I think all levels of education should be free for everyone. I think it's unfair that higher education costs so much because it means that only people who can afford it can go. I know so many intelligent people who didn't have the option of getting a college degree because they couldn't afford it. This results in education being classist. People tell poor people to go to college and get a degree if they want a better paying job but poor people cannot afford to go to college so how could they get a degree to unlock higher paying jobs? It doesn't make any sense. The people who really need to go to college to get these jobs are the ones who can't afford to and it basically results in the rich staying rich and a widening of the wealth gap. I believe this should apply to private schools as well. If you compare any private school to any public school, the private school is going to be at least ten times better. Why do you deserve better schooling just because you have more money? Don't poor kids deserve equal access to education? This being said, there is an issue with the fact that public schools are funded by property taxes. Of course, schools in more expensive neighborhoods get more funding because the neighboring businesses and homeowners pay more in property tax. This is compared to schools in less expensive neighborhoods not getting as much funding. Shouldn't all children be afforded a quality education whether they live in Detroit or Beverly Hills? Why is the ability of one to get an adequate education so reliant on income? Lack of funding is the reason why kids in bad neighborhoods don't get to have music or art classes even though they deserve them just as much as kids in rich neighborhoods. Doesn't everyone deserve a decent education even if they aren't rich?

I think one of the biggest barriers to people getting the help that they need with mental health issue is that a lot of people have a, "seeing is believing" sort of attitude - if they can't see your issue, they don't believe you have an issue. I noticed this when my friend got back surgery for her scoliosis. Because of her back, she can't walk that long and she needs a handicapped sticker. My friend LOOKS healthy, though - she's young and appears to be able bodied. And because of that, a lot of people attack her when they see her parking in handicapped spots because they don't believe she has a disability just because they can't see it. The same issue applies to mental health issues - people believe that the only valid disabilities are those that they can see. As it is, mental illnesses aren't as in your face as some physical illnesses so a lot of people will think you're faking. Because of that, a lot of people who are struggling with mental health are less inclined to seek the help they need. Most people with mental illnesses never even look for help - they just suffer in silence. The first step in making people with mental illnesses more comfortable in getting the help they need is to educate people who don't have mental illnesses on the fact that the illnesses they can't see are just as valid as the illnesses they can see and it's not their job to undermine the validity of anyone's illness.

There are a lot of problems in the world (racism, misogyny, homophobia, world hunger, etc) but I think all of them have one common root problem - a lack of empathy. I believe that if the lack of empathy most human beings have were fixed, every other problem in the world would soon be fixed as well. When I see someone suffering, I aim to help them. It doesn't matter if they're going through something that I never did because I can look at them and see that it's hurting them and want to stop it. Even though I am not LGBTQ+ and have never experienced something like homophobia or transphobia, I want to stop those things because I see they're hurting people. I think if more people looked at others and cared enough to want to help them, a lot of these issues we are facing would be done with. If all these rich celebrities looked at the hungry people in the world and actually had some empathy, they'd easily put forth the money required to help them. If all these crooked politicians had empathy, they would stop doing the shady things they're doing and hurting the people who are relying on them. Unfortunately, most people don't care, though. If you ask someone how they'd feel if they were starving and nobody helped them, they'll just respond, "It doesn't matter because I'll never go through that." Most people don't care about things unless they directly affect them and that's why they're don't bother to change things that will help other people.

The most helpful piece of financial advice that I ever received was not to increase my spending just because my income has increased. When a lot of people hear that they got a raise, they go out and buy a new car so they're paying a more expensive car note, move into a more expensive apartment, etc. Sometimes when you get a raise, it's necessary to increase your spending. If your car is unreliable and you can barely get to work then it's probably best to invest in a more reliable one BUT... a lot of people go and buy new stuff they don't even need. If the car you had previously was working just fine then why buy a new one? Just to show off the fact that you CAN? And a lot of people will make sure to buy the most expensive thing just to prove a point. Instead of buying a reliable used car or even a new car that costs a normal amount, they'll go buy some luxury vehicle just to say that they did. A lot of people get caught up with trying to impress others and because of that, they will always live paycheck to paycheck no matter how much they make. These are the type of people where no matter how much you pay them, they will always be poor. That is why when you look at a lot of millionaires and billionaires, they look like regular people. They look like they bought their clothes from walmart as compared to someone who doesn't have any money but has all the designer brands on. Part of financial freedom is managing your money well.

