The hardest and most beneficial assignment I received when I entered college was to learn how to love myself. For the majority of my life, I’ve been a people pleaser; someone who worries excessively about offending and inconveniencing other people. Because I have this anxiety I often shy away from asking other people for things, ranging from asking my parents for extra groceries to requesting help with academics. When I got to college, my anxiety to reach out to others took a substantial toll on my mental health. I was often too anxious to ask my friends to hang out with me, I asked for help as little as possible when I was sick, and rarely sought assistance with tough assignments. Despite having many friends around me, I felt incredibly lonely and uncomfortably self-reliant. At a certain point, I'd stopped trying to please others, and stopped trying to make myself happy as well. Luckily, my family convinced me to reach out for help. Without going into detail, after a few weeks of focused self-reflection, I gained a deeper understanding of myself and the sources of my anxiety. I was able to make peace with myself, and learn to prioritize my fulfillment over pleasing other people. During the second semester, I joined two clubs, attended more events around campus, and even made friends with a person I had feelings for. As a result, I learned more about a variety of STEM and art topics, learned more about how I interact with others, and enjoyed significantly better mental and physical health than in the previous semester. While none of these factors changed my GPA, I managed my work and classes more efficiently because I was generally happier. The fact that I was studying something that I loved the whole time contributed to my happiness. I love STEM because it facilitates creation. Since I was a child I loved to create things and STEM often gave me a way to do so. I've evolved from trying to create new chemicals with household items, to building model bridges, to what I’ve settled on: programming software that allows me to simulate both. I love the idea that I don't have to stop at mimicking real things though. I can simulate being an Italian plumber who can jump several times his body height and fights a fire-breathing turtle (Mario). Games allow me to fully express my creativity through visual art, music, narrative, and gameplay. I wouldn’t be where I am today without those who continue to support me financially, academically, and emotionally. My parents, professors, and friends have caught me and taught me, and believed in my potential to give more back to the community with every bit I learn. I want this scholarship to be part of my support system, because I promise that I will only do bigger and better things in college and my career. I’ll be able to offer people more than robotic pieces of media, I’ll offer them an experience charged with the fascination I have for my field. Using the skills I gain over these next few years I will capitalize on video games’ power to uniquely immerse players in narrative. By situating them in perspectives of diverse characters and varied social environments, I hope to encourage people to learn more about each other and the world around them.

Have you ever sipped a glass of tea while being serenaded by Tupac? Well my dad has, and coming home to that will forever live in my brain. My dad is an interesting character to say the least. He’s the type to read books, play video games, lift weights and garden in his free time. Realistically, it’s impossible to describe everything that my dad is and is to me in less than 600 words, but I can cover what makes him the ULTIM-ate dad: Unique, Loving, Thoughtful, Intelligent, and Motivated. One thing I love about my dad is his motivation to try new things. My dad regularly tries unfamiliar restaurants, exercises, music, etc. so it’s rare that I have a dull conversation with him. I love that we can talk about Tupac (old) and Billie Eilish (new), and can both appreciate a well-made video game. I think having that broad range of skills and broad knowledge makes my dad a fun person to be around, and an engaging person to listen to. I can also say I’ve performed better in school just by paying attention when he talks. When I was younger, I used to say that my dad “over-educated” me. In other words my education didn’t stop when I left school. During car rides and random points in the day I learned about the different types of angles, doctors, computer parts, etc. In fact, I learned how unborn babies breathe while waiting to ride a Disney World roller coaster. My dad taught me thoughtfulness to accompany all of this knowledge. Since I was a child my dad invited me to have reflective conversations with him. It was usually evening, we would sit in the living room with the tv off and distractions put away, and he would ask me “how’s life?” Before we knew it, an hour would pass and we’d have to stop so I could go to bed. My dad normalized asking questions and working towards their answers when I was with him. That thoughtfulness has brought me far in school, but it's also helped me develop empathy for others and process my emotions. I love my dad, and he’s incessantly reminded me that he loves me no matter what. I’ve changed faiths, schools, sports, appearances, and sexualities and in his words I’ve still failed to disappoint him. It’s also non-trivial that I’ve known him for all of my life. My dad is not the stereotypical absent black father. Despite their divorce he’s never lived more than an hour away from my mom, and I’ve spent roughly equal time with both parents. My dad’s love expands beyond me though. In recent years, he’s devoted his life to helping some of the most stigmatized people in our society. My dad works with veterans as a psych nurse and his patients have nominated him for multiple awards because of his quality care. Needless to say, he inspires me to help other people in my career as well. If nothing else, I think my dad is unique because he has done everything that I've described above. He's motivated to try new things and is constantly evolving. His intelligence spans many disciplines. He thinks about the things that he's learned, and he uses his knowledge to show love for other people. I feel incredibly gifted to have the father that I do because he's been what a father should be: an inspiration to his kid. I've developed into a person I’m proud of largely thanks to him and that's why I call him the ULTIM-ate dad.

