I grew up in Denver, Colorado and found my love for science and geospatial sciences when I first went to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association in Boulder, Colorado. After years of trying to get accepted in my sophomore year of high school, I was finally able to get accepted to a student recrutee program. I was ecstatic for that year, it was the most amazing period of my life. However, it all came crashing down when NOAA had to drop their student funding due to a change of presidency. And therefore I lost all of my opportunities there. After that occurrence I tried to work everyday to get back there. I worked to produce an extended essay in Physics and Radiation and then went on to study Geography, Mathematics and Computer Science in University. I finally thought that I was getting right back on track to getting back to NOAA. However, in my second year of University my mother told me that she wanted to move to the Middle East. Now, two years later, I have returned to finish school at Saint Louis University and my dream is back on. I have gone back to school to receive the degree I need in order to make my great return. I am planning on studying computer science because I believe it will immensely help me in the future with getting a job in the field of geospatial software development/data science. After school, the next step is to return to Boulder or anywhere else in the world where NOAA or NASA is stationed. And after that I plan to work for NOAA in the Middle East sector and help people in my new community. I want to work in the oceanic-atmospheric sector and help people from the negative effects of water pollution.

The wisest thing I have ever heard came from my mother when I was young. My father ended up leaving us and I felt very much alone and didn't know where to turn. My mother came to me and said to me that,"People only come into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime". She told me that people aren't always supposed to be in our lives forever. And that sometimes they just come in for a short period of time to teach you something. And sometimes they are meant to stay forever but not always.

My life has not been a typical fairy tale, but I've made it my own. My story is not a typical one, but my story is my whole identity. My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. The day that a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their minds and their abyss of thoughts. This is my story and it started nine years ago. It all started when my father had picked up my family and moved to North Carolina. Since the move, I slowly started to notice my father going down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry; then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. I realized at ten years old that my great fairy tale was starting to collapse. I walked into a room to see my mother spreading tears across the bed. At that moment, I had realized my fate. I no longer had a dad. I had discovered at that moment what true heart-wrenching pain felt like. I had felt my heart shatter into minuscule pieces. My mother was left with five kids and no job. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system. I would not ask for any other story. I am thankful for all the pain because I have been opened up to the idea of a true family, true love, and true belief of G-D. I have truly been taught how to be a good person for myself and my family. The day my father slammed that door and walked out was just an opening for so many other doors. I had to learn at an extremely young age how to help be an aspect of financial support in my family. My mom had taught me a lot as she had to work so immensely hard. She taught me that the most important thing in life is to never give up and to never succumb. It didn't matter if she had to get up at five in the morning and go to bed at twelve at night, she did it because she knew she had to. She was determined to give us the life she wanted us to have. I had learned how to be a hard worker from her. Ever since I was twelve years old I have been working. I started my first job as a camp counselor and I have worked my way up to a management assistant at Jamba Juice. I continue to study hard to try and reach my goals so that I will never have to worry. And that is why in the end college is so important to me. My mom always drilled into me after the day my father left that education is the most crucial thing in life. My family had to live on the streets for two years because my mom never got an education and I know that it is her greatest regret today. However, she overcame that difficulty by returning to school and eventually got three degrees. By her receiving her education after my father left that is the main reason for why we were able to survive. I never want to have the burden my mom did of making sure she could provide food on the table every night and had to count every penny she made. She taught me that life can have hard times but that I will always be able to push through them. She taught me that everything in this world is just a barrier waiting to be broken, especially education. She taught me to always have a plan in my education and to never give up on it. I plan to continue my education and finish university so that I can continue on my way to financial independence by getting a good job, investing, and making sure to always have a backup plan. It is my aspiration to use my education to become a geospatial scientist at a company similar to NASA. I want to study natural disasters and do data analysis and software development in that field. I hope that one day I can be the reason for so many lives being saved. My biggest plan is to make my mother proud. To show her that I learned from her and that I have taken all of that pain and suffrage that she had experienced because she wasn't educated, and that I can turn it into something spectacular.