One of my favorite historical figures is Katherine Johnson. Katherine Johnson was one of the NASA mathematicians who was responsible for manually calculating trajectories that, among other things, landed Neil Armstrong on the moon. I never heard of her until the movie Hidden Figures came out in 2016 and showed her struggle. Johnson was born in West Virginia in 1918. Despite the fact that the city she grew up in didn't have a school for African Americans after 8th grade, she went on to become on of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Katherine inspires me because despite being both black and a woman in the Jim Crow south, she rose to unimaginable heights. It's easy to get discouraged by what I face as a black woman. And even when I think of Katherine's story, I still get a bit discouraged - her parents had the means to take her to a different city to put her in a school that had classes past the 8th grade level... what about all the African Americans who didn't have the means to do that? Is it their fault that they didn't end up the way she did? Katherine's story isn't a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type of story. It's not about, "She did it so why couldn't other African American women?" It's more so about how even when everyone says no, you say yes. No matter what life hands you, you always try your own personal best. You may not end up as a famous NASA mathematician how Katherine Johnson did but sometimes your own personal best is to simply survive. Some days when the going gets tough, all I can do is try my best to survive and that's enough.

My favorite book of all time is Gone with the Wind. There are a lot of controversial themes in the book, of course, but the thing that I like the most about it is the fact that the love story was realistic. With most love stories, you expect for the two main characters to ultimately get together in the end. Nobody expects for them to be together in the beginning because that would defeat the entire purpose - instead, we go into the story expecting there to be some reason they're not together and finally, in the end, everything works out. That's what I expected when I read Gone with the Wind for the first time. I wasn't surprised by Scarlett chasing after Ashley because that's expected in a love story - there has to be an obstacle... but I was shocked when Rhett Butler uttered the timeless line, "My dear, I don't give a (expletive)." Sometimes you meet the right person at the wrong time. But sometimes that's not even the case - sometimes the issue is we don't know what we have until it's gone. Rhett spent years loving Scarlett and she spent years chasing after Ashley until it was finally too late. When I first read Gone with the Wind, I was only 12 years old so I didn't really understand the love story. I wanted Scarlett to get Rhett back as she declared that she would. But now, as an adult, I look at it differently. I see that Rhett loved Scarlett for more than a decade and he finally got tired of chasing after someone who didn't love him. Nobody should have to wait a decade to be loved back. Rhett, like all of us, deserved better.

Even as an adult, my favorite show is Avatar the Last Airbender (which isn't technically anime but is an animated show) and my favorite character is Toph. I love her so much because despite her disability, she's still one of the best benders on the show. At the same time, though, they don't pretend her disability doesn't exist - there are times when she is at a disadvantage (like in the desert where everything was blurry to her). Instead of showing her disability as something that holds her back, they show how she uses it to her advantage while still being realistic with the fact that she is disabled. Toph inspires me because I'm legally blind and she shows me that having a disability isn't the end of the world.

