, these stories will not only be genuine but also offer a greater social benefit. It gives people of color gaming as a potential career choice that can be achieved in their own futures. Even though my goal will not come easily, I am driven to use the medium as a tool for building respect and love between people. People should see themselves in the stories they see and their futures should not be limited on a future already picked for them. Above all, this drives me to pursue this goal. By winning this scholarship, I am combatting both the short-term constraints from financial need while also devoting myself to my long term. Even though I am from a middle-class family, I still have to rely on expensive loans to cover my expenses, which not builds upon my financial stress but also hinders my future outside school. The scholarship will therefore reduce those burdens by giving me the money needed to cut down on my costs. Most importantly, it gives me greater energy to pursue personal projects, community service, and internships that will help me build better skills and give me the experience needed to pursue my goal. People should never be hindered by their own unique race or culture but should learn to love and respect it. I hope to use my career to build respect for the diversity of humanity while also letting people from underrepresented groups see themselves in positions of power. Video games can act as a gateway to love humans and strengthen our empathy. I want to use it to show people the beauty of other people through this unique world. Even more important is that the spark I light can guide people to do the same throughout the years.

“You can’t do this because you’re black.” “Not many black people pursue this industry because they are not a lot of black people who have this job.” “I don’t think this will fit you because of your race.” These are the quotes that have ringed in my mind over and over again as an aspiring game creator, who happens to be black. While they were not told with a rude spirit or with a hard hand, their condescension and pity have hurt me and many other black creatives over the years than active hostility and systemic racism could dream of. Nothing hurts more than a loved one putting an obstacle in front of the path to your dream. It hurts, and for many people, it stops their ascent before they even begin. It makes them question their ability, their drive, and even their chance for success. But that must be some other person’s problem. For me, this quote has rung in my ears for far longer and is much more resonant in my ears than those other quotes. “The whole reason I played games was because people said, 'You can't do it.' I'm one of the guys, if you tell me I can't do something, I'll turn around and do it." Those are words from Jerry Lawson, the creator of the first video game console with interchangeable cartridges who taught himself electronic engineering. Even though he died when I was a child, his life and story showed me an important lesson: whenever you do not see your face in a goal you want, it means you have to be the face you see in that goal. Video games have been a part of my life since I was eight, losing endless hours exploring these amazing worlds and characters. The amazing part was how unlike film or television, it was created through the assemblage of pixels and through simple instructions known as code from a group of people who had the ability to do it. I never saw my race as a limit to pursuing video games, but I always had that simple fact that a person who knew his way around the computer could make a game. I began to teach myself coding and programming, making my own websites and games in my spare time. I joined classes in high school, learning how to debug websites and design games using large pieces of code. In college, I applied to coding and programming classes, gaining more experience and knowledge while making larger and more creative games and websites. However, the driving goals throughout all my experiences have been to teach other people that gaming should never be about what you look like or where you come from. It is all about what you can do. As a black man pursuing gaming, I hope to show black creatives that games need our abilities and skills to create games, and the only roadblock to that goal is our own doubts and insecurities. The way our body looks does not define us, but how we live in the body given to us does.

As a lifelong admirer of the arts, I have been immersed in various mediums such as animation, film, television, music, and especially video games. However, as an African American, I have had my love affair interrupted by the reality of race in the worldof art. Nevertheless, I pursue a future where creatives and gamers of all races can unite under a medium that should be one thing and one thing for all: fun for everyone. Gaming is a medium that combines the imaginative quality of human beings with the application of scientific principles to create something truly unique. The best games stand as works of art as themselves, delivering resonant stories and characters that leave the game world and can have a tangible impact on people’s lives. Unfortunately, gaming is rooted in white-centric worldviews, lack of inclusivity toward gamers, and even active discrimination. As a black game creator, my goal is to create games that cater to audiences who have more diverse racial and culture identities. Driven by inclusivity, empathetic, and compassion, I aim to create games that will unite players together by expanding their worldviews and appreciating the diversity of human experience. Making change does not happen- it is created. By pursuing a degree in Creative Media Industries, I am learning valuable technical skills in coding, game design, and character design, which will help me create entertaining games. Most importantly, the degree has strengthened my respect for people by showing me the history of great art made across the globe, broadening my influences and proving how diversity enriches the worlds of both art and science. These skills and influence are the breeding ground for creating an impact on gaming that destroys exclusivity and creates inclusivity. My empathy and compassion towards people has been cultivated by devoting myself to community service, aiming to help people by offering a hand. With over 100 community service hours to my credit, I have been created food drives, hosted third spaces for students, and distirbuting resources for lower-income schools. People are not products, but living beings, and as such deserve respect for that fact. My goal as a game creator involves pursuing inclusivity and empathy as important concepts in making games, creating characters from cultures that are not often represented. By creating a studio owned by minority creators, I aim to create characters, stories, and experiences that diversify the limited racial characteristics found in most games. I pursue gaming as tool to make people appreciate their own identity and be empowered through this wonderful medium. Winning the BYTE scholarship does not relieve my financial burdens but empowers me to pursue my goal more fruitfully. By reducing my stress toward finances, I can focus on pursuing service projects, gain internships under minority-owned studios, and gain more experience creating games. I do not want to pursue an education that benefits myself but use what I have learned to build a better future for people. I want to create games that are for fun everyone by letting people see themselves in the games they play and appreciate their own unique identity through games.

My life has been shaped by the trials of adolescence, but not by what I struggled with, but what I overcame. The defining experiences that marked that period was my battle with mental health, specifically depression and social anxiety. What always struck me about my battle was how suddenly I was forced into it, being forced into the darkest period of my life with no warning and no way to defend myself. I went from an idyllic childhood to a confusing and difficult adolescence that made every challenge more alien to me. When I reminisce over my past battle, I am astonished how I faced the battle alone without forming a support system around me. I was blessed to have parents who loved me and would have wanted to alleviate my silent battle with my mental health. I also had a trusted relationship with my church, becoming one of the few safe havens during that time. There were many relationships I could have forged, which could have provided me with the necessary support to alleviate my battle. Yet I never once relied on them. One of the most brilliant things about battling mental health is how it forces you to be reliant on yourself. My depression sapped away my desire to pursue relationships with people, and my social anxiety made it an exhausting burden to even interact with people. Instead of choosing to reach out and build relationships with people, I chose to isolate myself and swallow my mental health, which only led to worsening and growing more powerfully. As my battle with my mental health grew longer, I began to endure things I have never had to endure then or now. I began to lose interest in my own passions such as drawing and writing, letting my low self-worth stop me from pursuing them. My love for learning gave way to apathy as my envy for my classmates caused me to stop trying, resulting in my As dropping to Cs. Days flew by, my adolescence being gone in the blink of the eye because I became so disinterred in my life and had no desire to live it. However, my story does not end in suffering or hopelessness, but in a joy that could only occur had I endured these to an excruciating extent. The first step came in forming a relationship, the most important one I have ever held in my life. I made the decision to commit to following God when I was thirteen at a youth conference, which renewed my energy to live my life. I began to become more involved in my church, recording sermons and joining community events which made me more comfortable around people. Furthermore, I disclosed my mental health to my parents, who responded with such compassion and empathy that I was ashamed that I mistrusted them for so long. I have become more interested in dealing with mental health as it relates to people in my generation, especially due to how the pandemic has been exacerbated. In Texas, millions of young people are battling with a type of mental health condition, including depression and social anxiety. This has inspired us to become a member of the Texas Tech Student Activities Board, which helps reduce stress and burnout in students through creating recreational events such as movie nights and game nights. While it is true that medicine and therapy are effective combatants against a worsening mental health, having relationships with people is important in not letting the problem become silent. As it has helped me, I hope it can help others.

Throughout my life, I have always carried a vision that my life would involve helping people. My parents nurtured a caring and compassionate spirit in me through their own personal examples as teachers and advisors. While I always knew that I wanted to help others, I believed that I would have to wait until I was older to make a difference. The pandemic showed me the capacity to serve overseeds age. When the world shut down, people in my generation suddenly were forced to lose valuable personal connections, lack of third space outside of homes, and had to be forced to isolate themselves from the outside world. Consequently, mental health worsened among us, increasing rates of depression, social anxiety, and attempts at suicide. Even though every state reported increases in mental health issues among the younger generation, I soon realized that Texas was facing major mental health challenges. Two million young adults have reported that they had a mental health issue of the five million young adults in the state. On an even more upsetting note, the suicide rates among high school students have increased to 12% with it becoming the second leading cause of death for this generation. As someone who has experienced mental health issues and had the opportunity to overcome them, I was disheartened to find that people were losing their battles and at such a high rate. Instead of letting this become a reoccurring event, I made the decision to dedicate my time to improving the mental health of people in my generation through service work, which has led me to grow more fruitfully as a servant. In my sophomore college year, I joined the Student Activities Board to combat anxiety and stress among students. I was intrigued from studying research into mental health about how cultivating interest in the arts, physical exercises, and other similar special interests could be potential solutions for improving mental health. The organization’s goal of providing safe third spaces for recreation and activity gave me numerous opportunities to help While I have positive experiences helping people and creating events, my social anxiety made it difficult for me to pursue broader leadership positions. Even though the organization relied on collaborative work, and each member was dedicated to serving joyfully, I ignored pursuing leadership roles out of embarrassment. Gradually, as I gained more opportunities to serve, I shed my nervousness, became responsible for delegating tasks, and offered advice for members to improve the activity. Leadership has become less of fear and more of an opportunity for helping people by finding out how you can help them in the most beneficial way. Through the Student Activities Board, I have contributed to over 30 service-based projects that have helped instill a positive third space for students through movie events, game nights, and recreational activities. One of the best things I have worked on is the community service aspect, such as providing a meal for the Children’s Home in Lubbock. These service events are important in instilling a sense of importance in the student by making them responsible for other people but also building a stronger trust in people through them. By turning my experiences with mental health into an opportunity to help people with similar issues, I have contributed to projects that have given opportunities for my generation to cultivate better mental well-being. Service has become a goal and mindset for my life, inspiring me to pursue careers that will benefit people holistically through showing consistent love and compassion.

Looking back at the person I was during my adolescence feels like looking at another person who shares my same face. Even now I am shocked that I ever had the capacity for hopelessness and emptiness that saturated my soul back then. However, I recognize how God made the rocky road so that my feet could be made stronger and overcome the challenges of my present. During my adolescence, I developed symptoms of moderate depression and social anxiety which I struggled with for over two years. My anxiety caused every person to become unapproachable aliens, and every word a perceived insult on me. Depression emptied my energy in my former passions for art and school, resulting in declining grades and a lack of motivation to pursue my hobbies. My mind was a battlefield, and I was the soldier trudging through it, alone, fearful, and not expecting any future. Those were the hardest, more intense years I have experienced, and I still feel their effects on my life. However, it was through the dark and hollow period that made the light of Christ shine brighter. When I was thirteen years old, I made the decision to commit my life to Christ after being convicted of the sin in my life and started to take my first steps in Christ. My faith renewed the energy that once had dried. I began to immerse myself in the Bible, started praying more regularly, and even took a job recording sermons to spread the Gospel online. My faith became the seed that sprouted into the new self that began to create new branches of my life. I began to reforge my relationships with my family, relying on them for emotional support and guidance instead of closing myself off. Instead of letting my social anxiety define my school life, I used my time to achieve academic excellence, resulting in a 4.0 GPA, receiving numerous honors awards, and being nominated for the POSSE Scholarship. I began high school with crushing anxiety and clinging on to hopelessness into remarkable strength and boldness through God alone. College has become a transformative moment in time for me, being the first period in my academic life not defined by my mental health struggles. I have become more comfortable around people and am more determined to pursue my interests in art as my future career choice. I have maintained a strong work ethic that enables me to complete tasks for clubs and practicums, complete films, and winning competitions. God has continued to bless through numerous areas of my life as I dedicate more time to reading my Bible, praying, and looking for ways to apply the Word in my life. However, the most substantial area of my life has been my deeper involvement in community service, inspired both by God’s command to love people and my own fear of them. My fear of people has led me to lose jobs, abstaining from. I have achieved over 75 hours of community service through cultivating community gardens, creating community meals, and working at hospices by letting my faith guides me instead of my fear. Furthermore, I have held leadership positions for organizations such as the Student Activities Board, becoming more confident in communicating with people and guiding people to complete tasks. To say I have an interesting life would be to overstate how complicated it has been. Yet I have the capacity to approach life with a sense of hope that the Lord is sovereign and that everything I suffer or overcome can be used for His glory. I found my Lord during the most tumultuous time of my life, yet I am now grateful for having my faith forged in those fiery years. Conflict breeds growth, and I am thankful for a brief wade through Hell to receive a glimpse of Heaven. He has made me anew, and I am thankful to be a servant of such a God.

One of the most fascinating aspects of being a Christian who is interested in science is exploring how God speaks through nature. Through understanding how the precise yet unpredictable structure of atoms to how organisms interact to create complex systems in the universe, awe of God fills me through His intricate yet beautiful Hand. However, nothing fills me with more reverence for both the natural world and my Creator than the field of astronomy. Looking up to the stars is not merely observing hot balls of dust floating in the sky and forgetting them as soon as we look down. It is an invitation to explore the creativity of God and exploring human’s place in the universe and gaining a new perspective on our value. Celestial bodies, stellar evolution, and cosmology each accentuate the grand beauty of the universe by making the universe into a system of rules and processes that create something beautiful. It also makes me have more reverence to God for God choosing to focus on humans despite all the wonder in the world. Reading textbooks and watching documentaries have become more enamored with God and more cognizant to the value of human life. One of my favorite aspects of astronomy is how it fills you with a feeling of the vastness of the universe but not in a way that scares you. Instead, it humbles you. One of my favorite photographs of astronomy is of the Pale Blue Dot, a photograph taken by Voyager 1. It is one of the best symbols of our fragility and isolation that not even the best art of Hopper of Van Gogh can describe. Only God, who organized each planet and knows each body in space, could have created it. He put it there to remind us that we are a small part of His creation, yet He still cares for us regardless. I hope to share that wisdom with more people, especially people of color. Outside of scientific curiosity and my faith, I hope to build a career that opens doors to minority scientists and teachers. While scientists who are religious make up half of the industry, the number of black scientists make up less than 10% of STEM fields. Furthermore, as a black man pursuing a career in animation, I am also aware that black animators also make up less than 10% of the industry, which also limits career opportunities and visibility of people of color in our media. Therefore, I hope to combine my love for astronomy and animation by creating edutainment animation shows that not only teach science to a wider audience but show people of color a potential career choice and diversify both fields. One of the most significant aspects of the twenty-first century has been the wider democratization of information, reducing the barrier for disparities for education. By pursuing a communications degree, I am learning foundational skills in teaching, research, and media production, which will help me pursue science communication. I have not only done coursework in astronomy classes and clubs but also majored in communications to learn about media production, business, and entrepreneurship to help me. Due to the influence of mass media and the wider reach of the Internet, I hope to create science communication media that inspires minority children to pursue science seriously. .

Silence speaks volumes by making words feel unneeded. As a child, silence was my best friend along with its companions, solitude and peace. Even though I had a childhood filled with many friends and a constant stream of positive support, nothing made me happier than when I could be alone with my thoughts and enjoy a quiet moment. My love for writing and drawing also spurred from my love for silence, adoring sitting alone and making my thoughts come alive on a page. As I grew older, I began to realize how silence can turn from a powerful tool for growth to a secret barrier for growth. After moving from my hometown of Beaumont to the city of Houston, I began to covet silence more selfishly due to fear of making my parents ashamed of the move or feel that I was ungrateful. Silence guarded me. When my grades dropped, I stayed silent. When I started distancing myself from my family and stopped connecting with people, I stayed silent. When I underwent a battle with depression and social anxiety, I stayed silent. With maturity coming to understanding, I began to understand the faulty choice of upholding silence as a law for my life. I started to open to my family about my mental health, and they responded with understanding and compassion and gave me help. They led me to regain my happiness, not with silence, but through earnest communication, which enabled me to grow. Community service became an integral aspect of my life, allowing me to use my voice to raise awareness of issues and create service projects across my community. I regained my love for art, relentlessly practicing writing and drawing alone, but growing more fruitfully by joining clubs and working on projects with people who gave me advice on creating better work. By understanding the power of dialogue through community work and expression through art, I aspire to use the field of animation to make voices they have historically been denied heard. In an ironic twist, filmmaking is simultaneously a medium that offers excessive noise and intense sounds, yet it has historically kept entire cultures unheard and often only heard as a whisper. I hope to create an animation studio that hires minority animators and gives them a platform to tell their culturally distinctive stories to a wide audience. By creating a studio that prioritizes cultural diversity and appreciation, I hope to inspire people to become more empathetic to other cultures and expand the voices heard in animation. Being silent is a gift in a world that is becoming noisier and fearing that emptiness of sound equates to inaction or hollowness. Whenever I am stressed or anxious, I go to a silent place to read, pray, or reflect. However, silence should not be an excuse for courage or strength but directs us to it after resting in it for a moment. Silence carries power by emphasizing things that cannot be said, but words carry power by emphasizing what can be done. I hope to inspire people to understand when to be silent, but also when to speak through my actions and my career.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Reading Ecclesiastes mindlessly is the equivalent to being pricked by a rose as an excuse not to gaze upon its beauty. When we read Ecclesiastes without purpose, we are drowned in painful narratives, ambiguous and unanswered questions, and a bleak view of life. However, for those who walk through the gruesome, desolate path the book takes you on, it shines a bright destination for those living in this fallen world as a follower of God. These verses are the last words to be read in Ecclesiastes, but they shine a light on the cloud of misunderstanding when reading it. When I was rereading the book of Ecclesiastes, I found a sermon by Voddie Bauchman on Chapter 1, verses 12-18, who said that by reading the book backwards, it provided context for how to receive its wisdom. By reading it backwards, I found that these verses illuminated all that I read, shining over the darkness of its wisdom. “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter.” Despite its straightforwardness, the strength of this phrase lies in the underlying meaning that comes from diving into the text. When the reader reaches these words, they have experienced innumerable scenarios, decrying pleasure, wisdom, and life itself as “hevel” or fleeting with no fulfillment found in them. This statement affirms that all the reader has read has come to this one moment of revelation and expects the reader to receive this final truth by declaring that everything written in the book has come to this. It creates finality for the book, and prepares the readers for the closing summation, which will shed light on the book’s message. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.” This is the source of light for the book, shining its light for the readers on the road they take as followers of God. God designed us to perform His will on the world, and despite sin breaking us apart from God, He still gives us the responsibility to serve Him. The concise wording provides the chain of events this verse should stir in us: the action (fear God) and the reason (this is the duty of mankind). The simplicity gives the words weight, being bold in the declaration and not leaving any room for conjecture or option. This is our duty, and we must bear it with contriteness. “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” Life is chaotic, unpredictable, and unfair. Along with the other wisdom book of Job, Ecclesiastes bathes readers in various scenarios and truths that paint the canvas of the world as something unknown to man. Yet God knows and our peace lies in knowing that God is in control. Reading the literary context of Ecclesiastes, the writer never referred to God as God, but 40 times as Elohim, the name that emphasizes His sovereignty and power. This statement clothes the chaos of life into the order of God, showing that He alone knows every deed and, in His justice, will judge. It also gives a stern reminder to follow God on Earth, so we do not have to face Him in Heaven and be found that we have derelict our duty. Together these verses form the backbone of the skeleton that is Ecclesiastes, holding up its wisdom with concise declaration and a call to action to believers. It commands us to live our lives serving God as our duty on this Earth, rejecting every worldly impulse and forsaking it for His sake. The heart of the book is the fact that God is sovereign and deserves our lives, with the harsh lessons being the blood flown in the body to strengthen it. Ecclesiastes is a call to give our lives to God and moves our view to the things above and unseen. Ecclesiastes does not promise a stream of joy or pleasure when following God. Throughout the book, the author consistently declares how unjust actions are rewarded and the lives of the righteous are taken, and how death comes for everyone regardless of their moral standing. It is a challenge to keep God in our hearts despite the sorrows of the world threatening to leave it a shrill organ. He points us upward, seeking the kingdom of God above all as the antidote against worldly sin and despair. A historical analysis of the book reveals that writer of Ecclesiastes was Solomon, the third king of Israel, heir to Davidic line, and the wisest man ever to live. Despite his achievements as a ruler and student, his life ended in tragedy by not keeping God’s commandments that led him to idolatry, adultery, and a divided kingdom. Taking this in context, it shows that he has finally recognized his rightful place as a servant of the Lord. Therefore, these verses read like a humble servant offering a blueprint for future servants to come to follow. The most striking element is the emphasis on personal action, reflecting how God wants us to willingly follow Him and keep His commands God wants our obedience, our undying commitment to Him. It warns us that by following Him, we must exalt Him above our relationships, our success, our happiness, and even our own lives. Yet it reminds us that it is the God given task follow our rightful place as a representative of God, reflecting His light in a fallen world. The verses call us to see with this humble and spiritual, revealing the spiritual battle, not a physical one. Ecclesiastes’ ending verses rewards those who mindfully seek through its brutality to find the sweet wisdom of following God. It emphasizes action, patience, and commitment to the Lord, arming us with the fact that He is sovereign overall. By reading these verses, the road to following God does not become easier, but clearer in sight. It shows us the road all men must take and gives us the choice to walk in it.

Despite animation's reputation being a realm where imagination runs without limits or chains, it is an unfortunate reality that many imaginations are still bound by the shackles of inequality and exclusivity. Growing up as a black animation fan, I was exposed both to the fantastical nature of animated worlds and characters while also internalizing the reality of limited racial diversity and cultural unity that reflected the larger reality of black people. Animation has historically perpetuated racial stereotyping, fostered lack of inclusion of non-white groups in lead roles, and the industry has limited employment for minorities in key positions on major studio works. My journey into animation will not solely focus on innovation or experimentation, but inclusivity and unity by creating an independent, minority-run animation studio that creates culturally authentic portrayals of various races and cultures. Inspired by the historical success of international animation, especially anime, and historical minority-run studios from Vignette Films to Martian Blueberry, my aim after graduation is to hire minority animators to create respectful and dignified depictions of racial groups who have a limited cinematic presence. By prioritizing research, understanding, and empathy, I hope to create films that give platforms to artists from marginalized groups to share their experiences with a wide audience to create more cultural unity. However, the beating heart behind my drive lies in crafting a community of artists and creatives who want to reveal their own lives through film. Due to the collaborative nature of animation and film, I have often been influenced by the people I have worked with in my internships and clubs. Through working under a black screenwriter for a short film and creating films with strong involvement from Latino and Indian groups, I have become more passionate about connecting with different cultures and they have inspired me to devote myself to create authentic portrayals that showcase their personhood. A community that fosters empathy and patience will not only create impactful work, but bloom fruits of creativity and artistry that cannot be accomplished by a homogeneous one. By winning the Let's Aim Higher Scholarship, my journey to expand the representation in animation can grow more fruitfully by affording me to explore internships, workshops, and studio experience. It encourages my growth and my career journey by opening the steps for future opportunities to serve people through art, and to embark on them without fear of financial insecurity. Thank you for considering me for the scholarship, and even if I do not win, I hope someone else can receive this honor.

Dear Noah Castille, Do you have any idea how joyful it is to be writing right now, Noah? Look outside. See the lush greens of the trees and grass outside, punctuated by the soft blue of the sky and the puffy white clouds hanging nearby. Listen to the wind blowing outside, the perky arguments thrown out by your parents, and the purring of cars outside. You are using your memory, your hands, and the English language to write down these sentences. It is hard to believe that you could not be able to find joy in any of these things a few years before. Growing up, your world was endless smiles, fulfilling experiences, and a bedrock of warm memories to nurture my identity. You had two loving parents, people who were eager to befriend me, and a healthy view of myself and my world. You were showered with love and praise, especially towards your writing, drawing, and intelligence. You were blessed with a childhood where joy was always in your reach. Middle school snatched that joy from you and waved it over your heads. That move from your childhood home of Beaumont to Houston was a major move, psychologically as well as physically and geographically. In a near instant, your identity, experiences, and emotions had to be changed to fit the alien territory of the metropolitan Houston area. You had to start over, make new friends, and develop a new identity. In the end, it proved too much for you. Those were the years where you developed an intense fear of people, both desperately wanting connection yet fearing it would only end in hurt and rejection. They were when you faced a depression that made you a hollow shell, losing joy in your writing, drawing, and everything else. They were the most saddening years of your life, and I am terribly sorry you had to go through that. But did you know what happened? You lived another day. And another. On one of those days, when you were thirteen, that was when you finally sought God at a youth conference and made the decision to follow Him. Even though they were rough and you buried old habits and dug up new sides to yourself, following God was a step in the right direction. Your faith made you want a better life by becoming active in the church and more open to the people around you. You rebuilt your relationship with your parents, forming a new and stronger relationship by exposing them to the part of yourself. You rediscovered joy in art again, becoming more dedicated to writing and drawing than ever before. If you did not have more days to live, you would never have found the joys that could happen in your life again. And I am so happy you found that joy again. In one of your favorite movies, World of Tomorrow, one of the characters affirms this key fact: You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all the dead. Even though life will continue to have troubles and you will always be plagued by the unpredictable and uncertain nature of living in the present. But please persevere. For God, for your family, for the people you care about, please live and do not forget the good in your life. Your friend, Noah Anthony Castille

When I was a boy, there was no greater feeling of freedom and being unburdened by the world through the medium of animation. Being able to immerse myself in fantastic imagery and explore worlds populated by creatures, so unlike my own, I opened my imagination and filled my head with precious wonders. Yet animation also supplied me with valuable lessons and themes that showed me a more fulfilling way to navigate reality, which I still follow today. When I look back on my reasons for animating, this thought rings in my mind. As I have grown older, science is nurturing that same curiosity inside me, reaching into my psyche to pull out my childlike curiosity with its exploration of the richness and vibrance of the world. As a Christian, it allows me to seek God more fully in the world He has created, adoring the diversity and beauty in the designs and processes that make organisms move, nature breathe, and the world shine. Science makes us want to seek beauty and understand it on a fundamental level and share that knowledge with people. Despite my passion for both of these mediums, they have a history of dehumanization and limting humanity’s connection with itself. As an African American, I have been exposed to how animation has been used to perpetuate negative imagery of African Americans, symbolizing the nadir of race of relations in the earlier 20th century. Furthermore, science has been polluted by racism through pseudoscience like phrenology and its impact has been greatly limited by the minimal racial demographics of the field. My chief aim for my future is to show how art and technology can disrupt these cultural biases and limited racial makeup by showing how unique cultures can benefit the advancements of animation and technology. By pursuing a degree in Creative Media Industries, I aim to learn how to use the arts and sciences to effectively promote unity and praise diversity in my career. Through learning about the history of art and science, I have learned the importance of intercultural and global interaction, which has resulted in groundbreaking advancements in arts and sciences. Furthermore, I hope to learn from studios that prioritize diverse representation, populated by minority animators, who are eager to use cutting edge technology in their work. Outside of the classroom, I diligently volunteer with organizations in food banks, community meals, and community gardens to foster a deeper appreciation for unity and collaboration. I aim to use both the arts and sciences to unify people by creating animated works that show beauty from the diversity of human experience and thinking. After graduating, I hope to create a studio that specializes in crafting stories that cater to minority audiences and more culturally resonant films. Through recognizing the power of art and technology to transform perception and create unity, I know I am on a journey that will foster respect and appreciation for humans of all races, cultures, and ideologies. Thank you for considering me for this scholarship.

