When I was in fifth grade, I was introduced to the simple drag and drop game engine Scratch. On that first day, I remember spending hours making simple programs. Making sprites move forward, change color, go invisible, rotate in place, and clone it. Throughout the next few weeks, my knowledge of programming grew and I was able to create even more complex video games. Every time I fixed a bug or added something new, even something as simple as getting my character to move around, it felt like I could do anything and I was eager to learn more. By the time I got to high school, I knew that I wanted to do something in Computer Science. The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem, learning more about how computers and software works, and the simple joy of bringing an idea to life was alluring. I joined programming related clubs where I could discuss with other people what they were working on and plan out projects together. I continued learning by taking AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science A and experimenting with Java. All of these activities encouraged me to major in Computer Science. Majoring in Computer Science will allow me to better understand concepts that will allow me the freedom to bring my ideas to life in video game form. It will allow me to create immersive worlds with intricate story crafting. It will allow me to create experiences that can inspire other people, get them to empathize with each other, or just to enjoy a satisfying and fun experience. I choose Computer Science as my major because of the many opportunities it allows me, not just to create better video games, but also to connect with people who are passionate about solving problems through programming in any field. Most importantly, programming is being used to solve all sorts of problems from around the world from software used to predict storms to producing better models that help cancer researchers. The most expensive college on my list of potential colleges is UC Santa Cruz with an estimated total cost of around $44,160 for 2024 to 2025, according to the UC Santa Cruz Financial Aid website. This means if I go to UC Santa Cruz for four years, assuming that tuition will not increase at all year to year which is highly unlikely, I will have to pay around $176,000 in total. Clearly given this total cost, I need to figure out a way to reduce the cost of college. I plan on paying for college through a variety of different avenues. The first is through scholarships which I plan on submitting around 150 scholarships by the end of my senior year which should reduce the cost by a few thousands. In college, I plan on getting an internship as a software engineer either sophomore or freshman year. Assuming that I will work for the $25 hourly wage, according to ZipRecruiter, for software engineer interns, I will make around $12,000 working full time for 3 months. If I do this continually since sophomore year in total I will make $36,000. Both the scholarship and working as an intern will help greatly to reduce my student loan debt. Even given these measures, I will inevitably need to take out student loans to afford going to college. However, factoring in the experiences that I can have in college and the economic benefit, choosing to go to college is well worth it despite the high initial cost.

The Internet can be a dangerous place. Due to its widespread popularity and constantly shifting landscape, it can be difficult for legislators to pass effective regulations that would protect young people from cyberbullying and other dangers online. The issue with trying to regulate the Internet is that it changes too rapidly for legislatures to regulate it effectively. Social media platforms come in and out of fashion every few years. This fluidity makes it nigh impossible for legislatures to pass effective legislation because it takes more time to pass effective regulations and laws than it does for various social platforms on the Internet to rise and fall out of the spotlight. Furthermore, due to the lack of clear regulation on the Internet combined with its global, interconnected nature it is impossible to ever truly make the Internet a safe place for children entirely. This can feel particularly dangerous given how many children and young people are on the Internet unsupervised. Additionally, because of the perceived anonymity on the Internet many people on the Internet are too comfortable saying cruel things. The Internet's nature as a perceived anonymous platform encourages cyberbullying which can significantly, detrimentally impact young people’s mental health. Bullying is even easier online than in person because the perpetrator does not need to view the other person’s face which makes it easier to be cruel to them due to a lessened sense of empathy. Combine that with the sense of anonymity and belief that their speech does not hold consequences and you get an environment that encourages cruelty and cyberbullying. So how can we prevent cyberbullying online? In short we can never truly prevent it. People on the Internet will choose to say whatever they want because there are often never consequences and it is human nature to voice our thoughts without first considering how it will impact other people. However, we can curb this behavior by having schools take responsibility for what their students say along with encouraging an environment that supports people who have been affected by cyberbullying. Oftentimes people who experience cyberbullying are often misunderstood or discredited. Statements such as “Why didn’t you just close the computer?” downplay the damage cyberbullying can do and further alienates their people who have experienced it discouraging them from speaking up. In order to reduce cyberbullying, we need to foster an environment where children are comfortable reporting cyberbullying to trusted adults who can properly handle the situation. If we discourage people speaking up then we indirectly encourage cyberbullying by refusing to take appropriate measures to mend the situation and help the people most impacted by it heal. I want to be able to help people impacted by cyberbullying through my chosen career field of Computer Science because I believe that cyberbullying is one of the most prevalent and dangerous aspects of the Internet. I want to help make the Internet a better, safer place by promoting an environment of respect and accountability. I want to use my skills as a programmer to build more effective detection systems and reporting systems so that we as a society can fight cyberbullying quicker. We will never completely defeat cyberbullying, but that is no reason not to fight to reduce it. Winning this scholarship would help not just reduce the financial burden of college but help me pursue college to the fullest and to better help people online affected by cyberbullying. It would also reduce the stress on my family who are paying for my twin sister to go to college at the same time as me. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Speedrunning. The art of going as fast as you can through a video game. Now you may wonder why would you choose to go through a fun experience as quickly as you can? Shouldn’t you savor the experience? Speedrunners are people who carefully investigate the smallest details of video games, carefully learning the systems to the highest level. Then they break it. Sequence breaks, utilizing tricks to skip ahead in the game, movement optimized to the highest level, and muscle memory drilled into them after hundreds of hours of practice. And it. Is. Awesome! I find speedrunning so compelling because of the dedication that speedrunners put into their chosen game and of how welcoming the community is regardless of which game you chose. Speedrunning can be an incredible artform filled with game breaking glitches and routes that have been optimized for decades like Super Mario Bros. But speedrunning is more than just a solo activity. Speedrunning is a communal effort of people TAS-ing a game, or checking hundreds of different routes of individual levels to find the fastest one, glitch hunters who explore different quirks of a game to potential exploit, and even the everyday average runner that picks up the game just for fun. I love speedrunning especially because there is little to no bar of entry. If you have a game you can speedrun it and there are many amazing games out there for little to no cost. Speedrunning is a competition among many runners for the fastest time, but is also a community that supports one another when they get personal bests. For instance, it is frowned upon for runners to “hoard” times or get really fast times and not post them because it prevents the community from competing with them by learning the same strategies which drag down the community as a whole. Speedrunners are incentivized to work together because as much as they are competing with the game and the clock itself. After watching many videos on speedrunning I decided to try my hand at a small indie game called Celeste Classic. I spent around two weeks learning how to go fast and eventually got a decent time of 2:04 seconds. Speedrunning to me felt like learning how to play an instrument. Hours of frustration and practice, of sore fingers, of tired eyes, of sheer concentration, to get that one moment where everything finally clicked and I was flying through the levels. Part of this newfound passion for speedrunning has inspired me to major in Computer Science. I want to be able to create applications that inspire other people, or help improve the lives of people in my community, or just bring a smile to someone’s life. Winning this scholarship would not just reduce the financial stress of college but also help reduce the stress on my parents and allow me to pursue every opportunity to the fullest I can. Thank you for taking the time to read this and your consideration.