I have a youtube channel where I speak a lot about social issues that pertain to me - most notably, racism (although that isn't the only thing I talk about, it's the majority of what I talk about). Because I'm black and I talk about racism, a lot of black people subscribe to me and feel like my page is a safe space. There's an issue, though - like a lot of ethnicities, black people tend to be extremely homophobic, transphobic, and anti LGBTQ in general. Even though I'm cisgender and heterosexual and my youtube channel is mostly about things I experience (racism, misogyny, colorism, etc), I do want my channel to be a space where ALL black people feel welcome. I understand what it feels like to not really feel like you belong in what SHOULD be your own community (for example, sometimes I feel alienated from the black community because of the fact that colorism is a huge issue within our community). Because of that, I make sure to make it clear that my channel is inclusive to ALL black people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. I make videos about LGBTQ+ issues on a semi regular basis and the most recent example of this was my pride video for the month of June - I spoke about how a lot of black people have intersecting identities and because of that, we don't feel 100% comfortable within the black community. The black community is only a safe space from racism - it's still rife with colorism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, etc. The video got about the same reaction as most of my videos - it was about a 50/50 split. Half of the comments were supporting it (because some of my subscribers are LGBTQ black people who know I'll defend them) and half of the comments were bigoted. As for how it impacted me, it's hurtful to see how my community treats people who we should view as our brothers and sisters like dirt. It's hurtful to know that a lot of people don't feel safe even in a space that should be a safe space for all black people. It also makes me worry. How are we ever going to dismantle white supremacy if we can't come together and love everyone within our own communities? United we stand, divided we fall, right? And then it makes me think... what happens if we DO ever dismantle white supremacy? The fact of the matter is, most people only want to dismantle the oppressive systems that don't benefit them. So all black people can agree that we need to dismantle racism but a lot of black people are cool with leaving colorism, homophobia, etc in place. So a lot of people don't want to end oppression... they just want to become the new oppressor. And this makes me wonder what will happen after white supremacy has been dismantled? Do some black people expect to take the throne as the new oppressor and use things like homophobia and transphobia to oppress other black people? At what point are we going to acknowledge that issue because if all we have waiting for us at the end of white supremacy is more oppression based on other things then what's even the point?

This is a very hard question to answer because, quite frankly, there is so much work that needs to be done. What makes this question so much harder is the fact that there are so many different demographics of women who are all going through so many different things. A lot of times we look at women as a monolith and because of this, the most vulnerable women are often ignored. For example, we all celebrate the fact that women got the right to vote in the United States in the year 1920 with the 19th amendment but a lot of us don't think about the fact that this only applied to white women - black women were still barred from voting because of things like poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses etc. Black women didn't actually get the right to vote until 1965 when the voting rights act was passed. I believe there is one thing society can do to empower women from all backgrounds - stop teaching young, impressionable girls that being a girl is something to be ashamed of. I'm sure we've all head something on the lines of, "you run like a girl" used as an insult. I'm sure we've also heard someone tell a boy or man to "man up" when he did something they didn't approve of. When young girls are constantly bombarded by people who push the idea that there is something inherently weak or shameful about being a girl, the insecurity that it causes manifests itself in different ways. It results in young girls believing they aren't smart which leads to them being less likely to pursue male dominated fields (and results in the education gap between men and women) and believing they aren't worthy which results in them being less likely to negotiate on a more fair wage (which results in the pay gap what we see between men and women). If we stopped indoctrinating little girls into believing that there is something inherently inferior about being a girl, it would be the beginning of girls from all backgrounds growing up with the confidence to speak up for themselves when something is wrong and fight for what's right. As for what needs to be done to ensure that these demands are met - encouraging parents to stop seeing their daughters as cooks, maids, future wives, etc. and instead seeing them the same way they see their sons (as human beings) is a first step. This is a lot considering the fact that it requires an entire cultural shift - most of the world adheres strictly to a patriarchal view. The first step in dismantling the patriarchy that so many societies thrive off of is one we can all get involved in - beginning to unpack our own internalized misogyny.