My life has been marked by using my opportunities and abilties to serve people. Growing up in a Christian household, the Bible bathed my mind with verses glorifying servitude and instilling in me a desire to help people. The driving forces behind my servitude have been diligence, empathy, and love that inspires me to devote my life to serving. By pursuing community service to combat societal issues and strengthen community bonds, I successfully developed stronger community ties and alleviating problems in my community. My college career has been defined by my pursuit of service opportunities both on and off-campus through student-led organizations and wide-scale initiatives. By actively organizing and participating in service projects, I successfully managed to contribute to meaningful societal change by improving various avenues of our community. I have successfully participated in park clean-ups, started community meals, and started fundraising projects that have achieved better community growth and helped people in need. By working in the student-led Raiders Helping Others, I joined a network of like-minded servants who diligently operated service projects across Lubbock, which gave me a wider reach of people to help. Through fundraising campaigns, partnering with local organizations, and improving past campaigns against issues such as mental health and poverty, I helped increase the quality of life of people across Lubbock. Working with Raiders Helping Others has enabled me to perform large scale acts of service, which have strengthened the strength of our community and have touched numerous lives in the city. One of the most important problems I aim to alleviate has been stress and anxiety in my current generation. Due to the pandemic, students often struggle with anxiety, isolation, and depression, which severely affects their ability to perform tasks in their daily life. By joining the Student Activities Board, my group performed social events and activities that have successfully improved morale and increased the joy in the student body. Due to the intense burdens placed on students due to both academic and personal issues, we also worked to create mental health events that gave students therapy sessions and recreational opportunities to alleviate their anxiety. Servitude and the ability to perform it have been an essential fabric of my life, defining my future and how I interact in a wider society. My degree in animation will give me the opportunity to use animation to promote cultural unity and understanding by creating films that cater to diverse audiences and tell more culturally resonant stories. I aim to leave behind a life of serving other people, which I already built as a foundation of service in my present life.

Two hundred and forty-eight words. They were written in Latin, a language that was once spoken by millions of the most intellectually astute and influential people in the known world that now only live as the foundation for languages born from it. Written thousands of years ago by a man who is now dust and whose spirit has returned to the Lord, the radiance of these words still blinds me with their wisdom and thirst for God. The opening paragraph from Confessions by Saint Augustine still hold power by perfectly and concisely explaining what it means to live for God: the natural desire to know Him, the paradoxical nature of human longing for Him, and the commitment to follow Him with all our hearts. Despite being written long ago, his words reflect the timeless and universal desire of Christians to seek God in their lives. To fully understand the weight of the words themselves, we must first understand the man who God used to speak such truth. To quote Oscar Wilde from his play,” every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future”. While the history of Christianity offers a wide abundance of figures who through grace overcome their fallen nature, St. Augustine’s story is unique in its universal struggle that comes with trying to fill your heart with everything but God. He was a lustful hedonist, corrupt lawyer, a heretical member of a false religion, chased all manner of worldly ambitions, and was as much of a son of the devil as the corrupt judge or blasphemer. Yet in His grace, God drew Augustine near Him, showing Him patience and grace. Augustine gradually began to turn away from His sin and after a fateful struggle under a peach tree, he finally converted to Catholicism in 387. God used him to craft literature that defined Western theology for centuries, solved major controversies in His church through his leadership, and drove Him to a live of life of sainthood. Confessions acts as a written testament to his transformed life, and an appraisal of all that God has done for him and who He is. Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. The first sentence shows the right view of God perfectly. It is not a vague statement of trust, but a bold declaration both of faith in God and the God worthy of such faith. The grandeur of God is then sharply contrasted by the minuscule being known as men. Compared to the starts that shine in their wonder, the vastness of the space of the universe, the natural world and its self-sustaining design, what are we? Without God, we are nothing but specks floating in dust, searching for something that makes us whole. Yet it is only by seeking the Creator of everything, do we have everything as we were made to worship Him. Augustine affirms the vastness of God yet shows how our ultimate purpose comes from intimacy with the Father as the only purpose that satisfies. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe without a preacher? and they that seek the Lord shall praise Him: for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him. Centuries after Augustine wrote these words, the theologian A.W. Tozer succinctly stated that “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Having the right view of God is how Christians navigate the Word like a ship travels through troubled storms due to seeing the light from the lighthouse. Augustine’s desire to seek the true relationship between God and men causes him to describe his search in more derogatory terms such as “pant” and “thirst.” It shows how seriously Augustine searches for a complete understanding of how God works with men despite not having the mind to do so. It is not pathetic or fruitless to Him, but essential to creating a more unified relationship with His Creator. He knows that whatever he finds about God will be rewarding, reflecting how God rewards those who diligently search for Him with their heart and mind. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher. In these series of bold declarations, Augustine shows the choice to follow Jesus with your heart and mind. Augustine surrenders himself to His Lord, choosing to pursue an intimate relationship with the Lord, forgoing his own desires and previous sins. Armed with God’s gifts of faith and through hearing His Word, Augustine boldly walks into the light of God. The Puritan writer John Bunyan wrote centuries in his book, The Pilgrim’s Progress, that all “which you shall forsake” is not worthy to be compared with a little of that which I am seeking to enjoy.” Above all, Augustine desires total intimacy with His Creator, driving Him to seek God more passionately. Before he became a disciple of God, Augustine lived a life wholly apart from God, fulfilling every lustful and worldly desire instead of pursuing God. When he finally converted God used Augustine to show a life of devotion to Him and the Confessions gives a deeply personal revelation of how a mind so hungry for God works. It was written to show what it is like to dive into the spring of life that is God, which Augustine passionately describes in the first few sentences, rich in adoration and awe. It shows how God drives us to seek Him and encourages us sinners that no sin is too great for His love to cover. Romans 3:23 said, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” yet through Jesus Christ we are saved an accounted right with God. I have fallen into sin, and in my darker moments, it feels that God will finally reject and leave me to my own sinful nature. Reading Augustine has helped me see God in a completely new way: as Himself. A being of infinite patience, love, and grace, each of which overpowers my sinful nature. Confessions is the powerful cry towards God, affirming Him in His greatness and the desire to reach out despite being an infinitesimal speck of His creation. Works Cited Augustine. Confessions. Penguin Classics. 1961 Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. Penguin Classics Holy Bible. Bible Gateway. 2025 Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy. 1961 Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. The Gutenberg Project

Whenever I think about my experiences with animation, the memories that frequently pop into my mind are the ones where I was transfixed by the creativity on-screen, being lost in the distant worlds with characters that I felt so intimate with, and the lessons they taught me. Becoming an animation never meant being someone who drew pictures that would move at the speed of a snail’s pace, but visualizing the dreams from my mind to inspire people to better their own reality. I aspire to carry that dream by letting other people put their dreams down by giving them a platform to reach audiences whose stories they might not have lived. As an African American, I am intimately aware of how animation has been used to present derogatory and dehumanizing images of African American culture and other marginalized groups, reflecting the time they were produced. Even in a more progressive entertainment industry, recent studies still show an intense focus on Eurocentric heroes made by white artists for a mass audience. A recent study from the Academy of Animated Art reveal that black people, specifically women of color, were involved in less than 10% of the most successful animated films made in 2010s. These statistics empower me to create a career in animation that promotes cultural diversity and making the stories of minority creatives heard. My journey into animation involves shattering the barriers in the industry and forging the identity of animation as a proud reflection of the diversity of human experience. I have been intensely inspired by animators throughout the world such as Yuri Norstein, Hayao Miyazaki, and Gints Zilbalodis, who have used their identity to create landmark work in the medium. My college promotes diversity in the classroom and workforce, with many of my classes having students of Hispanic, Indian, and Asian descent. Many of the organizations and collaborators I have made are working to create work that prioritizes cultural authenticity and uses their background as a foundation for their work. Through these experiences, I have built a foundation of skills and networking that leads me to pursue a career in animation that will strive on cultural unity and promote storytelling from underrepresented groups. After graduating college, I aim to create an animation studio in the diverse and animation hotspot of Austin, Texas that hires minority animators to create more culturally resonant stories. By hiring minority animators to tell stories from their unique cultures and backgrounds, we are creating broader cultural appreciation by allowing audiences to see stories intimately tied to specific people. We are also inspiring future generations of artists by allowing them to see their own culture represented faithfully and become more confident in their potential to pursue a career in animation. By fostering empathy and understanding through creative expression, animation becomes a way to communicate human experience in more robust and more eventful ways. The art of animation will advance in the amount of quality projects made and expand the medium’s potential for storytelling. When I pursue animation, this is the dream I carry, and I hope many people will be inspired to dream more fruitfully in the future.

Growing up, the worlds formed in animation opened my imagination and wonder by showing me experiences that delighted me with their fantastic stories and unique characters. Yet the animation that I remembered was the stories that built my empathy for people, opened my knowledge of cultures so unlike my own, and taught me how to be courageous under pressure. I was both the fantastical and humanistic elements of the medium that I gave my heart to, learning about the history, techniques, and the best work of animation to pursue it professionally. However, the main aim for pursuing animation currently is also motivated by another personal feeling I had when I was a child that wasn’t wonder or inspiration. It was alienation. The characters of my favorite animation, the ones who I wanted to emulate and were inspired by, were white, and blackness was rare and as the main hero, even rarer. When I first started pursuing animation, I became intimately aware of the historical lack of cultural diversity and representation in the medium and would join an industry that reflected that demographic. What drives my journey to pursue animation is to invite people, from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to see their own faces and stories told respectfully and appropriately in my work. Before college I have poured through numerous books and exercises to learn animation independently, learning character animation, inbetweening, and experimental effects. I pursued a bachelor's degree in creative media Industries at Texas Tech because their program allowed me to pursue multiple forms of animation, which would lead me to become a more versatile animator. I have also joined numerous organizations and workshops dedicated to animation production, working with experienced individuals, and becoming more familiar with the process of making quality animation. My drive to learn and grow as an animator has even led me to create my own animated short films to learn about the process of making an animated film and showing it to film festivals. Yet I am still driven to create animation to accurately portray cultures and races in a dignified manner to inspire future generations to create from their own personal experiences. Animation should be about showing the creativity and diversity of human experience by showing storytelling from across the world and using it as a tool to demand respect and empowerment for people. I aim to create a studio for minority animators to tell personal stories inspired by their own identity, giving them the opportunity to expand the voices found in the industry. I hope to create greater cultural unity and respect by introducing culturally resonant and powerful storytelling to a wider audience. I want to use animation to create a unified world through making voices heard and introducing lives people have never lived. By winning this scholarship, it will empower me to continue to use the medium to make a more empathetic society through my creativity. Thank you for reviewing my application, and I hope I can use it wisely.

My love of math goes beyond solving equations and becoming focused on finding solutions to prove my intellect. It has made me more persistent, more open to grow my intelligence, and opened a new way to see the world. Math has made me into a more mature and compassionate human being with each problem and equation revealing new aspects of my identity. The language of mathematics invites universality by making people from across diverse backgrounds and cultures contribute to understanding it in their own unique ability. By understanding how different problems invite more complex and unique solutions, it invites people to use their own individual problem-solving skills. Math has helped me see how diverse humans can be, and more appreciative of how the difference in everyone contributes to unique ways to approach a problem. More intimately, mathematics has made me appreciate the hand of the ultimate Creator, God, as I become more interested in exploring His world. God gave us the ability to cognitively understand His world in all its complexities with math helping us expand our understanding of His Creation through numbers and equation. From the earliest mathematicians in antiquity to modern discoveries, each offers a window to appreciate the world God has made for us and opened us up to better love Him through it. Math is a gift God gave humans to better see the beauty in His creation and make us more in love with His mind. My journey into mathematics has invited me to become more determined and creative as I approach each individual problem individually and become eager to break it down to its fundamentals. Math has made me more in awe of the wonderful world I am in as I devote time to understanding it through this language. It also helps build more connections to people who are eager to explore the world through math, making me more empathetic towards other human beings. Math has been the key to opening new areas to live, and the best part is that I still have more doors to open up.

As I have grown older, I have recognized how blessed I have been to grow up in a generation and space that celebrates black identity. Through a combination of their faith and hard work ethic, my parents uprooted themselves from their impoverished upbringing to become high-earning, financially stable public servants. My childhood was filled with the eclectic sounds of black music that was the soundtrack to numerous cookouts to being surrounded by black peers throughout my schooling. Being black was never something I was ashamed about, nor did I recognize how blessed I was to be black during this period in history. As my understanding of black history and identity grew with my age, it began to dawn on me the sweetness of this blessing and how fortunate I was to grow up in this era. My parents often regaled me with stories about the difficulties of growing up in a desegregated America, having to work harder and being treated unequally compared to their white peers. Reading the history of black America has imprinted upon me the numerous ways institutions have demonized or destroyed the progression of black identity to promote white America. My adolescence showed me that being black was not given or chosen, but fought with blood, sweat and tears. Even though I arguably grew up in a more progressive society, the aftermath of racism and systemic prejudice still influences my identity as I navigate through my life. The recent news coverage of the police killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement dominated my teenage years with the realization that black people still had to fight for greater equality. The Internet has given rise to alt-right movements, and there are increasing racial attacks on college students that frighten me to promote my blackness. Armed with the history of the lengths white America has taken to erase me and the experiences of privilege to be black in modern America, i enter the world with both optimistic aims and pragmatic realism. Due to my knowledge of how America has attempted to destroy and dehumanize aspects of black experience, I have aimed to create experiences that prioritize cultural understanding and unity. Community service has been the most effective avenue for this goal by uniting unique groups of people under a common goal by appealing to their altruism. Working with groups such as Raiders Helping Others and Student Activites Board, I have worked with a diverse set of individuals who contribute to meaningful community growth by uniting to create service projects across Lubbock. For my professional career, I hope to use my filmmaking to normalize representations of diverse cultures to prevent stereotyping in the media. By using the wide popularity of films to reveal the beauty and depth of other cultures, I hope to promote understanding across cultures through art. Being an African American has revealed me the depth of the amazing identity that comes from being a member of this singular culture while exposing me to the harsh reality that comes from being born into it. I am empowered by both the good things about my identity while also working to resolve the issues that will plague the next generation of black people through the power of art and servitude. Determination and compassion fuel my journey, empowering through the conflict while cherishing the joys along the road. By winning this scholarship, I will continue to expand the road of this journey with a more passionate fire.

If art is defined as an expression of human will, why are we so obsessed with one category of human experience than all. Furthermore, how many great advancements and scientific inquiries have been pursued by the marginalized and underrecognized to focus on one aspect of humans. As a black man who has both a deep enthusiasm and passion for arts and sciences, I must confront this problem to achieve a more unified solution that expands the influence of minorities in both institutions. Throughout the institutions of human endeavors ranging from the earliest political dialogues to recent developments in artificial intelligence, it is an unmistakable reality that white, male, Eurocentric individuals and their work will receive the most attention and significance. Focusing on animation industry, recent statistics on gender equality from an article published by the Academy of Animated Art in 2024 show that 19% of women held key roles in the highest-grossing animated films, with the number dropping to 7% for women of color. My journey as an animator has been marked by the opportunity to expand my impact in the industry by seeing the challenges as invitations to improve the industry for future generations. Growing up, I admired how animation took imaginative worlds and fantastical characters to tell enriching and emotionally resonant stories that made me want to create. As I grew older, I also became interested in the intersection of art and science, especially the computer animation of Pixar and the rise of popularity in online digital animation. Unfortunately, as I became more knowledgeable about the historical development of animation and science, I recognized how they heavily prioritized Eurocentric ideals and achievements. Despite the wide variety of achievements to both the art world and science from cultures across the world, I was discouraged by the heavily pushed narrative of white achievement with minimal acknowledgement of non-white individuals. Furthermore, in the animation industry especially, I was appalled by how both arts and sciences were used to dehumanize minorities through and stereotypical images and scientific racism. However, I choose to let these past challenges fuel my desire to build more inclusive and culturally diverse storytelling in my journey as an animator. I hope to create an independently run animation studio in the diverse city of Austin that prioritizes animated storytelling across numerous cultures. By focusing on placing marginalized communities and more diverse animators in key positions in the industry, the animation industry becomes more inclusive and more receptive to hiring more minority creatives. Due to the more globalized entertainment industry and the rising popularity of the independent animation scene, this is the optimal period to launch this endeavor. Even now I have already started to learn abilities and gain resources necessary to achieve this goal through pursuing opportunities that affirm my goals. I have joined practicums like MCTV Newscast and Raider Production House that prioritze giving minority voices a wider audience and teaching them the basics of media production. Outside of classes, I am working to produce my own animation shorts to show film festivals, building a following and inspiring black animator to produce their own work. This is why I know I can successfully achieve this goal and make the impact on animation I hope to create. While I do not expect to be the sole initiator of change in the industry and I recognize that eliminating the spread of harmful imagery is too massive an issue to resolve, I hope to provide a breeding ground for a new range of voices to be heard. By winning this scholarship, the ground will continue to grow stronger.

Before I was even born, the seeds for my love for education were nurtured by the lives of both my parents and their own journeys. My mom and dad grew up in a recently desegregated America, but their families still dealt with the aftermath of long-term economic inequality that affected their education journey. My parents often told me stories about how they were busing hours away from home to integrated schools, feeling alienated from their peers, and had the pressure to compete with their white classmates. Yet the experiences that I most remember were the moments my parents diligently worked to achieve high grades, how they became the people in our family to graduate both high school and college, and how they used their education to earn their dream careers. Most importantly, they also showed me how God helped them throughout it all, being there when their friends and family couldn’t. Their faith also led them to choose careers that would serve people with a contrite heart, with my mother working as a social security worker and my father as a financial advisor. Their commitment to education and their compassion influenced my path in education since I was young. I carry their love for the transformative power of education in my own life, most visibly seen through my academic achievement. Through a combination of God’s grace, strong connections with my classmates and teachers, and a determined work ethic, I spent my high school with high As and academic awards. When I graduated high school, I was Magna Cum Laude, accepted in multiple honors institutions, and was awarded college scholarships. In college, I continued to follow this path of academic excellence through tutoring and self-study. This resulted in being awarded both the Dean’s and President’s List in my freshmany year and being awarded membership for the Honors School. My biggest impact with education has always been on how I can use it to help people at the expense of my own desires. In high school, I consistently volunteered with my church to record sermons, participate in donations and fundraisers for my local community, and even helped create supply packages for children in local middle schools. My college career has been marked by my commitment to student-led volunteerism, partnering with organizations like Raiders Helping Others to create meaningful community change through effective solutions. I have been involved in projects ranging from community meals, hospice care, and creating sustainable food projects to combat food insecurity. As an African American, my story is unfortunately an exception, as I have learned both the historical lack of quality in education for black people and how my demographic still significantly lacks access to quality education. Historically, black people were denied basic education by white power structures and even those who could access faced unequal resources and outcomes compared to white schools. In the present, black communities still face underfunding, lack of representation from teachers, and an inadequate number of resources. The quality of education greatly affects the future of young African Americans, impacting their job security, chance of getting incarcerated, and their mental health. After graduating college, I hope to use my experiences in community service and follow models of servant leadership in my own community to become a social entrepreneur in marginalized communities. By improving institutions such as education, black people and other minority groups can significantly achieve better quality of life and reduce the historical problems their culture has faced. This is what I am working for when I pursue my degree, and I hope to pursue this goal with earnestness and fierce determination.

Despite growing up in a devout Christian household and having numerous Christian models in various aspects of my life, I would not say that I had a meaningful relationship with God until I was twelve. My middle school years were plagued by intense periods of depression, self-hatred, and bouts of suicidal ideation that prevented me from experiencing basic emotions like joy and peace. I was at my most distant from God, hating Him for bringing me in the world to suffer and not being there when I needed Him the most. The summer I turned thirteen was when I first was enveloped in His glory. On the last day of a youth conference, I felt the Holy Spirit in me, and immediately I felt free from all the burdens that were drowning me that year. It was the first time I truly felt the presence of God in my life, inspiring me to devout more time to Him. I started volunteering with my church by recording sermons, reading my Bible more intently, and began to seek ways to practice the content in my church’s sermons. This was the first spark that led me to devoting myself to Christ, a journey filled with spiritual peaks and troughs. I am nineteen years old now, and God has continued to move in my life. Community service has become an essential factor in my daily life, as I have become an ardent participant in food drives, fundraisers, and donations. God has steadily transformed me into an empathetic and compassionate man by seeking to help people more effectively and becoming more receptive to the concerns of other people. I have recognized the importance in giving my life to Christ, which inspires me to continue to seek Him in my life and follow His Word throughout my life. The two most important commandments God has commanded His children are to love Him and to love people. My dad often quoted this to me as “Love God, love people” throughout my childhood to imprint it upon me so I could never forget it. I have never been quick to truly adopt these principles in my life, and frankly, this year has been the most successful at following them in my daily life. Reflecting on what skills and abilities God has given me, I recognized how my interest in the creative arts could potentially fulfill both these tenets. God has used creative people to both honor Him, serve people, and spread His Kingdom through worship music, evangelistic entertainment, and using artistic mediums to spread the Gospel. God is the ultimate Creator, forming the entire world from His imagination, and gifting His people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and cultures that can all be used to serve Him. I have always wanted to use art to serve people, but I realize the best way to serve people is through using it to spread God’s influence. Living a Christian lifestyle is not easy. I have had to cut off old habits. I had to realize how sinful I was living and make the effort to live a more fruitful life. I have also had to look at how the art I consumed and created and recognize that it either needed to be modified or removed completely to serve God more completely. However, I know it is worth it. By honoring God through his gifts, I can make a bigger impact on the lives of people.

The humid, dryness of Lubbock often does not see such comfortable warmth for its residents, yet we received such a gift during one moment at Lubbock Impact. A community meal planned every Tuesday was set up, and I volunteered to be one of the cooks. I had already been a steadfast member of Impact for a while, being warmed by its consistent empathy and the joy its members had in servitude. However, this was a night that was different from the previous one. As a Christian, the most important commandment in the Bible is to love on another, and admittedly, I have trouble following it. I am naturally solitary and am quick to judge other people. Furthermore, people are becoming more fractured and divisive with the current political climate threatening to use our differences to tear us apart. Melancholy enraptured me as I began to become doubtful of how love can work in such a divided world. Then, God opened my eyes to see what was happening at the meal. I saw people of all cultures, creeds, backgrounds eating together as one, faces filled with merry and cheerful food provided. They shared food, they weaved stories, and they talked to one another like they were blood. There was no hostility or annoyance, instead people living in the moment and inviting other people to join in on the warmth. This sense of joy impacted the volunteers and staff as well. Despite working tirelessly for hours on end as the hours grew longer and more intense, they were still joyful, still working hard, and armed with boundless energy. They were happy to see other people happy, which eclipsed their fatigue. That meal opened my eyes to how basic human decency and kindness still existed even though it was the opposite. From seeing so many people dedicated to serving a meal for strangers to how the meal made everyone eager to share with other people like they were family; it was exciting to see such warmth present in the room. I carry that moment as a reminder and motivator for me to continue to serve my community, and to recognize how people are eager to serve other people due to their own inner kindness. When I am dealing with cynicism, finding it hard to trust people, and am bogged down by all the news and stories about human insufficiency, the joyful warmth I received at Lubbock Impact inspires me to preserve in spreading kindness to the people in my life.