My life has not been a typical fairy tale but i've made it my own. My story is not a typical one, but my story is my whole identity. My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. The day that a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their mind and their abyss of thoughts. This is my story and it started nine years ago. It all started when my father had picked up my family and moved to North Carolina​. ​Since the move, I slowly started to notice my father go down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry, then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. I realized at ten years old that my great fairy tale was starting to collapse. I walked into a room to see my mother spreading tears across the bed.​ ​At that moment, I had realized my fate. I no longer had a dad. I discovered at that moment how true heart wrenching pain felt. I had felt my heart shatter into minuscule pieces. My mother was left with five kids and no job. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30 am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system. I could still feel the hole indented into my heart. However, everyday the pain started to ease. This horrific nightmare started to become a dream. None of this could have happened without the belief that no matter what happened, we were always together. I realized I no longer needed a father. Although I no longer had what I thought was a fairytale, I came home to realize that I had a life that I would not change for the whole world. I would not ask for any other story. I am thankful for all the pain because, I have been opened up to the idea of a true family, true love, and true self belief. I have truly been taught how to be a good person for myself and my family. The day my father slammed that door and walked out was just an opening for so many other doors. I really hope to change the cycle by being a strong person for my family to come and to make my mother proud. I am proud to have this story as my legacy because it is who I am.

My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. The day that a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their minds and their abyss of thoughts. I slowly started to notice my father going down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry; then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. My mother was left with five kids and no job. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system.

The best way to live a long healthy life is to start living for yourself. We all live in this world listening to others and following in their own path instead of building our owns. We have lived in a society that has told us how we should act to fill out role for all of time. Going back to Adam and Eve people have had their roles that they were supposed to follow. And even thought I do believe in us needing to have a cohesive running society, I do think that in some cases we have lost our individuality. We live in a society that tells us to all dress the same to work, we send our kids to school all in the same uniform, and we all make sure to look at people weird that may present to be out of the norm. We live in a way where if you don't fit in the box then you are automatically an outsider. This extended far more than just looks it extends to the core of our society. We go to jobs that make us unhappy because it is what we are supposed to do to make enough money, we marry people we don't love because they are friends of the family, and we surround ourselves with people who do not really care about us because of their socio-economic standings. If we all started living for ourselves and surrounding ourselves with who we wanted, I believe we would be much happier and in turn, live longer. Furthermore, if we all gave up on our preconceptions on ideas then we could live a much happier healthy life. So I encourage you to look at one thing you do in your life because someone tells you to and change it.

My life has not been a typical fairy tale, but I've made it my own. My story is not a typical one, but my story is my whole identity. My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I saw my father. The day a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their minds and their abyss of thoughts. I was born in Colorado, to two amazing parents. I always thought that nothing could ever ruin this fairy tale; that was my life. It all started when my father had picked up my family and moved to North Carolina. Since the move, I slowly started to notice my father going down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry; then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. My father was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. I realized at ten years old that my great fairy tale was starting to collapse. I walked into a room to see my mother spreading tears across the bed. At that moment, I had realized my fate. I no longer had a dad. My mother was left with five kids and no job. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system. Instead of giving up I continued to live my life for me and continue to persevere, one of the ways I have persevered is by being a leader for my community. When I was in high school I thought it was time to step up as a leader. I got a group of three girls together and we decided to create a mental wellness group. I searched the school for students that I felt would work well in a group setting and delegated tasks. What was three girls soon turned into twenty people. We started doing volunteer work for the mentally ill and started doing presentations to classroom's about mental health awareness. In the beginning all I wanted was to impact just a few people,.however, in the end it turned into something so much greater. I really felt like I was able to impact people and teach people about something so rarely spoken about. I hope that this will help all of these people to be more open and aware of the mentally ill and not the stigma of it. And that we can help more people like me who were suffering in a hard time in their lives.

Technology has always been something that I found very interesting. The world of technology is like our brains or the ocean, the surface is barely touched. We have so much more to learn and we are just on the edge of exploring what technology has to offer. My most favorite new technology that has been invented recently is the VR gaming system. I am a huge gamer and I have always felt very comfortable in the world of gaming. However, now we have taken it to the next level. We are building ourselves our own worlds inside of these games. We are able to virtually put ourselves in a world of our choosing. I love the idea that we are able to feel like we are apart of the game. I believe that this technology is so important because it shows the evolution that is occurring. It used to be that the only way to feel apart of a game was to do LARP and now it has completely shifted into actually feeling like you are apart of a game. Furthermore, it is in my belief that this is just the first step to a completely new future. I believe humans will use virtual reality as a platform for many other aspects of our lives. Now it is for gaming but I believe in the future it can be for all different sectors of our world such as: doctors, schooling, and more. First, the doctors can create virtual meetings where we can feel like we are meeting with them but it is all virtual reality. As well, we can have students when they are sick be able to participate in class by using virtual reality technology. The possibilities of this technology are endless. I plan to get a degree in computer science in order to continue to grow the technological world is ways we have never seen before. This scholarship would assist me in my dream.

