Since a young age, my parents made it very clear what a privilege being born and brought up in America is. The "land of opportunity" they called it, coming from India. Here, I was able to do whatever I set my heart to, and I had the resources and support to do just that. In India, you had to fit a certain mold, formed by society and had no freedom to follow your dreams. Taking advantage of my freedom, I try to give back to my community. My entire view of life has been shaped by being a first-generation high school student because I've viewed life here through a lens of being grateful. Because of that, one of my favorite pastimes is giving back to the community. I love doing community service whenever I find time, and over the pandemic, I learned about virtual volunteering which has become one of my hobbies when I get free time. Virtual volunteering includes making cards at home, cleaning trash from local parks, helping aide machine learning in identification, and a variety of things. I volunteer at our local food bank, public library, and temple library weekly, now that things are starting to open up. I've even started the first youth chapter of a movement called HungerMitao, which has the goal to unite the Indian-American community against food insecurity. This involved communication, critical thinking skills, and advocacy. I started this with my friend because we were wanting to give back to this country that has provided so much for us. In addition to volunteering and community service, I want to become a doctor when I grow up. This is because I want to be able to help people without access to medical care who need it. My ultimate goal is to study here, and go back to India to help people in need of free medical care. So far I've been really interested in diabetes research, and participated in an internship put on by the American Diabetes Association. I hope to someday go into the study of diabetes and help find a treatment. I am also thankful for the quality of life here. When I go back to India, I see people sleeping in streets, living off of profits from their small shops, barely any road rules, bad pollution and littering, and more. In comparison, everything is organized within systems in America which keeps us safe and civil. Although I am considering myself very lucky to live in the United States, I love the culture, people, and overall atmosphere of India, and I wouldn't want to be from anywhere else. I'm very proud of who I am and where I come from, but I also see room for opportunity. Obviously, change takes time, and I have high hopes for India, but I'm also very glad to be able to live here in the United States.

Imagine having a universal shoe size. Convenient, right? Shoes are something everybody owns and brings with them everywhere they go! You could go into anyone's house and ask to borrow a pair without even worrying about your shoe size! Unfortunately the body doesn't really allow us to have that ability, so you're stuck with bringing your own pair for now. Bummer, I know. Now imagine that situation again, but with phone chargers in place of shoe size. Thanks to USB-C, it's now possible to have a universal phone charger. We're used to having a different charger per device- Apple, Android, Windows, etc. Which becomes a major inconvenience when it comes to transporting your devices. I've grown up always having an Android and every time I went to a friend's house, I would bring an extra charger to keep at my their house so I didn't have to worry about it in the future. Last year, I got a phone which uses USB-C, and as they gained popularity, my problems seemed to vanish. All of a sudden, my phone, iPad, and laptop had the same charger! Now I no longer had to bring my charger with me everywhere, because people started to have the same one as I did, regardless of their device! USB stands for Universal Serial Bus (but this is as close to universal as it can be so far), and C is just the type. It's not only is able to transmit both power and data over a single cable, but also works on both sides! It even has the ability to transfer video and sound! Newer devices have a built-in port, and the USB side of it is still compatible with older devices. If you don't have one already, you should really look into investing in one!