As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, this scholarship will help me pursue my educational goal of becoming a biomedical engineer. Engineering as a male-dominated field has some downsides to it. For example, the Harvard Business Review conducted a survey that resulted in the finding that 40% of female engineering students do not finish their degree because of the "masculine culture" of engineering itself. (Silbey, 2016). As a gay woman, I feel that these experiences of being treated differently would pertain to me especially. I would love to be able to one day give back to the community that has accepted me with such open arms. When I went to my first pride parade, I was 16 years old. I went with my best friend, who is also gay, and who ultimately convinced me to go to this event. I was absolutely terrified. I had come out not a month ago, and here I was at this enormous festival celebrating what I am, but was too scared to admit to being a mere four weeks ago. We stopped at a tent on the corner of the street run by a few older women whom all had rainbow ribbons feathers in their hair and clothes. Perhaps I looked nervous, because the leader of the tent took me from my friend for a moment, and asked me why I was there. I responded that I was there for my friend because he had asked me to accompany him. She turned me around to reveal my orange, white, and pink pride flag sewn into the back of my jean jacket and took my hands in hers. She told me, "It does not matter who you love, it does not matter who hates you for it, and it does not matter what anyone else has to say about it. You are welcome here. Do not feel ashamed to be something that you did not choose. Have pride.". Her words ring in my head often. Being able to get through college would be an amazing achievement because I would be studying exactly what I love and doing it for the community that loved me without hesitation. In the future, I plan to work to improve the mechanics and processes of gender-affirming surgery. I want to work with teens and young adults to truly expand the research being done on these types of surgeries, and discover how we can make it safer and better. Transgender people deserve to feel seen and understood, and that should reflect in the quality of affirming surgery they receive. I truly believe this to be my ultimate goal in life, and even if my efforts make one person's surgery slightly less painful, the results slightly more euphoric, or the recovery slightly less time, I will have considered my ultimate goal complete. I cannot thank you enough for your consideration. I truly am grateful that there are people in this world that are so generous as to set aside funds for people who identify as LGBTQ+ to study. I cannot wait to be able to help my community and to see the smiles that I indirectly helped create. References: Silbey, S. (2016). Why Do So Many Women Who Study Engineering Leave the Field?. Harvard Business Law. Retrieved April 29, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/08/why-do-so-many-women-who-study-engineering-leave-the-field

I love math because it is logical. As a person going into the engineering field for college, I chose a career that highly involves math because it is analytical, precise, and sometimes even a little creative. I love deriving new equations from other ones, especially. In math, there is no gray area, for there is only black and white. Although I can bear the endless impending questions of psychology and the way the brain may work, nothing can compare to the satisfaction of arriving at the correct answer to the hardest calculus problem my professor can think of. Nothing can compare to the contentment of the knowledge that one little answer can mean only one thing. Math is truly a language if spoken correctly; it's a secret language that only passionate mathematicians can decipher. I think this is what makes math so beautiful. It is a language one must learn to understand, but most do not bother to try. However, the few that do go on to build careers off of their love for logical understandings and exact answers, which is something very rarely found in life. I love math because it is precise, but I also love math because it is an escape from the very things that are too hard to answer with one solution. Whereas in the real world, there is an endless possibility of choices and consequences for those choices, math is direct, and, arguably, it is much simpler than answers for life. I love math dearly.

Ever since I can remember, my love for planes flew higher than the heights they took me. I have always been interested in the infrastructure, function, and role of every single piece of the plane. This love came to life on a leisurely flight to Miami, when sudden turbulence shook the aircraft aggressively and without warning. I gripped my mother's hand so fiercely, but as soon as we had time to process the situation at hand, the plane leveled. I was infatuated with how something as simple as airspeed and direction could push around a gigantic commercial airplane. As soon as I was able to, I researched why turbulence happens and was instantly absorbed in the world of aviation. Becoming a woman in the aviation industry would mean that I could show my younger sisters and many other people that women are just as capable as men. My goal is to pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering, which is a career and major dominated by men. Although attainable for most dedicated women, it can be hard to gain enough confidence to realize that STEM is a career anyone is capable of. I feel that the traditional norms and stereotypes of women, especially mothers, discourage them to pursue this career, it also doesn't help that male intimidation is not a rare occurrence in most industries like this one. Overcoming all of these obstacles that make this career tougher than most for women would mean that I have made my past self proud. It would also mean that my sisters would have an example of what achieving a difficult goal is. In the future, I plan on being very involved in philanthropy. I would like to establish a foundation for girls pursuing a degree in STEM to teach and share my experiences as a minority in the field. I feel that it would help many people gain the confidence to identify what impact they would like to leave on the world without any outside influence. Many people have foundations similar to this idea, however, mine would be dedicated to specifically future pilots and restoring confidence in young girls. I would have loved to be a part of a program like this at my age, so I think it could be a successful organization. I love to know that I will be the person I needed when I was younger and that all of my struggles with confidence will have to be faced less often.