Let me give you a story as to how I got on this journey of loving space. When I was about 12 years old I went on a field trip to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association. I never really knew a lot about space before then hell i'd never even been on an airplane. But that day, that day my life changed. We were welcomed in and I couldn't get enough. I loved every moment of it and the second I stepped into the space control center my whole universe got flipped inside out. I was enthralled. From that day on I made it my mission to get there some day. I got into the IB program at my high school and started working in Physics and Astronomy. I wrote and published my extended essay in social radiation and its effect on the ocean and atmosphere. I spent two years researching and writing completely on this topic. And within this research I found NOAA again. I applied to join a summer internship program and got accepted. I was the youngest recruit at 17 years old. But then soon after my whole dream came crashing down. NOAA lost half of its funding and my time was cut short. So now I am here continuing to study anything I can to get me there. I am applying to universities in computer science and mathematics to make my dream of becoming a geospatial software developer happen. I want to help save people from natural disasters and help the world become a safer place to live in for countries who do not have a lot of access to resources for disasters. I hope with your help I think I really could make it. Please let a girl live out her dream.

I always admired people who showed such a strong connection to acts of service. So, when I was a junior in high school, I finally decided that it was my time to step up. I got a group of three girls together and we decided to create a mental wellness group. I searched the school for students that I felt would work well in a group setting and delegated tasks. We for the next two years every week came up with new ways to share about our group. I started slowly by putting up flyers asking people to join, what was three girls soon turned into twenty people. It felt so good to lead something so important. We started doing volunteer work for the mentally ill and started doing presentations to classroom's about mental health awareness. In the beginning all I wanted was to impact just a few people, let them know that there is someone listening out there and sharing information on mental health. However, in the end it turned into something so much greater. I really felt like I was able to impact people and teach people about something so rarely spoken about. I hope that this leadership will help all of these people to be more open to the mentally ill in a broader sense and be more aware of people in their communities.

Giving back is important to me because it was what saved me. Let me start from the begging and tell you my story. My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. The day that a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their mind and their abyss of thoughts. I slowly started to notice my father go down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry, then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. Finally, at nine years old, my father left us all. We had no help. That was until our community got together and planned to pack lunches for us everyday for free. It kept us afloat and really helped my mother survive. And that is why I think it is important to give back and to be giving because you never know when it will be you in that situation.

Let me give you a story as to how I got on this journey of loving space. When I was about 12 years old I went on a field trip to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association. I never really knew a lot about space before then hell i'd never even been on an airplane. But that day, that day my life changed. We were welcomed in and I couldn't get enough. I loved every moment of it and the second I stepped into the space control center my whole universe got flipped inside out. I was enthralled. From that day on I made it my mission to get there some day. I got into the IB program at my high school and started working in Physics and Astronomy. I wrote and published my extended essay in social radiation and its effect on the ocean and atmosphere. I spent two years researching and writing completely on this topic. And within this research I found NOAA again. I applied to join a summer internship program and got accepted. I was the youngest recruit at 17 years old. But then soon after my whole dream came crashing down. NOAA lost half of its funding and my time was cut short. So now I am here continuing to study anything I can to get me there. I am applying to universities in computer science and mathematics to make my dream of becoming a geospatial software developer happen. And with your help I think I really could make it. Please let a girl live out her dream.

I became interested in computer science around the age of 12. I had gone to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association for the first time and was completely enthralled. The moment I walked into the control panel room, I knew I wanted to be there, and that's when I decided to start studying computer science. My interest has grown in the degree as I started doing game design projects, coding, and more. I was able to build my own robotic car controlled by my phone. My goals for this field are to become a geospatial software developer. It has always been my dream to be able to help people in an unconventional way. I was obsessed as a child with natural disasters and I want to use my computer science degree to help. I want to be able to build a system that can better track and prevent natural disasters. I believe that with this technology we could save many people one day.