Growing up my first exposure to programming was when I was in elementary school tinkering with Scratch. I remember fondly how I would spend hours building small games using Scratch’s visual programming language. Every little thing from making a character move around to playing animations to indicate that the player had taken damage to even just making a button work all felt addictive. It was during those initial weeks that I felt committed to pursuing a career in Computer Science. I have always enjoyed programming particularly due to its heavy reliance upon mathematics, another subject that I love. When I was younger I would always ask questions about the world to my parents. This curiosity has encouraged me to delve deeper into Computer Science and programming because I am passionate about learning why things work the way that they do. I have further fostered this passion in high school by joining many programming related clubs, building a few small games in Unity and Godot, and taking AP Computer Science classes to better learn object oriented programming and Java. In college I want to major in Computer Science to learn more about the field. When I go to college, I want to do well not just academically but I also want to build my skills so I can give back to my community. In my junior year of high school, I conducted a service project where I gathered cleaning, hygiene, and living essentials along with a hand made card along with leading a small group of around 10 other volunteers and donated them to a local non profit homelessness organization. Doing this project helped me realize that I can make a significant difference in the lives of the people around me. By no means did this project end homelessness, however I made a substantial difference for the people that I helped. When I am in college, I want to give back to my community by helping other local organizations with my programming skills to better organize their data to help make effective decisions, or build websites that could improve access to vital resources, or many other ways. I want to be able to get an internship during my freshman or sophomore year of college to get some professional experience which could help me get a job after I graduate. Throughout college, I want to meet new people to further enrich my college experience, facilitate collaboration through shared projects, and also to allow me to network with other people. Beyond academics and career development, I want to take part in different extracurriculars to pursue my interests. For instance, I may join an intramural team in order to stay physically active. I also want to be able to contribute to research within my field because it will allow me to explore different areas of my field. Overall, in college, my goal is to take full advantage of the unique resources and opportunities that are available to me, in addition to performing well academically, in order to facilitate obtaining a job after I graduate. I want to be able to say that I have done everything that I wanted to do in college after I graduate. College is not just an opportunity to improve myself and learn new things, I am also going to college to help support my family. me. Computer science in college has the power to change the world and I want to contribute to the field through research, internships, and collaboration with like minded people. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Growing up, learning to drive has been uniquely stressful and anxiety inducing for me. Unlike many people, when I got behind the wheel I felt stressed and nervous that I would mess up or somehow crash. I’m not really sure why; I’m not an awful driver and I follow all of the rules. But for some reason I just get stressed when I need to drive anywhere. However, each and every day I have to get behind the wheel to drive 30 minutes to my school and back. Over time, I have grown more comfortable with driving, but I still get nervous whenever I drive somewhere that I haven’t gone before often. One day, while my sister and I were doing nothing my parents told us that we should get out of the house. Bored, I recommended to my sister that we go watch a movie of some kind. She agreed and soon we bought tickets to go see the movie “Twisters” at a nearby AMC movie theater. “Twisters” was about a group of people who went tornado watching and a woman who was recovering from the death of her friends during a freak tornado accident. It is about a journey about someone facing her fears and learning that she is capable of doing things she was once afraid of. And so we went off, driving down unfamiliar roads down a route that I had memorized before getting into the car. We got to the theater, I parked the car and we walked inside. I got popcorn and drinks for my sister and I (also something that I was nervous about) and then we sat down and watched the movie. As I was watching the movie, I couldn’t help but feel elated. I did not often get the chance to do something by myself and I felt proud of myself that I was able to overcome my nerves about driving and go somewhere by myself. The realization that I could go anywhere I wanted to, so long as I had the time and energy, felt both empowering and strange. It felt like I had matured in some way, like I had come closer to becoming my own person independent of my family. The actual movie itself was enjoyable, if a bit bland, but the fact that I could drive independently despite my nervousness was amazing to me. Driving out and watching the movie by myself was a small thing, but it has reminded me that it is the small acts of everyday courage that change who we are. It is the small things that we do outside of our comfort zone that have a profound effect on who we are and who we will become. From asking your crush out, to giving a speech to a crowded audience, to driving somewhere when you hated driving, to a million other acts of ordinary, everyday bravery that would be unnoticeable otherwise. Going out to see this movie reminded me that it is okay to do things that are uncomfortable because that is the only way that I will grow. Sometimes, I need to face my fears and be okay being uncomfortable for a while. That any nerves or pain that I experience will pass so long as I am willing to go through them. And I am grateful that I went to see this movie, as uneventful as it was, because I will carry the lessons that I learned from this experience for the rest of my life. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Growing up, I have always had an interest in programming. I began in fifth grade building simple drag-and-drop games using MIT’s visual programming game engine. I created sprites, animations, user interfaces, basic music, and some simple sound effects. I loved having the empowering feeling of being able to create whatever I wanted, so long as I had the patience to learn how. My early games were very rudimentary and crude. Simple games like clicking on a sprite to get points, a very, very basic platformer, Flappy Bird, and even a simple boss fight at one point. Scratch provided the perfect training ground to foster my passion for programming and video game development more broadly. After a few years of Scratch development, in middle school, I decided to take an online CTE, or career technical education, game development course after school. The course introduced me to a more complex game engine called Unity. Unity had many of the features I longed for with Scratch: the ability to pause scripts, a built-in physics engine, and more components than I could ever want. However, switching over to Unity was difficult as it had harder programming concepts than Scratch’s simple drag and drop language. It was the first time I was exposed to the ideas of object oriented programming and even a type based programming language. But slowly with much trial and error I was able to make simple games in Unity. When I got to high school, I knew that I wanted to become a programmer. The joy of solving a difficult bug after debugging, planning out a logical system, or even just bringing something to life was addictive. I joined programming related clubs in my high school to discuss programming and collaborate with other people. I took AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science A in order to better my programming skills and learn Java. Outside of class, I experimented with Roblox game development, looked into web development, and tried out Godot. All of these activities encouraged me to major in Computer Science. It will allow me the freedom to bring my ideas to life. It will allow me to create immersive worlds with intricate story crafting. It will allow me to create experiences that can inspire other people, get them to empathize with each other, or just to enjoy a satisfying and fun experience. I choose Computer Science as my major because of the many opportunities it allows me, not just to create better video games, but also to connect with people who are passionate about solving problems through programming in any field. Most importantly, programming is being used to solve all sorts of problems from around the world from software used to predict storms to producing better models that help cancer researchers. I hope to be able to contribute to the field myself by collaborating with like minded people, conducting research with undergraduate professors, or even getting a computer science internship at different companies to get experience and hone my craft. In high school, I did not have as rigorous math classes as many of my peers who are also majoring in STEM fields. In fact, the only calculus experience I have will be taking AP Calculus A next semester. I want to prove to myself and other people that you do not need an extensive math background with advanced classes and math competitions to do well in a STEM field. I want to serve as an inspiration for people who wanted to pursue STEM but felt they were not smart enough. Thank you for your time and consideration.

