A pinnacle aspect of the teenage experience is maturing and realizing first, the world does not revolve around your experiences, and second, learning how to fail. Many artists have attempted to capture these feelings and emotional turmoil by writing for teens. However, unlike those other artists - like Sabrina Carpenter or Taylor Swift - Olivia Rodrigo writes about her teenage experiences. There is a clear distinction between aiming to describe an experience that was lived many years ago versus writing lyrics about current tragedies one is trying to process. That is Olivia Rodrigo. She boomed to popularity after digesting a nasty breakup through an album that many people could relate to. It was an authentic connection people could develop with her music; it is a stronger link to her audience than if she had sung about a hypothetical experience and acted out those emotions. Olivia’s songs are ripe with genuine emotions - she does not have to act out any of her hurt, frustrations, or happiness. In “Vampire,” she sings about being tricked by an older guy. While that might not be the most relatable interaction for most people, the emotions of betrayal, maturing, and failing are themes almost everyone can relate to. The line, “I used to think I was smart But you’ve made me look so naive” is especially poignant to young adults. Almost everyone endures a situation where they realize the world is much wider than their understanding, resulting in them feeling dumb. I have made many of these mistakes and realizations: joining track, I realized the hard way I was as slow as a turtle; competing in speech and debate taught me I had a lot of room to improve my public speaking skills; moving to college ripped me out of my bubble of comfort. Making mistakes is part of the journey, but developing one’s character is often a painful road to walk. Having someone who wishes you harm in the picture can often make that development even more complicated than it already is. Rather than being able to privately process any experience, there is still someone in the picture who is still causing additional hurt - whether that is a romantic partner, ex, parent, friend, or even rival. No life is perfect, but adding in complicated factors can force one to endure far more than they are capable of - resulting in feeling stupid for falling for any traps or cliches that, looking back on, are quite cringeworthy. Olivia Rodrigo understands and lives through this adventure of life around just a few years ahead of most of her fans. She has an element of authenticity that benefits her relatability, and she is not afraid of being vulnerable in the most descriptive way. It gives the impression she is writing with us fans, rather than for us.

Growing up in church has impacted my life for the best and helped me discover what I would like to pursue as my career. Moving to a non-religious college forced me to reconcile my own faith in Christ - leading me to join a small Bible study associated with Cru with other girls on my campus. All of them pursue different majors and life goals than I, but it opened my mind to different opportunities out there. This group has become my lifeline of support for when I’m struggling, because everyone in the group supports each other and offer assistance whenever we can. In addition to my current Bible study, my church at home is filled with older adults who act as mentors. They are always willing to sit down and help me work through any questions I had and even encouraged me to pursue whatever felt fulfilling. Their kindness and dedication inspired me to follow in their footsteps by not only being an amazing friend and setting a Christ-like example in my own life, but to also pursue a passion that allowed me to help others. In part to their investment in my life, I knew I wanted to be able to pour into others and help them however I could. This revelation resulted in my desire to represent writers as a lawyer. Ever since I was young, I adored reading and writing. Ever since I was about six years old, my dad would joke about how he was going to limit the number of books I was allowed to read because everytime he would come talk or hang out with me, I always had a book in hand. Aside from reading, I had not explored other ways to feed into this thirst for knowledge. During the COVID lockdowns, I started writing a sci-fi story. While it is arguably the worst thing I have ever written or read, it ignited a passion for writing. I devoured blogs, articles, and books about how to craft the perfect story. This passion dwindled out for a little before I ended up finishing the story. At this point, around 2022, I discovered the Young Writer’s Workshop and convinced my parents to enroll me. It was the best time I ever had. I met lifelong friends, wrote two additional books, and learned valuable lessons about everything pertaining to not only fiction writing, but also the struggles writers face in their everyday lives. Around this time, my parents were worried that I was going to forever be the reclusive homeschooled child who would prefer to hole up in her house with her cats for weeks instead of engaging in normal society. So, they also enrolled me in STOA Speech and Debate - a faith-based league specifically designed with homeschoolers in mind. At first, despite my lifelong dream to join something similar when I was younger, I despised it. I had to talk to people? In large group settings? While giving a speech I wrote? No thanks. However, I sampled a tournament where I competed in a couple select speech events and debate - and fell in love. I loved researching, I loved organizing the arguments, I loved writing my speeches. Sure, the presenting part was terrifying, but falling head over heels for research helped overcome this fear. I begged my parents to let me continue, and I eventually started placing well in the rankings, added on several speech events and an additional debate event, and started focusing on honing my research skills. All of this merged once I reached college. I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I loved politics, debate, and writing, so I decided to pursue those majors for a year to see if something clicked. After talking with some of my friends who pursued their writing professionally, I learned about how they are underrepresented and abused contractually by publishing companies seeking to publish them. I realized I was gifted with the skills to be that representation to my friends - specifically, as a lawyer in intellectual property or contract law. Thanks to my experience at the writing workshop, debate league, and seeking guidance from the mentors in my life, I desire to help others with kindness who would otherwise flounder without that necessary legal guidance.