God has command over everything on Earth, which includes my life when I gave it to Him. I operate under the principle of stewardship, which means I must look after His resources in a healthy and productive way. This has included my mind, a tool that I use to learn more about the world God has created and become more infatuated with His creation. Learning should not be misconstrued as a cold and unemotional activity designed to only stimulate mental activity and lose the wonder of the world by categorizing everything down to nothing. I find learning to be very life-affirming as it has allowed me to experience the richness of the world, and marvel at the beauty of God’s creation. When I study how planets move and how stars are formed, I am both awe-inspired by the complexity of nature and humbled by the fact that God chose to focus on humans. By learning about the rich histories of scientific achievement and historical triumphs, I have been imbued with a deeper love for humanity by understanding how people from all cultures and backgrounds have contributed to the world. Learning has made me into a more empathetic, diligent person who has a zeal for the world, and has continued to humble me by showing how there is always something new to learn. However, the greatest gift learning has provided me is understanding how to impact the world through service and how to solve problems in my community. By working with organizations as varied as the South Plains Food Bank and Hope Lodge, I have learned how to successfully combat issues such as food insecurity, mental health stigma, and poverty. While it has been disheartening to understand how inescapable these issues are and how they have historically affected certain people, I still want to learn better ways to mitigate these problems. An example of this is learning gardening techniques to produce more high-quality food for Lubbock residents facing food insecurity through the Booker T. Washington Community Garden. My love of learning has helped me to better understand the root causes of my community, inspiring me to create more effective and long-term solutions to these issues. Education remains a vital concern for me since it improves human capital, grants greater economic security, and drives innovation for those who pursue it. Unfortunately, communities with African American and other minorities often face severely underfunded school that limit their pursuit of education and face greater financial burdens to pursue higher education. Knowing how learning has impacted my life and how God wants me to serve other people, I aim to invest in schools in underfunded communities by funding schools, hiring more qualified teachers, and improving their resources. Through prioritizing education’s power to transform lives, these communities will become more economically secure, gain high-paying jobs, and reduce chances of facing incarceration. While I never met Ross, I hope that his family can rest knowing that they are continuing his legacy and his life will inspire other people to live the same. I hope to win this scholarship to honor his memory by using my passion for learning to make a better world. Thank you for considering me.

As an African American student in STEM, the hurdles for success are palpable and serve to fuel false stereotypes of the racial makeup of scientific achievement. STEM has a limited racial diversity with only 9% of workers being of African descent, fueling scientific achievement as a Euro-centric endeavor. This lack of representation also hurts the opportunity for black people in more underrepresented and impoverished communities to pursue STEM as a viable career choice due to the lack of scientists who share their identities. I aim to use my career in communications sciences to promote fascination with STEM by becoming a science communicator for children’s programming due to the television’s ubiquity and wide reach. By showing black children the possibility for success for people of color and promoting the value of science, I hope to make the next generation of black children interested in STEM. This will not only increase the representation of people of color in STEM but also develop more robust achievements in science and discredit stereotypical narratives of science. My degree in Creative Media Industries is instrumental in achieving this goal by providing me opportunities in media production and in community service. By pursuing opportunities in MCTV Newscast and Raider House Practicum, I am improving my skill in delivering powerful messaging and shadow leading media figures in science communication to understand their success. I am also becoming a more empathetic and more diligent servant in my community by combatting issues such as educational disparity, mental health, and food insecurity in the long-term. My education has given me the skills and resources to create effective scientific programming in my future and has built my desire to serve other people using my abilities. Community service has been a consistent activity for my personal development, leading me to develop valuable skills in unity, service, and empathy. My work with the Hope Lodge has instilled a strong value in unity by working to provide community meals for families, strengthening community bonds. By working in the Booker T. Washington Community Garden, I have become more eager to serve by building a sustainable garden to combat food insecurity by working for two hours to make a positive impact. Finally, my work with the Hope Lodge has built in me an incredible empathy for people by caring for elderly patients and providing companionship while they stay in the hospice regardless of personal identity or background. By building these skills and being guided by my love for people, I will imbue my programming that will inspire children of diverse backgrounds to pursue STEM. By showing the collaborative nature of science, I will destroy narratives of individual geniuses and show how advancements in science have been responsible from working together with many minds. My programming can inspire people to serve their communities by being sponsored by local civic organizations so children can work to build a better community. Finally, I aim to build greater empathy for diverse cultures by showing the achievements from scientists across the world and imbue children with a deeper respect for people from around the world.

One of the biggest problems in my relationship with God has been the illusion of control and letting God step into my life. While God has the power to change our hearts, He wants us to voluntarily give ourselves over to Him in full obedience and be joyful in it. Leadership in God’s view requires us to be servants and trust in His will by letting go of control, which I am learning through both servitude and by letting Him control my emotions in a godly way. While I know I will continue to struggle with relinquishing control to God, volunteerism has been an aspect of my life that shown me the practical benefits of letting go. My most prominent service achievements such as working in a community garden, serving in a community meal, and working in a hospice have been successful because of the considerable number of people working together to create an impact. God wants His kids to be united in serving others and work together for a bigger impact, letting go of our despite to control others to work for a bigger goal. On the wider but more sorrowful scale, I often invest myself in systemic and long-standing issues such as racism, economic inequality, and wealth disparities. It can be heartbreaking to recognize that all the demanding work we are doing will only have a small impact and can never truly erase these issues due to how society is structured. It forces me to place my trust in God by knowing He is working to empower people to continue doing good and that His will work out in the end. However, God gave the biggest lesson in letting go when two years ago, I suffered two deaths from both sides of my family and had to deal with the emotion of grief. It is a powerful and all-consuming emotion that made it difficult to live your life by constantly controlling you to live in the future. Learning how to live with grief and deal with it healthily is a key aspect of being human and being a Christian, that is learning to live with it instead of controlling it. I had to make the conscious effort to show my family that God does not want our grief to rule us by praying constantly and showing His heart by comforting them in times of trouble. I led through a broken heart by being a shoulder to cry on, and to trust in the Lord more vigorously than before. It was a long and arduous process, but it showed me how God uses painful situations to bring out the best in us and to show His hand in our lives. The form of leadership God wants from us calls us to be servants and humble ourselves for the sake of other people. God has used my experiences both in volunteerism and in grief to place that principle firmly in my heart by showing me how He has the ultimate control in my life and all I must do is trust in Him. I aim to continue to deny my sinful desires for control to become a leader who is built to serve others because it pleases God, the One who controls everything.

My life is a testament to how turbulence can serve to reveal ourselves by breaking down to our bare pieces and forcing us to rebuild our own identity. Living with social anxiety and depression has been an experience that has been extraordinarily difficult to endure, and it has taken me many years to overcome the worst periods of my mental health. These are struggles that no one should have to endure in their lives, but strangely, they also served to refine me into a stronger person with a future fighting against mental health stigma and lack of treatment. From often thinking about suicide as the answer to my problems to becoming an individual that became a service to his community, my life has never been easily predictable. During the height of my struggles, my social anxiety made it difficult to interact with other people, becoming self-isolated from my peers and becoming more secretive as a person. My depression affected me both internally by filling my thoughts with moments of suicide and hopelessness and externally by making me into a more irritable and angrier person. Through guidance from my parents, praying to God, and focusing on my education, I achieved one of the proudest moments of my life on May 24, 2024, when I received my high school diploma. College became the next transition in my life, and one of the most fruitful experiences in my life. While my mental health struggles persisted with occasional moments of self-doubt and fear of people that came from my new life, the unfamiliar territory also gave me new avenues to combat my mental health. I had to develop my own inner strength by praying more consistently and forming my own faith-based communities to continue to develop my faith in God. Most notably, I became an active volunteer by pursuing positions in community service organizations in my city, fighting issues such as homelessness, food insecurity, and mental health. These experiences have led me to develop a stronger understanding of how mental health can affect other people if not treated, and why people are hesitant to receive the treatment they deserve. As I have struggled with my mental health, I recognize how blessed I have been to be surrounded by people like my family, who validate my firsthand experiences and gave me the best help they could get. Mental health, especially in black communities, is often minimized or misunderstood as people often have false beliefs about people struggling with it and believe they are faking it. Furthermore, the stigma against doctors and the lack of adequate medical funding in black communities has contributed to people struggling in silence against their mental health instead of receiving adequate treatment for their issues. As a college student, I am also worried that the next generation will be ill-equipped to deal with their mental health more effectively and teach the next generation how to handle their own. I aspire to become an advocate for people to become better educated on mental health, and to break the stigma that comes with being diagnosed in certain communities. I aim to use my education and the opportunities provided by my institution to become an effective educator and advocator of mental health, especially in minority communities. By working with organizations aimed at combatting mental health such as RISE, I am learning to build communities of empathetic people who are dedicated to resolving trauma brought on by mental health. Through group therapy, art-based activities, and mental health education, we are becoming instrumental in challenging toxic trends of mental health and normalizing its understanding among students. Outside of working with RISE, I also hope to work with minority focused organizations like Black Mental Wellness to combat the prejudices that have affected black people. By using the program to educate black students and form their own communities, we are showing black college students how to break free from community-based stigma of their mental health and show them how to get treatment they deserve. My struggle with mental health has never gone away, always trying to influence my self-worth and make me relapse into old toxic thought patterns. However, I can safely say that I am actively fighting against my battles by helping other people to better combat their own struggles. I am using my education to contribute to a better understanding of mental health in both college students and black people, equipping them with the skills to become valuable citizens who understand mental health. This scholarship represents me taking control of my life by pursuing opportunities that will improve mental health and becoming an active force against stigma in my community. It empowers me to pursue an education that will impact people by using my opportunities to educate other people and leave a more substantial impact on people. I have a life that I want to live, in service of other people, and I hope to pursue it to the end.

I am five years old. Animated shows embrace my retina, filling with fantastic images and stories that are destined to shape my life. The intricate worldbuilding, complex characters, and valuable life lessons will make these programs some of the most cherished memories of my life. It showed me the power of animation and encouraged me to pursue it in the future. I had no idea that the struggles that being black in animation would lead to, and how profound that would shape my journey. At fifteen years, I started to study animation less as a hobby but more as an intense passion. I become familiar with techniques from famous animation books, become more interested in the process of animation filmmaking by studying documentaries and behind-the-scenes footage, and I begin to develop my storytelling through writing my own scripts. Initially, I believed these would guide me to an average yet successful career in animation yet as I began to learn more about its history, my path started to change. Gradually, as I began to dive deeper into the history of animation, I noticed the prejudices and stereotypes that developed in the medium. Since its inception, animation has promoted derogatory and dehumanizing images of African Americans that represent the nadir of racial politics in America. I also noticed how limited the demographics of animation were for my race, with only 4% of animators being black, affecting my belief in my success. As an African American artist, I had to confront how my medium was used to degrade my race and culture, and it made me consider if it was right for me. While these barriers should have slowed my progression, they instead invigorated me to pursue a more unconventional path in animation. I began to study films that had accurate cultural representation against mainstream works. My influences began to become more diverse as I became entranced by animators from Japan, Mexico, Africa, and other countries that showed the diversity of the medium. This led me to my decision to pursue a degree that combined learning animation production with learning the business side of the medium. The degree offered the opportunity to connect with like-minded studios and animators that promoted diversity both on-screen and off-screen, becoming aware of how to emulate their success in promoting inclusivity in animation. At twenty-five years old, I started a business in racially diverse and animation powerhouse city of Austin, hiring minority animators from my internships and college as my first employees. Our goal is to create films that promote cultural acceptance, unity, and respect for others through our work. I hope they use their films to portray cultures, characters, and storytelling exclusive to their identities to create more powerful films. Instead of feeling like outsiders to the field, we are becoming at the forefront of the medium, winning acclaim for our culturally resonant films. Even as an eighteen-year-old, I am working to develop a career in animation that promotes diversity and freedom of expression. Using networking, curiosity, and self-study, I am learning the skills that will be responsible for my future success in animation. Currently, I am joining organizations that focus on diversity such as Raider House Practicum to learn how to create diverse character representation. I have also become passionate about community service organizations like Habitat for Humanity that inspire me to pursue collaborative mindset, which is key to success in animation. Through it all, I am motivated to fulfill my childhood dreams and inspire the next generation to pursue animation by seeing their experiences replicated through this medium.

I have been math phobic since I was ten, encumbered to appreciate math due to its mind-numbing topics needed to be solved, its lack of beauty that I found in art, and the exhaustive problem-solving it required. Logically, I knew that mathematics such as calculus were responsible for making the buildings I inhabited safe and secure, guided scientists to understand how nature worked, and was how my parents could afford things for me by balancing their budget. However, they continually were ignored as I ignored the beauty that could be found in math like calculus. Beauty I only discovered until much later. Once you notice calculus’s impact on society, it becomes more daunting and awe-inspiring in its universality across the globe. Calculus is the lifeblood of STEM, expanding its understanding of the world while simplifying it to gain a beautiful appreciation of how it operates. It has been responsible for achievements as diverse as the development of GPS, the trajectory of orbits, and modeling the rate of inflation. With just the concept of derivation, the astronomer is equally as successful at determining the effects gravity has on celestial bodies throughout the universe as the doctor can determine the impact a drug can have on their patients over time. It has even been known to impact non-STEM fields such as Renaissance painters using principles of calculus to make the most accurate forms of human expression, and even today camera operators must use it to determine the best ways to get a shot. Calculus is the unifier in mathematics, not only connecting a wide number of subjects but connecting people to become more. Math was never the process of one genius, but from the work of many brilliant people, learning and being influenced from the work of others and collaborating with like-minded peers. Strides in mathematics have been made from people across the world from India, Africa, Britain, and other countries throughout time. Stereotypes abound from Asian people being the select few that wield this power to girls believing they have weaker mathematical skills, limiting the reach of the field. People need to see how calculus can connect us and show how it can be mastered by anyone and any race from around the world. I think the big reason people do not enjoy calculus and other high-level math is because their lives are so complicated that they do not need something that can be enjoyed from being so complicated. As college students, we have lives filled with exhaustive assignments, thanklessly working at our jobs, the threat of greater responsibilities all while balancing a schedule that can include a social life. Calculus demands us to slow down and become absorbed in its wonder, time we do not have. Outside of STEM, calculus can be used to alleviate us from the chains of anxiety by having us focus on one single thing, making our mental processes more relaxed by choosing to become entranced by the problems. I think back to this quote attributed to john Von Neumann to convince people of how math can alleviate the stress from a fast-paced life. “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is”

My commitment to public service has been informed by three key aspects of my identity. As a Christian, I am called to show my love for both God and people by living a life of servitude and be a light in a world controlled by sin. As an African American male, I know that minorities have been disproportionally faced inequality, economic instability, and faced harsher societal issues due to their race that influences me to act. As a human being, I want to serve others by becoming instrumental in alleviating the burdens unfairly risen by the greed and malice of human institutions. Throughout my education career, I have learned valuable tools and accumulated various experiences that will make me a more effective public servant. I have joined organizations such as the Salvation Army, Booker T. Washington Community Garden, and Grace Campus that have been at the forefront of successful community development through their work. Through these organizations, I have become active against problems affecting environmental sustainability, educational inequality, and renovating homes to better provide security for people in my community. These experiences have informed my view of leadership to serve others and value the lives of other people over our own, building my empathy, compassion for people, and a sense of appreciation for community. My ambition to become a public servant in my community has led me to focus on becoming a social entrepreneur, investing in solutions and initiatives that plague my community. I hope to create civic organizations and philanthropic projects that are instrumental in solving societal issues and strengthening the bonds of the community by giving jobs to the unemployed and expanding the economic opportunities for underrepresented communities. By networking with leaders in these organizations and understanding how they have become successful philanthropists, I am becoming more aware of what makes successful public service by following their examples. I plan to create initiatives and organizations that will make an equal society for minority populations and alleviate inequalities in the community. Despite the good that I have done by allying myself with these various organizations and my future to continue to work in community development, the financial burdens that come with my education will hinder a wider impact. Currently, my school’s estimated cost of attendance is $26,822, which totals into $107,228. While my school promises financial aid through scholarships, grants, and loans, it will only add up to $19298, which adds up to $77,192 for four years, not being enough to cover my expenses. I plan to win more scholarships from my school and outside school, earn income from jobs I have worked in, and continue to ask my family for money to pay for my schooling. This scholarship will alleviate my financial burdens to continue my education but also empowers me to continue to serve my community more substantially. It shows that my mission to continue my career in public service is validated by other people, encouraging me to continue to invest my time and energy into serving my community and face the issues plaguing it. My love for other people, my capacity for servitude, and my aim to strengthen my community makes me dedicated to making progress against issues that have weakened my community and the people in it. I am committed to making a strong impact on the lives of people by choosing a career in public service.

Despite their contributions to human history and how they turn the natural world into something beautiful, art and science are seen as these two contradictory things that intrinsically oppose each other. As an animator, the films that have inspired me to pursue the medium and have been my most revered cinematic experiences were made by manipulating pixels on a computer by a team of artists. Furthermore, some of the significant scientific minds have pursued artistic hobbies like playing instruments and were also proficient in artistic areas that made them better thinkers. Initially, I believed that art and science combatted each other as one found beauty in intuition and creativity, and one found beauty in rigor and numbers. Coding showed me how the marriage of art and science was not only compatible, but also able to create something more beautiful than when the fields were separated. I started a computer science class in my junior year of high school, learning the basics of coding and programming. Despite it only being a yearlong, it was one of the most fruitful periods of my education as it allowed me to indulge my scientific curiosity and artistic abilities by designing games, experimenting with code, and learning how to make programs. The class also inspired me by creating a community of like-minded individuals who wanted to pursue coding and mutually inspired each other to make better apps and programs. There was a universal thrill in designing and creating work that had your own unique style to it, and I always was excited to see the finished project no matter how exhausting debugging became. The class taught me a wide variety of computing languages that I still use CSS, HTML, and even picked up Python. During the class, I learned how to make an arcade game, paint pictures, create interactive websites, among other things. My proudest achievement was creating an interactive card for my adopted brother using spinning images and changing colors using fifty lines of code after weeks of development. Even though I am currently an animation major, I still aspire to learn how to create video games and 3D animation by joining workshops and classes using Blender and Adobe. As a black man pursuing both fields, I also have a more personal inspiration to achieve success in both animation and computer science. Despite black people making up 12% of the workforce, the information technology sector is reported to have 7.4% of its workers black with the animation industry having a lower rate of 4%. Both industries are limited in their diversity, preventing a future generation of creatives and innovators to pursue the field out of lack of representation. I hope to bridge the racial gap in the industries by creating a 3D animation studio that prioritizes representation of other cultures in their films and has a team of incredibly diverse animators working there. My computer science class was remarkably diverse with students from various cultures working to code and create programs, inspiring me to see a greater diversity in the industry like the one I found there. By seeing people of color and other underrepresented communities making work and achieving success, a new generation can find inspiration to pursue these fields as a viable career path. This scholarship validates my desire to create diversity by continuing my education and acknowledging the merit of my goals. Through the support from this scholarship and the committee, it encourages me to continue to pursue my goals in the future.

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” James 4: 14 James has become one of my most favored chapters in the Bible due to how it offers practical and brutally honest advice on how to live as a Christian. While this is not one of my favorite passages, it has caused me to reflect on the direction of my own life and how I wanted it to be versus how I lived it. My childhood was an idyllic period that shaped my identity and holds many of my most cherished memories. Supportive family, comfortable environment for a child, and a wide-eyed view of the world was how I remember it. While I am blessed to have a childhood like this, I feel that my parents could have done more to prepare for enduring moments of trail that would come in my future. It would have spared me from the hard lessons I would later endure alone. During my middle school years, I went through an incredibly consuming battle with my mental health that emerged in the form of social anxiety, depression, and self-hatred. I became distant from the hopeful optimism of my childhood instead adopting a prickly and defensive shell that I used to hide people from the real me. I hid my battle from my parents and those I was closest to in my family, fearing they would judge me or would not take it seriously. During this time, I often battled suicidal thoughts that forced me to harm and degrade myself. The first steps toward healing came when I first accepted Jesus Christ into my heart when I was thirteen years old. Initially, I believed that I was unworthy of being loved or even experiencing anything positive because of my own self-hatred. It was only after going to a youth conference with my church that I realized that God still loved regardless, and by accepting Jesus into my heart, I began a long journey into healing and recovery. Gradually, I began to discuss my mental health struggles with my family, and they accepted me immediately despite my fears. They were always open to talk about my emotions, quick to offer advice from their own lives, and most importantly, validated my experiences as a natural part of my life. I began to find my old self again, becoming a kinder and more optimistic person in my life. Even though I was making progress, I still relapsed into old negative thinking patterns, and I still battled against suicidal thoughts and my depression. Furthermore, it became harder for me to form friendships and regain my sociability from my youth. However, I still strived to appreciate the life God gave me, and I became more grateful that I was alive. Even though I have faced hardships that have sunk me to my lowest moments, I do not regret them because I surfaced with a renewed sense of purpose and passion for life. God has used circumstances meant to harm me to instead uplift me and give me a life that has been one of hope and endurance. It is a life that I thought I would not deserve or even live to see yet here I am now, writing and feeling more alive than ever.

I always find time to read my Bible daily, finding hope in its passages to navigate the days ahead. Recently, I read a verse from Matthew 9:35-38 saying, “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Throughout my education, I have consistently found ways to live a life of servitude towards other people and aspire to use the knowledge I have gained to make substantial impact on the lives of my community. My journey into higher education is defined not only how it transformed my life but has the impact to transform the lives of other people. Throughout my education career, I have been deeply involved in service projects and initiatives aimed against issues such as poverty, food insecurity, and hospice care. I have become a dedicated volunteer for organizations such as Grace Campus, the Salvation Army, the Volunteer Center, and other organizations that have made me involved in solving problems across my community. This volunteerism was made possible by pursuing opportunities offered by the school to promote community service and make students a valuable part of their local community. My educational opportunities have given me the opportunity to serve others on a large scale by choosing to use their resources to provide solutions to problems affecting our community. I aspire to have a broader impact on underrepresented communities through the field of animation by creating a studio of minority creatives to make films that tell stories of various minority groups and from other cultures. The animation industry is not a diverse place with reported to have only 4% of black animators working in the industry. Animation has also historically been used to spread harmful stereotypes about minorities and have limited media representation for diverse groups in its projects. The studio aims to celebrate the diverse experiences of cultures around the world and empower a new generation of animators to tell more culturally resonant storytelling. It will greater representation and creative expression for diverse cultures by promoting films about unity, diversity, and self-love. Even though we never met, I am inspired by Charlene’s understanding of how education can be used to serve others, not only themselves. My education has been responsible for driving my desire to volunteer by giving me access to organizations and initiatives that put me at the forefront of solving issues affecting my community. Furthermore, the knowledge and experience I have gained from these positions will continue to empower my growth by showing me how to serve others in the future through my animation studio. I know that I can uphold Charlene’s commitment to education and capacity for servitude through both my present actions and the future I choose to undertake. By winning this scholarship, I can better aim to contribute to my community and pursue my career more diligently without worrying about financial burdens. I know I can leave a legacy of servitude and the power of education like Charlene by my career path that will uphold the values she passionately lived. Thank you for your consideration.

Like most technology that is invented to discard established traditions and boundaries, advanced intelligence is as criticized as it is glorified by consumers. The loudest arguments against AI have been how it can take away human jobs, concerns of data privacy, and potentially spreading misinformation. My philosophy of technology is based on how we use technology instead of the nature of technology itself being a problem. While there are numerous valid criticisms against AI’s development, I believe it can be used for the betterment of society. My first experiences in AI began in eleventh grade when I began to become more interested in computer science and machine learning. My computer science class taught me the basics of programming, game design, and most importantly, introduced me to AI. I was enthralled by the combination of art and science and enjoyed unleashing my creativity by finding the right algorithms and testing my code. One of my proudest moments came when I used coding to create a digital Christmas card for my adoptive brother as a present, imprinting a positive impression on me on how AI can be used for a positive purpose. While I began to learn about AI and its benefits, I was simultaneously learning about the downsides of AI, which affected both me as a student and as a person. Numerous reports emerged about students using AI models like ChatGPT to cheat on tests and their assignments. Furthermore, I learned about how industries that implemented AI like healthcare were prone to misdiagnosis patients, impacting the quality of patient care. As an African American man, I was also exposed to how AI had been used to discriminate against black people for employment, impacting our economic success and job opportunities. I have researched the downsides of AI from various interviews and articles on the negative aspects of AI. While the negative effects of AI and STEM’s lack of diversity are barriers for my future, I choose to invest in AI as a potential career regardless of barriers. I am inspired by both my mission to use AI for positive functions in my chosen career and a desire to make STEM more inclusive for the next generation of scientists. As an aspiring animation entrepreneur, I hope to invest in AI in animation to both use it to improve the quality of animation and use it as a tool to further diversity. Like AI, animation has an unfortunate history of prejudice embedded in the medium, which I hope to reduce by making animated films that teach inclusivity and diversity to audiences. AI will be used to make animation production faster and more efficient, cheapening the cost to create an animated film. I also hope to use it as a platform for minority animators to operate outside mainstream Hollywood using this improved technique of animation making both fields more inclusive. Another goal is to use AI to inspire future generations of African Americans and other minorities to see STEM as a viable career path through investing in AI education. I hope for kids to see STEM as an opportunity in their reach and increase the diversity of engineers and scientists in the future. Furthermore, since AI is becoming more prominent in industries and society, these schools will prepare students to become more competent in operating AI models for the future. I plan to invest in communities with lower income to create an equitable success rate for children to succeed in the STEM field.