When people talk about success, they often warn about not focusing too much on money or fame, but I disagree. I believe that success is inherently personal to each person because every person has lived different paths, so everyone will have different meanings of success. Therefore, advice about success is useless because it does not take into account everything that each person has gone through. Success is unique to each person, but is often the combination of mental and emotional stability, financial success, and physical health. For me, success is hard to define. It means being able to say without a shadow of a doubt that I have given something my all, regardless of how well I have done compared with other people. It means living without regrets and being able to say, at the end of my life, that I have done everything that I wanted to do. Success means making a meaningful impact on the lives of the people that I love. Success is more than making my parents proud, it means being able to look at myself in the mirror and say that I am proud of the person I have become. Success is living my life to the fullest, to reaching my full potential and not a drop less. Physically, success to me means staying fit enough to do the activities I enjoy. It means discovering just how strong I can get while I still can. Mentally, success to me means remaining curious and learning something new everyday. It is the constant journey of learning new things. Academically, success to me means getting the most out of all of my classes and being able to learn something new in each class. Academic success does also mean getting good grades and test scores, but is less important than the pursuit of knowledge for me. There are many aspects of being successful that I could explain, but overall my concept of success is one of gradual self improvement. I believe that success is the result of dedicated practice over a long time and is always the result of small continual improvements. Even when we think of people having massive breakthroughs, it is likely the result of many small invisible improvements that went unnoticed that resulted in the breakthrough happening. The reason we don’t often think about improving in small ways is because we don’t celebrate the small wins often enough. Success to me means recognizing when I have improved, even slowly, and figuring out what I need to continue to do. This scholarship opportunity would do more than just help financially, although it would definitely do that too. It would allow me to reduce the stress of my parents on sending me to college because they would know that one aspect of my education, the financial aspect, would be covered. It would grant them, and me, some peace of mind so that I can focus on exploring all of the opportunities available to me during college. It would provide me greater freedom by alleviating the stress that the financial burden of college puts many people under which would allow me the time and energy to figure out more about who I truly am and what I want. Furthermore, winning this scholarship would be an affirmation that my hard work has paid off. I have applied to around 50 scholarships already, and am planning on applying to many more. If I were to win, it would show me that all of my time and effort spent applying for scholarships has paid off. Additionally, it would increase my self-confidence that I am capable of achieving my goals, because applying to scholarships has largely been due to my own initiative rather than someone else urging me on. It would encourage me to continue to work hard by applying for scholarships to reduce the cost of college while letting me know that my faith in myself has paid off. In conclusion, success to me means many things in different aspects of my life. Success means giving it my all, living without regrets, continual self improvement no matter how small, making a meaningful impact in the lives of the people around me, making my parents proud, being proud of myself, and reaching my full potential and not settling for anything less. Winning this scholarship would affirm that my hard work has paid off and that my belief in myself that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to was correct. Receiving this honor is more than just a financial reward, it would bolster my self confidence and encourage me to work hard for myself every single day. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mental health challenges impact many people every day and can affect anyone regardless of race, gender, education, wealth, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or any other factor. Mental health issues are intrinsically linked with many other problems from various types of addiction to homelessness to poverty. In order to address this problem, an effective solution must have two parts. It must allow healthcare access for everyone and mental health issues must be destigmatized. Firstly, the solution must increase access to mental health for people who currently do not have access. Healthcare, especially for mental health issues, can be expensive and financially out of reach for many people. If we can reduce the cost of healthcare, then we can expand the amount of people who can get effective care and therefore reduce the problem significantly. Furthermore, we must destigmatize mental health issues for anyone experiencing them. It does not matter if everyone has access to the best mental health resources if they do not use them. Mental health issues are often stigmatized as the person simply being “weak” or it is not viewed as a real problem. If we can destigmatize them, more people can get help. Personally, I would like to contribute to people struggling with mental health issues by volunteering with a local non-profit and using my skills as a programmer to provide more effective data to make informed decisions. I can also work on increasing the accessibility of their websites which can increase the people who can use those services.

