I am a student-athlete, now in college competing in the collegiate ranks, but formerly a junior athlete who had to balance school with my extracurricular sport. In my sophomore year of high school, I was in an accident during training and was hospitalized for three and a half days with severe lacerations as well as a subarachnoid hemorrhage. This prevented me from competing in a national series, as well as hindering my training and my schooling. Due to the injury and recovery, I was weeks behind in school and months slower than I had previously been in training, this was disheartening as I felt like everything I had worked on had slid through my fingers and I couldn't grab it back fast enough because my recovery was still limiting how much I could do. However, as I worked through my recovery slowly I put my head down and focused on what I could do at the moment, and did it to the best of my ability. Eventually, I caught back up in school and began to train at high intensity again. Through this experience, I saw how even when everything feels as though it is falling apart, it is possible to regain composure if you diligently work and maintain focus. I feel as though my stubbornness while being my greatest weakness on occasion, is also my greatest strength as it drives me to try my best at everything until I am satisfied by my result.

My favorite scientist (engineer technically) is Winkle, because he looked at the engine, which worked perfectly fine, and decided to make it better. He then tried and tried to make something even more efficient, and using an immense amount of creativity was able to develop a rotary engine. This is a fascinating system that took immense amounts of creativity and scientific know-how to develop, and I admire his ingenuity.