A lot of times I feel like I don't have a support system or anyone to guide me because of the fact that nobody in my family has done this before. Because of that, most of the time I feel lost. Last week I went to the University of Detroit Mercy's Dental School to get an exam. I chose them over a private practice because it's way more affordable due to the fact that the dental students are working on you as opposed to actual dentists. The dental student who worked on me was about my age so we got to talking and I mentioned to her that I wanted to go to medical school and she said, "Do you have any doctors in your family?" The answer is no. My parents were born before separate but equal was even overturned (and we all know discrimination didn't just disappear when it was technically made illegal). I'm the first generation to be born post segregation - my family didn't have the opportunity to be doctors prior to my generation. I have sharecroppers in my family (literally, I'm not joking) but no, I'm not related to any doctors. When she asked me that question, I started wondering... does she have other doctors in her family? Then I realized she probably does. Not only that, but a lot of people do. A lot of people aren't just pushed into this blind - they have entire support systems and connections. They have family who can get them a position in their hospital so they can get their clinical hours, they have people who understand the medical school application process and can help them navigate it. They have people guiding them along every step of the way... I don't. I saw someone post on facebook about how they're the 4th generation to attend the school I'm going to for graduate school and I was amazed... my father's grandfather was born in 1895 - the first generation born after slavery. I'm literally the 4th generation to be born free while other people are talking about they're a 4th generation legacy student at the school I'm attending. I can't even begin to imagine the connections that someone like that has. While I'm sitting here drowning (when do I take the MCAT? How do I prepare for it? How does the application cycle work? What is medical school even really like?) most of the time, other people have all of the inside information because this isn't their family's first time in the rodeo. Honestly, it's infuriating.

"What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't even happened yet." -Anne Frank This quote means a lot to me for multiple reasons. I think of it during my high moments and during my low moments - it reminds me that even at my highest moments, the best is yet to come and when I'm at my lowest moments, it cannot last forever. The fact that Anne Frank wrote this when she was going through what she did reminds me that even during what I perceive to be my greatest struggles, I should still have hope for better days.

I am beginning graduate school in the fall and my financial aid package is composed entirely of loans. I already owe more than $30,000 in loans from my undergraduate schooling and I really don't want to take more out. I'm very against taking out more student loans but having to pay for graduate school out of pocket is overwhelming to say the least. I've been working A LOT this summer to save money for the fall. Even if I do have to take out loans to pay for my classes, I want to have enough money saved up to comfortably pay my rent and not have to be stressed about picking up extra shifts while I'm in school. This scholarship would help my financial burden considerably.

When the pandemic hit, I had just graduated from university and had started working full time in a laboratory and I was miserable. 40 hour work weeks are the most depressing thing ever. My job showed me it didn't care about its employees (they made us come into work anyway and told us if we quarantined, they'd use our PTO and sick leave for it even though people who worked there had COVID) so I finally quit. Quitting gave me the time to focus on my own interests. When I was working, I spent every moment at work, commuting to or from work, preparing for work, etc. Once I quit I had the time to begin building my own brand so I can be my own boss, get back into hobbies I'd long since been forced to quit, etc. The COVID pandemic has been terrible but it has given me the opportunity to have the time to find myself again.

When I went to Michigan State University as an undergraduate, I had NO intentions of pursuing medicine. It didn't interest me and I refuse to do something I'm not interested in just for the money. It wasn't until around my senior year of college when my friend got pregnant and I realized I was really interested in pregnancy - downloaded the pregnancy app with her and started researching how babies develop. It was around this time that I also learned that black women are 4 times more likely to die in childbirth than the national average. That's when it clicked to me... I'm interested in fetal development and I care about the morality rates of black women during delivery... why not go to medical school and become an OBGYN? As a black woman myself, I understand how it feels to be erased. I understand how it feels to be ignored. I understand how so often when we talk about the needs of feminism, we only talk about the needs of white women and how when we talk about the needs of black people, we only focus on the needs of black men. So as a black woman who needs feminism and black movements but constantly being erased from every issue, I know how alienating it is to have no one. And I understand how much it means when you're at the doctor's office and someone who understands you and cares about you walks into the room. I understand how important it is to have black doctors who can not only take black patients seriously, but also be able to communicate with them. How many black patients were confused because they only speak AAVE but no one in the hospital could? I understand how the "strong black woman" stereotypes play into medicine. When people pretend black women have super human strength, they strip us of our humanity. It's easier to ignore black women's cries for help when people pretend that we're strong. But I know the truth - black women are hurting and nobody cares.