I have never really needed to study for anything before high school. Elementary and middle school were both really easy for me and I did not have to study much for them. When I was younger, I worked hard to be good at math and my family also encouraged me to read a lot throughout my life, both of which likely contributed to my academic success. I could go through most classes without ever needing to study for any quizzes or even tests; I rarely had homework that I needed to do because I just finished all of it in class, unless it was a big project; and I passed all of my classes with straight As without much effort at all. All of that changed during the second half of high school. When I got to high school, for the first two years it was honestly pretty similar to my experience in middle school. It was a bit harder as I was taking honors classes and a few AP classes, but ultimately I did not have to change my study habits at all. It just meant I had to study a bit before a quiz or test rather than not study at all. Then I took Honors Precalculus B/AP Calculus A with my teacher Mr. Valerio. I went into that class expecting it would be harder, given what I had heard from other students, and I was not disappointed. On the first day of class, he began his class with a warning that most of the students here should drop out and do regular precalculus or AP Precalculus, an easier math class. Then, he went on to describe how we would cover all of the concepts in precalculus from algebra to trigonometry to basic calculus concepts in a little over 15 weeks after accounting for all of the breaks and how fast the class was. He mentioned how around 3% of students in the entire school district would ever take this class and again empathized with the difficulty of the class. I listened attentively and nodded my head a few times, but was undaunted by the difficulty. After all, I thought I was pretty good at math and although I knew it was going to be rough I was not too worried. Then the first few weeks began. As promised, the first few weeks of his class were rough. The pacing of the class was faster than I was used to. By the end of five weeks, after doing poorly on some of the quizzes and tests. I had a C. Not an awful grade, but far from the straight As that I was used to. So I was forced to figure out how I could study more effectively. I set up a study routine, practiced problems with friends, and went over the quizzes for any mistakes that I made. Mr. Valerio graded the tests harshly marking down any sloppy workmanship: forgetting to add an equal sign, failing to show your work down the equal signs, skipping a step in my operations, doing mental math, and more. However, this harsh grading forced me to improve my ability to explain my reasoning logically and to pay attention to small details. Gradually, I adjusted to his teaching and grading style and improved my grade in his class. More importantly, this class forced me to be more efficient with my time, to stay more organized, and to be persistent and learn from my mistakes. All skills that would help me as I pursued further education and in life.

It may sound weird, but the biggest challenge I have faced was being born a micro-preemie twin at 25 weeks. While I had multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for 3 months, and while this has had long lasting reverberations in my life, including often being one of the smaller people in my grade, I have been blessed with mostly good health. The challenges have come in the form of having a twin sister whose outcomes from prematurity have not been so positive. My sister has cerebral palsy with left side neglect, chronic lung disease and a tracheostomy, and various orthopedic issues. Much of my success is a result of my own self reliance and independence. Being the healthy twin has meant I am the child in our family who gets less direct attention, which has led to me developing more independence. Because I have had to rely upon myself, it is up to me to study for AP exams, to look for resources on doing well on the SAT and PSAT, or to reach out to my college counselor to learn more about the college admissions process, to name a few. Furthermore, much of my journey applying to scholarships like this one to reduce the financial stress of college is led solely by myself. I find the scholarships myself, brainstorm ideas, and eventually draft the essay. Undoubtedly, my scholarship journey is supported by other people. Parents and teachers who look over my essays or give advice and people who are willing to support me by writing letters of recommendation, but ultimately the initiative to apply to these scholarships belongs to me and me alone. When I was in fifth grade, I was introduced to the simple drag and drop game engine Scratch. On that first day, I remember spending hours making simple programs. Making sprites move forward, change color, go invisible, rotate in place, and clone it. Every time I fixed a bug or added something new, even something as simple as getting my character to move around, it felt like I could do anything and I was eager to learn more. This was compounded by my love for math with all of its predictable rules, elegant formulas, and ability to describe how the world works. After a while I wanted to move onto more complex game engines than Scratch’s simple interface and drag and drop language. During the Covid 19 pandemic, I was introduced to the potential opportunity to take an online game development course using Unity, a professional 3D game engine with far more functionality than Scratch. Switching to Unity was a rough transition and I was intimidated by the complexity. But slowly, with the encouragement of my teacher, I was able to build simple games in Unity. By the time I got to high school, I knew that I wanted to do something in Computer Science. The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem, learning more about how computers and software works, and the simple joy of bringing an idea to life was addictive. Winning this scholarship would allow me to reduce the financial stress of going to college and give back to my parents by not burdening them to help pay for it. It means the peace of mind of knowing that I can pursue my passion without stressing over the financial aspect of college. However, more than just reducing financial stress, winning this scholarship would affirm that my hard work has paid off. It would remind me that with enough work I can do things I once thought impossible. Thank you for your time and consideration.

The car finally stops as I pull over to the side of the road. I had just spent the past 30 minutes driving on the freeway for the first time and I was exhausted. Sweaty palms, quick breath, and a tight grip on the steering wheel. Breathing out for the first time in what felt like hours, I finally relaxed. I had been taking driving lessons for the past few weeks and had slowly progressed to driving on the freeway. For me, unlike most people, learning to drive was a stressful, anxious process that I could not understand why other people enjoyed. Every time I got behind the wheel, I felt like I was one bad move from ruining my life and the lives of the people around me forever. Of course, this was not a rational belief, driving is after all relatively safe and comfort comes with experience. Now, around a year later, I am able to drive everyday from my school and back, around 30 minutes everyday, with driving anxiety. Although this is a small win, it is unimaginable for how I felt a few months ago. Driving is just one of many aspects of my life that I want to make a change in. I want to grow physically stronger and to be able to rely upon myself physically. Although I have run with a cross country and track and field team for the past 4 years, which has made my lower body relatively strong, I want to build strength in my upper body and core. I work as a Lifeguard which requires significant strength in order to perform the job effectively and be capable of saving people in the water. To improve my strength, I have been exercising consistently in the morning. I am not perfect, of course, and there have been several days where I have chosen not to exercise, but overall I am trying to grow stronger and am focused on the journey rather than the destination. In order to be better suited to my job, I will swim more often to increase my endurance and strength in the water. Beyond just improving my fitness physically, I also want to improve myself mentally and emotionally. I ask questions about the world in an attempt to deepen my understanding of the world and how it works. As a student, I work to improve my study habits and problem solving every day. Before the past year, as a student in high school I did not have to work very hard as many of the concepts came easily to me, but now I push myself to spend more time studying to build good habits as I enter college. I push myself to try new things and go outside of my comfort zone because that is the only way that I will grow. I want to improve my life so radically that I would not recognize the person I will become. I want to improve myself because I want to see what kind of person that I can become. Like with driving, I believe that it would be a shame to not live to my fullest potential because I will miss out on so many experiences doing things halfway. Winning this scholarship would help me achieve this goal because it would help me pursue my dreams in college. It would allow me to build a life that I am proud of. Most importantly it would allow me to help my parents by reducing the financial stress of college. Thank you for your time and consideration.