How does it feel when the field you want to dedicate your life does not want to dedicate itself to you? As a black man aspiring to work in animation, I am forced to confront a medium that has historically pushed stereotypes and derogatory images of both black and minorities. Even in a more inclusive society, representation of blacks both on-screen and the industry are limited, with only 4% of workers in the industry are black. As a naturally introverted child, animation provided me with a gateway to escapism and fantastical worlds only bounded by the artist’s imagination. The creativity in the worlds, the dynamic expression, and capacity for rich emotional depth astounded my mind to pursue it early on. I became enamored by the medium, working to improve my skills by reading animation books, improving my drawing skills, and joining organizations to practice my skills. Despite my work ethic and experience in media production, making a substantial impact on animation through diversity still challenges my growth as an artist. Research into the top-grossing animated films over the decade revealed that 19% of women held key roles in these films, dropping to 7% when women of color. While entering an industry with limited representation of my race, I am emboldened to pursue animation to improve the diversity in the medium and inspire the next generation of minority creatives. Animation’s capacity for emotionally rich storytelling and developing deeper connections across cultures is unparalleled due to its wide reach and the creativity intrinsic to the medium. Through more diverse creators and more culturally resonant storytelling, the medium will become more powerful in impacting audiences and become more universal in its appeal. My goal in the medium is to better spread stories that will resonate with more diverse audiences, inspire a new generation of creatives, and open the doors for more complex representations in cinema. My degree in Creative Media Industries not only improves my technical skills in animation but also teaches me how to make a successful business in the future. Outside of academia, I hope to intern at studios that focus on representation and have a diverse staff of animators. These experiences will build connections to people who share my goals, how to create businesses that prioritize diverse representation, and build a solid foundation to pursue greater goals in the medium. Once I graduate from college, I aspire to create my own studio based in Austin that specializes in diverse portrayals of underrepresented cultures and gives many positions to aspiring minority animators. Through spreading more culturally representative works and hiring a more diverse staff, we can open more opportunities for impactful storytelling, explore more compelling themes, and build the medium as a safer atmosphere for minorities. I hope to build a studio that inspires other animation studios to prioritize diversity in the industry and create more films that explore stories from underrepresented communities. My main goal in pursuing a career as an animation entrepreneur is to expand the voices heard in the medium and inspire a new generation of animators to expand the storytelling possible in animation. By building learning how to make a successful business, working to make animation a more inclusive environment, and expanding the opportunities available in the industry, I hope to create a legacy in animation built on diversity nonconformity that will be built by animators influenced by my mission.

Chidubé lived a life that reflected his spirit and love for others openly, making his passing more hurtful when knowing the world lost a valuable soul. While I never knew Chidubé, I do relate to his passion for education, faith, and community service, which also inspires me to make a more significant contribution to my community like him. By winning this scholarship, I hope to make an impact using the same values and dedication, Chhidubé had on Earth to show his influence still lives on today. My relationship with both education and my Christian faith has been like playing with a Russian nesting doll that keeps revealing its intricacies and impacts as I grow older. Like Chidubé, it was a personal and transformative commitment to growing them, keeping them close to the direction of my life. My journey reflects a spirit and dedication for personal development and the power learning has on the quality of a person’s future. My pursuit of higher education reflects Chidubé’s recognition of the power of learning has in not only transforming ourselves but improving our communities through our knowledge have become more cognizant of the power learning has in shaping and transforming my identity. My commitment to academic excellence revealed my determination and work ethic, and going beyond the classroom allowed me to focus on community service endeavors. By developing a deeper connection to my education, I became more involved with opportunities such as volunteerism and community service outside of academic work. Before I accepted Jesus into my heart, I was often plagued by self-doubt, anxiety, and depressive episodes, which plagued pursuing my goals and personal development. It was after beginning my relationship with God that I began to build a healthier view of myself that revealed my own strength and allowed me to endure in moments of adversity. My faith was also instrumental in influencing my own desires for philanthropy, emboldening me to work on fundraisers and volunteer more consistently so I can improve issues in my community. Like Chudubé, faith has played a key role in shaping my identity, influencing me to make a positive impact on others by following God. My goal is to use my love of animation by expanding the opportunities of minorities and creating more representation in the industry by creating a studio that prioritizes films made by minority animators. By pursuing my degree, I will learn how to build a studio that effectively combats the stereotypes and images that have plagued the medium using my skills to create a positive impact on the next generation of creatives. This scholarship both validates my own goal in improving my community but also symbolizes how Chidubé’s altruism is still affecting other people by inspiring the next generation of leaders. By winning this scholarship, I am empowered to continue to impact the world and honor the legacy of Chidubé impacting the community through his values in the importance of lifelong learning my education and consistent faith in God. It expands the impact I can have by expanding the opportunities for my education and diligently working to build a history of service and leadership. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be considered for the scholarship.

My Christian faith and my commitment to education have guided the trajectory of my life and future long before I was born. Through their faith in God and their pursuit of higher education, they lifted themselves from poverty-stricken backgrounds to being the most successful members in their family. My life has been a direct result of their trust in these factors, and they have inspired me to develop into an individual that is deeply tied to his faith in God and a person who recognizes the power of education. In high school, I achieved a 4.0 GPA, attended honors classes, and graduated from my high school class Magna Cum Laude. However, the most formative experiences came from spending time with my church through various fundraisers, donations, and community service events across the community. By passionately committing to the issues that affected my community such homelessness, food insecurity, and lack of education, I became emboldened of the power service that transformed communities into something positive. It encouraged me to pursue higher education, so I can gain better skills and pursue greater opportunities that would lead to a more fruitful position. I have always been determined to use my abilities and experiences to make a positive impact on the world, leading to pursue opportunities that will surround me in communities that are equally as altruistic as me. While I had doubts that my main dream in becoming an animator was a limited path to help other people, reading my Bible gave me an important reminder of the plans God had for me, regardless of my talent’s prestige. St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 12: 9 wrote during a moment of crisis that God told Him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” This revelation fills me with hope that even though my artistic abilities are not as grandiose as being an effective political activist or having the intellect to discover new cures, I can still make an incredible impact on the world by trusting God will set me on the path to use my skills for the better. After earning a bachelor’s degree, I hope to combine my passion for animation and my desire to help others on a large scale by creating an animation studio that specializes in delivering more complex representation of other cultures and races. Animation has been historically perpetuated by harmful stereotypes that are present in its most popular works, and the industry is not remarkably diverse in representing minority animators. I hope my studio can change these facts by giving minority animators greater opportunities to show their work and tell stories from specific cultures underrepresented in Hollywood. I started working for studios that are eager to increase diversity in the industry and their work, which can be achieved by the funding from this scholarship. Thank you are forgiving me for the opportunity to be considered for this scholarship because it validates my journey toward valuable community service and using my abilities to make an impact on the world in a unique way. I am incredibly grateful to continue my journey through the support from this scholarship, and I hope I can receive more opportunities to expand the quality of my education and focus on serving the needs of others. Thank you dearly for this scholarship.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Genesis 1: 28 Before I was even born, God was showing me how both the power of education and the power of faith would have on my life. Both of my parents grew up in generational poverty, faced with the consequences of institutionalized racism, and grew up in dysfunctional households. Despite all these barriers both internal and external, they knew that by building their faith in God, and by pursuing education, they would be free from the shackles placed upon them from an early age. As they grew older, their faith in God allowed them to become the first Castilles to earn degrees in higher education, earn steady jobs with reliable income, and became a loving and support father and mother to me. Their journey from poverty to prosperity inspired me to place a high value on both my education and my faith in my life. By the time I graduated high school, their lessons had been firmly imprinted on both my academic potential and servitude. I maintained a high 4.0 GPA, joined honor classes, and graduated Magna Cum Laude through the influence of both my parents and my Christianity leading me to become a better version of myself. As my faith in God grew, my commitment to service also increased by joining my church’s volunteering events regularly, working with student-led organizations on multiple community service projects across campus, and planning projects across my community in my senior year. The fruits of both my faith and hard work have influenced me to make a bigger impact on the world by pursuing higher education for increased opportunities and knowledge in my future. Being a Christian has given me a more enriching perspective on the world and my place in it by humbling me to become a servant of Christ and using my abilities to help other people. I am inspired to prosper in higher education because I value the opportunities God has placed in my life, and due to the expanded opportunities to increase my faith that comes with pursuing a degree. My faith guides me to love others earnestly which has influenced me to become active in my community through pursuing community service opportunities available to me. I have been involved in successful donations, community planning and development, and large-scale volunteer efforts that have improved the lives of thousands of people through my actions. My identity and my future are intrinsically tied to my faith, and I choose to live my life in the Word like my parents have done before me. When I graduate college with a bachelor’s degree, I hope to use my natural creativity and my desire to help others by creating my own animation studio in Houston that prioritizes diversity in media representation and expands opportunities for minority animators. My faith has led me to see my creativity as a tool that can be used to help others in a more enriching way by using animation to spread more diverse stories to audiences. Animation has historically been a medium that has perpetuated false and harmful stereotypes and minorities, and I hope my studio can create a more fulfilling space for more diverse and culturally resonant storytelling. By being led by my faith and pursuing my dreams of becoming an animator, I hope to use my education to create a more impactful legacy in animation and more opportunities for minorities. My life shows the power the values of maintain strong faith in God and having the strength to serve others can lead to a fruitful life. I know I define the values the Jacksons led in their lives, being inspired to uplift others through our own religious identity and a genuine desire to help others in our communities. I am incredibly grateful to be considered for this scholarship because it will give me greater opportunities to serve others and use my education to improve my community through my abilities. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to apply and be validated on the fruits of my faith and identity.

Paint drowned my nostrils, becoming the only thing, I could smell for hours. My arms grew heavier, making each stroke from my brush more demanding than the last. It was an incredibly difficult and slow process that exhausted our energy, exciting us when the task was finally completed. Nevertheless, a feeling of accomplishment had enveloped me, causing a new perspective to emerge that has impacted my view of community service and the true impact these activities have on other people. Growing up, I never recognized how the way I defined volunteerism would impact the actions I would make on my community. While I was active in community service throughout high school, these projects were ambitious undertakings that had many members participating. These ranged from donations to other countries, volunteering to adopt children from across the world, or launching fundraisers for my local church. I equated the impact of volunteering to the size of the project, ignoring the smaller scale projects as pointless. When I moved to Lubbock for my bachelor’s degree at Texas Tech, this narrow view of volunteerism impacted the projects I undertook. I ignored the minor projects of recycling and helping younger kids as activities that were not worth my energy or time, instead hoping for the next big community service project. It never occurred to me to consider how these projects provided short-term effects on improving other people and making our community a much safer and prosperous place. In late November, I made the decision to join Raiders Helping Others, a student-led organization dedicated to improving the local Lubbock area. I wanted to join because they had a proven record of accomplishment for long-term community impact and had been involved in various high-profile events throughout the city. My first assignment involved painting a room for the Lubbock Salvation Army, which disappointed me due to the small-scale nature of the activity. It soon became apparent that the size of the project was never the proof of the activity’s real impact. As I began to join in painting the room, an epiphany began to emerge. The house we were painting was for people who could not afford homes for themselves. We were working to provide a space for them to get back on their feet and feel the warmth of their community. I also became inspired by the other members diligently working to make the room a safe and comfortable space for others, realizing the purpose for their labor. Seeing my peers work tirelessly through exhaustion and an ever-present weariness inspired me to push myself even further despite my lack of energy. It revealed a much more fruitful and empowering impact we were making through volunteering that altered my view on how I can make my community a better place. My perspective on volunteerism and its impact had been incredibly narrow, focused on the more visible acts of service as the most important ones. Not only did my experience with Raiders Helping Others broaden my perspective on how volunteerism of any kind does not exist in a vacuum regardless of visibility. The true purpose of volunteerism, regardless of scope, is to improve the lives of others and strengthen the bonds of our communities by showing the depth of our love for each other. If I had never signed up to paint that room, I would never realize the true impact I was having on my community.

Before my life even began, God was positioning a life that defied the expectations set for me through my parents. Both my father and mother grew up in poverty-stricken households during an era where race relations were gradually starting to get more progressive, but the effects of institutionalized racism still had its claws on their lives. Despite their harsh upbringing, my parents believed in both God and themselves that eventually they would rise above their upbring for a better future. In 2006, my parents were living a life that was marked by both incredible professional growth and personal security. They became the first people in the Castille family to earn degrees in high school and college education. My parents were earning a steady income from their dream jobs in both social security and teaching, finally escaping from the poverty that sunk their teeth into their lives. Most importantly, my parents finally found love in each other, eventually marrying, and having me, giving me a life they could only dream of as children. Nineteen years later, I have started to understand all the effort my parents have made to provide a life that was both abundant and more comfortable than their own harsh upbringing. Even though I can never relate to their experiences the same way, I still want hope to repay them for giving me this life. I am also grateful for them for introducing me to God, shaping my heart into something positive and inspiring me to volunteer from an early age. These have been some of the valuable attributes in my life, pushing me to work towards a life that my parents wished me to have before I was even born. Academic excellence has always been one of the attributes my parents have pushed for me, knowing how they used their education to lift them from their upbringings into a successful future. Since high school, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA, took Honors and Advanced Placements classes, been invited to join the Honor Society, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. I have also been active in diligently pursuing volunteerism in both my church as a volunteer for their events and in college by joining organizations like Raiders Helping Others and Rise. I have also been working to apply to various scholarships across other websites, applying to 150, none of which I have won. While I have always wanted to pursue a higher education to gain future career and networking opportunities, I now am inspired to pursue a degree for the sake of my parents. I want to continue the impact education has had on our lives, showing how pursuing a degree has led to a more enriching life and future. Even though I must take loans out, I want to show that my parents’ love of education has been used to positively impact my life, wanting to take the best opportunities that will lead to a rewarding future. I am so grateful for this opportunity to demonstrate the impact education can have on lives, and I hope to alleviate the strains of financial burdens that have impacted by family. I want to thank the organizer of this scholarship for allowing me the opportunity to write about my goals and give my family a better way to finance my education.

Anxiety has been a presence in my life longer than I can remember, but its effects varied based on what stages my life was in. When I was a child, it prevented me from reaching out to people and being incredibly uncomfortable around others, but it was still manageable. In high school, I was unable to look people in the eyes, in constant dread of humiliating myself, and was often self-isolating. While I have overcome my worst experiences in anxiety, I still wonder what the next stage in my life will bring. I never found out about my social anxiety until much later. Initially, I was nervous around strangers and did not like talking to people. My upbringing did not have the typical causes of social anxiety, such as bullying, abuse, or other factors, having a very idyllic childhood with loving family and friends. It never became overbearing until I moved from my hometown, Beaumont, to Houston, forced to rebuild my identity in an entirely foreign environment with new people. Instead of talking about my feelings with parents, I held my anxiety in out of fear they would find me ungrateful. This led my anxiety to worsen, leading me to isolate myself, become fearful of social situations, and avoid social gatherings. Gradually, I started to rebuild my relationship with my family by explaining my true feelings about the move, and they validated my concerns by sharing their problems with me. We started to talk more openly about my anxiety and our problems with the move, slowly building my confidence in other people. Their support helped me work on my social anxiety more actively through creative expression, trying to make new friends, and focusing on my academics. Throughout this period, I started building a better relationship with God by reading my Bible and becoming diligent in my studying, which helped renew my spirit and perspective on how God viewed me as a somebody deserving of love. At eighteen, my anxiety is at a moderate level being balanced, but I am still aware that I can still work to better manage it. I still have difficulty making friends with people, barely having acquaintances in my school. My fear of humiliation has led me with inadequate public speaking abilities and less leadership roles, which I need to better develop for the various organizations I want to work in. It feels like the world has moved on without me, but I am comfortable with moving at my own pace with my close family by my side and my own self-worth. College represents a time for people to build skills for their career, make valuable connections both professionally and personally, and a milestone in their lives. For me, college represents a time of renewal of my identity, facing an unfamiliar environment, facing a new set of challenges with an entirely unique group of people. I am again facing the situation that worsened my social anxiety, but with a new foundation in Christ and with a support network of my family, I am confident to preserve to a great future. It represents taking my life into my own hands and preserving my new identity in an unfamiliar and unpredictable environment while still serving others and making an impact. My anxiety prevented me from having a typical high school experience and pursuing the opportunities I wanted. By keeping my faith, becoming more ready to take on new challenges, and committing to persistent growth, college will become an experience that I can both enrich me and serve as a steppingstone into healthily managing my social anxiety.

Animation has always dazzled me, consistently filling me with the same awe I had since I was a child. When I first saw the drawings move and behave in increasingly complicated motions, it opened my mind to the wonders of creative expression. The complex emotions and limitless imagination available in animation has always inspired my passion for drawing. I have held this dream with enthusiastic vigor, but my initial reason to pursue animation has changed. As I researched into the history of animation, I confronted the toxic history of animation being used to dehumanize African Americans using derogatory stereotypes along with other minority cultures. Even American culture moves into a more diverse and progressive era, mainstream animation rarely features non-white characters in protagonist roles and the industry does not have a high percentage of minority animators. Despite animation’s potential for more experimental storytelling and boundless expression, the industry has found ways to limit the voices that can be heard through the medium. While I still want to become an animator, the historical and inherent stereotyping and lack of key involvement of black animators urges me to pursue an alternative pathway. Animation has the power to provoke powerful social action in its audiences through translating complex subject matter into more accessible forms of storytelling. By using the medium to create more positive media portrayals of minorities and more culturally diverse storytelling, I aim to create more unique and empowering media depictions of cultures. My professional goals during and after college are based around my desire to pursue more experimental animation. By studying in Creative Media Industries at Texas Tech, I am learning the various business aspects involving in successful independent production to learn practice an independent model. Throughout my education, I hope to pursue internships and workshops that focus on diverse representations in animation with more minority animators at the helm to build a stable network of future collaborators and coworkers. Outside the classroom, I hope to improve my own technical skills and animation experience by independently producing personal short films. I aim to show these films in short film festivals to gauge audience interest, and make money off them, as an early model for independent filmmaking. By the time I complete college, I hope to have an incredible portfolio of short films, personal art, and stories that reflect my desire for diverse media representation and storytelling. By utilizing the popularity and accessibility of animation to increase cultural unity and empowerment of diverse cultures, my work can inspire more diverse creators and encourage more culturally resonant storytelling. This scholarship empowers me to pursue this goal with financial support and validation that my goals are worth pursuing in the future.

With a 4.0 GPA and receiving awards such as the President’s Honor List, I have achieved academic excellence as a freshman studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Media Industries at Texas Tech University. I aim to utilize my degree to expand diverse representation in animated films by creating an independent studio that hires minority animators from various cultures. My ideal goal is to create a profitable and financially stable company that produces quality animation from a variety of cultures with the end goal of making a film company in ten years. Through the power and influence of media, I hope to make American media more inclusive and inspire more minority creatives to populate the animation industry. As an African American, I must confront how animation has been historically used to perpetuate derogatory images of black people and other minorities in various media. By creating work that shows empowering characters across cultures produced by minority creatives, I hope to help break the toxic trends of stereotyping in American media. I choose to work independently because mainstream companies often continue to stereotype or misrepresent cultures in the media, and due to greater creative control independent animation has without the constraints from studio executives. Even though independent animation studios will not have the same financial backing and reputation as mainstream studios, I believe creating a successful independent studio can be achieved. The primary reasons I believe this goal is achievable are due to the current climate of the animation industry, the popularity of international animation, and the potential model. Independent animation is gr owing with the rise of streaming and social media platforms like YouTube giving avenues for more minority and creator driven shows to become popular. Animation is starting to have a more global presence, with numerous animated films and shows receiving international acclaim, inspiring more diverse creators to become prominent. The model of financing relies on streaming, video on demand, and merchandising, which have proven extraordinarily successful in financing independent creators. By winning the Jessie Koch Future Entrepreneurs Scholarships, I am validated in my goal to create an independent studio by fulfilling the same values as Jessie Koch through my pursuing active change, challenging disturbing media trends, and using the transformative power of ideas. This scholarship will embolden me to become more proactive in my entrepeneurial goals by taking on more workshops and inspiring me to maintain my academic excellence. I am grateful for the numerous opportunities given for me to pursue this career, and I hope I can successfully achieve my business ambition for a future impact.

Mathematics is the language nature speaks, the only language humans can understand. It is a complex ecosystem of calculations, formulas, and models that grant access to understanding the secrets of the universe through deciphering mathematical patterns. This language also helps scientists across the world by giving them a specific set of symbols to scrutinize, uniting them in their deep curiosity to understand the world through connections. It is hard to fathom how I developed a deep love for mathematics when the same complex theories and aesthetically pleasing formulas filled my child brain with fantastic dread. My journey into recognizing beauty was an arduous one, marked by personal frustration and an inaccurate understanding of mathematics. I saw math as this frightening and unpredictable ghastly beast that impeded my academic growth with its confusing equation and dry concepts. My mind tried processing those exhausting calculations in my head, being rewarded with wrong answers. It absorbed quantities of techniques and tricks to understand the concepts until it became numb. It was common for the papers to crumble and torn due to the frequent frustration when I could not solve a problem. My relationship with math was defined by what I could not do, and it was a guarded fortress that did not let me enter to find its secrets. The love I have for math is complex due to it never being an immediate process, and I am still deepening my adoration as I begin to explore the subject. I am still haunted by the countless unfruitful hours spent over problems, memories of the dread that filled my soul every test. I may never have a devoted adoration for math due to my own personal failings. However, I feel like this paradoxically attracts me towards mathematics. I hope to become accustomed to the strange theories abundant throughout the field, the complexity of its equation becoming beautiful in their simplicity and becoming more attuned to the workings of this language. Mathematics has shaped my dedication and passion as a lifelong learner, empowering me to become more devoted to difficulties in acquiring knowledge to expand my mind. It has offered a transformative experience in my love of learning, which I hope can grow stronger.

As a black man interested in pursuing animation, I have understood the prevalence of media stereotypes of dehumanize cultures and have lacked positive role models of color in animated works. While I initially wanted to pursue a traditional animation degree, I recognize the intrinsic benefits a communications degree would have on the impact and legacy of my animation work. By pursuing a communications degree, I hope to utilize my knowledge of how effective media messaging works and affects a wide audience will lead to the spread of diverse ideas and better representation of cultures. Even in a more progressive world with greater opportunities for minorities, it is an unfortunate aspect of most popular media has a mixed to negative portrayals of non-Eurocentric culture, especially animation. Animations potential for exaggeration and hyperbole maximized the spread and harmfulness of stereotyping by making cultures, such as African Americans and Asians, promoting negative depictions in the early film industry. While animation studios have become more respectful in representation and there are still projects that create diverse media portrayals, most popular studios and projects do not feature other cultures prominently and negatively portray them to a mass audience. As an aspiring animator, I recognize this is the industry that I am pursuing as a career, leading me to pursue an artistic career that prioritizes complex depictions of other cultures and to inspire people of color to pursue animation. While I can never erase ideas of prejudice on a mass cultural scale, I still have the power to change the narrative and mitigate negative portrayals using my communications degree. My Creative Media Industries has increased my desire to create meaningful projects by showing me the power media has in the spread and effectiveness of messaging. It has allowed me to understand how and why stereotypes have emerged in the artist, what techniques they used to spread them, and why they continue to appear in the media. This has made me recognize how media has the potential to influence the opinion and discussion of other cultures by portraying them to a wider audience who will spread those ideals across generations. Through various workshops, internships, and personal projects, I aim to become more cognizant of effective character writing and storytelling that will break the history of stereotyping in animation and media. After receiving my degree, I hope to create my own animation studio in Austin, hiring minority animators and working to produce films that are influenced by cultural myths and folklore. By fostering a studio that prioritizes complex depictions and features characters from various cultures, audiences will be exposed to more accurate representation and increases the diversity in the industry. This scholarship does not only give greater funding to pursue expanded opportunities with my degree but validates my passion for increasing the diversity of animation, inspiring the next generation of minority creatives who want to make an impact. I encompass the values of the scholarship through my commitment to expanding diversity in my chosen industry, creating a trajectory for a sizable impact, and planning to utilize my education as a tool for my success. My communication degree has allowed me a more potent pathway to increase creativity in animation by creating substantial messaging and diverse representation in media. I would be honored to receive this scholarship, encouraging me to pursue a future career that produces positive messaging, and represent other cultures respectfully for future generations of artists.

My journey in active and substantive community service has been marked by my desire to improve my community through positive action and strengthening bonds. Through fostering empathy, kindness, and perseverance, I hope to become an able servant to people by showing a passionate commitment to make a positive impact in their lives. Raiders Helping Others, emphasizing the power of strengthening the spirit and community of people through consistent volunteering and service. My ambition lies in my core to make a profound impact on the lives of other people. It pushes me to pursue opportunities that improve my community by showing the power altruism has in shaping a positive environment and inspiring others to act. This is why I value community service because it emphasizes how ordinary people have the potential to make a profound impact on the lives in their communities through their actions. This drive to perform at higher levels is not only present in community service projects, but also in my academic life, motivating me to never settle for lower achievements. It has driven me to become more active on campus, pursuing leadership roles in community organizations like RISE and Raider Recycling. I diligently maintain a high 4.0 GPA, showing how I value education as a factor in achieving long-term community growth. The core of my experience in Raiders Helping Others is my commitment to performing service at the highest levels of success. I have become a person that is fostering respect in my community by treating people with respect and valuing them as human beings. This has led me to become diligent in community work by fostering environments that value individual welfare and creating a network of dedicated people who push themselves to create a stronger community. I am engaging with people who have suffered through homelessness and physical diseases by showing them they are loved and giving them the resources to live a more fulfilling life. My drive motivates me to show people compassion to their plight while giving them the strength to live as human beings by giving them the resources and tools they need to become self-sufficient. This scholarship does not serve as a tool to relieve my financial burden but validates my impact on my community and through the lives of others. It will show me that my impact and commitment is not to be ignored but motivates me to pursue service and create solutions to improve people who have never felt love in their community. By winning this scholarship, I am strengthened to become a force in positive activism and community development, inspiring me to continue to perform effective and long-term service. Through passionate dedication, strong empathy, and leadership through service, I am a candidate that demonstrates the main principles of the scholarship. My work involves becoming an active force in driving my community’s positive development, inspiring people to grow their community through action and compassion for people. I hope to leave behind a legacy of consistent and ardent service that inspires people to become strong forces of profound change in the lives of other people. This scholarship will strengthen my resolve for focusing on community service by building the future of an altruistic and passionate servant to their community who will create a better environment for future generations. It will allow me to fulfill my potential for improving my communities through my compassion for others and pursuing creative solutions to societal issues. It can allow me to pursue an education that values community service work by expanding the resources I have for making a significant impact.

