What drives me in life is the want to help others. I want to learn as much as I can now, gain a college degree, and then once out of college, I want to create my own private school to teach others in the community skills I've found helpful when working in the community. Public school teaches a lot, but it doesn't give you everything you need to know, and although my classes won't teach EVERYTHING either, they can give a lot of the information people need to know when going out into the business world, and help the people I teach learn the secrets I've found to a successful life. I need this scholarship to help me get into college so I can learn more about how to teach, and so I can really know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm a highschooler, and right now know next to nothing about anything in the real world.

Every community is different in incredible ways. Sometimes, however, the differences can originate inside the community itself, which causes divisions and other issues. ALTHOUGH... There is one thing almost every single community in the world can agree on--and that's the importance of an education. My family, as well as many other people in the community around me have given me amazing chances to gain a full education. This is where I decided to leave my mark. Because the people around me have provided so many opportunities for learning, I have had the ability to find which ones are most effective for me--and I want everyone else to have that opportunity as well. I am not providing much physical service to my community, but I am providing something else: A book. I am writing a book about the types of education I've studied, and the techniques I've found most useful. Through this book, I am displaying the specific ideas I've been given by various people who have helped me find my education in the first place, and through this is how I wish to impact the community. My book--when published--will explain the individual tricks and techniques I've found to be the most useful through my studies. I hope this book can help others learn from my experience, and I also hope it will be valuable to anyone seeking a personalized education. If I can muster up the funds to publish this book, then I believe it will leave my community--and also many others as well--with a new perspective on education, and how it can be achieved. NOTE: I hope this essay was long enough. I can't see the necessary word count due to my platform I found this on. If needed, I can provide further information, but I'm trying to keep this short, and to the point.

Have you ever written a website? Have you ever climbed into a rocket and launched yourself into space? I can almost guarantee you haven't completed that second thing, and to me, both seemed at the same level of impossibility. Still, I needed to write and publish a website, so I started praying. With help from Jesus on my side, it was still hard, but I have been able to find the resources required to complete the webpage. This was a large build of both faith and knowledge, and it's been amazing to do this.

Good quotes are nearly always hard to find--when asking a friend the other day about his favorite quote, he said, "Light a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a night. Light a man ON fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." Although amusing, this wasn't exactly what I was looking for. In fact, it took me a few years before I stumbled upon this: "When you allow yourself time to think, you typically open up one of two possibilities: Either you can look back, and think about all the mistakes you've made, or you can look toward the future, and think about how you will avoid the mistakes you've made."--Hannah Baker. This was incredibly impactful to me--I've made a lot of mistakes throughout my life, and many are easy to dwell upon, but I can also learn so much from them, as long as I keep my focus pointing forward. That's an amazing concept I've heard of before, but never phrased in such a powerful and straightforward fashion as I discovered here.

Why do people wish to pursue higher education? It differs for everyone, and some even choose not to go at all. However, those who do attend are against all odds when they're attempting to get in. They have to find a college to accept, and then the money... Putting that aside, though, my main reason for pursuing higher education is to learn more about mathematics and other skills I'll use in my future career. I wish to learn from college more about the world around us, and the things I need to know to thrive. My current extra curriculars are helping me learn this stuff, but I can learn much more when in a full college environment. However, that doesn't mean I don't learn anything from those extra curriculars. I also want to go to college to expand my knowledge of writing, music, and other subjects. I haven't had the opportunity to learn a lot about them yet, but when I reach college, I'll have the resources available to truly learn all I can about these areas of interest. College will also enable me to seek other career options in my future. There are many businesses which only allow those with college degrees into certain positions, which means if I want to participate in those positions, I need to have the education necessary to access them. My favorite extra curricular I'm participating is music. I love music, and spend hours at a time either on the piano, or on the computer, writing music. That's my favorite extra curricular, and it's also the one I've learned the most from. I'm a homeschooler, which means I already take my education into my own hands, and this is one of my favorite instances. I've learned everything from publishing music to getting permissions from specific parties to arrange their works. This is one big reason I am homeschooled. The thing I'm most passionate about is homeschool, and that's because it allows me to take my education, and make what I want of it, and not what another person thinks I should make of it, or a curriculum thinks I should learn. As a homeschooler, I not only have the option to learn about the subjects I want to learn, but I also have the time to do other things. One such example is the book I've written. If I wasn't homeschooled, then I would never have been allowed the opportunity to pursue writing while in highschool.

I came up with this arrangement, mostly out of sheer necessity, to help pay for my future musical career. I've been struggling financially to gain the tools needed to actually record and write my pieces, hence the low audio quality shown in the arrangement I sent. I believe this is a brilliant idea, to create a scholarship to help people who are going through the troubles of working with music, and it's a great encouragement for those of us who are working hard to expand our talents. Thank you for doing this scholarship, and even if I don't win, it'll go and help someone else too! I'd like to apologize for the format of the recording--I couldn't find a different place to put it.