Consuming entertainment is as important as eating, but like food, not all media is equally nutritious. For as long as people have eaten, they’ve found ways to keep themselves entertained. Even when food was scarce, e.g. the Great Depression, people frequented movie theaters and entertainment venues. Much of modern entertainment, however, aims to take advantage of this need. Social media and many video games are engineered to drip feed us dopamine, not offer lasting fulfillment. I want to create media that is fulfilling: media that make you laugh, cry, and curse in new ways, and remember that experience the next day. Creating story-based games can help me accomplish this goal. They allow players to engage in exciting gameplay while immersing themselves in a meaningful story. Celeste, for example, tells the story of a transgender woman, Madeline, confronting her anxiety by climbing a mountain. The game features satisfyingly difficult climbing and a heartfelt story that creates empathy between you and her. In Celeste, you must face each of Madeline's struggles with her: climbing, overcoming panic attacks, and outrunning physical manifestations of her anxiety. By making you holistically play as Madeline, Celeste immerses you in its narrative in the way that only video games can. By the end of the game, you can take joy in both your new climbing skills and Madeline’s conquest of her mental health. Celeste demonstrates how games that have fun gameplay and meaningful narrative, can benefit the global community. Its fun, puzzle-like platforming and empathy-inducing story exist to offer a lasting, introspective experience to players, regardless of their background. We all have our own mountains. Celeste also spotlights the smaller, “local” communities of transgender people and those who have anxiety disorders. Madeline represents someone in both communities, and her success story can be as inspirational as any of our other fantasy heroes. If I can develop a narrative that feels as real as hers, I believe I can deliver a similarly salient message to my players. As I continue to study game development and creative writing at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), I will improve at creating fun, impactful games. Studying game design will teach me how to combine code, art, music, and sounds to create engaging gameplay. Studying storytelling will enable me to imagine worlds and characters that people become invested in. Through every year of college I’d like to improve at creating games and writing narratives in a measurable way, which is why I’ve been practicing these skills through class projects and game competitions. While I haven’t created anything groundbreaking yet, my improvements are visible. With the help of my passionate professors and classmates, over the next 5 years I believe I can create media with a message that is globally appealing. I’m also using my skills and knowledge to help my local community. This past semester I became a cabinet member of RIT’s game development club. There I am able to facilitate meetings, give presentations, and give constructive feedback to my club members. I also contacted a wider community of prospective students and Rochester locals by presenting at the student games showcases. There my team and I were able to encourage other game developers to keep creating, and show aspiring students what they could accomplish by pursuing their passions in college. Over the next few years I will continue working to support others in my local Rochester community. Ultimately, I’m focused on making a positive impact on the people around me. I’m refining my skills as a game developer, writer, and communicator to do so.