According to the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, Los Angeles has an unhoused population of around 75,000 people. In my community, it is not uncommon to see pitched tents, RVs down the street, and unhoused people in sleeping bags laying down on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, homelessness can happen to any of us with over 78% of the American population living paycheck to paycheck according to a 2023 Forbes study. And yet to most of us, homelessness, and the people it affects, is something we do our best to ignore with averted gazes. Acknowledging this tendency, I decided to lead a community service project to try and help unhoused people. I provided basic necessities to unhoused people such as cleaning and cooking items such as laundry soap, cleaning spray, soap, deodorant, toothpaste and more. I partnered with Union Station Homeless Services, a nonprofit homeless organization, to distribute the items to families in temporary housing and people in need. Leaders shape our future by deciding which problems that they want to solve. They organize other people and smooth the process by imagining potential setbacks early on. In any area of life that requires innovations, leaders are necessary as the explorers into untapped frontiers. They are the ones that take the risk and ultimately change the world as a result of taking those risks. To be a leader requires a broader vision than getting stuck up in the little details. When I led the project to help unhoused people, I was a leader because I took action to solve a problem in my community. More broadly, leaders are people who take the first step to solve problems. They are the ones shaping our future because they are the only ones who dare to believe that the future can be shaped, that problems can be solved. Science, like being a leader, also leads to innovation in the world. Every aspect of our modern lives from gasoline powered vehicles to computers connecting to a global network to medicine that can cure many diseases once proven fatal, is possible because of science. Science is a model that we use to understand the world and how it works. Science shapes our future because it shapes what we understand to be possible and what is not possible. Like all leaders, great scientists are those who experiment with the unknown. People who push the boundaries of what is unknown. Those who venture into unfamiliar territory and are undaunted by the danger. However, science is not without risks. Science has birthed some of the most damaging concepts from the atomic bomb to justifying horrible medical experiments like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Science has the power to both greatly improve our world but also to destroy it. Without science, there would have been no industrial revolution with both all its benefits from increased life spans to reaching the stars and the horrible environmental destruction on a scale never before possible with climate change. Science itself is a powerful tool for change, both positive and negative, because it allows us to manipulate the world in greater precision than ever before. Ultimately being a leader or understanding scientist are both simply power. Neither good nor evil and dependent on the wielder’s intentions. Therefore it is important that we hold our leaders and scientists with higher regards than normal people due to the greater influence, and potential for damage, that they can cause. It is up to everyone to hold leaders and scientific breakthroughs to a high moral standard in order to build a better, brighter future.

According to the United Nations report on climate change, glaciers all around the world have decreased by one meter annually resulting in the sea level rising around 4.5 mm per year from 2011 to 2020. Statistics like these can be hard to visualize for the average person, however from decades of research it is clear that unless humanity takes drastic action Earth will be inhabitable for humans and much of the current species of life in a few decades. The main issue with framing the conversation around climate change in terms of the sheer devastation it will cause to life all around the world, is that it makes it difficult for people to feel like they can make a significant difference. Rather than focusing on large scale issues, the everyday person should instead focus on the factors they can control in reducing our carbon footprint. While reducing our individual carbon footprint alone will not solve climate change, if we all work together we can have a significant impact. Climate change and sustainable living is not on the top of everyone’s minds and most people don’t care about helping our planet because they do not see how it would help. I do my best to live as sustainability as I can because I believe that individual action can cause a huge difference if everyone takes part. Living sustainably by myself will not do much, but it may inspire other people to do so. Also, living a sustainable lifestyle helps soothe my worries about climate change because I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am doing my part to help heal the earth. It may not change climate change significantly, but it helps me and my community. In my life, I live sustainably through many small ways that are all important. When I wake up and throughout my day I make sure that I turn off all of the lights in my room so that I don’t waste any electricity unnecessarily. If I need to start laundry, I start a load around 6:00 am or 9:00 pm, using an environmentally friendly laundry detergent, so that I don’t raise the energy demand as other people start laundry later in the morning. When I drive to school or work, I try to get my parents to take me so that I reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions I emit by traveling. I try to pick up any trash that I see on the sidewalk or street to help reduce littering that will eventually lead to our ocean and harm the plants and animals there. Whenever possible, I try to recycle anything that can be recycled: cardboard boxes, aluminum soda cans, newspapers, and paper towels. My family also bought a composter to turn food waste into dirt which helps reduce the amount of food that we waste. Finally, as my day ends, I turn off all of the lights in my house earlier and try to turn off all electronics an hour before sleeping which not only reduces the amount of electricity but helps me sleep better. However, undoubtedly like many other people I am not perfect at sustainable living. Most days, I need to drive 30 minutes to school and 30 minutes back which emits a significant amount of greenhouse gasses. I consume more plastic than I need to. I use a lot of paper for schoolwork and don’t remember to reuse them often. Even if I am not perfect, I strive to build a cleaner world for future generations to come.