My favorite artist is Marshal McDonald, and he has helped me understand the arts infinitely more than I could have figured out on my own. He's inspired me in my endeavors to become a pianist, and has opened many doors for my future career.

I've always wanted to record and write many arrangements and compositions I've thought of. It's as simple as that. If I had the money, I'd find the software to write those compositions/arrangements, and I'd be able to immediately record those compositions. I've always wanted to share my music with others, but I really have never had the ability. As many opportunities as I have to earn money, four microphones around two thousand to three thousand dollars EACH. I know how to record music, but I just don't have the supplies, and if I had access to the supplies, then I could immediately begin recording and sharing my music with the community. I think this is an amazing idea for a scholarship, and even if I don't win, I want to thank the person who raised the money for it. It's always inspiring to know there are people out there who want to help others succeed, and when someone decides to give up their material possessions to help someone else, I will always respect them. Thank you (Kap Slap) for funding this, it'll bless a lot of people in their endeavors. My compositions are something I'm proud of, but they're just beginning, without any help or refinement, so no matter who you choose, I thank you for your endeavors.

I tend to have too many big dreams which seem impossible to achieve, but one such dream I’ve pursued and actually finished has been the greatest idea of all. The achievement I can attach the most weight to in my life is definitely my book. In a year I wrote a 90,000 word fictional book, and I’m in the process of proofreading it for publication. I’ve sent out around five query letters, and although I don’t necessarily think I’ll have success with them, I’m going to wait until I’ve finished proofreading until I send more. While I was in the early stages of writing this book, Covid shut down everything, and I gained a lot of thinking time. I was constantly searching for better techniques on writing fiction, studying the styles and strategies, writers such as Brandon Sanderson and Shannon Hale often used. In the process of going through this information, I began learning what my own writing style was. When I started redrafting my book, I rarely talked about the possible publication of it, except with the presence of a sarcastic grin. However, the ideas for the book just kept coming, and pretty soon I began seeing my book as a future source of income, not just a hobby. A few months after I turned sixteen, I finished writing the second draft, with a word count of over 80,000 words. While I began the process of proofreading the book, I immediately began noticing the impact the achievement had on the people around me--myself included. Suddenly, when I came up with an idea, my friends, family, and I didn’t just treat it with pessimism and doubt, but as an actual possibility. I quickly learned I can accomplish anything I set my mind to, as long as I persist and keep reviewing the successful outcome clearly in my mind. As I mentioned, I’m currently working on publishing this book, and in a month or two after I finish my school for this year, I’m planning on finishing the proofreading and sending out around thirty more query letters and submissions to publishing industries I have marked as possible accepters of my book. Since I finished writing my book, I’ve also been working in the world of music, and I’ve attained the permissions to arrange a few religion-based tunes into solo-pianist arrangements, which I hope to publish sometime from now to a year from this point. My book I’ve written will be part of a series of either two or three books, and I’m hoping to have those published within five years from now. One last thing I’d like to say: This scholarship would be helpful, and could be necessary to receive a full bachelor’s degree, but there are also probably those who are more in need of this than I am. I strongly encourage everyone here who reads this to read at least two other entries before making a decision on mine. 492 Words.

I’ve been a Homeschooler for my whole life, and much of my education was and has been pursued through various online courses. Although in-person teachers were abundant and always an option, there were very few in-person classes I chose to attend. However, one in-person class I attended was oriented around Highschool Language Arts, and it began having me read books on a scale I’d never previously imagined. The teacher for this class (Angie Baker) seemed to believe if she set the expectations high enough, her students would rise to the challenge. She was correct, too. She teaches many students, and her classes are always useful for everyone, no matter what the circumstances are. For me, I’ve always figured I'd probably attend college and she encouraged my goal strongly. However, when I only received a 24 on the ACT, my resolve wavered strongly. The literature class I've previously mentioned revolved around reading and writing papers, but my Language Arts teacher saw my focus wandering, and immediately jumped in, giving what seemed like an infinite amount of helpful encouragement and suggestions. She helped me see I could pursue college without a high ACT score, and that I could benefit from learning the skills necessary to attain scholarships and even pay for my own college. Out of all the people in my life, toward college Angie has been the most influential, and she continues to spur me on my journey toward higher education. So far she contributes by offering options for scholarships, and even though she says it’s not necessary to have a good ACT score to obtain scholarships, she encourages me to take it again. Angie's helped me have a completely different look at things, too, and she’s shown me many of the effective and efficient strategies to think about problems. One thing she’s been helping me through is learning the skills and suggestions needed to effectively take standardized tests, and that knowledge will significantly improve my chances at attaining higher scores on those tests. Somehow, she manages to do this, and much more for the community. Angie has taught me that teachers can be found anywhere, and all teachers are willing to teach something-even if it’s not the thing they signed up for. I know this essay is for one specific teacher, but I’d like to quickly give a shout-out to all teachers everywhere. Those who willingly choose to teach others receive something money or prestige can’t beat, and it’s simply amazing to see people giving their time to offer knowledge, no matter what the salary is. or how they're going to survive on their own. To all teachers everywhere, thank you.