Nowadays I tend to be more of an anime re-watcher than someone who seeks out new shows. Since I spend most of my free time working on personal projects, rewatching anime feels like eating a snack - a guaranteed rush of dopamine. One anime that’s never become less funny or entertaining to me is the nuanced romantic-comedy, Oregairu. “...Fools who enjoy this thing called ‘youth’ should kill themselves” - Hachiman Hikigaya. Oregairu’s protagonist, Hachiman, is a depressed, lonely high school student, but to him he’s just a realist. He believes his peers are idiotic for ascribing to a ‘young dumb’ mentality. They blame their character flaws on their age and claim to be free while desperately trying to fit in. Hachiman is happy to be a loner if it means he’s not part of a delusional society. Hachiman’s confidence in his loneliness makes for some hilarious interactions with his classmates. For example when he meets an attractive peer, he mentally remarks “if [Totsuka] was a girl I would have already confessed and gotten rejected. Wait…rejected already?” As happens often in the show, the contrast between his self confidence and low self-esteem makes an amazing punchline. In another funny scene, he claims he’s going to “get serious” if he starts losing a tennis match. By this he means prostrating himself and begging for his opponents’ mercy. Oregairu also draws me into its characters through its serious scenes. The protagonists are all part of the volunteering club, where helping peers is the club activity. Because all of the club members are social misfits, however, each member struggles to satisfy the requests. Hachiman’s callousness nearly tears apart the club, and Yukino (another member) becomes ill trying to finish an entire committee's paperwork. The service club members thus often need to compromise in some way to keep their promises. In the given example, Hachiman had to become more tactful and Yukino more reliant. Seeing how the characters evolve while trying to maintain their core values has never stopped being interesting to me. Another character who, despite his lack of deep scenes, brings me back to the anime is Saika Totsuka. As alluded earlier, Saika and Hachiman have a funny romantic tension. Hachiman, despite being straight, is attracted to Saika who has a soft voice and pretty face. Though nothing deeper becomes of their relationship, their cute back and forth encouraged me to reflect on my sexuality. I’ve been attracted to androgyny since childhood, and seeing homosexual romance in anime always made me uniquely happy. Over time I have found myself attracted to men like Saika, and today consider myself queer. Thus, whenever I watch Oregairu, I get to see a character who has taught me about myself. Oregairu is one anime that I can watch repeatedly, because it’s satisfyingly lighthearted and meaningful. I scrutinized it to write this essay, and now I can appreciate its impact on me more. In addition to being a fun time, the show offers a deep look into the process of finding one’s place in society. Being a loner may seem like a safe or comfortable choice, but it’s not necessary. Though it requires compromise, you can retain your uniqueness and happily coexist with others. With a well-written and fleshed-out cast on top of this compelling message, I am always excited to come back and watch Oregairu again.

I’m most passionate about math’s creative uses. I use math to add new features to my games which allows me to accomplish my ultimate goal as a game developer - eliciting an emotional response from players. While math only serves as the mechanical base of these features (art and/or music is needed to fully elicit a psycho-emotional impact) I still think it’s amazing how strongly math can support such a humanities-focused goal. Its ability to do so implies that mathematics and humanities are not as divorced as we often paint them (e.g. by separating them into STEM and humanities or right v. left-brained). However, I believe I’m fascinated by math beyond its personal usefulness. Thinking about math as a lens through which we perceive the world is also enthralling. We can observe the Fibonacci sequence in flower petals and population growth, and at this perspective’s largest scale, we can argue that math created the universe. The creation of planets, stars, solar systems, and even life can be attributed to a pseudorandom pushing and pulling of forces. I believe understanding the universe as a product of some natural math that predates man-made metrics, allows us to understand math as much more than just numbers. This meta-numeric perspective of math makes it all the more broad and engrossing. I believe that Rochester Institute of Technology will entertain and further enlighten a math lover like me. There I will be surrounded by people who have a passion for creating with math and/or using math to aid their passions. I can’t wait to learn from my professors in my game development coursework, as well as my friends and classmates this coming fall.

The fact that there exists a man who grew old in a first-world country without ever learning to read or write implies that we lack some primordial empathy for our fellow man. During the start of my current internship, our organization had a speaker come to talk with our mentees about interview etiquette. During the talk, she recounted an experience she had as a drug rehabilitation counselor. One senior citizen in the program lived a life so thoroughly destroyed by addiction that he had never learned to read or write. When he questioned how she could help him recover, get a job, and sustain himself, she struggled to see a path for him as well. This experience taught her the importance of supporting disadvantaged people early in life, as many who we consider disadvantaged now faced a lack of support since childhood. I’m glad that people like her, contribute to the creation of a strong support system for youth, so that old man’s case becomes more rare. However, I wonder where those people were in that old man’s early life and his parents', who also struggled with drug addiction. I believe that every person we have in jail and who sleeps on the street signifies a failure of our society. We’re good enough to keep these people alive with food stamps, homeless shelters, and jails, but not caring enough to help them actually live. They face discrimination, are segregated from people with more money, and survive off of high-calorie, low-nutrition foods, and because of these and many other reasons often have little ability to improve their lives. Yet we are supposed to be the land of the free. America wears many badges, but it is a country that spends $32 billion putting people into space and less than a tenth of that to address homelessness. That is to say, we are advanced in many ways, but as a community, we have a lot of improving to do. Though giving people the support they need is a complex process, I believe it is necessary. Trying to support other people can manifest as sacrificing some of one's resources and stability, making it uncomfortably selfless. Even the more selfless may worry about investing their resources into helping others, asking questions such as “What are they going to do with that $5?” The disadvantaged person has to demonstrate their drive to help themself as well. However, in light of the fact that we are social beings, who do have a primordial urge to help each other, I have to believe that these relationships can and will exist if we put more time and resources into the issue.