My church community has impacted my life for the best and helped me discover what I would like to pursue as my career. Moving to a non-religious college forced me to reconcile my own faith in Christ - leading me to join a small Bible study associated with Cru with other girls on my campus. All of them pursue different majors and life goals than I, but it opened my mind to different opportunities out there. This group has become my lifeline of support for when I’m struggling, because everyone in the group supports each other and offer assistance whenever we can. In addition to my current Bible study, my church at home is filled with older adults who act as mentors. They are always willing to sit down and help me work through any questions I had and even encouraged me to pursue whatever felt fulfilling. Their kindness and dedication inspired me to follow in their footsteps by not only being an amazing friend and setting a Christ-like example in my own life, but to also pursue a passion that allowed me to help others. In part to their investment in my life, I knew I wanted to be able to pour into others and help them however I could. I have always adored the written word. Since I was about six years old, my dad would joke about limiting the number of books I was allowed to read because I always had a book. Aside from reading, I had not explored other ways to feed this thirst for knowledge. During the COVID lockdowns, I started writing a sci-fi story. While it is arguably the worst thing I have ever read, it ignited a passion for writing. This passion dwindled out for a little before I ended up finishing the story. At this point, around 2022, I discovered the Young Writer’s Workshop and convinced my parents to enroll me. It was the best time I ever had. I met lifelong friends, wrote two additional books, and learned valuable lessons. Around this time, my parents were worried that I was going to forever be the reclusive homeschooled child who would prefer to hole up in her house with her cats for weeks instead of engaging in normal society. So, they also enrolled me in STOA Speech and Debate - a faith-based league specifically designed with homeschoolers in mind. At first, despite my lifelong dream to join something similar when I was younger, I despised it. I had to talk to people? In large group settings? While giving a speech I wrote? No thanks. However, I sampled a tournament where I competed in a couple events - and fell in love. I loved researching, organizing the arguments, writing my speeches. The presenting part was terrifying, but falling head over heels for research helped overcome this fear. I begged my parents to let me continue, and I eventually started placing well in the rankings, added on several speech events and an additional debate event, and started focusing on honing my research skills. All of this merged once I reached college. I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I loved politics, debate, and writing, so I decided to pursue those majors for a year to see if something clicked. After talking with some of my friends who pursued their writing professionally, I learned about how they are underrepresented and abused contractually by publishing companies seeking to publish them. I desire to help others with kindness who would otherwise flounder without that necessary legal guidance.