My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. This is my story and it started nine years ago. My name is Rebecca Rogers and when I was a child, I always thought life would be an easy ride. However, my life has shown me, that this is not always the case. It all started when my father had picked up my family and moved to North Carolina​. ​Since the move, I slowly started to notice my father go down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry, then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary.The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. A man that no longer wanted to support his family or want anything to do with it. I no longer had a dad and life was about to get a lot more difficult. My mother was left with five kids and no job, she never even got a higher education degree. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs and went back to school, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30 am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system. I had to learn at an extremely young age how to help be an aspect of financial support in my family. My mom had taught me a lot as she had to work so hard. She taught me that the most important thing in life is to never give up and to never succumb. It didnt matter if she had to get up at five in the morning and go to bed at twelve at night, she did it because she knew she had to. She was determined to give us the life she wanted us to have. I had learned how to be a hard worker from her. Ever since I was twelve years old I have been working. I started my first job as a camp counselor and I have worked my way up to a management assistant at Jamba Juice. I continue to take what she has taught me within every aspect of my life. I continue to study hard to try and reach my goals so that I will never have to worry. Financial independence is extremely important to me because I never want to feel the way she did. I want to be able to know that life can have hard times but that I will always be able to push through them. I plan to continue my education and finish university so that I can continue on my way of financial independence by getting a good job, investing, and making sure to always have a backup plan. I plan to always stand strong in my finances and be the support I needed in him. I will use this scholarship money to help me in this process in order to help afford school. Thank you for your time and consideration, Rebecca

Anger, Anxiety, Fear, Stress. These are all of the things I feel everyday. Let me explain to you why and what I have learned from it. I am a child of abuse; my father was abusive. With this I developed a lot of mental illness as a child. I had to grow up in a world knowing that you cannot always rely on people and that people aren't always good. And that even the ones closest to you can majorly impact the way you see the world. For many years I let my father run my life, even though he was never even apart of it. I woke up most days feeling my throat was going to close and dreamt he would come back. I let it consume me. Many days I could not even get out of bed. I lied there every day, praying he wouldn't come back but at the same time wanting him to. I had let my life be completely controlled by the ghost of a person I used to know. I was always sick, couldn't go to school, and was hospitalized for anxiety. This was until I decided I had enough. My senior year of high school I was done living in the past. I needed to stop living for him and start living for me. Everyday of my senior year I got up, got the nicest close I could pick out, and decided to take my life into my own hands. I was no longer going to let my anxiety control me. I started waking up early every morning and going to the gym. I started taking responsibility for myself. This is when I learned how to live, how to grow, how to be better. I started reaching back out to friends that I had completely cut off and started helping other people who came from my situation. I joined the International Bachelorette program at my school and decided to do my project on educating mental illness. Me and my group had set up times to talk to students from different class rooms and share with them our experiences with mental illness. Finally, for once in my life, I did not feel alone. I continued to do this for my whole senior year. I was able to meet other people like me that had gone through the same experiences. These people became some of my closest friends even to today. We are always there for each other and do mental health check-in's every week. I have learned from my experience never to judge someone based on their cover because you really never know what's going on on the inside. We can never understand each other until we've walked in each others footsteps. And therefore, I ask you to help me help others and myself. By gifting me this scholarship, I will continue to be able to do what I love in life and what keeps me happy. I could really use this scholarship so I can continue doing what I love and continue growing in my journey of mental illness.

My life has not been a typical fairy tale but i've made it my own. My story is not a typical one, but my story is my whole identity. My father slammed the door and walked out. That was the last time I had seen my father. The day that a child loses a parent is one of immense pain that is unimaginable to a young child. That day is forever implanted into their mind and their abyss of thoughts. This is my story and it started nine years ago. My name is Rebecca Rogers and when I was a child, I always thought life would be an easy ride. However, my life has shown me, that is not always the case. I was born in Denver, Colorado to two amazing parents. I always thought that nothing could ever ruin this fairy tale that was my life. It all started when my father had picked up my family and moved to North Carolina​. ​Since the move, I slowly started to notice my father go down hill. At first he was angry, then very angry, then he became aggressive, and then very aggressive. How could this person I loved so much hurt me so significantly?. He didn't know what to do with the pain, so he decided to take it out on the only ones that truly loved him. From that day on, my home was no longer my sanctuary. I knew what was waiting for me. I knew that I was a mental and physical punching bag for the pain that was bottled up in my father. The father I knew was slowly dying, and was being replaced by an unrecognizable man. I always wanted to tell my mom, but inside I couldn't do that to her. So I kept up with the beating and the torture. Myself and my siblings took the sacrifice, to save something unsavable. I realized at ten years old that my great fairy tale was starting to collapse. I walked into a room to see my mother spreading tears across the bed.​ ​At that moment, I had realized my fate. I no longer had a dad. I had discovered at that moment what true heart wrenching pain felt like. I had felt my heart shatter into minuscule pieces. My mother was left with five kids and no job. With difficulty, we picked up the pieces. My mom started to get multiple jobs, and I was also given new responsibilities. I had to wake up at 6:30 am and wake up my other siblings, help make snacks, and help walk my siblings home from school. We had to make it work, just the six of us. As we helped each other cope, I realized I no longer had a father, but instead a true support system. The point of this story it to tell you how I showed up for an individual or infant many individuals. Those individuals are my siblings. I know this may be unconventional since everyone takes care of their siblings. But I had to go above and beyond being a regular sibling and I am so happy for it. Ever since my father left, I had to take control. I had to be on for them twenty four seven. It was hard but I did it because they needed me. I never wanted them to feel alone coming from a abusive home so I was always there for them and in return they were all here for me.