I never envisioned myself going to college, much less graduate school. For the entirety of my undergraduate studies, I felt lost. While my peers were applying to internships and already knew what they were doing after they graduated (whether it was going to medical school, graduate school, etc), I was completely out of it. I never thought I would go to college much less finish and have to figure out what to do after. I was so stressed out my final year of college that it was making me sick. Everyone was getting their acceptance letters to their various programs and I just felt like an idiot. I remember my biochemistry lab professor (a white man) asked what I was planning to do after I finished my degree or what I intended to be in a few years and I literally responded, "a stripper." before I even caught myself. It just slipped out. I made us both uncomfortable but we just laughed it off and I followed it up with something like, "I'm looking at a few options." because the truth was I had NO idea what I was planning to do when I finished my undergraduate program. The truth is I never saw anyone who looked like me doing anything much BESIDES stripping so I couldn't envision myself doing much of anything besides that. It was my last semester that I took an undergraduate seminar for biochemistry majors. I didn't think much of it - it was some class every biochem senior had to take. The class was mostly just various professors coming to present their research to us so I didn't think much of it. Around the third week of the class, though, I got a wake up call. An African American woman came to present her research. I was so amazed listening to her. She had a PhD, she was a professor, etc. For the first time ever I saw myself in front of the classroom. When I looked at her and saw everything she did, I knew I could do it too. I don't remember what her name was. She was technically never even my professor. I doubt that class meant much to all the white and Asian students who'd seen 100 professors who looked like them before because representation was nothing new to them. But to me - an African American woman - that class changed my life. That professor changed my life.

It took me a LONG time to even realize I had a mental illness. The fact that intermittent explosive disorder isn't a well known illness combined with the fact that I was a black girl ensured that all my angry outbursts got written off as, "that's a mad black woman." When I finally realized something was wrong with me I was frustrated with the fact that so many black kids with so many things are going undiagnosed. The fact that people associate black people with anger, aggression, etc. results in people not recognizing the fact that we have mental illnesses too. That in combination with the fact that when a white kid has an emotional outburst, everyone is falling all over themselves to figure out what may have caused it while when a black person has an emotional outburst, we're just thrown in juvenile or something as a part of the school to prison pipeline made me realize that mental illness isn't looked at the same in every race of people. As I got older and I learned how to deal with my illness I had to come to terms with the fact that sometimes anger is a valid emotion to have. I had to battle between learning to decipher if I was overreacting about something or if anger was a justifiable feeling. So often, we go to extremes. We realize that we have a disorder that makes us excessively sad or angry and we immediately try to be happy ALL the time which isn't healthy either. I had to learn how to tell myself, "it's okay to be angry with this." My mental illness completely changed how I view the world because it helped me understand how the world views me. Some days I have reasons to be sad. Some days I have reasons to be angry. Some days I have reasons to be withdrawn. But all days, no matter what, I am written off as, "A mad black woman." Before I realized I had a mental illness I figured people were calling me mad because I REALLY was mad all the time. But as I learned to handle my illness and my good days began to outnumber my bad ones, I realized people were STILL calling me mad if I so much as breathed a little too hard. That's when I realized that as a black woman, no matter how well I handle my anger I will always be a mad black woman to the world. So I've started to embrace it. When someone tells me I'm angry I tell them, "I'm a mad black woman cuz I got every right to be mad." because I know for a fact that if I am mad about something, I have the right to be mad about it. I know for a fact that I no longer overreact about things so when someone tells me I'm mad about something like misogynoir they're just gaslighting the fact that I have the RIGHT to be mad sometime. Anger is a valid emotion and it took me years of unpacking my mental illness to be able to understand that and realize the fact that people will try to shut me up by saying, "You're just a mad black woman, shut up." I will not let anyone silence my anger.