I hated being critiqued. Rather than consuming constructive criticism as a way to improve, 14-year-old me viewed it as a direct attack on my character. Maybe puberty can be the scapegoat for my hateful sentiments towards other people's rightful evaluations of my actions, but that does not excuse my refusal to look at my past actions for improvement. However, many people take that approach to political science. Rather than researching the potential motives a world leader or politician has for their controversial opinions, they blend in with the party they identify with and ridicule the policies of the opposing party until it becomes a full-on screaming match both online and in the general assemblies for government. While some of this can be blamed on political polarization - a debilitating problem on the national level in the United States - most of it can be blamed on the lack of knowledge about the specific policies at play in the country. For example, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, many took to the comments section of any related post to hate on the decision and cry about how the government was robbing them of their freedoms. The opposite was true. Giving the power of determining abortions legality back to the states enabled voters to more directly decide if their state would allow it. Conducting a rudimentary level of research on the issue would demonstrate that giving power back to the states - generally an issue both political parties can agree on - was a good thing, and this specific policy was one way the federal government tried to echo that positivity. Most people do not appreciate being told they are wrong - me being the foreperson for that group. However, this same group often struggles to morph into better people due to their reluctance to criticize their own behavior. After all, you cannot see the red flags if you cover your eyes. We should not take that approach to our personal behaviors and beliefs, nor should we view political science like a hot potato topic no one ought to touch. It can be scary to breach the topic - polarization and everyone holding specific issues close to their heart can make it difficult to open one’s mouth for fear of offending someone. Yet if we do not analyze the atrocities Hitler committed and then justified to the Nazis, if we do not teach about the multitude of world conquest campaigns from history, if we do not admire those who stood up against injustice and fought against political enemies for moral rights, then we can never ensure our human rights and freedoms are guaranteed for not only ourselves, but the future generations. Fear holds many people back from self-improvement, but it also cripples our pursuit of creating the best possible world humanity can live in. If we are afraid to engage in conversations on how to save the planet, or what constitutes a human right, then what else is there to stand for? Does anything else matter if we cannot constantly seek to improve ourselves - like I eventually learned through critique? Does anything else matter if we cannot protect the liberties and political securities our ancestors took generations to battle for and defend because we do not understand basic aspects of political science? Because nothing else can matter without our political freedoms being foundational, it is important to explore both political science and ourselves to better improve everyone's wellbeing.

What is life's purpose if you never stretch your capabilities? Excellence is the pursuit of always seeking to improve. If one is stagnant in their development as a person or ignores a fundamental character flaw, they do not pursue excellence. Embracing a spirit of excellence is searching out ways to improve both my personal character and my impact on the lives of others. Growing up, my dad would hammer home the sentiment that one should help others if they are able to. Our family would stay late at church to stack chairs, be the first to wash dishes after potlucks, or offer to watch our friends’ children for a few hours if they clearly needed a literal load lifted off their shoulders. Because of his example, it instilled in me at a young age that if I could, I should offer to help those who needed it. That is why I would volunteer 8-12 hours each week starting the summer of my sophomore year in high school at a coffee shop to assist a local nonprofit. Not only did I learn random facts about coffee I was not aware of before, I learned to craft the perfect drink and conversation for a weary traveler seeking a warm drink and a kind word. Being an awkward introverted homeschooler, this stretched me physically and mentally, teaching me how to be a light for those who needed one while also encouraging those around me. Not only do I seek excellence through volunteer positions, but also through my academics. My parents always held my brother and I to high standards, encouraging us to take pride in our work and seek to understand as much information as we could. Their motivation helped me qualify for a prestigious scholarship competition at Drury University, enter the honors program, and maintain a 4.0 GPA all through my journey in college. If they had not stimulated this love of learning, I highly doubt my pursuit of excellence would be as successful as it has been. Additionally, while it carries less of a physical impact, I strive to be the best friend I can possibly be. Moving to college was quite the upheaval, having always spent the night under my parents’ roof, and I did not know anyone as I settled into my shoebox-sized dorm room. However, as I engaged with other students on campus, I learned how to listen while still participating in the conversation, how to speak without accidentally interrupting someone’s thoughts, how to articulate my opinion without offending someone with the opposing viewpoint - something vital when pursuing a political science degree. If I gave up when it became difficult to chase these sentiments, I could not have been there to support my friends through finals week struggles or been an open shoulder for them to cry into when their personal lives became tumultuous. Striving to be the best person and student has reaped many rewards I would currently be living without had I not pushed myself to the limit of what was possible for me to achieve. Constantly racing to become the greatest version of myself - pursuing that spirit of excellence - has not only served me well but will continue to enable me to push me out of my comfort zone and continuously develop into the person I am meant to become.