I believe that education is one of the most important aspects of our society. It is what grows our children into leaders and teaches us how to be. Without education our world would deplete. And that is why I believe that we all deserve a chance to go get a education. Education is a human right that we should all receive. We should all be able to learn and express ourselves in a educational platform. I believe it is key to the future of our society. Personally, college is very hard for my family to afford. I grew up with a home with a single mother supporting us five children. She has to work ninety hours and week and we barely are able to see her. Receiving this scholarship would take a lot of weight off of her shoulders and would help me pay for my education. Thank you, Rebecca

Diversity is the cornerstone of our human life. It is what keeps us divided or what brings us together. Without it we would never be able to function properly. One of the places where diversity is so important is in technology. In today's age diversity is growing more and more however, there are still area's where it has lacked to catch up. One of these area's is woman and BIPOC in the technological world. In my personal experience being a woman and coming from a multiple nationality background it has been hard for me in the tech world. I have felt as if I have had to try ten times harder than any other male counterpart. Diversity is important in the technological world because anyone of any gender, race, religion and more could have the exact same qualifications as anyone else. We are truly all the same. No gender should define how good someone is at their job. I see it in all sectors of the world. It has taken centuries for women to be held at the same level as men. Many fields such as: doctors, educators, lawyers and more have grown in the acceptance of woman. However, in the field of science we still have not reached that peak that we need to be at. Another reason why diversity is also important is because people grow up in different situations. For example, I grew up in a poor background so I may have a different view on technology than others which can help me bring more to the discussion table. In all, I can share another perspective. I think this is true in all fields, that having different perspectives from different walks of life is important. If we shut ourselves down to one way of thought or one perspective we will never succeed. In technology my hopes are to get a degree in computer science. I then plan to use this degree into becoming a software developer for geospatial analysis. Basically, I want to build systems that can help the world. Specifically, I want to develop systems that can help track and navigate natural disasters and storm patterns. It is my goal to get myself to NASA and from there I plan to build my own lab. This scholarship will help me finish university and continue on to completing what I want to achieve. I hope that you are able to grant me this scholarship and I hope I can use this money to improve the diversity in the technological world.

My throat is growing tighter and tighter and tighter. Every breath becomes harder, feeling like I'm drowning in water. Trying to come up for one second of oxygen and not being able to come to the surface. My throat begins to tingle and I feel my body slowly starting to give up. Each limb goes numb until I can’t feel anything. The whole world goes blank. “She’s made it… she’s back”, I hear the doctors say to my mother. I take in one deep breath and feel the world with me with every gulp. I made it, I survived. This is the story of the day I almost died because of food additives. At seven years old my life completely flashed before my eyes. I was a young girl sitting in front of the television. I grabbed a cup of gatorade and a bag of doritos. It was a beautiful day. As I ate, the day felt like any other day….until it wasn't. I started to feel a weird tingling sensation all over my body. It started to become hard to breathe. I ran to my mother trying to explain what was happening but nothing would come out. My mother didn't know what to do, she'd never heard of anaphylaxis before then. She rushed me to the hospital however half way there I started seizing and my heart stopped beating. I remember the last moments before I left, my mom grabbing my finger. In the ambulance they were able to revive me after two minutes of my heart stopping. “It was a miracle”, they said, “She shouldn't be alive”. After that day, I did months and months of allergy testing. Every week I get hundreds of bloody pricks in my back. Until the doctors made the discovery, I am allergic to dye and anything artificial. From that day I had to completely change my life and the way I ate. My family threw out everything artificial in our house and completely changed our diets. I was able to be safe in my house knowing that everything was natural and I never had to worry about that day repeating itself. Ever since, I have kept that natural diet everyday. I keep to pure foods and vegetables. If it weren't for these natural foods I would never be able to be safe. Without these dietary options my life maybe wouldn't be my safe. That is why I have such a close connection to healthy foods. I plan to work in environmental science as a software engineer to help spread the word of health and the environment. I hope that one day I can share my story to impact others to keep a clean food diet in their home.