In March 2023, my school was one of many that had a temporary lockdown due to a hoax school shooter message. While the message was fake, the fear and intensity of the experience were very real. When the blue point alarm first sounded, many of my classmates laughed thinking we were only doing a drill. However, as we sat in our dark classroom watching police arrive with real, huge guns, that laughter and comfort quickly dissipated. Students disregarded the school’s no-cellphone policy and contacted their parents and friends, and some searched the internet for more details on our situation. After the campus was deemed safe, my mom came to take me home, but a teacher had to escort me through a long line of parents stopped at our front door to reach her. In the following weeks, my school had teachers patrol the halls to ensure students were wearing their ids, and they even repealed the longstanding no-cellphone policy. Honestly, I’m glad that I get to say that’s all that happened. I’m happy I don’t have to recount any of my friends or teachers being wounded or killed when telling that story because I know many people are less fortunate. I was still able to eat out at a restaurant later on the day of the incident, and over the next few days, I continued making games, tumbling in the park, and rehearsing for our school musical as usual. When I was younger, I thought guns were cool. The better gun you had in Halo, or Call of Duty, the more advantage you had over your opponents. I applied the same logic to real gun fights, thinking people who carried big guns were powerful and victorious. Today, however, I’m much less enamored with guns. I think the fact that people feel the need to fire their emotions out of a barrel points to an array of deficiencies people face in our society, and I hope to bring awareness to those in my career as an educational video game developer. Earlier this year I laid the groundwork for a game that would have players confront the consequences of violence towards people and other creatures. In this game, you play as a mercenary placed in the center of a very high conflict, divided society, where you are constantly encouraged to sabotage the groups you don’t side with and struggle to progress without pledging your allegiance to one side. In this game, I plan to show players the fear and chaos caused by destroying enemy bases, sabotaging their resources, and hurting the co-inhabitants of the planet. I plan on taking inspiration from similar games that have seen worldwide success, where other characters, for example, hide from you or treat you worse if you’ve been harming their families and friends. When I started the project in the fall of 2022, I didn’t have the experience or assets to create this game. However, as I study game development in college and meet new talented individuals, I believe I will gain the necessary knowledge and connections to fulfill the vision I have for this game. Additionally, if I can collect the resources I need to complete my current game that focuses on dealing with problems, I can expand beyond spreading awareness and offer some methods of addressing difficulties in one’s life. I don’t believe anyone should have a school shooting story, hoax or not, so I’d like to try to decrease those numbers by creating these real-life-relevant games as I move through college and into my career.

You know those games that toddlers play where they have to match the right shape piece with the right hole? I’m kind of like one of those pieces, but if you rotate me slightly, I can fit into other holes. That is to say, throughout my life, I have not formed myself into a standard shape, I’ve become my own patented polygon. I believe this is largely a result of my passionate pursuit of many different activities. For example, in my freshman year of high school, I retired from taekwondo after earning my black belt to pursue another amazing sport: martial arts tricking. Martial arts tricking is an acrobatic sport that combines kicks from taekwondo, tumbling flips, breakdancing, capoeira, and many other movement disciplines. One tricking move that I fell in love with was the butterfly twist (btwist): a one-legged jump, followed by a horizontal 360 twist that lands on the jump leg. Despite being a black belt in taekwondo, I had never tried anything like that before, so when I did, of course, I failed. I fell hard over and over and over again, and I came home feeling defeated by this move that other people were using as a setup for even harder tricks. I had been tricking for about a year before I landed my first btwist; I finally watched the right tutorial which taught me the technique I needed to land it and today doing btwists is second nature. I’ve gone through a similar process to accomplish many things: solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded, making music, writing stories, illustrating a published children’s book with my mom, programming video games, graduating from my school's honors program, etc.. The fact that I’ve literally thrown myself toward my many diverse goals has molded me into the unique polygon I mentioned earlier. I hope to help people find their shape in my career as an educational game developer. I believe a lot of my creative motivation comes from the feeling that I could have a unique, positive effect on other people, so I want to create entertaining, interactive allegories for players to enjoy and learn from. My current video game project, “SadBoi Simulator” aims to gamify and perhaps simplify the concept of dealing with personal problems. It represents therapists as 'senseis' who help the player fight different bosses (problems) that plague their everyday life. Each boss the player defeats grants them a magnifying glass, allowing them to 'look deeper into their problems' and the player learns new techniques to defeat each boss. Right now, my friends and I are the main people who have benefitted from the project, as I love working on it, and my friends seem to really enjoy helping out. However, once I release the game demo, I believe a much wider audience will have the chance to enjoy the content.