As a child, I wanted to be a super spy. Skydiving out of a crashing plane, swinging across a canyon, or stopping a crazy dictator all piqued my interest. However, my natural aversion towards risk directly contradicted these dreams. For the longest time, I was afraid of riding my bike without training wheels, I was always the last one to try a new slide, I was avoiding new experiences. Quickly, as I matured, I realized my dream of being a spy was not the best career fit for me - partially because it was a fictional dream, and partially because I would release a bloodcurdling scream if the playground swing flew too high. That realization forced me to soul search on why I was drawn to an adrenaline-pumping career - something I knew deep down was not the best fit for me or my interests. During my sophomore year, I joined a local speech and debate club and immediately fell in love with the research, writing, and construction of arguments. The public speaking aspect terrified me, but the desire to properly present my ideas helped me overcome this fear and I eventually adored speaking to people and encouraging them to think deeper about ideas. It was a reasonable amount of adrenaline to tickle my interest without putting my life at risk. It was during my debate career my dad asked me, “Do you want to be a lawyer?” At first, I laughingly rejected this idea - after all, lawyers are often portrayed as stuffy individuals, and the amount of post-secondary education required petrified me financially and mentally. Yet, the longer I rolled this idea over in my head, the more it appealed to me. That prompted me to ask myself why the idea satisfied my passions. As a type-A personality, I whipped out an online document and started creating a Pros/Cons list of why I should be a lawyer. As the Pros list became several pages longer than the Cons list, I realized what fired me up about merely thinking about pursuing this as a career. Defending criminals or prosecuting them felt like a burden - that was the only real exposure I had about lawyers up to that point - because I did not want to cope with the moral conundrum of defending someone I knew in my soul was guilty, or, worse, prosecuting someone I knew was innocent of the crime I was legally required to put behind bars. However, as I dug deeper into researching the law realm, the civil aspect interested me the most - specifically, intellectual property or contract law. During high school, I joined an online group to grow as a writer - something I wanted to pursue as a career for a short period of time. While I adored crafting fictional worlds, something felt off, like this was not what I was supposed to pursue. But as I researched intellectual property or contract law, I remembered the many conversations I had with aspiring authors who felt trapped in publishing contracts - whether they felt financially or creatively abused, or simply trapped in the genre they were known for and could not legally pursue something else until their contract was up. That fired me up. While my dream career of representing writers and other creatives is vastly different than becoming a spy, they both tickle my adrenaline desire within a zone I was comfortable stretching in, and I can make a tangible difference in the world. Helping people - through law, not diffusing bombs - will ensure I feel successful in my career.

As a child, I wanted to be a super spy. Skydiving out of a crashing plane, swinging across a canyon, or stopping a crazy dictator all piqued my interest. However, my natural aversion towards risk directly contradicted these dreams. For the longest time, I was afraid of riding my bike without training wheels, I was always the last one to try a new slide, I was avoiding new experiences. Quickly, as I matured, I realized my dream of being a spy was not the best career fit for me - partially because it was a fictional dream, and partially because I would release a bloodcurdling scream if the playground swing flew too high. That realization forced me to soul-search; why I was drawn to an adrenaline-pumping career - something I knew deep down was not the best fit for me or my interests? During my sophomore year, I joined a local speech and debate club and fell in love with the research, writing, and argument construction. The public speaking aspect terrified me, but my desire to properly present my ideas helped me overcome this fear, and I eventually adored speaking to people and encouraging them to think deeper about ideas. It was a reasonable amount of adrenaline to tickle my interest without putting my life at risk. It was during my debate career my dad asked me, “Do you want to be a lawyer?” At first, I laughingly rejected this idea - after all, lawyers are often portrayed as stuffy, bored individuals and the amount of post-secondary education required petrified me financially and mentally. Yet, the longer I rolled this idea over in my head, the more it appealed to me. That prompted me to ask myself why the idea satisfied my passions. As a type-A personality, I whipped out an online document and started creating a Pros/Cons list of why I should (or should not) be a lawyer. As the Pros list became several pages longer than