My name is Noah A. Castille. I hope to start my own independent animation studio after completing my bachelor’s degree, with the aim to make films about various cultures and feature culturally resonant storytelling. The Main Problem As a black man aspiring to become an animator, I am forced to confront the darker and more painful sides of animation history. I have seen animation been used to spread negative media portrayals of black people and other minority groups from its early inception to even in some cartoons today. Even as the modern era is becoming more inclusive, there are few animations representing non-Eurocentric cultures and some continue to stereotype other races. As an artist, I must face the reality that my chosen medium has a history of promoting negative depictions of my culture and a limited history of representation of specific cultures for profit. I hope to be a part of a generation that creates better media portrayals of other cultures around the world outside of mainstream animation studios. The Business Animation for the World An animation studio that prioritizes diversity in animation through unique storytelling and influences from other cultures. I want to base it in Austin, due to my reputation for high quality animation studios and festivals, and due to the diversity of the city. By hiring primarily minority animators from distinct cultures, we will increase the diversity in our stories, basing them on stories, myths, and histories from their unique cultures. We would also be increasing the number of minorities working in the industry, creating a potential career opportunity for many minority creatives. The main goal is to have fifty animators working to increase the scope and quality of the films. We hope to start with short films to prove our quality to audiences and investors through runs at film festivals before earning enough money to create larger films. Our main sources of income will be from streaming, DVD sales, merchandising, and VOD services to earn money and build niche audiences. Influences Walt Disney: I loved his story of overcoming financial difficulties and rough patches in his life to develop a successful and profitable business, creating the most acclaimed animation productions in the world through determination and his hard work. Don Hertzfeldt: My personal favorite independent animator, Hertzfeldt has made experimental and acclaimed independent films for over thirty years, financing himself with film festival runs, DVD, and VOD, serving as both a creative and financial influence. Vivziepop: For a decade now, Vivziepop’s independent animation, including Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, has inspired me to take the independent route, showing the potential for success in animation outside mainstream studio funding. Phil Vischer: As the co-creator of Veggie Tales, his series has inspired me as a Christian artist to use my medium to spread positivity messaging and reveal there is an audience for all types of storytelling. Measurable Goals Create our starting working on first film after ten years of operation: Through money from grants, broadcast deals, and festival prizes, we hope to start producing a forty minute or more feature film. We have established enough money and audience to develop a film with a team and can safely have a distributor due to our reputation. The first marker to create the film is when three of our films have lengthy festival runs, winning many prizes. Win at least one prize for three films at film festivals: Since we are relying on film festivals, our success will depend on their runs. We hope to have three films win at least one prize to show audiences are interested in the company. It will also show distributors we are a marketable brand. Gain at least thirty employees in seven years operation: We need more employees to create more ambitious films and get into the feature film industry. By the success of our films through festival runs, awards won, and money earned from various sources of income, we hope to show minority animators we are a successful business to work for. The studio will cater to minority animators nearing graduation or having graduated, which is beneficial for having younger, more ambitious animators in the workforce to join our company.

Thump, thump, thump. For a good thirty minutes that was the only sound I heard. Thump, thump, thump. The sound of the basketball hitting the pavement on a sunny, blue day. It was also the sound of my heart after playing so intensely. Thump, thump, thump. Why was I doing this? I thought. I am not a sports person. I have no athletic ability. I was not a good basketball player. These thoughts distracted me from focusing on my sweat drenched body and the odor I had accumulated that day. I remember looking at a mirror, and looking so wet I thought it had rained. I wanted to lay down and soak up the light breeze in the air, but the ground was heated from spending so much time in the sun that I swear you could cook an egg on the pavement. The only person who was having a fun time was my dad. My dad was always a capable athlete, so the fact I was not destroys any concept of genetic disposition. Standing at 6 feet, he had strong muscles, an endless supply of stamina, and legs that could move with the wind. At home, he was slothful, with the couch as his main habitat. On the court, he was a force of nature, glided on his feet across the field, operating the ball with such finesse, I thought he hired a doppelganger to humiliate me. Unfortunately, it was him, so I could not go home with Lebron or Steph. In the heat of the game, the sweat wafted in our faces, our vision was blurry, and our lungs were close to being coughed up. At least on my end. I was tired. Tired of staying out here playing a game I hated, tired of hearing my heart pound in my ears from the game, tired of saying I could not get a point, and tired of letting my dad win. I do not remember what happened next, but the next thing I realized was that the ball was magically in my hands, and when I went to take a shot, I made it. By that time, the heat had been cooking my brain, and I had exhausted all my stamina, so I thought I hallucinated it. Then, my dad, ball in hand, stepped to me smiling, and said “Good shot, son.” I was so filled with joy, or exhaustion, that I fell to the ground to rest before immediately getting back up and jumping high enough to make a slam dunk with no ball. I thought my skin had melted off. We got back to the car, my dad filled with sweat draped across his body, and me, looking half-black, half-red sat in the car. It smelled, the shirts stuck to the seat, and the metal made my hand look redder than a baboon's butt, but we did not care. We just wanted home. Back then, I did not know why we stopped after I made the shot. He wanted a rematch or go harder on me now that I made the shot. Now, I get it. Dad wanted to teach me the importance of perseverance even when my body was telling me to stop. It was not about what happened on the court, but off it. I have kept that lesson in the back of my mind whether I am doing mathematics, public speaking, or talking to strangers. I knew that I could conquer anything I set my mind to even if I hated the process. I got the red back to prove it.

“4.3% of animators in the United States are black.” “Of the top grossing animated films from 2014 to 201, 19% had women in key roles, with the number dropping to 7% with women of color.” “Only eleven animated movies from Disney had a non-white protagonist, and those were only produced recently.” These are recent statistics of the inclusivity of African Americans both being represented in American animated media and in the workforce. Comparing other demographics such as Asian and Hispanic animators, they have similar numbers, reported to be 14.3% and 7.7%, respectively. The statistics portray an industry that does not have a high percentage of minority animators and has an even lower percentage of those animators being involved in key positions such as director or involved in high profile projects. To some, this seems like an immovable metric that cannot be topped. To me, it is a challenge. Growing up with parents who grew up during equally progressive and turbulent eras in America, I was raised with a healthy sense of optimism in what I could, especially given that I was born in an era that promoted inclusivity. When I first fell in love with animation, I was immediately captivated by the creative storytelling, worldbuilding, and emotional depth present in the medium. It combined my passions for both storytelling and drawing into an amalgamation of these two sources, and I dedicated myself to improving my drawing and even producing my own films in my spare time. As I grew older, I began to realize the harmful stereotyping associated within the media since its inception, seeing these derogatory images of African Americans impacted how I viewed animation. Instead of solely being a medium of entertainment and creative storytelling, I recognized how it had been used to shape and create false perceptions of racial groups and dehumanize their identity. I was even more shocked to learn how limiting the industry was for black artists with very few animators being black or non-white in the industry, and even less being involved in high profile projects. It saddened me to learn that not only was animation being used to further negative images about my culture, but I also learned the unlikelihood of success in the medium for black artists. It made me want to give up and find a safer career. When I was fourteen, I saw the movie, Soul, and it immediately struck a chord with me. The same creative expression, the complex storytelling, and philosophical depth reminded me of why I fell in love with the medium in the first place, renewing my passion. I related to the character, Joe, not only because he was African American, but because he showed me that my dreams were worth fighting for regardless of the obstacles in my path. I was further shown independent animation from Jorge Gutirrez, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Hayao Miyazaki, that showed me how the medium has always thrived on its diversity, delivering its proudest exports. These experiences gave me more confidence in animation by inspiring me to become an animator that prided himself on diverse representation and improving the position of black animators in the industry. I am pursuing a Creative Media Industries degree, and after I graduate, I hope to create an independent animation studio in Austin that prioritizes diverse representation. By hiring minority animators and distributing them in film festivals, I hope to reach a wider audience that wish to see fully realized depictions of their cultures in animation, inspiring a new generation of creatives for the future.

To emphasize both my confidence in an unseen future in the next stage of my life and as a tribute to my creative ambitions, I will call this next chapter “How I want to color my Future.” While the future is an abstract and intangible thing that cannot be colored or seen, I often use sensory details to describe it, such as “how my future look...” or “how my I see my future.” For me, I often refused or even hoped that I would never face my future because I did not want to face the incoming responsibilities. How will I make my living? What dream does not give me happiness? What if I forget who I am and the people who care about me? Will I ever become a morning person? It always gave me an unsettling feeling whenever I thought about it, but I always had two things to guide me. The fact my parents were beside me, and that God had my best interests at heart, so I decided to trust them, and hope it would turn out okay. While I knew I could rely on those two aspects for facing my future, I gradually began to learn that I had to face the uncertain future on my own. I knew I could always call them for help, but I needed to walk through the door they left open for me to succeed. The days I have spent in community service through organizations like Raiders Helping Others have shown my commitment to helping people in substantial ways and be a voice in my community. I have become more confident in my power to make an impact by my own abilities instead of hiding from them. As an African American, I know I was born into a world that had systems and laws that once limited my freedom to be an inferior citizen, and I still experience a world affected by that traumatic past. I know my goals in animation are limited, with only 4% of animators being black, and even fewer have key involvement in high profile animation projects. Nevertheless, I choose to rely on God, my parents, and my own intuition to guide me through this path for my future After college to create an animation studio that hires minority workers to produce films from diverse cultures around the world to increase positive media representation.

Actions never exist in a small vacuum. I believe that everyone can make their community a positive place through action, regardless of the size and visibility of them. Throughout my life, I have tried to fulfill this philosophy by working against issues facing my community, recognizing the impact of my actions have even if I never knew them at the time. As a Christian, I have adamant in working to bridge the gap between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, meaning making sure my beliefs line with my actions. The Bible preaches that we should make sure our hearts align with His Gospel, performing acts of charity and community service to show how God changed us. This has led me to serve various volunteering opportunities, such as raising money for fundraisers, spreading awareness of our church through recording sermons, and even planning volunteer events in my community. Another reason I want my thoughts to align with God is because how He comforted me in my life where I felt I had grown distant from others. Even when faced with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, I always found comfort in my church, receiving support and love from my pastors and peers to help me through my journey. It is why I want to build the bridge as a sense of gratitude for what the church has done for me. My second immediate concern is treating people from diverse backgrounds with equality. As a black man, I understand the transformative power of understanding and decency has in uniting the world against prejudice and racism. I have joined various organizations in Lubbock, including Raiders Helping Others and the Volunteer Center of Lubbock, having many volunteering opportunities combatting issues including poverty and homelessness. These organizations have enabled me to work with people from various backgrounds and cultures for a common goal in helping others by working together, providing opportunities for the undeserved, and building a safer Lubbock community. By building a stronger sense of community-based altruism in our community, we can build a Lubbock that is more tolerant and appreciative of differences in our diverse city. My third concern is also simple in trying to become a person that lives a life of compassion and service. Everyone has the capacity to do good and improve the lives of others by choosing to be the one good person in them. It does matter whether I am the most consistent and able volunteer member who serves the longest hours and has joined the most organizations, or a person who has journeyed throughout the world to help others. It can be as simple as being a friend, a mentor, or a voice that guides them throughout their lives. I hope to never underestimate the power of actions done for good.

Before I begin, let me offer my condolences to the Green family, and his wife, Latoya. I am sorry to hear that he is gone, and I hope that you have processed your grief in a healthy and rewarding way. I hope he is looking down on you with grace and love as you try to make a positive impact on the world for him. I am sincerely sorry. Before the story of my life began, determination was already a key element in it. My parents had escaped a cycle of poverty that had dominated both sides of the family. I was born prematurely, meaning I was supposed to have all these deficiencies in me, yet I grew to be a strong resilient spirit. Even through struggling with various mental health issues, I was still able to surpass them a live life on my own terms. This is how I choose to define my life and my direction. Determination has played a key role in various aspects of my life from my goal to maintain a 4.0 GPA average, create film projects without a DSLR camera, and eventually join community service organizations with a hectic schedule. I have always strived to work harder than everyone else and never become complacent in what I desired to do. Recently, I am more adamant on joining community service organizations such as Raiders Helping Others and the Volunteer Center of Lubbock to make an impact in my current community. Dilligently, during my community involvement, I try to work harder than anyone by working the longest hours, having the most work done before the deadline, and try to help others struggling in other tasks. I am always eager to help others in the community, and these organizatons are the perfect outlet for community involvement on a large scale. This diligence has informed my career goals as well. I strive to have a future in animation by creating my own independent animation studio in Austin that prioritizes diverse characters and stories from around the globe. Animation has often been linked to stereotyping and lack of representation in mainstream media, and I hope to break that boundary through my studio. By hiring a diverse group of animators from various countries across the world, I hope that we can create stories to be shared with the next generation starved for representation. The films we create will not be geared towards trite representation, but more complex character writing and themes that resonate with a wider audience. We will und these films through diligently running them from film festivals, theatrical tours, and streaming to get them towards a wider audience. It is an ambitious goal, but one I hope to see in fruition. By receiving this scholarship, it does not only give me relief to not rely on loans and accumulate debt but validates my community involvement and my future something worth pursuing. Even though I am still anxious about pursuing my dreams in both animation and community service, this scholarship shows that those aspirations are worth pursuing and not disregarded. Instead of focusing on grades and becoming more stressed about my academics, I can use my work ethic to become more involved in leadership positions in community service projects around my community. Thank you for your consideration, and even if I do not win, I hope it goes to an amazing candidate with a bright future.

“Why is the sky so blue?” “Is their life on other planets?” “How big is space?” Those were the questions you would hear from my seven- to eight-year-old self-regarding things like space and the stars. My interest was sparked by science classes dealing with the structure of the universe in a fun and informative way through experiments, group work, and field trips to the planetarium. At home, my fascination continued to be sparked by various books, documentaries, and shows that my parents eagerly provided me with to answer my questions. Initially, Unfortunately, there was one area of science that was not compatible with my intellectual growth: mathematics. I was not equipped with the confidence or the patience to improve my skills in algebra and calculus, and knowing how important math is to science, I decided that astronomy was not for me. However, my interest in studying the universe refused to unleash me from its grasp, forcing me to search for different opportunities. Initially, scrolling through the numerous opportunities from researcher to assistant, seemed far too reliant on mathematics for me to latch onto until I found the role of scientific communication. Looking back, science communication was the perfect career for me as most of my formative experiences in science involved me reading astronomy books, watching shows like Bill Nye, and being enthralled by scientific documentaries. I was always proud of my creative prowess, with being an author or director tying it with my scientific aspirations. I was also thrilled to know that my heroes such as Faraday and Darwin, were poor at math yet it did not stop them from achieving greatness, inspiring my path to pursue a career in science communication. I hope to inspire a new generation of learners through different media to explore the universe themselves, not letting their difficulties in learning stop their intellectual journey. I have already started improving my skills in videography through working with the MCTV newscast, and I am now working to pursue jobs in astronomy media to learn how to effectively create interesting science media. I have always loved the philosophical implications of studying space. Frankly, looking into the cosmos should fill us with existential despair and loneliness when understanding not only how unknowable the universe truly can be, but also by the fact that we are an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of it all. Yet I am filled with the same childish wonder from years ago instead of being exhilarated at the prospects of trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe and am humbled by how little I am in the face of its beauty. I hope to inspire others to become enraptured in the universe’s vastness for curiosity at its complexity rather than despair. Even though I am in my second semester as an undergraduate, I have always had various career pathways for my science communication career. Currently, I am striving to complete my bachelor’s degree in media studies and finding a job with an education animation studio in Austin, Texas’ animation capital. I hope to gain experience and leadership in my position before creating my own science communication business using various media to educate people from children to adults.

Ever since I was a kid, I always had a challenging time interacting with other people and forming long-lasting connections with others. I was always very introverted and anxious about making the right impression, and became a passive observer of life, ignoring my own passions. Fortunately, my closest and most rewarding companion was always animation. Drawing was one of my preferred outlets of expression, so seeing drawings moving, performing impossible actions, and telling these complex emotions enraptured my young mind. I fell into the sheer creativity of the medium, and the depth of storytelling in the medium showed me how my creative ambition could be used in my future. I hoped to use this medium to give kids that were introverted and anxious an outlet for self-expression in the future. Unfortunately, as I got older, I learned the dark history of minority representation in animation, and began to pay more attention to industry roles for black people were limited. Like much of the early film industry, animation often portrayed minority groups in derogatory and stereotypical imagery to degrade and dehumanize minority groups in a pro-segregationist society. Even as society has become more inclusive and practicing diversity, animation still needs to improve in areas such as representation in mainstream projects, misrepresentation of cultures deemed unmarketable, and ignorance of cultures needing media presentation in the mainstream consciousness. I am also aware of statistics portraying the limited number of BIPOC people in the industry, especially in high profile roles as directing or producing, with the Academy of Animated Art reported that only 7% of women of color had leadership roles in the top animated films released between 2014 to 2018. This is a disheartening obstacle that prevents many black and minority animators trying to get in the industry to see it as a difficult goal and seek alternative careers. I am aware of these challenges, but I also feel a sense of invigoration at trying to become part of the new generation of black animators who will impact the medium. After graduating from Texas Tech University with a bachelor's in creative media Industries, I plan to move to Austin due to its reputation for quality animation studios and schools. Using money earned from prizes from film festivals and grants, I will create my own independent animation studio that prioritizes diverse character representation and telling stories from cultures across the globe. I will hire people from diverse backgrounds and cultures that will not only tell personal stories from their cultures but also increase the number of minorities in the industry, making a new career pathway for minorities. While mainstream studios will have higher budgeting and increased distribution, I will use alternative models of distribution and financing such as streaming, VOD, and runs through film festivals. This will give the studio an independent audience and financing that allows them to tell their stories without input from more representation limited corporations. I hope this studio can break free from historical stereotyping and mainstream misrepresentation of other cultures to contribute to positive portrayals of cultures worldwide and inspire a new generation of creatives to pursue animation. Then, my dream to give that same child who was socially anxious and fearful of expressing themselves can be achieved and be more rewarding in the long term.

What is stronger than a mother’s love? That is the question that both the novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and the 1982 animated movie, The Secret of NIMH try to determine using both of their respective mediums to answer it. Despite being primarily aimed at children, both works are known for their foreboding atmospheres, scenes of violence, and complex themes while still offering lessons of hope and courage to their audience. I first fell in love with the story by reading the novel for my fifth-grade class. My teacher started introducing us to stories that eschewed typical successful conclusions and simple themes in favor of more complex storytelling and darker elements, with Mrs. Frisby being among them. I was enraptured by the simple yet succinct prose that incorporated a sizable vocabulary and a serious tone that beckoned me to turn the page to continue the story despite my fears. Its charcter writing was extremely detailed to build personality yet still sparse enough to invite me to fill in my own stories. The story explored themes that were more adult such as animal testing, child death, and secret societies. I was enamored by the story for how it did not talk down to my intelligence while keeping an optimistic tone of motherly love. After finishing the novel, my teacher invited us to watch the adaptation of NIMH made in the 80s. While I was captivated by the novel and its tone and character writing, seeing it visualized on film proved to be the perfect elevation of the novel using the wonder of animation, securing my love for the work. I have always been captivated by animation, and NIMH proved perfect for the medium, with the film’s gorgeous set design, and foreboding color choice of bright yellows and dark greys, made the setting more beautiful and mysterious than descriptions. The character writing of the novel gave way to character animation of the movie, giving a much fuller realization of the characters, such as the slouch in Mrs. Frisby showing her fearful yet determined personality to the upright posture of the heroic Justin to the scarred face of the cat. Additionally, elements that can only be found in movies such as score, and editing make scenes already frightening in the book more chilling such as the intense injection scenes in the book getting full scenes with the shrill music composed by Jerry Goldsmith and the frantic editing showing the manic and confusion in the rats. Additionally, the cast bring the characters to life ranging from motherly to confident to sinister, giving the characters a variety of emotions throughout the movie. While I did love the adaptation more than novel, I did have some criticism for how it made the character, Jenner, into a cape twirling bad guy rather than his ambiguous, anti-heroic character in the novel, forsaking complexity for a simple battle between good and evil. I also did not like how they made the crow character, Jeremy, into more of a comic relief character rather than the clumsy yet kind-hearted and dependable confidant he was in the novel. Nevertheless, the finished product is one of my favorite animated movies of all time due to stellar animation direction, darker atmosphere, and rich character development. The director, Don Bluth, pushed animation in a new direction by ushering in a darker story and more complex animation that was seen during the time, making it an important work in American animation. It remains one of the most enduring adaptations of an already compelling work that I hope I can cherish for years.

I still remember the days when my social anxiety had its grip firmly implanted in my life. I isolated myself from close friends and families out of fear they would reject me or dismiss my problems as trivial. I still feel the overwhelming rush of embarrassment and shame every time I even opened my mouth to speaking to people because I feared saying the one thing. Eventually, I started to open myself to my family and to my problems, entered therapy to address my mental health issues, and I started becoming more religious, which helped sufficiently improve my mental health. While mental illness does not have a selected target, demographics from teenagers to young adults are most susceptible, with 50% of mental health problems are established by age 14 and 75% by age 24. My story is unfortunately not unique among my demographic, with suicide being one of the leading causes of death among young adults, tied with homicide and overdosing. Despite the number of young adults reporting struggling with mental health disorders, the percentage of young people who seek mental health treatment is reported to be 1 out of 4, a number that has barely risen over the years. The reasons for this lack of professional help are varied including young adults being in families with poor trust of medical help, the cost for therapy services, and stigma reducing the serious of mental health. This lack of seeking treatment for mental health and its high susceptibility in college students who are involved in high stress and large workload areas will negatively impact the next generation of Americans. As someone who has struggled with mental illness, I saw my social anxiety affect my work ethic, my interest in other activities and even my physical health through self-harm. I hope that no one can struggle with their mental health when it can be prevented by seeking the right help or finding the right services and reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and its seriousness on my campus. I want to create organizations on my college campuses to combat mental health stigma and give my peers the proper methods to live with their mental health. The three most significant attributes I want to build these organizations are community, trust, and expression. Since people believe their mental health will differentiate them from other people, having organizations that build community through forming their own support groups with other students and talking with people or families who have been impacted by mental health will reduce the notion they have to face their mental health alone. People are also afraid of sharing their mental health to other people as they abuse their trust, which necessitates having trust exercises and surrounded with licensed professionals in the organizations to establish a sense of respect and comfort in expressing their mental health. Due to the difficulties some people having truly verbalizing their mental health and their own emotions in general, more creative based activities such as art therapy and creative writing can enable them to better express their own mental health in a more satisfying way. This can help combat mental health on a large scale in one of the most populated colleges by building effective mental health organizations around campus, thus giving a larger number of young adults the resources to manage their mental health and reduce stigma from the next generation of America.

While the word means many different things to a wide variety of people, I feel like as an African American, legacy has unique meaning in my life. On my mother’s side of the family, knowing she grew up in the turbulent yet progressive America of the 60s with a rough mother, her idea is legacy is making a better future than what she was given in her childhood by giving the one she wanted for me. My father grew up in a crowded, low-income household in a more cynical and less patriotic 70s America, he was instilled with a sense that the American Dream comes to those whose work ethic matches his success but always had a positive motive for his work. Growing up, I was shown the fruits of both their efforts to fulfill my parents’ idea of legacy as I had a healthy childhood surrounded by supportive parents and living in a comfortable house. While I know I should be grateful for the opportunity and that my parents wanted me to enjoy my childhood, the weight of my parents’ sacrifices whenever I visited their sides of the families. Both of my parents came from poverty, and they have constantly told me that they came from cycles of poverty that they wanted to break away from and hoped that I would continue to follow their straying away from their previous lives and those of other generations. While it is natural and healthy that my parents wished to instill in me appreciation for their sacrifices and their progress that led me to living my life, this led to me identifying building a legacy material gain and tangible impact, which negatively impacted my growth I had lived their versions of legacy, and their lessons have firmly shaped my own ideas of legacy, but my own personal definition had yet to develop. Since I had to follow a version of a legacy that I had imprinted on me, my growth was impeded by my lack of personal motivation and a firm identity to shape myself. Furthermore, I was following a misinterpreted version of their legacy because I did not live the same life as my parents, I was ignoring crucial factors such as having an altruistic motivation to succeed like my father or wanting to provide for the next generation like my mother. The decision to forgo my interests for the sake of building upon my parents’ legacy would provide long-term dissatisfaction and unfulfillment in contrast to short-term financial gain. I was abandoning my own goals and own happiness to continue a path that while well-treaded and prosperous was not that legacy God wanted my life to have. After talking with my parents and gaining a deeper connection to my Christian faith, I began stopping to subscribe to the notions of legacy set up by my parents. Instead of repeating the actions of previous generations, I wanted to impact my own individual actions but never forgetting my roots. Legacy is how you build upon the work of the previous generations while also making your own unique impact on the world. I am happy that my parents wanted to leave their personal legacies behind, but I am more fulfilled to impact the world through my individual decisions while giving pride to my family name. Pictured here is Leonardo Da Vinci, famous artist, scientist, inventor. Born out of wedlock, died in the arms of a king. A testament to the fact that greatness in life is not defined by how it starts, but how you finish.