Before the pandemic I was doing my same routine I did everyday. It was like a constant never ending clock always ticking. Everyday was exactly the same, I felt like I was drowning. I was in a school I hated, with a friend group that I had completely lost myself in, I felt completely and utterly alone. This was until the pandemic, I'd say it was the best thing to ever happen to me. I decided to change my life because I finally had a reason to. I left my University, moved countries and decided to start over. I took a year off a decided to really find who I am. With covid, I was able to discover my love for math again and express my artistic side. I did many projects and was able to learn many new skills. I learned to love life again. Along with that, my mom came home from work and we were able to deepen our relationship immensely, we are closer now than ever. In all, I decided to enroll back in college knowing what I was now looking for and who I am. The pandemic didn't ruin my life... it saved it.

My whole life I have been told that I would never succeed because of the way that I think. I have always had a fascination when it comes to the Sciences and Mathematics. I always saw it as an unexplored world, waiting for me to find its answers. Even though I love the sciences and Mathematics, I have never been able to explain my work. I have always gone off the traditional path to find my own road. I solve questions in my own unique ways. I am able to visualize numbers in my head and am adept to connect them in unexplanatory ways. My life revolves around numbers the way the solar system orbits around the sun. My life and numbers have always been intertwined. However, when I was younger, my love was not always understood by the education system. I was pushed down for having my own thoughts and exploring. I was criticized because I wanted to find answers in my own way, I wanted to explore an unknown world. I was dismissed for not doing the work precisely as it is shown by the administrators. I used to feel like I was alone in my own atmosphere, never able to find my way back. I was consistently shoved back into my cocoon, never able to grow. This was my experience until I entered sophmore year at a different school. I entered this school looking for a new environment, a place where I could thrive. I walked into the International Baccalaureate office for the first time at sixteen years old, and from then on my world was completely altered. Everyone was sitting at these round tables collaborating and exploring collectively. At this school I was able to discover my infatuation for physics and computer science. I found a place where I was finally able to belong. I spent my life those two years in the bottom floor of the building, in the physics lab, discovering myself. My teachers let me learn in distinct ways and let me develop into who I truly was. I was able to experiment, study, and find different ways of learning. I was taught methods from all over the globe, and I felt such a sense of belonging. I can surely say for the first time in sixteen years, I had finally been able to shine. I broke away from my cocoon that I had been hiding in my whole life. I broke away from all of my fears, doubts, and unknowns. I tore away from the thoughts of all of the years I was told I wasn't doing it right. I was able to uncover and find myself, and I say with certainty that I was finally able to fly. I had become a dazzling glowing butterfly. I soared across all dimensions, exploring all unknown, reaching the edges of the atmosphere. For the first time in my life, I felt accepted and appreciated for the way I think. I have failed as most of us have, but I have learned from it, I have learned who I am. I have been in schools that have always torn me down, told me to think like everyone else, but I am proud that I didn't succumb to being ordinary. Leaving this school and environment was very difficult for me, but I am hoping with your scholarships I can go to a place where I can continue to grow and continue to fly higher and higher than I have ever flown before.

1a) Influence means something so powerful to me. Something that can completely impact all decision making. 1b) I think I influence my siblings by never letting them give up on themselves because I never gave up on myself of my dreams even when it got tough. 2) I am dealing with hardship in University. I have always solved problems differently and have thought about STEM differently. I solve problems in my head and I have a hard time showing work which has always been difficult in this field. However, I never give up. I always keep going and striving for more. 3a) I plan to go into geospatial software development 3b) I want to help people and the environment at the same time and I want to do it using my love for computer science. I want to do natural disaster tracking using geospatial software systems. I hope to get to NASA one dat. 4) This scholarship would mean being able to continue my dreams. I come from a single mother home and we do not have a lot of money to spare. I do not want my mom to have to spend money on me to be able to go to school because I do not want to stomp on her dreams as well. This would really help me support myself in getting books for school.