I've been lucky or blessed (whatever you believe in) to the point where I haven't lost anyone in the pandemic and for that, I am extremely grateful. For that reason, I will not write about the pandemic. Although it is serious and horrible and many people were lost due to it, this prompt is asking about my PERSONAL experience with 2020 so I want to be truthful here. In 2020, I witnessed the assassinations of multiple innocent black people - Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd just to name a few. The first thing I felt was outraged. How could things like this possibly happen? But after I saw the public reaction to the cases I just felt tired. The fact that I can just be going for a walk and some random racist vigilantes can just run up and kill me and folks will be trying to explain how I was wrong in the situation confused me. People will point out how when I was in 2nd grade I cut the line and how I deserved to die because of it. It really pointed out the fact that black lives really DON'T matter in this country. Like not only can a non black person be like, "I'm bored. Let me kill a black person." but they'll get away with it and everyone will support them. It made me really realize that everyday can be my last. Even if I'm minding my business someone can just attack me, kill me, and somehow I'll be wrong. It made me realize that even if I do everything right... my blackness is still wrong. I'm a threat even when I'm not doing anything and people can use that fact as an excuse for why they killed me. Isn't that scary? I saw a lot of performative activism in 2020. Everyone put "BLM" on their social media pages and made their profile pictures black squares and... that was it. Nobody actually really CARED... it was just something cool to do. And then that passed. And now everyone is back to not even PRETENDING that they care. 2020 is what made me look at the history of this country. It made me look at the lynchings of people like Claude Neal and Jesse Washington and really understand what this country was built on. For some reason we think of 1934 (when Neal was lynched) as so long ago but the harsh reality is that a lot of our grandparents were alive then - I know my grandmother was born in 1917. Growing up in the United States, we were taught that this is the greatest country in the world. We were never taught the truth. So it was a shock to me when I realized that not only do black lives not matter today but they never did... and they probably never will. 2020 was depressing and every year after it will be too.

The earliest I remember playing chess is with my father when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I remember playing with my older brother and he would fool's mate me every single time we played (I'm pretty sure I realized he was doing the exact same thing every single time but I couldn't figure out how to defend myself against it). I started competing in chess when I was in 4th grade and the game has taught me so much. Growing up in Detroit, all of the schools were predominantly black so I had a culture shock when I went to my first state tournament and realized that most chess players are NOT black. And I was even more surprised when I walked into the playing room... and got laughed at by my opponent. Now, I don't know if he was laughing at me because I was holding a baby doll (I had a phase where I'd take a baby doll with me everywhere I went until I was like 11) or if I was just about the only black girl in the entire playing room but I didn't bother to ask. I just sat down and played... and won. Chess taught me that people will underestimate me. People will assume I can't play because I'm black person... a woman... and both at the same time (most chess players are white or asian boys so not only am I marginalized because of my race but I'm also marginalized because of my gender) but chess also taught me that nobody is smarter than me or better than me on that board just because they look differently from me. I never underestimate myself because I realize that anyone who thinks they're smarter than me or better than me doesn't know much about me at all. Chess taught me how to THINK before I make decisions. I'm sure we have all had times where we've sat and thought about a move for 15 or 20 minutes because you have to work out every possible response to every possible move... but because of that, I find it easier to do the same thing in real life. Rarely do I rush into things - I sit and think about the repercussions of every move I may make. Unfortunately, I don't compete in chess as much anymore (My last tournament was in 2018). I've found that as I've gotten older and began to prepare for my career, I don't have entire days to spend at tournaments anymore. But chess has prepared me for this career. One day I want to be a doctor and I understand that not only will people doubt me because of the way that I look but IT DOESN'T MATTER. That boy in that playing room taught me that nobody is better than me at anything just because of how I look. To this day, people still laugh when I walk into a room and that's okay... because just like that boy in that playing room, the laughs quickly stop when I set the test curves.