When the pandemic hit in my first year, it felt like I lost the last year of my life as a kid. I could not process the shock and uprooting of my life instead having to hide away from the world with my family. I could not comfort the few friends I had and build a stronger relationship with them as the pandemic separated us, leaving me without a support network at school. I had just moved to Houston, and I had finally started to become comfortable when the pandemic came, taking both my childhood and my sense of normalcy. I was forced to grow up, which caused me to become less interested in things I considered childish, including my love for artistic activities. I started becoming dissatisfied with the band, with the sincere enthusiasm for playing the trombone being replaced by cold indifference. Even though I had participated in many competitions, won awards for playing, and had moved quickly from the Beginner to Concert Bands, I slowly started drifting away from my passion, as my love for it became more of a chore. This ennui continued throughout ninth grade, as my disinterest was influenced by my falling grades, removing myself from joining competitions, and spending less time playing the instrument. I was slowly counting the days until I could switch my subject, wasting my days away with indifference for the band until one day after class, my band teacher, Mr. Chen, called me to his online office to chat. He was concerned about my solo performance video I sent him, which I practiced for thirty minutes instead of my usual hour, and where I missed about half of the notes. Initially, I was indifferent to his concern, believing that he would judge me as a bad student that was not worth much, but instead he revealed that the real reason he called was to help me practice. For almost thirty minutes, he helped me practice by judging my breath control, showing me where I made my mistakes, and gave me tips on how to better blow the tube and maintain a steady breath. I initially did not think much of the practice session, seeing it as a waste of our time, until I realized that Mr. Chen not only took time out of his schedule to tutor me, but he chose to give me confidence when I had none myself. It inspired me to start to defend my passions even in the face of a world that sought to impede my growth. I often have a weak assertiveness when it comes to pursuing my passions with the pandemic amplifying my choice to quit the band, even though I had a strong passion for music. Even though he represented a small part of my life back then, I now have greater respect for Mr. Chen for treating my passion as something worth pursuing by giving me advice and confidence to continue playing the instrument and defend my love for my interests. When I first moved from Houston to Lubbock to study at Texas Tech University, a wave of anxiety brushed over me as I believed I could never make it. But even as my anxieties flared inside me, I still remembered how Mr. Chen saw something in me worth fighting for as a kid with a strong passion in him, and I sought to live as the kid he saw that day.

Malcolm X should not have a significant place in history. The most shining leaders are faultless, with no flaws, and have a history of perfection in every area. Malcolm X was a criminal, held views that were considered extreme and hateful, and he knew it. It is common for significant figures to come from places of prestige and be among a lineage consisting of greatness. Malcolm X grew in poverty, lost both of his parents, and was guided towards criminal activity. History tends to have a truthful view of its most significant leaders with an unbiased narrative of their achievements by historians and the public. Of all the famed black leaders throughout history, none have been misinterpreted and misquoted than Malcolm X. That is the reason he is still remembered and spoken with either dignity or disdain decades after his death because his humanity was how he was defined by over anything else. Human beings are naturally imperfect, but there is constantly a bombardment of messaging in culture to avoid imperfections and to refuse to acknowledge this natural quality in our lives. While each group of people has differing opinions on dealing with our imperfections as human beings, I feel that as both a black person and a man growing up in America, perfection domination these two demographics the most egregiously. Masculinity is often misattributed to being emotionless and being implacable figures without any sense of agency, and black people are often more likely to be scrutinized for their actions than white people. I am becoming more aware of these perceptions as I have grown up and becoming more secure in my identity as a black man, and I have realized that I have been defined by my refusal to acknowledge my flaws. I often struggled with mental health issues such as social anxiety and have always been a solitary person because my perfectionism saw asking for help as a weakness. Many other black men must ignore or downplay genuine flaws so they cannot be perceived differently or even hated by wider society. Unlike black historical figures such as Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, the flaws of Malcolm X are often brought up as his achievements, yet it makes him more astonishing and more inspiring to people from various backgrounds. The fact he grew up in poverty away from his parents inspires people from low-income households and harsh childhoods give hope to pursue their own greatness; his criminal past makes his eventual self-improvement more empowering to those looking for a second chance; his reevaluation of his faith, abandoning the Nation of Islam. shows the importance of humility and pursuing truth over Malcolm X showed me not only a new kind of black identity to emulate, but also a greater respect for how our flaws humanize us more than our successes. Instead of believing that I can never change myself or ignore my flaws, I instead choose to follow Malcolm’s example of consistently improving yourself by becoming more active in my mental health by seeking therapy and choosing to seek tutoring for help in my classes. He also inspired me to confront my fears of public speaking and talking with others to start organizations on my college campus to confront mental health instead of letting my anxiety control me. I feel like Malcolm X should be more inspiring to both men and black people for the fact that his flawed humanity always shined throughout his life, he had his flaws, but that by acknowledging them and improving yourself for the better.

God has been a prominent part of my life since I was a childhood due to being born to two devout parents who were deeply involved in church. I was involved in church plays and community service activities, and I often joined church vacation trips and youth groups over the years. Despite the deep involvement in the church in my early life, I never felt deeply touched by God like my parents were. I knew all the stories, I joined many study groups, and I occasionally tried to pray, but I felt more distant to God despite having these surface level attachments to Him. I was beginning to stray from the path God wanted from me, indulging in sinful behavior, and ignoring my faith until I encountered God for the first time in my life at a youth conference. I was astonished that even after becoming more disillusioned and more distant from faith He still saw something worth saving in Him and wanting to become a bigger part of my life. This started encouraging me to start getting more involved in Christ in my personal life. I started praying more frequently, I started reading my Bible more daily, and I started reading more Christian books to improve my faith. I also started making the church a more active place in my personal life as I started joining positions such as ushering, operating the camera, and joining church groups to build a community. I have become more involved in the church than before, and my involvement has continued to influence my personal life by becoming more of an active member in my church community. I also started becoming more gentler, more involved in community service activities, and started becoming more extroverted by the renewed faith in God. By allowing God to take full importance of my life, I was being led into the path that He planned for me since I was in the womb. I was becoming more shaped by God, and I was living a life that reflected Him. As I am growing older and become more attached to God, I am becoming more aware of the importance of maintaining my faith in a world that is slowly drifting away from God. Even though I have become more faithful and more dedicated to pursuing church activities, I am still fearful that I will back into sinful habits to conform with the world and lose my connection to God. Despite my anxiety, I still choose to trust in God to guide my path, and place people in my path to grow spiritually and emotionally to continue to serve Him. Instead of choosing to doubt if He can help, I will instead give Him the burden of my doubt and continue to pray for Him to direct my life in the right direction and become a better servant of Christ. I will continue to pray that He will use me to not only impact the world in a positive way but also use me to find ways to serve God to the best of my life.

Despite having an equal or higher percentage of facing mental health disorders such as major depression disorder, African Americans are 25% more willing to seek mental health compared to 40% of white people dealing with mental health. Furthermore, 19% of the American male population admitted having mental health disorders, only 13% were seeking mental health treatment. As African American man who has already endured dealing with social anxiety and bouts of depression, I am uncomfortable with the stigma and lack of serious both black people and men have towards mental health. I hope to work on reducing the misperception in both these demographics by starting my own mental health organizations for my college to keep the newer generation from repeating these same historical patterns. Hello, my name is Noah Castille. I am studying Creative Media Industries at Texas Tech. Since high school, I have become more interested in participating in projects aimed at improving the mental health among my generation, specifically African American males. My own battle with my mental health has revealed to me how serious the issues are as it can affect our thinking, behavior, and attachment to life. While mental health does not discriminate in who it affects, since black people and men have statistics detailing their lack of seriousness for mental health issues, I aim to start initiatives aimed towards these demographics. It is also necessary that I start these mental health projects towards college students because it is important they find the necessary tools to regulate their emotions in this transitory period in their lives. By using support groups, mentorships, and creative based therapy such as art therapy, I can create small communities for both black people and men to address their mental health in a positive and effective way. I do not want people to have to face issues that are preventable with care and confront the fact that mental health is a normal problem that needs to be faced. I do not want them to experience the same experiences that I once led. My main interests are creating short films, learning about history, and participating in community service activities around the community. While college requires strong academic commitment for success in its students, I want to contribute to performing community services more actively through various community service organizations and initiatives. I want to balance my academics with my community service projects, and I want to earn this scholarship to make it easier to focus on community involvement without worrying about focus too intently my studies and relieving the emotional stress associated with student debt. My main goal after receiving the scholarship is to start my first organization for African American men forming support groups for mental health discussion with support from mental health professionals around the city. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Noah A. Castille

Despite never meeting her when she was alive, Kalia commitment to serving others in her community and her disciplined work ethic inspires me to live a life like her own. Even though her time on Earth was limited, her life deserves to be celebrated due to the quantity of her accomplishments, and the lives she had impacted, instead of continuing to grieve. She inspires me to live a life defined by its impact on others and the people touched regardless of the length of my life. My life has often been defined by my relentless to fight against tragic circumstances from being born prematurely, dealing with mental issues such as depression and social anxiety, and escaping from a family who had cycles of poverty. The accomplishments in my life reflect my desire to not be defined by obstacles in my path instead choosing to define myself based on my own merits and skill. However, my most significant actions have involved being an active member in my local communities through consistent community involvement, being involved in programs sponsored by my school and church and joining many community service organizations. As a Christian, I have been honored to serve through church sponsored events such as giving food away in food drives, organizing events for children or for people around Houston, and even adopting children in other countries as part of a global adoption program. I have also had access to schools that have been successful in establishing community service as one of their core attributes. In high school, I organized workshops dedicated to giving educational resources such as scholarships and college readiness, and joined organizations dedicated to improving college readiness and preparation and actively joined initiatives dedicated to community service around the school’s community. This passion has continued in college, much like Kalia, as I have already joined community service organizations around the campus, and hope to become an active member of the student board in my future to better the lives of my peers. I aim to win the scholarship to continue to better my local community through creating my own widespread organizations and initiatives and focus on community service activities instead of worrying about financial debt by relying on loans. I hope to continue to pursue involvement in my community through active engagement in organizations and forming my own initiatives to combat societal issues in the future. This scholarship can reduce my reliance on loans, so that I may focus on actively combatting issues personal to me such as mental health or educational inequality as my primary course of action. I hope I can use this scholarship to further my commitment to active community involvement and work but also show that Kalia lives in on through my life and the actions I will take. By sharing her work ethic, empathy, and commitment to community change, I hope to live a life that is inspired by Kalia’s own, continuing to honor her memory by following the values she passionately committed towards in her own life. It is through following her example that I can pursue active change in my local community and inspire the next generation to follow in Kalia’s footsteps and continue her memory.

When did smiling start to hide feelings rather than to reveal them? When I first began my battle with depression and social anxiety, I became good at hiding my true feelings from others, especially from those closest to me. Instead of believing they would have wanted to stop me from carrying this pain, I chose to hide it from them, thinking I would only burden their lives with some problem. That was how I viewed my mental health, and it is unfortunately common for people to share this same mindset. It was not until I started sharing my problems with my family, and actively seeking help for my condition was I able to genuinely enjoy my life again and recognize the importance of my mental health. I wish I could understand the toll mental health has on others without undergoing my own struggles, but unfortunately a deeper understanding of the lives of those affected is often a result of having them yourself. Even after the pandemic increased rates of anxiety and depression and urgency for mental health services, widespread changes to the perception of mental health are still needed. Mental health is heavily stigmatized even if the United States is becoming more progressive due to misinformation, fear of being discriminated, and a cultural denial of mental health as a genuine problem. While mental illness does not discriminate and everyone has the possibility to experience it, men and black people are often face the most challenging experiences. In black communities especially, mental health is still stigmatized, and some black people actively ignore treatment due to a lack of seriousness of mental health and due to historical distrust in seeking medical help. Furthermore, despite being three times as likely to commit suicide than women due to depression, men are often forced to abide by toxic masculinity standards of hiding their emotions or feelings. As a black man in America among a demographic where mental health remains a leading factor of deaths, I aim to use my experience in college to develop organizations and activities designed to combat the stigma around mental health through community and education. Inspired by organizations on campus such as RISE, I aim to partner with mental health professionals to create workshops aimed at males to educate them on mental health and become more aware of how it can impact their lives. I also want to create organizations around campus to foster community by creating a club designed to build connections among other men by doing group activities and life partners, so they can learn how to be more vulnerable around other men. The goal of these organizations to destigmatize mental health among the male population in my college and give them the tools to better understand their mental health. I aim to foster, community, empathy, and understanding through organizations, and lead my generation to become more open to their mental health, destroying previous misconceptions about toxic masculinity and mental illness.

If there was any proof that education has visible impact on a person’s life, the story of my mother and father should be the most valid. Growing up in poor households with parents with limited education, my mother and father could only rely on two sources of stability: God and education. As they grew older, they gradually began to leave the cycles of poverty that plagued their families through diligently working towards an education, with my mother successfully earning a bachelor’s degree and my father earning both a bachelor's and master's degree. By the time they finally married and had me, they were living comfortably as my mother became a social security worker for the government and my father became a high school teacher. Their stories showed me the power education had to transform lives for the better, and breaking family curses. While I was fortunate to live my life distanced from poverty, I had my own curse in my social anxiety and fear of the future. By the time I was in middle school, I had become a very timid and isolated young man that was afraid to pursue his goal due to the belief that they would only fail and wither away. I actively ignored my passions for art and science, living a meager existence with no visible effect on either my school, church, or community. As high school approached, I gradually became more aware of how I was limiting my future through such passivity and made it my goal to use my interests for positive action, starting at the church. I became more involved in my church, as both an usher and a camera operator. For two Sundays, every month, I was recording sermons that were being watched by hundreds of people on YouTube for four years. I also began to actively participate in the church’s community service projects, working for food drives and donations during my junior and senior years. When I entered college, even though I was far from my Houston community, I still knew that I wanted to make a positive impact on both my college campus and around the community, branching out from church activities to both campus and community work. I started joining organizations like Raiders Helping Others and the Volunteer Center at Lubbock, becoming active in activities such as painting rooms for the Salvation Army and organizing community service events around campus. I also hope to pursue expand my volunteer positioning by focusing more on mental health service activities, starting with the Refuge Services, hoping to use their unconventional horse and movement-based therapy to help people with mental health issues around the wider community. I am trying to expand my definition of education less by how it can help me, but how I can use it to help others, which is why I am becoming more focused on community involvement sponsored by the campus. Education has transformed by revealing my passion for helping others and removing my shell to focus on making active changes to both my current campus and the community around it. By using the leadership positions and activities available, I am striving to use my education to improve the world and transform lives through optimizing the resources given to me to effectively help others.

When I was thirteen years old, I experienced the darkest moments of my life, battling social anxiety, self-hatred, and indulging my own sinful nature. While I do not wish to relive that period again, with hindsight I am grateful that I went through it, so it could make me appreciative of living with God. Even though my growth in Christ is still maturing and distancing itself from my sinful nature, I hope that my life can be seen as example of the intense determination God fosters in Christians that will overcome any obstacle Satan puts in our way. Before I gave my life to God, I was living the darkest moments of my life due to a combination of indulging in my sinful nature and my own spiraling mental health. While there were numerous factors that caused this period to become so miserable, the main reason was that I was more distant from God than ever, and my life reflected his absence. My struggles with social anxiety and low self-worth reflected how unworthy I was of love, which resulted in isolating myself from others. My ease in falling towards temptations was the result of believing that I had no inner strength to confrontt my demons on a daily basis. It all reflected how I was living a life that God did not want me in, and how I needed to follow His Word to truly start living my life again. The summer I turned thirteen, I finally found God again at a youth conference. While I do not remember the exact moment, I remember how differently I felt from that brief encounter. I was filled with vibrancy and more confidence, as I could feel Him moving in my spirit, just the elation of being in His presence. I wanted to continue this feeling, so when I returned home, I immediately started reading my Bible more diligently, started listening to more worship music, and started looking for active ways to implement the sermons from my pastor in my daily life. I started living a life that was completely contradictory to my life of apathy and shame, to one where I was energetic and more positive. My faith in God revealed my core as a person who constantly strives for personal development, and as somebody who was born to fight. By reading the Bible and praying to Him more consistently, He wanted me to live in confidence, away from fear instead living in courage as I had plans to spread His Word around the world. This soon spread into actively participating in community service projects such as food drives or donations and joining youth meetings to foster better growth. My actions revealed how strong my faith had become as instead of passively receiving the lessons from the Bible and sermons from the church, I was actively pursuing God through these activities and building a community of believers. He revealed my strength in pursuing Him by healing me from the misconception that I was uncourageous, leading to a life filled with action in His name. Even though my faith and love in God remains bold, I occasionally relapse into old thought patterns, thinking I am unworthy of His love and being influenced by my fear of failure. Yet I trust God will continue strengthening my spirit, revealing bolder aspects of my personality by following His spirit actively and without shame. My actions reflect how God chooses the people who believe they are weak and show their strength through following His will as a product of their intense faith.

For the eighteen years that I have known about Christ, I have spent one year being a Christian. While I know that God wishes that I did not define myself my past years of spiritual ignorance, I still feel guilty about only being a passive Christian. Before I met God, my life was spent living by my own desires, ignoring the wisdom of my parents, and only had a surface level relationship with God. This led to the years flying by before I got the time to fully value them, much like how an addict’s dependence on their drug leads to them moving through time without them knowing. Spiritual ignorance tricked me into thinking I was living when I was only acting the image of living, not ever finding true joy or happiness until I finally found God. The most promising aspect of improving my relationship with God is the fact that it is not separated from my other parts of my life, instead actively influencing their growth and development. An important concept in Christianity to measure the success of our faith is how it produces a new change in behavior that is different from our past, sinful selves. The most essential elements of my past life were my weak discipline, inability to actively pursue my interests, and be less willing to follow my more altruistic instincts. Even though I have recently started to follow God’s way, I have started to notice that my faith has dramatically altered by daily habits. By consistently developing time on weekends to read my Bible and go to the church through active time blocking and organizing my schedule, I am more competent in maintain a work-life balance and I can go undergo prolonged periods of time without distractions, which has benefited my studies. In this single semester, I have actively joined clubs, pursued volunteering opportunities, and worked on personal projects such as video making and filmmaking on a consistent basis due to the optimism God has instilled. Most importantly, I am following God’s commandment to “Love Thy Neighbor” more actively, choosing to forsake time on weekends to join volunteering events through my community because I know God wants me to become a positive force in my community so that people will see how a true Christian should act. Before I let God into my life, I considered all the goals and dreams I held to be impossible and never pursued them actively. While I was led by my sinful nature, I was instead being led by my low self-esteem and fear of failure that was the result of the Devil’s ploy to lower my worth. Now, that I am in Christ, I see my goals more differently and my progress more hopeful. Even though I still fall into patterns of anxiety and sometimes let my fear of failure take over, my trust in God has led me to become more confident in pursuing my goals in the future. This is God’s life for me.

Despite growing up on animated media for most of my life and developing a deep reverence for the art form that led me to my current career aspirations, my love for animation became complete when I first recognized its power. At fourteen, I saw Soul for the first time, and my mind was overwhelmed by the film’s cerebral atmosphere, its focus on the meaning of life, and approach to existentialism, something rarely touched upon by a media dismissed as mild children’s entertainment. I aim to use that power to promote unity and diversity through crafting stories and working with people whose voices have yet to be heard through traditional forms of communication. Like other media produced in a certain period, animation reflects the values the artist was surrounded by, including the hurtful stereotypes associated with certain groups of people. As a black artist, I was forced to confront animation’s history of continuing the spread of stereotyping of black people in a form that was not only seen masses of people but utilized the form to exaggerate those degrading perceptions to such a degree that it eliminated the capacity for because human beings. Seeing the media that I held so deeply depict these harmful misrepresentations about my identity and worth as a human being that made me stop looking at animation from an innocent viewpoint but as a tool to spread messaging with greater efficiency than any other medium either before or since. This unfortunately holds true other races who have grown up animation, such as Hispanic or Native American groups, who are also subject to these dehumanizing depictions, and in some cases like the Romanis, they are rarely even shown in any form of animated media at all. Mythology, history, and historical figures have a minimal chance to enter the cultural consciousness due to the limited stories told outside a Eurocentric or traditional model of storytelling, impeding the growth of the medium. Animation has been used to limit perception and promote negative values by many animators, but there are just as many animators working to promote messaging and subject matter that will contribute something positive, which I hope to become a part of. Additionally, as animation is a highly collaborative medium, I can work with many like-minded individuals, becoming involved in an entire community devoted to expanding the potential for diverse storytelling and more complex representations delivered to a mass audience. After earning my degree in Creative Media Industries, I intend to use money earned from showings of my films at festivals to start my own independent animation studio. The storytelling model of the studio will divert from traditional and storytelling traditions found in Western animation instead choosing to focus on traditions from various cultures, introducing audiences to a culture’s specific style of storytelling. I also aim to employ animators from diverse demographics and races, not only adding diversity to the industry, but also making animation a more career choice for minorities. The success of this studio will be limited both economically and culturally with the more experimental and culturally specific storytelling will minimize high box office success and the limited distribution of these films due to their independent nature will only be seen by a small size of audiences compared to traditional Disney films. However, the measurement of success will instead be based on the diversity of my employees and having more films telling culturally significant subject matter and themes. This is how animation will be used to expand its impact on audiences through depictions and storytelling that is not only authentic but displays representation for a newer generation.

Before I begin my discussion of my journey into art and music, I want to give my condolences to someone whose journey has unfortunately ended. I want to give my sincere regards to his family, and I want to honor their commitment to their son. As a son, I do not want my parents to blame themselves for not doing enough for their child, and I want to end that feeling of doubt right now. You did enough, and I hope your son is treated better in Heaven than he was here. I have always held an intimate attachment to creative arts since I was a child, but unlike other children, I held more reverence for it than as a simple leisure activity. From the worlds created from the words of literature to the unlimited potential of animated films to the use of the very air molecules to make music, I have always held creativity in high regard. However, I believe my real journey into utterly understanding the importance art and music have on humanity did not properly start into my middle grade years. Those were the most miserable times in my life, as I often had to deal with depression, low self-esteem, and moderate social anxiety. My mental health affected my capacity to feel emotions and gave me joy and energy, something exceedingly difficult to feel daily. I even had moments when I wanted to commit suicide, not realizing the pain I would leave to the people that loved. Yet the reason I am here breathing, experiencing joy again, and living my life is through art. Art has the unique capacity to visualize the inside of a person’s mind and give life to their demons and emotions more adequately than other medium. Think of the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, with the intense brushstrokes and dreamlike coloring capturing his mental instability better than any words could capture. Artists put themselves in their art, whether consciously or not, capturing their psyche unfiltered and more honest by giving visualization to things that cannot be visualized or verbalized through normal means. It can act as catharsis of their own emotions as they are finally offered the chance to display their feelings in a tangible sense. Their audience can also experience a catharsis by recognizing their struggles are not their own, and have it visualized in a way they had no access to. That was how I discovered the healing power of art. Even during the darkest and most depressive moments during that period, when emotion was becoming something so alien to my being, art provided me the chance to show that there was still a capacity to feel again. Whenever I played music on my trombone and was intensely focused on performing to the highest level, I regained a sense of dedication in my work and pride in myself for achieving something. When I worked on a painting or drawing and lost myself in the process, I found myself able to translate every negative thought and sensation into something tangible. When I wrote with a clear mind, I filled pages with thoughts of my psyche, and found catharsis in translating what I thought could not deciphered by normal means. This is how art can heal the soul by allowing an unfiltered expression of self, solely unique to the artisan. Yet art can also provide comfort to those who have no means to express their own psyche and find solace in seeing themselves portrayed in a way that gives voice to something they thought could not be spoken about.

