My chosen field of study is a hard question to answer in itself. Though my major is Chemical Engineering, it is a versatile program with a wide array of possible paths possible after it due to the background in physics, chemistry, biology, and math along with training in computing skills. This versatility is exactly what drew me, an indecisive curious person who likes a lot of things and naturally wants as many doors open post-graduation as possible. It also means that any discovery in most of the fields in STEM, as well as many advances in interdisciplinary fields where they intersect, could be considered chemical engineering related, which would make this essay quite broad. For that reason, I will be talking about computational biology, the field which I plan to pursue in graduate school. Self evidenced by its name, computational biology is at the crux between computer science and biology. As it hinges on modelling, it offers a similar multidisciplinarity to chemical engineering in its study of physical and chemical phenomena within mathematical frameworks. Computational biology will likely accelerate scientific discoveries by allowing modelling to investigate the phenomena of interest, with the experimental component of the research following. A recent protein phase separation seminar I attended presented results in this manner: a computational team found an interesting phenomenon when running simulations around a specific set of conditions, so they asked an experimentalist to perform experiments with those conditions and the experiment proved the model right by behaving as predicted! The applications are endless. Proteomics, genetics, systems biology, ecology, pharmacology, biochemistry. The path to personalized medicine could be streamlined as robust libraries of systems biology, encompassing metabolic biochemistry and genetics programs, are built and operated akin to interactive libraries of knowledge (sort of like a wikipedia-google maps mesh). Similarly, new drugs could be formulated and vetted quicker. Environmental models that grow in accuracy of prediction due to incorporation of ecological phenomena could revolutionize energy by pointing the optimal spaces for renewable energy resources to be located. New discoveries could lead to the creation of new technologies which we can hardly imagine now. A similar amount of potential also exists negatively, as all the disciplines involved bring their negative connotations. The arguments against a total in silico world bring issues of safety and storage to light, of material scarcity, of problems with vision and circadian rhythms. Genetics research and application into medicine may also be a risk if we think of the many health disparities already present in the medical field, which may be amplified if software were integrated into public health systems without thorough vetting. Creation of new medication could pose new health risks, complicating delicate anatomical relationships in unknown ways. There is also risk in the implementation of so many renewable energy sources that the ecological balance is disrupted beyond what has been previously seen, a small relatively example seen in the flood-prone areas that developed land displacing wetlands creates. Most of these effects have the potential to be balanced through careful societal consideration and communication, and again, new discoveries might help to increase efficiencies in ways not previously thought possible. So, overall, as long as society consciously decides to allow itself to move forward, the new technology my chosen field of study brings could make things better for everyone. And I plan to be part of the people working on it while that's happening.

"I can't hear you maybe you could change your tone. People tend to listen when they see your soul." These are song lyrics from Toro y Moi's "Freelance", and their wisdom is one of the reasons why I love to create and explore art in all its forms: there are hidden gems everywhere. The message might seem quite clear to others while opaque to many more, yet I think it is more than relevant in the age of cancel culture. Simply put, nobody wants to be wrong. Think about it, do you like being wrong? Do you like being condemned? Do you like being pointed and laughed at over dubious choices you've made? If you've answered yes to any of the questions, please take over all available positions of prominence, for you surely are strong and mature enough to face yourself and be honest about your shortcomings enough to lead people. If you answered no to at least one of these questions, you are like most human beings, and can relate to the above quote. You likely have the capability for self-reflection, but not the strength to take advice from people who stone you. And that is more than normal, because we don't help people by yelling at them and airing out their wrongs. One of the beauties of humanity is the abstract quality of personality that's left even when we change. It is a reminder that change will not entirely strip us of our identity and, consequently, that we have immense room for growth. Unlocking this potential in somebody else is the hard part that Toro y Moi's lyric lays out: the key to transforming somebody is telling your own story. Drawing close to others in empathy, connecting with them, is how we change people.

It left me perplexed, but my mom once told me "knowledge is money". A phrase that stuck with me for a long time past my forgetting of the context it was said in, it is reverberated in my head from the often confirmation in everyday life. Though it is a little more than money, knowledge is freedom. We can start at the beginning. Before coming to college, I was a dreamer. I hardly even thought I'd be here right now. Difficult situations regarding how I'd pay for school and whether my dad would be present enough to help me bear the financial weight, left me with anxious worries of what I'd be doing dare I not go to college. Yet I know from the first-hand experience of living amongst low-income peers and their families, that many don't believe in higher education. My public high school in a low-income neighborhood didn't help redeem that view either. My own principal barred me from being able to take an advanced math class by taking the pre-requisite as a summer/night course in my local community college. “No you cannot ever take the AP Calculus because you haven’t taken the prerequisite and not even if you took the college level class and passed would we let you skip our class”, it was the simply most absurd thing you have probably ever heard (especially seeing my capacity now looking at where I am as a nearly graduate engineer). 21-year-old me with a time machine would encourage my young self to do it anyways, but my vulnerable, 16-year-old self, just got her confidence demolished. And her spirit, and drive, crushed. And her creativity, dulled. This is the importance of education. It is not fair that low-income students have to suffer a belittling of their capabilities (which results in a stunting of their own growth, for as they are young they believe it), because believe me they are so capable, due to faulty infrastructure and overt carelessness from people who don’t believe in the value of education. The contrast from my honors friend in my first-year housing community who came from a high-income neighborhood will show us how the toxic cycle of poverty perpetuates itself. My friend entered high school and before every year took a summer math class. My friend was in his second semester taking a math class he had already taken (and he had received credits for those classes which he had college credits for). My friend graduated 3 years into his degree. He is now working, in a higher financial bracket due to his specialized education, at about my age. He is free to do mostly as he pleases for he has financial stability. Now this is not all to say hate the rich. But it is simply an ode to education and how it provides the palpable sense of freedom. Financially prosperous districts will encourage education because they KNOW it will continue to feed on itself and create more security and opportunities. Low-income districts are sometimes left in the hands of uncaring people who fail to see how education could come back to benefit even them. The essay is too short to fit all other benefits of education across psychological and sociological realms in it, but I hope this small tale of how districts utilize education based on money, and how that affects the way people grow to see themselves and where they end up, is enough. I hope you also realize how my perseverance in education got me to the same place as that rich boy.

Creativity is a given in my life. From my choice of a major and minor which could give me the maximum potential of pivoting later in life (chemical engineering is known to be quite versatile, coupled with cinema studies for my humanities fix), to my incessant falls into rabbit holes whenever I get super excited about any one topic, I have a harder time disciplining myself to finish a task than discovering new paths and things for myself to do. As for the measures I take to express this creativity in an organized way in my life, I have many. To date, I run 9 tumblr blogs, each focused on something specific enough to not be oversaturated with content, ie. art, fashion, nature, design, etc. I have 130+ playlists on spotify, which contribute to the music blog I run where I try to lay bare the genre and era origins of one song at a time. I also love draw and sing, have dabbled in music production for about 20 original compositions, and have written a couple short screenplays as ways to get myself out of my head. I believe the best way to experience life is by constantly creating something, the ups and downs and mysteries of living can be digested a little better once we analyze a part of our own lives and consolidate it into some sort of beautiful content.