Anger, Anxiety, Fear, Stress. These are all of the things I feel everyday. Let me explain to you why and what I have learned from it. I am a child of abuse; my father was abusive. With this I developed a lot of mental illness as a child. I had to grow up in a world knowing that you cannot always rely on people and that people aren't always good. And that even the ones closest to you can majorly impact the way you see the world. For many years I let my father run my life, even though he was never even apart of it. I woke up most days feeling my throat was going to close and dreamt he would come back. I let it consume me. Many days I could not even get out of bed. I lied there every day, praying he wouldn't come back but at the same time wanting him to. I had let my life be completely controlled by the ghost of a person I used to know. I was always sick, couldn't go to school, and was hospitalized for anxiety. This was until I decided I had enough. My senior year of high school I was done living in the past. I needed to stop living for him and start living for me. Everyday of my senior year I got up, got the nicest close I could pick out, and decided to take my life into my own hands. I was no longer going to let my anxiety control me. I started waking up early every morning and going to the gym. I started taking responsibility for myself. This is when I learned how to live, how to grow, how to be better. I started reaching back out to friends that I had completely cut off and started helping other people who came from my situation. I joined the International Bachelorette program at my school and decided to do my project on educating mental illness. Me and my group had set up times to talk to students from different class rooms and share with them our experiences with mental illness. Finally, for once in my life, I did not feel alone. I continued to do this for my whole senior year. I was able to meet other people like me that had gone through the same experiences. These people became some of my closest friends even to today. We are always there for each other and do mental health check-in's every week. I have learned from my experience never to judge someone based on their cover because you really never know what's going on on the inside. We can never understand each other until we've walked in each others footsteps. And therefore, I ask you to help me help others and myself. By gifting me this scholarship, I will continue to be able to do what I love in life and what keeps me happy. I could really use this scholarship so I can continue doing what I love and continue growing in my journey of mental illness.

My whole life I have been told that I would never succeed because of the way that I think. I have always had a fascination when it comes to the Sciences and Mathematics. I always saw it as an unexplored world, waiting for me to find its answers. Even though I love the sciences and Mathematics, I have never been able to explain my work. I have always gone off the traditional path to find my own road. I solve questions in my own unique ways. I am able to visualize numbers in my head and am adept to connect them in unexplanatory ways. My life revolves around numbers the way the solar system orbits around the sun. My life and numbers have always been intertwined. However, when I was younger, my love was not always understood by the education system. I was pushed down for having my own thoughts and exploring. I was criticized because I wanted to find answers in my own way, I wanted to explore an unknown world. I was dismissed for not doing the work precisely as it is shown by the administrators. I used to feel like I was alone in my own atmosphere, never able to find my way back. I was consistently shoved back into my cocoon, never able to grow. This was my experience until I entered sophmore year at a different school. I entered this school looking for a new environment, a place where I could thrive. I walked into the International Baccalaureate office for the first time at sixteen years old, and from then on my world was completely altered. Everyone was sitting at these round tables collaborating and exploring collectively. At this school I was able to discover my infatuation for physics and computer science. I found a place where I was finally able to belong. I spent my life those two years in the bottom floor of the building, in the physics lab, discovering myself. My teachers let me learn in distinct ways and let me develop into who I truly was. I was able to experiment, study, and find different ways of learning. I was taught methods from all over the globe, and I felt such a sense of belonging. I can surely say for the first time in sixteen years, I had finally been able to shine. I broke away from my cocoon that I had been hiding in my whole life. I broke away from all of my fears, doubts, and unknowns. I tore away from the thoughts of all of the years I was told I wasn't doing it right. I was able to uncover and find myself, and I say with certainty that I was finally able to fly. I had become a dazzling glowing butterfly. I soared across all dimensions, exploring all unknown, reaching the edges of the atmosphere. For the first time in my life, I felt accepted and appreciated for the way I think. I have failed as most of us have. But I have learned from it, I have learned who I am. I have learned about myself and have been able to thrive under being challenged. I have been in schools that have always torn me down, told me to think like everyone else, but I am proud that I didn't succumb to being ordinary. Leaving this school and environment was very difficult for me, but I am hoping with your scholarship I can go to a place where I can continue to grow and continue to fly higher and higher than I have ever flown before.