Calculus, and mathematics more broadly, are often deemed useless with no practical application in the “real world” by those uninformed by how much of our life relies upon it. Calculus is the study of how things change over time. It is used for everything from figuring out how fast things move to how fast or slow populations are growing to everyday tasks like catching a flying ball. Because calculus is the study of how things change over time, and in the “real world” nearly every problem involves something changing, nearly every aspect of our life builds upon calculus, we just don’t consciously think about it. Other STEM fields such as physics, engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, and basically every other STEM field requires an understanding of calculus because those fields have problems where things change over some amount of time. It is far rarer that basic algebra will be sufficient to provide a specific answer to any given problem. For example, the field of engineering, which allows us to build almost everything in our life, would be impossible without an understanding of calculus concepts such as limits, derivatives, and integrals. Fundamental physics concepts such as position, velocity, and acceleration, and therefore all aspects of physics that build upon these concepts, all involve calculus in some way, such as velocity being the derivative of position with respect to time. One of the main reasons that people do not appreciate the wide ranging applications of calculus is that we have progressed so far as to have calculators and programs that perform the calculations for us. For many people, the calculus tools we use to solve problems are too far abstracted from them to appreciate how much of their lives are only possible due to calculus. The existence of calculators and such programs do not diminish the value of calculus. Calculus allows us to practice problem solving and to train our minds. Much like an athlete lifting weights does not apply directly to their sport, and even ignoring all of the practical applications of calculus, calculus provides an important method of training your mind to problem solve and be more resilient. The goal of calculus, and all math courses more broadly, is to gain a conceptual understanding of its concepts, not merely performing calculations that could be done by a computer. If students of calculus understand calculus concepts then they can apply them to real world problems. Not only is calculus important for problem solving, but it is the foundation for every other advanced math course. Mathematics builds upon itself, a weak understanding of basic algebra makes it hard to understand geometry which makes it difficult to understand calculus etc., which is why calculus is so important to learn well. Calculus serves as a gateway to other important advanced math courses like linear algebra, statistics, differential equations, and more. Without calculus you cannot gain a deep understanding not just of more advanced branches of math but also of many STEM fields. For example, biology uses calculus to calculate population growth, chemistry uses it to calculate how reactions change over time, meteorology uses it to figure out how the weather will likely change over time, just to name a few fields. Ultimately, calculus is necessary for anyone who wants to pursue any field in STEM because the study of things that change is universal across fields. Furthermore, it provides a challenging environment for students to be able to improve their problem solving skills. Without an ability to describe how things change over time, how can you understand a world that is constantly changing?

If there is a universal language, then it is math. Mathematics has united all cultures from the use of geometry to build pyramids in ancient Egypt to advancements made on polynomials in ancient China to the Mayans calculation of one rotation around the sun being 365.24 days. Mathematics has developed independently across civilizations all around the world. Like no other aspect of civilization, the nature of humanity appears to be deeply linked to mathematics. When we use math, we are building upon thousands of years of hard fought mathematical advancements. Every formula we use is the result of years, if not a lifetime's worth, of struggle to solve problems that perplexed the greatest scholars from Archimedes to Euclid to Ada Lovelace. Mathematics is the collective weight of knowledge stretching back thousands and thousands of years from every type of person imaginable. Poor or rich, male or female, ugly or beautiful, there are no limiting factors that allow someone to enjoy the artistry of math. The only requirement is the ability to reason which every human can do. Personally, I am passionate about math for its combination of rigid logicality and creative artistry. I am passionate about math for the satisfaction of solving difficult equations or the feeling of wonder that I get when I finally understand a proof. When I gain an understanding of math on a deeper level, it feels like I am glimpsing into the deeper fabric of reality. Every formula I derive, every proof that I understand, and even every problem that I solve reminds me that I am standing on the shoulders of giants and building off of work that has persisted since the dawn of civilization. Despite the popular notion against it, mathematics is the foundation for nearly every other technical field. It is math that has allowed us to build buildings that touch the sky. It is math that has allowed us to reach for the stars. And it is math that has allowed us to build a better, brighter world. Math has been the inspiration for me to enter the career of Computer Science, a field that is closely related to applied mathematics with its rigid logical structure. There is no aspect of our modern lives that does not rely upon math. To be human means using the universal language of math, directly or indirectly, like all others before us.

According to the 2024 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, Los Angeles has an unhoused population of around 75,000 people. In my community, it is not uncommon to see pitched tents, RVs down the street, and unhoused people in sleeping bags laying down on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, homelessness can happen to any of us with over 78% of the American population living paycheck to paycheck according to a 2023 Forbes study. And yet to most of us, homelessness, and the people it affects, is something we do our best to ignore with averted gazes. Homelessness is an uncomfortable issue and it is only natural that we would want to ignore it; however ignoring a problem does not make it go away and does nothing to help the people suffering from it. Acknowledging this tendency, I decided to lead a community service project to try and help unhoused people. I planned to provide basic necessities to unhoused people such as cleaning and cooking items such as laundry soap, cleaning spray, soap, deodorant, toothpaste and more. I partnered with Union Station Homeless Services, a nonprofit homeless organization, to distribute the items to families in temporary housing and people in need. I made a list of supplies, materials, and tools, and then started a fundraising campaign to buy everything. By the end of the fundraising, I raised around $500 and was able to purchase enough items to help around 25 families. After I gathered all of the supplies, I led a group of volunteers to separate them into two groups of items: hygiene and for people in temporary housing. I brought markers, blank cards, and envelopes, so everyone could make a homemade card with each group of items. Finally, I dropped them off at Union Station Homeless services where they were distributed to their interim housing facility and to people on the street. Through my work with Union Station Homeless services, I was able to give people in my community basic necessities to rebuild their lives. Although this project did not end homelessness by any means, it made a significant difference in the lives of a few people. I have learned that although I cannot address the entire problem, I can work, even a little, to better the world around me. The most significant lesson that I learned from this project is that I can make a meaningful impact on my community even with problems as massive as homelessness. I believe that all too often people choose not to take action because they believe it won’t have any reasonable impact, so I hope that my project inspired some of the people who volunteered with me and any others who saw what I had done. This project has inspired me to take part in my community through other avenues as well. Last year, I got a job working as a Lifeguard over the summer. The pool I work at serves as an important area for people who cannot afford air conditioning or for kids to bond with one another and learn to be confident with the water through safe practices. Throughout my job, I have been privileged to lead swimming lessons for all sorts of swimmers from children to adults to adaptive lessons. The job and the service project I led have taught me how I can help my community in small, but meaningful, ways. They have inspired me to improve the lives of the people around me in any way and I will carry that with me for the rest of my life.