I want to progress people towards a happier, more satisfying existence on earth. I believe that one of the best ways to do that is through education as the more educated one is, the more they can appreciate the beauty of the world and satisfy the human urge to create. For example, relationship education can provide one with the skills necessary to enjoy a happy, healthy relationship, and a developed understanding of literature can help one write a story they want to read. However, I often hear my friends and classmates talking about how bored they are in class, and many studies student disengagement is a nationwide problem. While I dislike some teaching methods in concept, for the most part I’ve enjoyed school education. Throughout my life I’ve enjoyed pulling life lessons out of different books in English class, learning how things came to be in history, and refining my logical problem solving skills in math and science. Especially now as I move closer to my career, I see how all of the theory we’ve been taught can be applied to produce tangible objects and ideas that advance and aid society. For these reasons, I look forward to studying game development in college in pursuit of a STEAM career where I can be at the forefront of both the humanities and science. However, school learning has still caused me a lot of stress. Throughout my educational career, I’ve struggled most with self-doubt. Suffice to say, I have attached my personal adequacy to my grades many times. I have found that to some degree as I place myself into more educationally advanced environments it can seem like my achievements are lesser. Some call this imposter syndrome, following the idea that you’re around so many people who are doing really amazing things that you question the magnitude of your achievements. As a result, I’ve become somewhat competitive. For example, I may celebrate being one of a few people who scored very high on a test. While I don’t feel that achievement is not worth celebrating, I ask myself why should I be the only one to succeed. I believe it can be dangerous to validate or invalidate one’s achievements based off those of other people, for when I do poorly in class I wonder whether or not I am truly capable. It’s helped me to answer the question of why I’m trying to educate myself. I believe the best way for me to use education is as a basis for creation. Why would I study physics? So that I could more most accurately simulate them in a game I’m creating. why study history, so I can recreate a scene from the past for my players to experience. I guess I believe that application is the greatest sign of educational achievement.

How many times have people who could have cured cancer been born? This is a question I believe we should ask when assessing the importance of diversity in STEM. I wonder how many scientific achievements have not happened, happened slower or were less significant because would-be contributors had the wrong color of skin. Resistance to diversity in STEM stifles the advancement of humanity in its entirety as it limits the potential of many great minds, offers science a smaller group of influences off of which to grow, and contributes to a lack of equity in society. The greatest scientific achievements are products of a diverse group of influences. We often say that two minds are greater than one, but this is most true when those minds are different. The more people of different backgrounds and thought processes try to solve a problem, the more new solutions will likely arise. Thereafter, the strengths of each solution can be isolated and combined to make a better solution than any individual had thought of. The other benefit of diverse contributions to the same idea is that each person is likely to try to benefit a group of factors that they find important. Having people ask, “What about x population” is how we obtain more widely beneficial laws and healthcare policies for example. Diversity is crucial to the creative process and necessary to ensure the maximum number of people benefit from new inventions, discoveries, etc. which is why it is very important STEM. American STEM field diversity additionally serves as a measure of the opportunities provided to minorities in America. Denial of STEM careers is one of many barriers to diversity in STEM. Many minorities who desire a career in STEM have or will also face educational barriers, such as poor STEM schooling because they live in a historically underserved black neighborhood. They might also face financial struggles to attend a accredited STEM college or have to get a job immediately after high school to help support their family. A lack of diversity in STEM, therefore, can point to a lack of equity in society as many minorities may have no way of going through the steps necessary to obtain a STEM career. In my future career as an educational video game developer, I hope to teach students the importance of diversity and collaboration. I plan to incorporate such themes into my games as, the importance of looking at problems from various perspectives and realizing that great achievements are the product of group work, not a single protagonist. Hopefully for those who do these encourage those who do not have as many barriers to STEM to collaborate with people of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, and provide all players with some of the skills necessary for good teamwork.