the Cons list, I realized what fired me up about merely thinking about pursuing this as a career. Defending criminals or prosecuting them felt like a burden - that was the only real exposure I had about lawyers up to that point - because I did not want to cope with the moral conundrum of defending someone I knew in my soul was guilty, or, worse, prosecuting someone I knew was innocent of the crime I was legally required to put behind bars. However, as I dug deeper into researching the law realm, the civil aspect interested me the most - specifically, intellectual property or contract law. During high school, I joined an online group to grow as a writer - something I wanted to pursue as a career for a short period of time. While I adored crafting fictional worlds, something felt off, like this was not what I was supposed to pursue. But as I researched intellectual property or contract law, I remembered the many conversations I had with aspiring authors who felt trapped in publishing contracts - whether they felt financially or creatively abused, or simply trapped in the genre they were known for and could not legally pursue something else until their contract was up. That fired me up. While my dream career of representing writers and other creatives is vastly different than becoming a spy, they both tickle my adrenaline desire within a zone I was comfortable stretching in, and I can make a tangible difference in the world. Helping people - through law, not diffusing bombs - will ensure I feel successful in my career.

Blazing new trails is one thing many homeschoolers experience from the inception of their educational pursuit. One major goal in my life is to become the first lawyer in my family and defend those who have been robbed - specifically, with intellectual property or contract law. If I can successfully defend those who cannot defend themselves in this way, I will feel victorious in achieving what would fill my heart with joy. Intellectual property and contract law in the legal realm are majorly overlooked in preference for criminal cases or civil harassment lawsuits. But going with the grain has never filled me with a sense of success. As a homeschooled student, I pursued a successful speech and debate career, where I taught myself how to improve my speaking skills, honed my writing skills by writing three fiction novels and multiple nonfiction academic essays every week, and worked two jobs - one volunteer position, one part-time paid position. These experiences, on top of maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout high school, taught me to overcome crammed weeks and uphold all of the academic pressures to be a stellar student. That is why, once I earn my JD, I would love to start a law firm focused on aiding writers who have been unjustly abused in publishing contracts or help them negotiate better terms for their own intellectual property. Many individuals would define success as fame, monetary gains, or other material accomplishments. However, success in those means lead to an unfulfilling end - material achievements cannot fulfil the heart’s desire; the heart’s desire should lead to material achievements. That cannot always be the case; after all, many authors or actors, for example, never feel economically stable, but they are satisfied with their lot in life so long as they can pursue what they love. Using words to construct an argument or narrative is therapeutic and always leaves me more secure in my sense of self than prior to entering that world. However, it would not allow me to feel successful if I’m always chasing the next meal, the next paycheck, the next book contract. When I learned about how many writers are abused by their publishers within their contracts, it sparked something inside me. What if that were me, unknowledgeable in the world of legal jargon, unable to fight for my hard work? Ensuring other people can pursue their artistic passions while providing myself the legal and financial stability to chase my own gains will ensure that success cannot flee from my grasp; rather, it will allow me to hunt it down and claim my life as my own and ensure that success is something I can feel satisfied in many years down the road. Currently, I am pursuing two majors - Political Science and Writing. The first will prepare me for law school in the future, with the professors well-versed in that path and the degree itself setting the foundation that law school can build my career upon. The second will hone my writing skills - fiction and nonfiction - to ensure I can both understand where my future clients are coming from and to craft the best legal briefs and cases to defend them in a court proceeding. Together, they fuse into constructing the best possible lawyer to defend the writers and artists. Creative individuals usually rely heavily on the right hemisphere of their brain - the creative side - and have not trained the left, logic side. This results in them feeling like they cannot fight for themselves, their rights, or their life’s goal. With this scholarship, it will enable me to successfully be the support system creatives desperately desire to ensure they can achieve financial and personal success.