It may sound weird, but the biggest challenge I have faced was being born a micro-preemie twin at 25 weeks. While I had multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for 3 months, and while this has had long lasting reverberations in my life, including often being one of the smaller people in my grade, I have been blessed with mostly good health. The challenges have come in the form of having a twin sister whose outcomes from prematurity have not been so positive. My sister has cerebral palsy with left side neglect, chronic lung disease and a tracheostomy, and various orthopedic issues. Being the healthy twin has meant I am the child in our family who gets less direct attention, which has led to me developing more independence. For example, when I wanted to do well on the PSATs, I knew I could not rely on my parents figuring out tutors or practice sessions. So I created my own schedule, took endless practice tests throughout my sophomore year and practiced on my own. Later, getting my drivers license allowed me to support my sister by driving her to work or being able to drive home after cross country practice so that she could go to a doctor's appointment. This independence has given me the initiative to succeed in school by reaching out for help when needed. More recently, when one of my sister’s many surgeries went sideways and she ended up with two pneumothoraxes and on a ventilator in the ICU, I knew that my parents were focused, rightfully, on staying with her. They knew I could take care of myself; I could get to school on my own, I could do my school work, I could get to work and I could feed myself. Because I have had to foster my independence, it has also helped grow my self confidence. I know that I can rely on myself, because there have been many occasions in my life where I had to take care of myself and I was able to. This has encouraged me to believe in myself and to take more risks than I would have if I did not grow up the way I have. Of course I love my sister and I know that at some point in the future, she will be a responsibility. While that is daunting, it is also part of what drives me to work hard, to focus on doing well in school so that I can take care of her as we get older. It is the reason that I apply for scholarships every day, study hard for difficult courses, and work to perform well on important exams like the SAT. Not only do I work hard for my sister, but I have the knowledge that I must work hard because I am the only one who will push myself to do so. My parents and family will support me in my endeavors of course, but I know that it is ultimately up to me whether I succeed or fail. This has shaped all aspects of my life not just academically, but it has also emboldened me to take every opportunity and live life to the fullest. I strive to try new things every day, push myself out of my comfort zone, and be closer to the person I want to be every day. Ultimately, I am grateful for how I have grown up and for what I have learned. I am blessed to have good physical health. If nothing else, how I was born has reminded me to be grateful everyday.

When I was in third grade, I had to go to a new elementary school where the majority of the students there only spoke Spanish and 90% of the class material was spoken in Spanish. The only problem was that I did not speak a single word of Spanish before going there. Moving schools is always a rough transition, but I felt particularly lonely being the only kid who solely spoke English. I struggled to make friends until one fateful day: when I was able to download a popular video game on my phone called “Clash Royale”. “Clash Royale” allowed me a medium to connect with other kids and to have fun with them despite the difficulty communicating. It transcended the language barrier and united all of us in a fun activity that we could all enjoy. Video games are often seen as a socially isolated environment with stereotypes of the socially awkward degenerate gamer gaming alone in their room. However, in my opinion this is not the case. Video games provide a universal medium in which people can bond through a variety of experiences from cooperative games such as cooking a meal in Overcooked to more competitive games like League of Legends. Rather than isolating us, video games can bring us together in worlds where language and culture matter less than the fundamental human desire to simply have fun. Playing video games has also allowed me to create deeper bonds with my family. When I was younger, I would spend hours with my mom and sister around the television racing against each other laughing and talking about life. Video games, like any other social activity such as playing board games or going on walks, are especially suited to joining people together because they unite you through a shared experience. Within them lie worlds where we can dream, talk with one another, or even forget our troubles for a while. And although I no longer spend as much time playing video games with my family, due to the ever increasing business of life, I will cherish the memories we spent together. Not only are video games a fantastic environment to bond socially, but they can tell fascinating stories that can resonate deeply with us. For example, the video game Celeste is about a mountain climber named Madeline, a young woman who fights against anxiety and depression, as she climbs a metaphorical and literal mountain. Celeste is a game fundamentally built around persistence. Narratively as Madeline climbs higher she learns to deal with her emotional struggles, but it also reflects the players growing skill to confront the more difficult sections of the game as they approach the ascent. As I finished Celeste I found myself both proud but also bittersweet that the journey was over. Celeste is just one of many examples of how video games can help us grow as people. Playing video games has also helped inspire me to pursue a career in programming. I want to be able to create immersive experiences that are not just entertaining but also resonate at a deeper level and help the people who play them grow. More recently, I have been motivated to try and learn the 2D game engine Godot to be able to create complex games that I can play with other people and enjoy. Video games are not just entertaining; they provide worlds that can build lifelong bonds between people who would never meet otherwise. Video games can help build a better, brighter future and I am excited to see what comes out next.

When I was in fifth grade, I was introduced to the simple drag and drop game engine Scratch. On that first day, I remember spending hours making simple programs. Making sprites move forward, change color, go invisible, rotate in place, and clone it. Throughout the next few weeks, my knowledge of programming grew and I was able to create even more complex video games. Every time I fixed a bug or added something new, even something as simple as getting my character to move around, it felt like I could do anything and I was eager to learn more. After a while I wanted to move onto more complex game engines than Scratch’s simple interface and drag and drop language. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was introduced to the potential opportunity to take an online game development course using Unity, a professional 3D game engine with far more functionality than Scratch. Switching over to Unity was a rough transition and I was initially intimidated by the complexity of everything. But slowly, with the encouragement of my teacher, I was able to build simple games in Unity. By the time I got to high school, I knew that I wanted to do something in Computer Science. The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem, learning more about how computers and software works, and the simple joy of bringing an idea to life was alluring. I joined programming related clubs where I could discuss with other people what they were working on and plan out projects together. I continued learning by taking AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science A and experimenting with Java. All of these activities encouraged me to major in Computer Science. Majoring in Computer Science will allow me to better understand concepts that will allow me the freedom to bring my ideas to life in video game form. It will allow me to create immersive worlds with intricate story crafting. It will allow me to create experiences that can inspire other people, get them to empathize with each other, or just to enjoy a satisfying and fun experience. I choose Computer Science as my major because of the many opportunities it allows me, not just to create better video games, but also to connect with people who are passionate about solving problems through programming in any field. Most importantly, programming is being used to solve all sorts of problems from around the world from software used to predict storms to producing better models that help cancer researchers. Majoring in Computer Science allows me to practice problem solving, analytical thinking, and logical reasoning in a mathematics heavy field. It provides me the satisfaction of solving a bug after hours of debugging and having the program run perfectly, or the joy of rewriting a program to be more efficient, readable, or cleaner. Most importantly, to me personally, it provides a field that will constantly pressure me to learn new ideas and grow my skill set.