When I first walked to the stage to receive my degree from my principal, I was exhilarated, shocked, and overwhelmed all at once. Immediately, I was filled with the great realization that my efforts in school were not wasted but building to a higher goal that I was steadily working toward. No matter the struggles I had endured, or the scars I had accumulated, that degree represented the strength I had by achieving that degree. While this may be a counterintuitive notion, pain and difficulty makes achieving success feel greater as the bitterness of the takes makes its worth greater, and I am proof of this notion. My definition of success began to define itself very recently in my middle school years after I had moved from Beaumont into Hoston. Having to move from your beloved hometown to an entirely new city is a common experience for some kids, and the emotional struggle from that move is unfortunately also not common, but that moment had a much more profound effect on me. Before that, my life was defined positive energy, constant warmth, and minimal pains that I was fortunate enough to be blessed by both my parents and God. In hindsight, this may have impeded my growth as I never got to know how to adequately preserve through troubling times, which might have saved me from the bitter lessons' life would soon teach me. I experienced a lot of firsts in my life during that time, none for the better. My first bad memories. My first question of my own identity. My first battles with depression and anxiety. Before the move, I wanted to live every day like it was my last, always drawing and writing with a clear goal for my future. I had soon grown so distant from that self with so few plans for my future that I often dealt with suicidal thoughts, occasionally even wanting to cut myself or even shoot myself. I write these things to demonstrate how miraculous it is that I am still alive talking to you today and now talking with a clear future in mind. Gradually, by opening to my parents about my mental health and forming deeper relationships in Christ, I found the strength to live my life again. If there is one thing, I can say about these experiences is that I learned that I was stronger than I thought. Victory was not achieved by a simple measurement such as the grades or awards I have won, but by learning about the inner strength I possessed, which allowed me to overcome obstacles that had weighed me down for the longest time. One of the most consistent goals I have pursued since I have redefined victory is through education. Earning my high school diploma remains one of my highest accomplishments as it shows that all my struggles and hardships did not go unnoticed and were duly rewarded. I hope to continue my education, not only as a milestone in my life, but as a reminder that my dedication is not going unrewarded but only building up to a greater goal. This scholarship will alleviate the financial burdens that have been placed on me through my reliance on loans, thus furthering my own academic goals but allowing me to benefit the community in a larger way. I aim to build in-person or online college organizations centered on providing mental health services through various students by forming safe communities to alleviate them from the pain mental health can have. This small-scale launch of projects can better impact my generation by helping them be more comfortable with discussing mental health and direct them on ways to seek better treatment so they can better enjoy this transitory period of their life. I do not say this to boast about what I overcame or a sense of pride, but hopefully as a call to action for people who have been caught up in the unfortunate circumstances that I have been dealt with. I also do not wish to say that I have overcome my anxiety and depression, as the battle continues to this day, but to demonstrate that it is possible to enjoy life after all the pain you have endured. I hope to embody the victory outlined by Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”

The first time I ever decided to exhibit my painting was also the last time I ever entertained the idea. It was spring of my seventh grade, and I submitted my painting of a Nintendo Switch for consideration. Despite the months I spent detailed, perfecting, and improving my craft with anticipation for the exhibit, when the time finally came, I thought I was the worst artist representing my school, doubting my skill and my ambition as soon as I saw the other paintings. My feelings of inadequacy willed themselves to fruition as I did not get chosen to be shown, and I was one of the only artists from my school not selected. It was a devastating experience for me, but with hindsight, it was one of the most momentous events in my life. I do not define my worth by my failures as I did when I was young, instead choosing to define myself by the obstacles I have overcome. I turned my math anxiety into maintaining a consistent high grade, my fear of public speaking into another mundane activity, and more importantly, my anxiety at showing my artwork to now actively pursuing to have my work shown. Failure will always be a problem, but I let the regret be optional instead embracing it to become better as a sign of my personal development. I feel like this sense of continual development and comfortability in being challenged extends into my academics and career goals. While I have always wanted to maintain exacting standards of academic excellence, I now am more aimed at fostering a life-long love of learning through my studies. Instead of merely relying on a classroom, I am dedicating myself to a consistent study schedule for topics I have interests in outside of art, consistently spending my weekends focused on studying for fun than for academic success. This hopefully extends to a better appreciation of learning, and for leading a more fulfilling life through learning for pleasure. I am also focusing on my own professional goal in being an animator by actively working on my own film projects to send to festivals to gain profit and publicity. Currently, I hope to start gaining my own income by the time I am twenty-five through the profits from my work, so I can independently operate without financial assistance from grants or corporations. As I have matured, I am now being drawn to becoming more of an active presence in my local communities by solving specific issues through community service. This goal has led me to pursue opportunities such as volunteering more extensively and joining community organizations with the future goal of having active management roles to decide the problems that need to be addressed. This passion for development has led me to reveal greater parts of my identity not only as a creative, but as a human being as well. My future is set, but the vision is still blurred by the loans that I have been forced to rely upon for my education that will have to be paid off. This scholarship will benefit my family and I by reducing the financial burdens that come from loans and making my future less impeded by paying off the debt. Instead, I can better focus on pursuing study abroad opportunities, internships, and managing my own life without worrying about the financial limitations that have been placed on me. I hope that my progress will not be eliminated by something that can be prevented with this scholarship into a mere roadblock.

Main Objective: By the time I am twenty-five, I will work as independent animator who has completed five short, animated films with successful film festivals runs through the United States, with income coming from the prizes received from festival prizes, crowdfunding, and selling them to VOD or video sharing services. Projects: While traditional animation is an incredibly costly process with budgets ranging from $1000 to $30000 and there is the increased difficulty of working alone without a small team of animators to assist, I have a plan to reduce the cost of making animated films. My short films will be under thirty minutes, which reduces the workload of longer animated films and the budget. I will also aim to not make my figures too complex using stick figures like my influence, Don Hertzfeld, forgoing more complex or detailed characters such as horses or robots. The way I make my animation will also be much quicker borrowing Science Saru’s model of animation of combining digital in-between animation with hand-drawn key poses to better reduce workload of projects. The themes I will explore in these films are more philosophical and experimental, making them stand out amongst the crowd and generating enough interest to hopefully get prizes or networking opportunities. Income: The main sources of income I hope to earn from my animated short films are streaming services, VOD, and prizes from major film festivals. I am fond of the latter two due to their popularity over traditional mediums of communication, and their reputation for being kinder to independent filmmakers, with VODs having the option to rent movies. However, I plan to receive most of the income from film festivals due to the potential for cash prizes and greater opportunities to network with distributors if the film is successful with audiences. The film festivals I plan to apply the most to are niche film festivals specializing in experimental animation and local festivals in my community. These two branches of festivals have a better for distributing my work due to the niche market granting better success for my style of filmmaking, opportunities to get publicity, and a higher rate of getting paid than major film festivals like Sundance or Cannes. However, while major film festivals may not pay if I do not win and they still charge prices to run films, I nevertheless understand the value in attempting to submit my projects to them. Measurement of Success: The preferred method for measuring how I am achieving my goal is the money I have accumulated. I hope from VOD, streaming, selling to TV, and other forms of income I can have a minimum rate of $1500 earned per year, steadily growing to make more films to pay for the next one. Timeline 2025: First completed film; 5-minute short film; aim is $1500, the budget needed for my next film 2026: Second completed film; 5-minute short film; aim is $2000, earning a better and higher earning to make a more complex short 2027: Third completed film; 5 to 10 minute short; aim is $2500 from festivals and starting to stream and put on VOD 2028: Fourth completed film; 10 minutes; sell this short to TV stations, streaming, and VOD, with the aim of $3000 at maximum or $1500 at minimum. 2029-2021: Fifth completed film; 30 minutes; now earning from festival circuit, VOD, and streaming to complete a more complex feature, and have a better reputation

Filmmaking has always been a strong part in my life since I was a child, making it an obvious career choice for since I knew what I wanted to be when I became an adult. To me, filmmaking represents a fruitful collision between various disciplines such as writing, videography, acting, and music to create something that combines the best aspects of these disciplines to create something unique. I knew that filmmaking could provide the perfect avenue for my artistic ambition as it allows me to merge all my favorite creative disciplines such as writing and music to create works that better reflect my own personality. While I have always admired the more personal aspects of filmmaking, as I have grown older and become much more interested in the wider impacts of the medium, I have found a more altruistic approach to continuing my pursuit. As I became more interested in filmmaking, I began to discover how film can be used to altruistically impact my community. From documentary work that focuses on promoting awareness for various causes to the messaging of film being able to spread to the wide number of audiences that come from film to giving jobs and giving greater economic security to lower income areas, film has the potential to positively contribute to society in innumerable ways. Of course, compared to working in the political spectrum making the legislation that improves lives to numerous scientific initiatives that use scientific discoveries to improve the world, I often believe I will have a barely visible positive contribution to society. Nevertheless, filmmaking has the potential to cause a positive impact on the world through its widespread popularity as a mass medium, and the creativity it brings in making messaging that can better change the perspectives of people rather than relying on traditional methods of communication. The degree I am currently pursuing perfectly demonstrates the diverse nature of the filmmaking process by showing how the various artistic disciplines and the technicality of filmmaking influence the final product. My education motivates me to seek how diverse film can be, which will not only make me more artistically potent but also allow me to use the medium in a more well-rounded way to contribute to spreading more awareness for issues that need to spread through mass mediums. Most of my volunteering work involved using film to make positive change in my community, such as using film to spread awareness to community service events around my school to using it to creatively advocate for causes I found essential in my area. My most long-standing and personally proudest endeavor came from recording my church sermons from my first to senior years of high school. The reason I hold this activity in such high regard is due to how it demonstrates the power film must build a community on a small scale. By consistently recording sermons to be put on YouTube to reach a wider audience, I was using film to build loyalty to the church and bring greater promotion of church as an important part in my community over those four years. I hope to continue to bridge the gap between community engagement and pursuing artistic endeavors through documentary work and providing film work to community service organizations, which is why I need to continue my degree to get a better understanding of the medium to better know how to use film to its fullest extent to contribute positively to my community. I hope this scholarship will allow me to forge a greater chance at achieving this goal.

I remember the first time I realized that my mental health was getting out of control. I was twelve years old, and I had recently moved with my parents from my hometown of Beaumont to Houston. While initially I believed I could swiftly handle the change, I immediately became overwhelmed by the isolation I felt in a new city away from my friends and family, and I was also inundated with the pressure to perform at the same levels academically as I once did. I soon began developing severe social anxiety, depression, and self-hatred that eventually numbed me into a cold shell of my former self. My grades started declining and I could not speak to people for days on end, exacerbating my feelings of worthlessness. It got to the point where I started to imagine ways to commit suicide out of the belief that I was always causing problems for everybody, and I could save people the trouble. I thought about slitting my throat, drowning myself, or cutting my wrists, and I was just so numb at that point that I just did not care. I just wanted to be gone. Through it all I could not open it to my parents because I did not want to seem ungrateful for the opportunities they could receive from the move. I did not believe they wanted to hear my own heart on the matter, and that they cared more for my well-being than their own opportunities. I remember one day when I was in the car with my mom, and we were talking about life in Houston, and my mom just started talking about how much she missed her home. She grew up in Beaumont, missed her friends and her family yet she was still happy to be in Houston and start a new life. As soon as she finished saying those words, suddenly I began to cry uncontrollably and got down by her knees, and just started sobbing. It all came out. How much I hated Houston. How much I wanted to go home. How much I missed my family. Everything came out from my mouth, and she just listened silently, stroking my hair all the way. I feel like that was the first time I ever received some catharsis and closure for my own feelings, and the first time I realized that I still had people that loved me in my life and were always there to help me. Going forward a few years, I am now seventeen years old. While I was still battling depression and social anxiety, I was feeling calmer in my spirit as I had developed better coping mechanisms such as writing in a journal and I was more open in being honest with my parents. All seemed incredibly prosperous at the time, but I knew there was something brewing to trouble us. My mother was struggling with family problems, and she was steadily bringing down her spirit. My mother, who was always enthusiastic, always willing to help others, slowly became the shell that I had become in my younger years. Instead of keeping to the background and ignoring the problem, I made the decision to step in. I made sure to always be at my mother’s side during this time and would constantly converse with her to get her to open. I made sure to always be present whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on, and always have a strong yet comforting front to make her comfortable being vulnerable. My mother got through that period smiling with me by her side.

One of the most reoccurring things they repeated to me was how both families had long struggled with poverty, affecting generation after generation. A lot of my parents’ stories from their childhood or what they were told by their parents often involved the times they were denied things they wanted or their own shame about how they came about. While I am not sure of the entire history behind the generations of poverty, I am sure that it was a result of the disentrancement and economic inequality African Americans had to face in Jim Crow era America. While I know this was meant to instill a sense of appreciation for how far my parents came to give me a good childhood, the message imprinted on me was not to forget where I came from. Even though I did not experience the same hardships of the previous generations, these opportunities are given greater significance when recognizing I am receiving the privileges the previous generations were denied. College represents another opportunity that I can receive yet were historically denied to the past generations, and one that I can hopefully earn greater access to more diverse opportunities from earning the degree. While I am incredibly proud that I can receive this opportunity because of my skills and hard work, I am aware of the greater impact this has on the legacy of my family name. Every time I see my family, I see individuals gifted with an incredible knowledge of the world, specialized knowledge, and possessing an above average skill set that they will always happily share. Yet I am also reminded that they could not achieve greater expansion of their knowledge due to the financial burdens or unfortunate circumstances, limiting these people from becoming even greater. Education is something that African Americans have historically been denied or given resources undervalued compared to white educational institutions, which is why the next generations of black families have been pressured to achieve in their academics. My success in education shows that there is hope that my family deserves to better their education and put a final nail into the coffin of the racism that has denied my family their rights. When I receive that degree and move on the opportunities that result from that accomplishment, I am easing the souls of the previous generations by letting them know that a Castille was not only able to receive a degree but thrive with the further opportunities. It is an unfortunate reality that my family has been forced to live in a cycle of poverty that has affected generation after generation, and it is also unfortunate that this is a reality for other black families. Fortunately, I, and the newer generation have the knowledge that we are given the opportunities they were denied and can live the lives our ancestors should have lived. I come from a family that has historically dealt with poverty, and I cannot forget that. I can choose not to define myself or my family like that but instead choosing to define ourselves by becoming greater than what we faced, and that starts with getting this degree.

I did not believe that I would be entering a year-long lockdown, forcing us away from our friends and other forms of human interaction for a prolonged period. For months, people were inundated with a constant stream of the latest catastrophe, forcing them to leave in fear and without the ability to talk to their loved ones. That was my experience with COVID-19. If there was one redeeming quality during that period, I would say it would be the first time I started focusing on using art for my mental health, using artistic mediums to express what verbal communication could never do. While I am not currently pursuing a mental health degree, I hope to increase that number by starting the first student organization dedicated to art therapy on campus aimed at black people and people with autism or anxiety who struggle with communication. As a black man, I am aware of 11%, with the number shrinking in art therapy with only 6.5% being licensed art therapists. Instead of seeing these numbers as motivators for me to not only increase the amount of art therapy, but to increase the number of black people in the field of mental health. Furthermore, the main patients for art therapy who struggle with communication, such as people with autism, dementia, or other forms of cognitive impairment, give them back a fundamental ability that they have lost. I hope to give these communities confirmation that their problems matter and make them comfortable with the uncomfortable

Art and science have often been grossly misunderstood as two oppositional forces that have no clear connection, but it is far from the truth. In my experience, my passion for art has allowed me to see how it focuses on the same technical precision an engineer possesses for a project and historically many artists have used scientific principles to improve their artwork. Furthermore, scientists such as Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman has shown to have a greater respect for artistic endeavors such as Einstein’s interest in violin playing and Feynman suggesting that science involves the same specialized creative thinking required for artists. These dual interests have led me to pursue a Creative Media Industries degree, which specializes in media production but also imprints alumni experience in technology by improving their skills in computer animation and computer programming. While I primarily have memories of impressing people with my artistic and scientific achievements separately, there was one instance where my two passions gracefully coalesced to help somebody in need. I was a junior in high school, and I recently joined a computer science course to nurture my new interest in coding. During this time, my family participated in a church adoption program where they adopted a child from across the globe and would continually provide financial and emotional support for them. My adoptive brother was named Jhoshua, and even though I knew I could never see him, I still attempted to try to make an impact on him. Fortunately, I got my opportunity. It was nearing Christmas time, and my mother asked me if I could make Jhoshua a gift to celebrate the New Year. Initially, I thought it was going to buy him a simple card to celebrate Christmas, or just send him a text until in my computer class, we were assigned as a final project for the year to make an interactive card. Suddenly, the “hacker spirit” overcame me I knew what to give Jhoshua. Over the course of two weeks, I utilized my various skills in coding and programming to work on the best card I could give to Jhoshua. I input over a hundred lines of code, utilizing various texts and images to make the card as unique as possible. I diligently worked on making pictures for the cards, making the text as colorful as possible, and even managed to work in a transition from a colorless background to a more vibrant background, something which I had difficulty mastering over the computer course. I inserted various side effects and animations for the pictures to make it more entertaining for my little brother. I wanted to make it the best project that I could muster to give my brother the best possible present I could make. While I would normally consider myself a hard worker, I dedicated an enormous amount of energy to the card even though I knew it would only be looked at for a single second. I just wanted to give my new brother something special. In the end. I ended up finishing a small but complex interactive card for Jhoshua that I sent him for Christmas by way of the church. I do not remember the exact response he gave the card, but when my mother doted over the vibrancy of the card, I was confident he would enjoy it as well. In the grand scheme of things, this is an insignificant project compared to efforts to built homes or other initiatives, but nevertheless, I was happy to use my own hacker spirit to brighten the holiday of my new brother for his Christmas.

Like any young child, I had a strong love for animation, though my love came from something deeper. Seeing static drawings move in dynamic poses tied with storytelling that refused to belittle me despite my age empowered me to take my creativity more seriously. Seeing an activity that I did frivolously be performed at not only an elevated level but with a clear respect for the medium inspired me to dream of becoming an animator. On a more personal level, for most of my life, I struggled with expressing myself honestly, fearing I would be rejected by my peers and developed a fear of developing connections. Drawing became my outlet for expression, making me comfortable in expressing my true self, always providing me safety to be who I want to be. I hope to share that same feeling of comfort in expression through my own works with children with comparable stories like me. Since I first started to become interested in animation, I have steadily worked to improve my drawing skills, invested in animation equipment to make my own makeshift projects, and even sent out my projects to other scholarships when asked to show proof of my work. Currently, I am seeing the fruits of my labor as I am majoring in Texas Tech in Creative Media Industries, a multidisciplinary program that will teach me the theories, methodology and production of media. By the end of my undergraduate year, I plan to have developed a complete portfolio that I will send to future companies and will also have produced more animated projects available at acclaimed film festivals. However, I do not merely wish to use animation only for the sake of the craft itself. Due to its worldwide popularity and association with entertainment for younger audiences, it makes it a better tool for displaying a wide range of voices and portraying them in strong and important roles in the stories for a new generation to grow up on. As black man interested in animation, I am aware of the painful stereotypes associated with animation from the beginning, and how limited animated portrayals of blackness have only recently if slowly began developing. Unfortunately, this is also common for other minority groups such as Native Americans and Spanish-speaking creatives, who also must deal with the medium’s painful history of stereotyping. I hope to produce projects that not only better highlight a diverse group of people in strong roles, but also potentially recruit more minority animators in my projects, furthering diversifying the animator workforce. There is a lot you can do with moving drawings from entertainment to mental enrichment. I hope to use it as a tool for empowerment and to give children that same feeling of comfort I found in creativity as a child. Hopefully, I will develop a true animation legacy built on helping other people and using art to build a better world through diverse representation and new storytelling avenues.

Sic Parvis Magna. Greatness from small beginnings. A man who began as son of religiously persecuted family working as a meek farmer. Ended his life as one of the most famous explorers of his time, whose exploits are still studied and talked about to this day. A boy who lost his family, his belongings, and even his brother. Became a famed treasure hunter discovering places no man had ever laid eyes on before settling down with a new family to call his own. A meek boy from an average family that struggled with his own self-worth for most of his life. How will his story end? I was twelve when I first bought the Uncharted game series, the first game I genuinely played on my new PlayStation. The games offered an escape for a time when I was in a heated battle against depression and anxiety, providing a fun escape from my life. I was soon lost in the pixelated worlds yet discovered by Nathan Drake and his friends, laughing with their sharp wit, and feeling their desperation to survive their many dangerous escapades. While offering me solace during that time would have been enough to endure the series, Uncharted did much more than that Throughout the years as I have grown and matured, the way I have approached the series has grown as well. When I first bought it at twelve years old, I was anxious and dispassionate kid, looking for a method to escape the struggles of my teenage angst, mindlessly going from action set piece and buying the best weapons. At fifteen, when I started becoming more interested in storytelling as a potential career, the games influenced my juvenilia, becoming entranced by its complex characters, detailed worldbuilding, and becoming more interested in their mechanics. At eighteen I approach them far differently. My life has never stopped moving or slowed down. I have just started to want to catch up. Even now after all these years and the trials, I still feel like that empty kid with no ambition, only feeling worthless and feeling like he has no future. Why do I choose to move on with my life and hope for better? Because Nathan Drake experienced the same. Nathan lost his parents, his brother died in front of him, never had a place to call home, rejected by so many people, put into situations that tested him every step, wanted to give up at every turn. Yet that is not what he is known as. He is the discoverer of ancient cities, founder of long-lost treasures, a friend to many, a beloved husband, and a father. In one of the game’s most poignant moments, after Nathan’s mentor Sully gives him the wedding ring, he believed he lost long ago, sagely telling him this: “We do not get to choose how we start in this life. Real greatness is what you do with the hand you are dealt.” The best part is that my experience is not unique. This beautiful medium has made others want to plan their own ending, overcoming their small beginnings. To me, sic parvis magna are not just detailed pixels created by an army of programmers to have the appearance of ink. They serve as a reminder to constantly be ambitious. It reminds me that greatness is not given but earned from effort. I hope to follow in Drake’s footsteps by becoming greater than what I have suffered and surpass my own beginnings to find an end I am proud of. This is not hope, but conviction, and one that will be achieved.

As I matured and grew stronger in my faith, I began to understand how important church is not only to being a Christian, but to a whole community, especially when I joined my new church, Triumph. Through their various community initiatives and projects, I understood how the church served as active representatives of how God works through average people to contribute something that can positively impact entire community of people. The church is varied in their community service projects ranging from smaller scale fundraising events to give money to societal issues to more widespread initiatives such as food drives and donations to combat poverty across the city. These projects occur monthly with assistance from other churches around the area, and often have memberships reaching over fifty to even hundreds of dedicated volunteers. This continues during the holidays many church members performing toy donations and food drives to give to the less fortunate and spreading charitable work, especially during Christmas. They have many initiatives fighting issues such as poverty and homelessness, with new projects sprouting each month. Furthermore, these projects regularly and rapidly exceed their goals due to the strong commitment of other church members to actively improve their community. A strong element of their community activities is how much respect they give to the younger generation, giving them opportunities to expand their faith and grow their own self-esteem. Every year, the church hosts youth events, bible studies, and projects to their younger visitors to help them engage better in Christ. They are so committed to enriching the life of the youth through Christ that if there is not enough money to send their children to bible studies out-of-state, many members work overtime providing fundraising events to earn enough money for the children to go. I have participated in many of these events from car washes, potlucks, and raffle events, where I see the consistent eagerness people have in willingly spending their free time at church working to better provide children of all backgrounds the opportunity to go to extraordinary events for free. I think one of the greatest initiatives pushed by the church is an adoption program where families can choose to adopt a child from another country to provide them financial support and provide emotional support to them even though they can never meet. I was so touched by their commitment to help other people even across the continents, and I was especially pleased that they were continuing their support for a young generation in countries known for harsh conditions. My mother even adopted a child named Joshua, and wanted me to help him raise him, trying to give him a more comfortable childhood than he would have without a steady support system. Through this simple action of adoption, the church can inspire and uplift a new generation of believers by providing them with love and financial support even across great distances, showing how wide-reaching their impact on others will become in the future. Through teamwork, compassion, and persistence, my church has proved itself as a consistent and capable force of good in my community, showing me how Christians can have a widespread impact on their community by performing good works and combatting societal issues. Their actions show how God works in people of whatever region to make a better world and grow a strong community of believers to foster a better world for everyone. This church inspires me to find my own community dedicated to helping others and promoting a better world from that same faith and sincere love for other people that they have always shown.

If language is the source of general communication, writing is our own personalized control of communication, one that is learned from nearly the time during childhood, growing with us as we forge our identity. Beyond literature, beyond political impact, beyond mass production, writing has continually remained relevant due to it acting as a simple and personal form of expression that can easily be used by anyone. I believe my life has been proof of the personal power writing has in identity as I have realized my identity has been intrinsically linked to my relationship with writing. Like most people, writing was one of the earliest things I ever learned, and my childhood mind was immediately entranced by the activity, but unlike most people, I have kept this childlike fascination with writing strong, continually finding new ways to become enamored with the art. In a strange sense, writing is alive to the writers that constantly pursue the activity as writing has never played a singular part in my life as it has always changed depending on my age. Throughout my life, writing has evolved from a simple activity I learned in my early childhood to a personal hobby that I did to entertain myself as a kid to a confidant, giving me a place to put my thoughts unfiltered as anxiety riddled teenager. Writing grows with you, continually offering itself as a vessel to place your thoughts with the communication you are comfortable with. I hope to continue watching this evolution as I grow into adulthood, hopefully pursuing a career in creative writing either as a novelist or screenwriter, which is where my education comes in. While at surface level education and writing are far from a compatible pairing, examining both their importance as people grow into maturity proves how intertwined they truly are. Education provides the experience and knowledge you will need later in life that continually affects you in the long-term based on your commitment to pursuing your degree, whereas writing can have a more immediate impact on your psyche no matter the stage in your life. Both disciplines motivate me to become more persistent in achieving my own identity, validating my efforts to improve both in the short term and long term, and will continue to impact my life whether immediately or in hindsight. Therefore, combining both disciplines should be a benefit for my future both by providing me with knowledge that will aid my life in the long term, and by providing me with the resources needed for financial success such as internships and research projects. I do not wish to write for myself, but I hope my work can reach people that have not yet discovered their own way of communication and expression, regardless of personal background or identity. I want my work to inspire people to use writing to offer an escape from their own burdens and be free to be themselves, and for their relationship with writing to strengthen and grow by using it as their own confidant. Earning a degree is validation that my efforts to improve my writing are not only being rewarded but reminds me to continue to push myself to achieve a goal, specifically in writing. I hope to continue this relationship with writing by using education to impact my future by providing the knowledge and resources needed to grow and develop into a successful writer no matter how it takes. This is why I am pursuing the degree, and why I trust my future with this plan.