Black women die in childbirth at 4 times the national rate in the United States. That is why I want to go to medical school and become an OBGYN. Our medical system was built off of the pain and torture of African American women (look at the experiments that James Marion Sims - the "father of modern gynecology" - conducted on enslaved African American women. That's just one example out of MANY that showcase how black people in the united states have been treated in the medical industry for centuries). Because of that fact, I can't really be surprised when the medical system continues to neglect black women and profit off of our pain because that's what it was built to do - it's functioning as it was designed to. That's why I want to become an OBGYN - my plan is to change the plight that black women are going through in our search for medical care. In order to achieve my goal, I am first attending graduate school. I didn't have the greatest undergraduate GPA and although medical schools don't look at your graduate GPA nearly as much as your undergraduate GPA, I believe that grad school will give me valuable knowledge that will help my future career as a doctor. I am studying cancer biology in graduate school in case I want to pursue the field of gynecological oncology. I am not only attending graduate school to "spruce up" my medical school applications - I am attending graduate school because I believe that it will help me become a better doctor in the long run. I am also preparing for the MCAT test. I have purchased sets of books that I am studying from on my own but I am also saving my money so that I can take an MCAT prep course over the summer and ensure that I will receive the best score possible. An excellent MCAT score is one of the biggest factors in whether or not a medical school will accept a student. I have been extremely discouraged in my journey but I have not let it get me down completely. A lot of people say black people aren't smart enough to be doctors and sometimes it's hard not to believe that when I see how few of us there are becoming doctors. But I remember that no race is smarter than mine - they just have way more opportunity than mine does. The fact is that other races aren't smarter than us but they have the money to afford to take the best test prep courses while we have to study on our own due to the wage gap. Black people have to work twice as hard for half as much and that's important to acknowledge when we talk about WHY there aren't many black people in the medical field. The system is designed against us at so many fronts but that is why I plan to go to medical school - I will begin to change this issue on at least one front.

I started competing in chess in the year 2005. In the city chess tournaments, I never felt COMPLETELY out of place. There weren't any girls but everyone was black. When I went to the state chess tournament, though, that all changed. I'd taken my favorite doll to the tournament with me (for good luck!) and my dad was chaperoning. My dad and I were walking to my playing table when the team that my team was playing saw me and started laughing. I don't know if they were laughing at me because they were all white boys or because I was carrying a baby doll. I didn't let it discourage me, though. I said, "Dad, hold my doll.", handed my father my baby doll, and won my match. That was when I learned that people look at me differently in chess and in real life. It didn't really register to me growing up in and competing in chess in Detroit because everyone looks like me there. But when I ventured outside of the city, I faced a harsh reality. But chess taught me something else - the people laughing at me have nothing to laugh at. And they're usually silent by the end of the game. I remember the lesson I learned that day all the time - never let people discourage me. When people snicker when I walk into a classroom, I'm never discouraged because I know that by the time the test scores come out, they won't be laughing anymore. I refuse to feel imposter syndrome anymore. I am beginning my Master's program in Cancer Biology this August and I know that I will belong.

I definitely think that there are different types of legacies. When I think about Martin Luther King Jr. versus Adolf Hitler, I can't help but feel that they left behind different legacies. While the former tried his best to unite people from different backgrounds, the latter tried his best to divide people of different backgrounds. While one taught race based equality and peace, the other taught race based inequality and hatred. Even though they clearly left behind different types of legacies, I won't pretend that they weren't both valuable in their own ways. On one hand, MLK makes me think of how hard it must've been to stand up for what was right in a time where things were so wrong but he did it anyway... but he did exactly that. And for that reason, I've learned a lesson of strength from his legacy. On the other hand, Hitler and his followers taught me how easy it is to follow behind something you know is wrong just because you're scared to stand for what you know is right and in that way, I also learned a lesson of strength from Hitler's legacy. Even though these were vastly different men who left behind vastly different legacies (one positive, one negative), I learned important and similar things from each of their legacies. To me, a legacy is when you leave your mark. It may be something as positive as what MLK did or something as negative as what Hitler did or it may not be anything that big at all. Some people's legacy is making sure their grandchildren have fond memories of summers at their house. Some people's legacy is being missed after they leave a job because everyone loved them so much. And legacies don't only come about after you die. Legacies are left behind wherever you may not be before. I've left legacies behind at prior schools, jobs, etc. Your legacy is how you make people feel when they think of you after you're gone. When people think of me, I want them to think that I was intelligent, easy-going, and most of all kind.