The plastic torso, 80 lbs filled with water, dragged at my body, forcing me to realize I had to make a choice. Let it go or continue to struggle towards the wall. I thought about the other lifeguard recruits on the deck: synchro swimmers, water polo players and swim team folks though even they didn’t quite make towing the dummy look easy. Humiliation flowed through me as I let the dummy sink back to the bottom of the pool. I had been practicing to pass the test to become a Lifeguard for a few weeks now and was disappointed with the result. The first time I took the Lifeguard test, I did not prepare enough. Although I swam a few times every week I did not spend enough time in the water to be prepared for the test. Tenacity, that urge to keep going even when I would rather not, was a muscle I had to learn to practice. I would love to be able to say that I am a natural at things, but the truth is I often have to work. I have had many opportunities to build fortitude. Over the next two months, I pushed myself harder to be able to pass the test next time. Lifting weights at 5:30 am, practicing picking up the 80 lb dummy every day from 6:30 to 8:00 after Cross Country practice, asking the lifeguards at the pool for advice, and doing swim workouts when I was not practicing with the dummy. As the weeks passed and my training continued, I grew from struggling to lift the dummy in the water to being able to swim a few laps with it, not without struggle. And finally, when it came time to try again, all of my hard work paid off; I passed well within the required time. For me, personal development means working a little bit every day to work towards the person that I want to be. It means changing my habits and mindset a small bit everyday to have massive results in the future. It means doing all of the little things that I don’t want to do to build self discipline and mental fortitude. It means trying new things that are outside my comfort zone because that is the only way I will grow as a person. For instance, recently I have been trying to connect more with new people by joining more clubs and by talking to new people in my classes. My journey of personal development has not just been limited to the physical and social. I have also been working on my own mindset, the things I believe I can and cannot do. I do this by challenging myself to do things I never thought possible, such as achieving a faster Cross Country time or taking difficult classes that I don’t know how well I will do. I dare to believe that I can achieve my dreams or that I can do things I never thought possible if I only put in the effort and dare to try. Every day I strive to become closer to the person that I want to be. Someone that is physically strong and active. Someone that is capable of bouncing back from any setback or finding a way around any challenge. Someone who does not give up even when things are hard and there seems to be no solution. Someone who lives life to the fullest and takes advantage of every moment. And if I can achieve all of these things, then even the sky is not the limit.

With sweaty hands, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as we go barreling down the highway onramp. I accelerate and take a deep breath while the traffic whizzes past me in my peripheral vision. 20 minutes later, I exit the highway with a relieved sigh. Unlike most people, learning to drive was a relatively anxious process for me. It took hours of driving slowly through small neighborhood streets for me to be comfortable behind the wheel. Now when I look back upon it, I am grateful that I did not wait to learn to drive even though it was uncomfortable at first because of the freedom it grants me to go wherever I want without relying on other people. One of the reasons that going to college is important to me is because it will allow me to be more self reliant. College will force me to be more self-reliant because I will be responsible for anything that I want, but I will also have the freedom to try new experiences and do things that I would not be exposed to without going to college. For example, going to college requires paying for college costs which means that I will need to take responsibility for caring for myself. Additionally, the academic rigor of college will push me to perform at a higher level because I want to continue to do well academically. This has the added benefit of not only making me more resilient and self-reliant, but also giving me access to better opportunities. Another significant thing that going to college means to me is learning more about who I am as a person. Because college has so many different opportunities and so many different types of people I have the opportunity to learn more about who I am that I would not be able to outside of college. Although I can grow as a person outside of college, the diversity of perspectives and experiences found in college means going to college is one of the best ways I can learn more about myself. Also taking many different subjects in college will expose me to new ideas and ways of thinking which will lead to deeper self-reflection. When I am in college, I want to make memories that will last a lifetime. I want to explore new subjects, try things outside my comfort zone, and make bonds that will last throughout my life. College offers me the opportunity to meet so many new people with perspectives and opinions that I have never heard before. College will inform me about all of the things that I don’t know about currently. Furthermore, when I am in college I want to do more than perform well academically, although that is definitely something I need to do. I want to be able to come out of college as an improved, altered person. I want to be a more well-rounded, interesting person that has knowledge about many different subject areas and is comfortable talking about anything with anyone. I want to be more socially active in college than now. Finally, in college, I want to be more confident in uncomfortable situations. I know that in life I will face many times when things do not go my way and I need to adapt. College offers a safe environment where I can mess up, but the consequences are far milder. Overall I want to be able to come out of college and say without a shadow of a doubt that going to college has made me a better person in every aspect.

It may sound weird, but the biggest challenge I have faced was being born a micro-preemie twin at 25 weeks. While I had multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for 3 months, and while this has had long lasting reverberations in my life, including often being one of the smaller people in my grade, I have been blessed with mostly good health. The challenges have come in the form of having a twin sister whose outcomes from prematurity have not been so positive. My sister has cerebral palsy with left side neglect, chronic lung disease and a tracheostomy, and various orthopedic issues. Being the healthy twin has meant I am the child in our family who gets less direct attention, which has led to me developing more independence. For example, when I wanted to do well on the PSATs, I knew I could not rely on my parents figuring out tutors or practice sessions. So I created my own schedule, took endless practice tests throughout my sophomore year and practiced on my own. Later, getting my drivers license allowed me to support my sister by driving her to work or being able to drive home after cross country practice so that she could go to a doctor's appointment. This independence has given me the initiative to succeed in school by reaching out for help when needed. More recently, when one of my sister’s many surgeries went sideways and she ended up with two pneumothoracies and on a ventilator in the ICU, I knew that my parents were focused, rightfully, on staying with her. They knew I could take care of myself; I could get to school on my own, I could do my school work, I could get to work and I could feed myself. Of course I love my sister and I know that at some point in the future, she will be a responsibility. While that is daunting, it is also part of what drives me to work hard, to focus on doing well in school so that I can take care of her as we get older. Performing well academically will allow me to better care for her, as I will be able to get a higher paying job and help pay for her medical expenses or any other bills. This will allow me to give my parents some peace of mind that I will be able to take care of my sister when she needs help by helping to pay for medical expenses, giving her a place to live, or anything else that she needs help with. In the broader community, education will allow me more opportunities to give back to them because I will have greater access to volunteer and philanthropic organizations outside my local area that have more resources and funding. I plan on going to a college or university within my state which will give me the opportunity to work with organizations that can have a broader impact on improving my local area.