I feel like my life is defined more by my “what-ifs” than my “What happened.” What if I got over my social anxiety and made friends? What if I were more confident in my passions and joined more clubs and extracurriculars that would have improved my craft? What if I spent more time loving myself instead of thinking I was lower than everybody? It feels like I am my greatest enemy, preventing myself from living my own life and denying my own goals and passions out of a misguided place of fear. For years that is how I chose to live my life, in fear, anxiety, and in constant self-denial of my worth. That influence is nowhere to be found in my current life. I have firm aspirations to pursue careers in film and animation, becoming more adamant in pursuing a successful career in these fields. I have joined many organizations and workshops to improve my craft, and even begin making my own personal projects. My most longstanding goal is to be able to independently produce and distribute my own films through the circulation of film festivals, making my own steady stream of income without help from major studios before I reach thirty. I went from barely being able to admit my own passions to even my closest family to now having a clear and set career path for my own interest. I have replaced my guide of anxiety and fear with a much more fulfilling guide in education. College represents the final transition from childhood to adulthood by allowing people to forge new identities in an unfamiliar setting that guides them into who they will become for the rest of their lives. This has caused me to become more confident and adamant in my own pursuits as I am living purely for myself and my own future, but I recognize the financial limitations. I want to pursue greater avenues in study abroad programs, internships, and even start my own organizations, but the financial limitations may stop me from enhancing by college experience. Education serves as a reminder that perseverance and possessing an unobstructed vision will lead to inevitable success and personal fulfillment and has served as validation for my hard work eventually grants success. I know what education can do and what I can accomplish, and I do not want to be limited from this important stage in my life, meaning that releasing myself from my financial burdens with this scholarship is essential to not only my professional life but my personal development into a man I want to become. I remember a rare moment when I was not inhibited by my anxiety and pursued something that I wanted to achieve. I profoundly struggled in math in my middle school, consistently getting lower grades. I did not bother trying to improve my grades because I felt that I would always struggle in math, so I should not waste the effort. Yet despite all that I continually studied for the tests, I still sought out tutoring, and I still tried to be a good student, even though I barely passed the class. Eventually, my determination resulted from barely passing to being near the top of the class, tests barely became a challenge, and I slowly began to enjoy my math class. Even though the failure, even when I felt like quitting, even when I thought I would never succeed, I made math into something that I excelled at. If that could not prove that I could succeed, I do not know what will.

I have never founded an organization dedicated to a particular cause that saved millions of lives daily. I have never joined a community service organization in my area that made active changes to my community whether it was political, environmentally, or socially. I do not have a strong history of community service, nor do I come from a family both on my mother’s side and on my father’s side that have a rich of community involvement. Yet why do I consider myself an altruistic person in the first place? It is because I know that acts kindness has an impact despite the size or the influence of the act in the grand scale of things. On the larger cultural scale or even the scale of my hometown in Beaumont, I have no visible impact on my community. However, my impact on the people that I have individually had on others is massive. It is through my faith in God that I was allowed to serve other people gleefully and dutifully in a position that was more essential than its unassuming status may seem. Let me explain One of my most longstanding volunteering efforts has been as an usher for my church during my high school years. It is the definition of small scale, as I often stood by the door for countless hours by myself, simply opening the door and greeting the people as they came in. However, think about how the usher influenced the perception of people who came to our church. In the biblical times, worship was not defined as only as the music but expressing your faith through serving in the church, meaning that I was pleasing God through dutifully working the doors. Faith is visible even the smallest actions Christians do, not just the large, and I continually proved my faith by working the doors. It is why Christians never “work” at church, but “serve” because we are showing our faith and love of God by performing actions that make his house of worship better and showing people how eager we are in serving the Lord. Furthermore, even though it was small, I never treated it as a burden or an annoyance. I reveled in my position. I was always there by the door, with a smile on my face, with my hand out, and saying encouraging things to my brethren in the church. I gleefully went out of my way to show people directions, help, and carry out conversations with others that served no larger purpose. I also took pride in memorizing other people and their names to better make them feel as part of a wider community. I treated my small-scale position as way to serve the Lord faithfully and make people understand how God works through others by being a bright and positive force for many. By serving with such passion, people became more comfortable entering the church and feeling like they were a part of a much larger community, which is what a good church should feel like. I have always been a servant to others, and I am proud of that fact. I understand that even my smallest actions never exist in a vacuum, which is why I took to ushering with such vigor. I wanted to make people feel like the house of God was a joyful community by representing it by greeting them and welcoming them as soon as they entered the door. Service, no matter how small or large in the grand scheme of life, always has an impact whether known or not.

My name is Noah Castille. I have been a Christian since birth, and I try to serve God in any way I can. I am intensely passionate about visual arts such as animation and drawing, but also possess a deep passion for learning. I do not have many friends, but I am comfortable in my skin and spending time by myself. I look forward to living my life, and plan to make my own films in my hometown of Houston in my twenties. This is an optimistic view of who I am and what I want out of my life, and if I told anyone this, they think I was a well-adjusted man with a bright future ahead. Unfortunately, this was not always the case, especially in my younger years. This is how I would describe myself when I was in middle school. My name is Noah Castille. I am unimportant, useless, ugly. I serve no value to my parents, and I offer no significance to my peers in school. The only thing I have ever been good at has been messing things up, and it will only take a matter of time for others to see that and get rid of me. No one wants to love me, and that is fine because I do not even deserve the love. Why am I here? What do I offer to the world? Why am I even alive? Those words were not written by a person, but an empty shell. That is how depression affects you. It drains all the joy and all the energy you can manage and leaves you as an empty husk that cannot enjoy his life and makes going through life a miserable and painful existence. It seems impossible to find happiness in anything, and everything you used to love seems like a burden now. You do not even attempt to change your life because you believe you deserve this misery. This is how I felt every day, every second for the years that should have been the best years of my life. It is a miracle I did not kill myself during that time. Depression does not go away. It stays with you through the bad experiences you have endured, the emotions that are still fresh from your experiences to the regret of knowing how different your life could have been if you lived without it. It remains with you, but that does not mean you cannot live a happy life, or you cannot have the capacity to feel joy again. It all changed when I started getting deeper into Christianity, and found out that God, through it all, found value in me and loved me deeply. That one positive moment changed it for me. I began to find my passion in art again. I became less afraid of other people. I began looking at the positive side of life instead of merely looking at the bad. I started falling in love with myself for the first time in a long time. To me that was how I got my revenge on depression for all those negative experiences and for wasting my years by living a good life and finding happiness again. This degree serves as a confirmation to that. All my struggles, all my pain, all my hatred, eventually led to the moment I would walk the stage with the biggest smile on my face. I have barely started, but I still picture that day clearly. That degree is not proof that I have won, but a reminder of everything I have accomplished so far.

Have you ever felt like your own voice was held hostage by yourself? It is amazing how the voice can simultaneously be the greatest form of expression a person can have yet also be kept silent by us. Sometimes it can be because we have learned that our voice is not useless and worth nothing to the world, but that we as a people do not deserve to speak. On a grander scale, certain types of people who have used their voice and on a wider scale have often been linked to some of humanity’s worst atrocities and horrors. For whatever reason, my voice has often been locked away longer than I would like to admit, but it is about to be heard. My name is Noah A. Castille, and this is how writing is made to be heard. Reading has always been my closest companion ever since I could learn how to read, offering me years of memories exploring the distinct and varied worlds found in literature. Naturally, I wanted to repay their debt to me by pursuing writing, aiming to recreate those same feelings of joy and make new memories for the next generation of writers much like my own experience. I began reading books more analytically to learn what made the great ones possess such a high caliber, began writing more intently, and started to attend workshops. This should have been the start of a fruitful beginning to a writing career, developing a deeper respect for literature and leading to the first steps to pursuing a writing career. Instead, I remember those years developing a deep feeling of inadequacy as my writing skills were not acceptable for publication and for transforming my love of writing into an immovable weight. I soon began to fear improving my wriitng, believing that I would never be good at it, and I soon lost all passion for writing due to that fear. I have always regretted letting my fears snuff out my passion, and for many years I rarely wrote for the love of it for the longest time. This closes my chapter on my passion for writing, but fortunately my voice would get the last laugh. My passion for writing was reignited when I read The Outsiders for the first time at thirteen. I related to it so much because Ponyboy’s struggle to find his voice and using writing to express himself, like how I originally found such joy in writing because it helped me express my own voice. It boosted my courage to pursue expressing my own voice in a long time, and slowly but surely, I found it easier to reinvigorate my passion for writing, though I am still occasionally dealing with the anxiety that I will eventually flounder. That is why I am so excited to write again. I want to show people that despite all their fears and anxieties that influence them, you deserve to express yourself, pursue your dreams, and live your own life.

It is funny how I needed to be broken down just to be built up and see the world as a whole. I am well versed in this notion more times than I would rather admit to whether it be ignoring the advice of my parents or following my feelings, I often fail the decisive moment because I acted in moments of falsehoods. Fortunately, the experiences I have accumulated have been well worth the lesson, and it has led me to pursue a life that is worth living. I have many stories to tell but the most important lesson I have ever learned involved breaking down what I knew about myself to find the real person behind the shell. My name is Noah Castille, and this is what mental health revealed to me. In hindsight while I had a happy childhood, I believe that it could have been much happier if I were aware of my mental health. As a child I had a healthy and abundant positive support system made up of friends and family that built up a positive self-worth in me that I am still grateful for to this day. As a result, I grew up with a clear sense of purpose and confidence that made the world look like a radiant place that held no negativity, and one where I could definitively find happiness in. This positivity was the reason I was always so confident in my path as an artist as I knew that I could achieve that dream because I was never burdened by the fear of failure. This should be a shining model for a happy childhood for any person, and while I do not doubt that it was not, deep down, I was never living a true form of happiness. With hindsight, I now recognize that underneath the happy surface, I had a low self-worth and an inability to open myself emotionally to other people. The reason I never realized these feelings was due to that support system being such an essential component in my life that I never really delved into this. While I should be glad that I never had to experience these negative feelings to impede my childhood, I was robbed of a greater sense of wholeness that would have made my childhood more complete. I was living in a world of false bliss because I was merely ignoring the underlying problems rather than addressing them, and I was living with an incomplete self that I am only now starting to grow into. If I had a more complete view of myself, I would have been spared for the next few years. Have you ever felt like you were carrying around a giant weight on your back that constantly suffocated you and made it hard to breathe under the pressure? Have you ever felt a strange sense of emptiness that made it impossible for you to feel anything? These are apt descriptions of how I would define my middle grade years. I encountered alienation and anxiety that I never felt before or since, which dominated my thought process and emotional state to the extent that I could rarely feel anything from those years that were not pain or heartache. The unfortunate truth being these problems did not appear randomly but had long existed inside me and only now could develop unimpeded. Since these problems were not recognized during my childhood, they were allowed to roam free unimpeded and grown stronger in later years of suppression. I could not open myself up to people the same way anymore due to my emotional state, meaning the demons got to play around and redefine myself to their whims. I started to feel that the world was a much darker place than I previously imagined, and often found that the positive moments were fleeting distractions from the world’s darker aspects. I convinced myself that the activities that I initially thought brought me happiness were things that I had no talent for and activities that could never fill me with the same sense of purpose that I initially felt from them. People were alien creatures that I could not connect with and were even something that I was afraid of getting close to out of fear they would eventually hurt me if they got too close. The feelings I long ignored were now defining my reality, and my perception was profoundly influenced by them, causing such an intense feeling of isolation that I frankly have yet to completely detach myself from. It was the worst period of my life, but I do not regret living through it. As I mentioned previously, sometimes you get broken down to be built back up. Eventually, as time went on, I started to accept my mental problems and started to take steps to address them. I built a better relationship with my family, so I could discuss my mental turmoil when I was ready. I started pursuing new interests such as walking and listening to music that rebuilt my confidence and started to find enjoyment in my old passions such as drawing. I started to live life one day after another, and eventually I started to live again. While I did not appreciate the steps I took to get there, I nonetheless appreciate discovering those cracks in my spirit, and eventually understanding something clearly at last they brought in. I am now a much fuller person because I have accepted the negative aspects of myself, leading to a much fuller person that lives their life. I see value in life by appreciating how the negatives make the positives more beautiful and have led to me loving the world in a clear and more complex way than ever. My career in creativity is influenced by making sure people can experience joy, something that I once considered so alien it may not have even existed for me. This is what my mentality, good and bad, revealed to me.

To me the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to me, my family, my close friends, or even anyone would being able to have a healthy awareness of oneself. Even though you can have many positive attributes, and other people may define you in a positive and lovely attitude, the greatest critic will always be yourself no matter what anyone else says. It is quite chilling to realize that you are the main decider of your identity, and that you are responsible for forming it around a negative self-perception that you cannot distinguish from fact or fiction. Furthermore, this can happen daily and affects people from around the world making it an attribute that connects all of us disturbingly harmonious manner. A negative identity will be omnipresent in every action whether we are conscious of it or not. In a smaller scenario we will make from denying us happiness by proclaiming we are not deserving of such positivity such as escaping hobbies that we enjoy or making companionship. On a more long-term and darker case it defines how we live our lives such as determining our level of happiness and living a life filled with misery and depression. To me, that is the closest way to experience Hell while still living on Earth, and it is a reality I try to avoid daily. I am so well-versed in that manner of torment as I unfortunately experienced that reality during my middle grade years. I moved from my birthplace of Beaumont to the completely foreign city of Houston for my seventh grade with a well-developed sense of foreboding that I would experience the worst years of my life there. How dismally correct that sense turned out to be. I experienced an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness during those years that living in darkness was as simple as breathing to me. It seemed like every thought that I could conceive was designed to tear away any shred of happiness that I could conjure. It affected everything about me from isolating myself from my loved ones to become a more abrasive person and refusing to see any positive part in my life, deeming it a waste of time. I can barely remember feeling anything other than a sense of emptiness that was fueled by aggressive spells of self-hatred and even suicidal ideation. I often live in fear that eventually I will fall back into those feelings, even stronger than before, with no hope or return to the light, eating away at my very being until I met a fatal end. But that is not the story I will write. While I feel like there are some demons that have still taken residence in my psyche, I am now at a place that better manage then than previously. The strongest tool in my arsenal has been strengthening my relationship with God and realizing that His love is truer than any lie I have ever thought. By growing in God, he has shown me that I am loved, and I can base my identity on His truth by believing in Him. I have also developed stronger companionship and have surrounded myself with people who affirm a positive perception of myself that frees me from the isolation of my youth. These factors have transformed me into a more positive and more free-spirited person whose identity is based on truth rather than falsehood. I have never been happier living in the truth, and that is how I am written in the story of my life.

It seems to me that most of the moments where I was at my most unburdened and unconcerned with my place in the world were when I was a child. Of course, this goes for many people as when we are children, our freedom is tied to ignorance that unburdens us from fear that weighs on us when we grow older. It is why we are at our most creative and most positive as children due to that gift of ignorance. I remember as a child how much joy art gave me because I was creating something that held no purpose other than entertaining myself and was simply happy to make my ideas alive. It was when I became older and started to become more critical of my artwork and recognized that I wanted to pursue as a valid career that I was plagued by self-doubt and perfectionism. It is a curse that comes with growing as knowledge can be both liberating as we gain a fuller picture of the world around us, yet we quickly become slaves to the wight of that knowledge. Yet if we the proper way to aim this knowledge to satisfy our true potential and we can keep a childlike sense of wonder and appreciation for the world by being amazing at the complexity of this world. This is my idealized version of what a teacher should be: a figure that plants and harvests their pupils like an attentive farmer who sows seeds in his field. While it is fortunate that some teachers have reached this idealized view and have made education a fond memory for their blessed students, the reputation of teachers is as a burden to a soul for both teachers themselves and for students. It is an unsettling period in history where possessing a love learning has seemed to be an antiquated notion, and one where future generation will be nurtured unless prevented. The status of teachers should therefore be more glamorized and recognized for their potential on humanity’s potential by providing an education as a foundation for the minds that will inhabit Earth in its future. While I may be exaggerating as teachers may still seem highly valued in certain areas of the world more than others, I hope it can be more of a universalized truth than a controversial opinion, and I pray to be at the forefront. I was once a child that gave no thought to my own education, only pursuing success in it for the sake of pleasing my parents rather than personal fulfillment. I was guided by that ignorance for years, unaware of how my potential was steadily being weighed down by that falsehood. Fortunately, I have grown into someone whose potential is primarily influenced by his education, and someone who wishes to share this truth with other people on a larger scale. Being a teacher means building a foundation for people to grow and have success on, and it is one I seek to honor by committing myself to it with vigor. I hope my students see me as a reason for pursuing successful and achieving their potential as I have when learning for myself. Additionally, it is an opportunity to connect themselves back to their childhood wonder of the world by being aware of the complexities that inhabit their lives and accepting it with a sense of undying optimism. This is how true success should be achieved as a teacher.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you? There is a child, quiet, meek, and a little passive, coming back from a long day at school. He is not a very popular kid, has very few friends, and has a crippling inability to talk to other people. He is often picked on by his peers for reasons outside his control and he does not understand why they are doing this to him, worsening his already debilitating flaw. Furthermore, he is far from the brightest student at the school, finding it harder to understand even the most basic concepts unlike some of his other classmates. The teachers make it no secret that they find him a waste of their time and are often subjected to subtle disdain to verbal lashings due to their frustration at him for not being able to understand their lectures. He does not feel better at home. His siblings breed achievements like it are second nature and rarely does a day go by without them talking about their latest deeds like they are recording them for history. Naturally, every single word uttered to them by their parents is defined by their clarity of their doting and their clear satisfaction in knowing they raised such stalwarts. Their vocabulary towards the child is much different. Their word choice tends to be more critical of every conceivable fault he has from his poor grades, his lack of social skills, to even how he presents himself in public. It is easy to believe they have no special regard for the boy if one listened to their talks, something that the boy, in a rare moment of insight, often perceives to be their main message. Soon the boy learns lessons very close and dear to his heart: he is worth nothing. No one wants him. There is nothing positive about him. He is just a burden, and everyone wants him gone. That is who he is and all he will ever be... in the real world. His presence is much different in Minecraft. One of his buildings that he had been working on for quite some time has been well received, and he had been called a “genius”. Another time he had saved some fellow players from certain doom by formulating a well thought of plan in matter of seconds, with them calling him a “savior”. When he finally finishes one of his creations and simply marvels at what he had carried out, even though he notes that it was made for his own enjoyment, he calls himself “amazing”. This is the present Minecraft has afforded him for years now. It is a place he can create with his heart’s content and where his ideas are not only accepted by received with open arms. It is also a place where he has a set meaning, and where he can define himself as a positive force in the game. It is his haven from what the real world has to offer him and offers an escape into what he could be when he is not constrained by the limits the world has placed on him. Even though it is temporary, and he knows that it is not reality, he forever cherishes the freedom it has given him throughout the years, and he will always welcome the peace it has given him without any cost towards his enjoyment. That is likely a story heard many times from a vast range of Minecraft players when asked why they like the game. Escape. Purpose. Fulfillment. That is what Minecraft can do and will continue to do.

Whether it was thinking Jim was the epitome of a slacker with a hidden heart gold to Michael's exemplifying every conceivable definition of uncool, the Office is an unnaturally absurd ecosystem filled with a diverse set of strange organisms. In simple terms, the show thrives on its gaggle of weirdos, eccentrics, and mental defects. While most are focused on the more positive and idealized attributes of the organization, I want to talk about a character that I resonate with for selfish reasons, that character in question being Phyllis Vance. On the surface it appears like Phyllis would be one of the sweetest characters due to her appearance as a passive and quiet person. However, just because someone is quiet and meek does not mean they have a lower capacity for vindictiveness that rivals the Office's most unsavory types. She can be quite cruel to characters like Pam and Angela (though I do not feel too bad about the latter) and has been shown to engage in blackmail and gossip, showing her sense of pettiness and a noticeable gratification from watching people fail and suffer. She is not the most pleasant or most morally righteous person on the show, and she has many unsympathetic moments considering how you view her. So why is it that I find her such a semi-empowering image? I am a very introspective and quiet person who rarely tries to get on anybody's nerves, and some people seem to think that I am just a pushover with no backbone. Phyllis presents a subversion of how quiet and meek characters appear in the media by showing that "shy and quiet" does not automatically mean "saintly and passive". In some cases, this is a persona chosen by the actor to make her more vindictive qualities stand out more and shows that quiet people are not "good" by nature and can be at the center of negativity if given the chance. I am not a saint by nature, and I sometimes think of enacting vengeance on people that annoy me but am too passive to act on them. Therefore, seeing a quiet character like Phyllis enacting vengeance on people that assume she is too weak to retaliate is quite cathartic. However, she also shows that quiet people do not exist in a vacuum and have a wide range of personality types that are hidden by their choice of a quieter person than most. I find some enjoyment in Phyllis representing that archetype though not from a moral one (occasionally). Of course, this is just one example of the show's knack of presenting the archetypes before deconstructing them and making the characters more well-rounded. How many times in the show has a character previously figured out something surprising or the most stereotypical characters have actions that reveal how human they truly are? This is of course true for all sitcoms; I praise the Office for doing this in a setting mostly defined by its cold atmosphere and humorless characters. Of all jobs defined by their boredom and soul crushing routines, office jobs are often at the top of the list in tones dripping with hidden trauma. The Office reveals that some stereotypes hide true characteristics rather than revealing the core and the characters emphasize the beauty and humor in flaws unexposed in a professional workplace. Despite the idealized and absurdist depictions, it reveals more truth about the embarrassingly human conditions that populate environments typically believed to be exceedingly cold than any other workplace drama and for that I am grateful and honored to be an Office fan.

To me the most terrifying thing that could ever happen to me, my family, my close friends, or even anyone would being able to have a healthy awareness of oneself. Even though you can have many positive attributes, and other people may define you in a positive and lovely attitude, the greatest critic will always be yourself no matter what anyone else says. It is quite chilling to realize that you are the main decider of your identity, and that you are responsible for forming it around a negative self-perception that you cannot distinguish from fact or fiction. Furthermore, this can happen daily and affects people from around the world making it an attribute that connects all of us disturbingly harmonious manner. A negative identity will be omnipresent in every action whether we are conscious of it or not. In a smaller scenario we will make from denying us happiness by proclaiming we are not deserving of such positivity such as escaping hobbies that we enjoy or making companionship. On a more long-term and darker case it defines how we live our lives such as determining our level of happiness and living a life filled with misery and depression. To me, that is the closest way to experience Hell while still living on Earth, and it is a reality I try to avoid daily. I am so well-versed in that manner of torment as I unfortunately experienced that reality during my middle grade years. I moved from my birthplace of Beaumont to the completely foreign city of Houston for my seventh grade with a well-developed sense of foreboding that I would experience the worst years of my life there. How dismally correct that sense turned out to be. I experienced an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness during those years that living in darkness was as simple as breathing to me. It seemed like every thought that I could conceive was designed to tear away any shred of happiness that I could conjure. It affected everything about me from isolating myself from my loved ones to become a more abrasive person and refusing to see any positive part in my life, deeming it a waste of time. I can barely remember feeling anything other than a sense of emptiness that was fueled by aggressive spells of self-hatred and even suicidal ideation. I often live in fear that eventually I will fall back into those feelings, even stronger than before, with no hope or return to the light, eating away at my very being until I met a fatal end. But that is not the story I will write. While I feel like there are some demons that have still taken residence in my psyche, I am now at a place that better manage then than previously. The strongest tool in my arsenal has been strengthening my relationship with God and realizing that His love is truer than any lie I have ever thought. By growing in God, he has shown me that I am loved, and I can base my identity on His truth by believing in Him. I have also developed stronger companionship and have surrounded myself with people who affirm a positive perception of myself that frees me from the isolation of my youth. These factors have transformed me into a more positive and more free-spirited person whose identity is based on truth rather than falsehood. I have never been happier living in the truth, and that is how I am written in the story of my life.

I have always been used to the idea of being alone and not having too many friends. This was especially true when I first moved to Houston or Sugar Land, as my mom corrects me. People always seem not to make a big deal out of moving away, but those people were lucky enough to not have the childhood I had. I lived in Beaumont, and it seemed to be the whole world to me. My mother's family lived close to me, and the house of Spring Meadow seemed like a personal paradise for me to escape to. Of course, the best thing about Beaumont was my friends. As an introverted person, I find it incredibly difficult to make friends and meet other people, even back as a child. It was a relief to find people who liked me for me, and I enjoyed being around them for a long time. That was my life for twelve long amazing years. It is kind of disappointing how the happy memories get even better when you have left them long behind. It started looking better as soon as I moved here. When I arrived in Missouri City, it felt like being a pilgrim to a strange land. I knew I was still in Texas, but it was not the Texas I grew to love. Everything seemed like a strange variation of a thing I loved. The apartment was not my home, but it was a house like a stranger's house. I had no immediate family in the area, so I could not talk to them about my problems. However, the worst offense was facing my new classmates. I was never bullied or forcefully isolated from my peers, but it felt like I could never gain any attachment to them the same way at home. I was uncomfortable, and there was rarely a day I thought about my old friends and the joy I got from being around them. Those were the toughest times of my life. Fortunately, I realize it was not all bad, and with hindsight, I consider myself extremely blessed. As mentioned previously, I was never bullied, and I still had the warmth of my family. However, one of the more redeeming features was playing on my Nintendo Switch. Before I moved in 2018, I remember getting the Nintendo Switch for Christmas, and the incredible excitement over my new gift. I spent hours playing Mario and Smash Bros with ever-increasing pleasure (when I was not screaming in anger). It was fun back then, but when I moved here, I believe it developed into a coping mechanism to escape my misery from moving. In solitude, I played, and for years believed that it was better than talking to others. But one moment changed that. I am a proud Christian, and I have attended Triumph since I moved here. While I have nothing but fond experiences with them, I did not consider them a very redeeming feature. But one day, my pastor invited us to a pool party with his son. I went, and it was fine, but things changed when I discovered their Switch. Everyone gathered to play Smash, and eventually, I got a turn. I do not remember most of that night, except for the laughter, pride, and comfort: things I had not felt since the move. I finally started enjoying other people again and realized that I was just like everyone else. Even though I did not make lifelong friendships, that night reminded me of my self-worth and my love for playing. All thanks to the Nintendo.