My first exposure to programming was in the sixth grade as a required part of our computer literacy class. I quickly realized that I was learning the syntax quicker than my classmates and I found that I enjoyed completing the projects and assignments. Fast forward to high school where I was able to focus on programming as my “pathway” and got to experience many areas of the field which helped me see the many different paths that I could go into and fueled my desire to learn more. By my senior year of high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue computer science in college. I have decided to pursue an education specifically in data analytics. As a kid, I was always finding patterns in my surroundings and I would be the first one to notice if something was out of place or not exactly like another. I have learned that I enjoy finding differences and patterns around me and I have found that it is one of my favorite things to do in programming. I have written many programs that go through a large set of numbers or letters and find the frequency of the specific character or a certain group of characters that is commonly repeated. These have been very interesting to me, so I believe that I can use these skills and interests in my career with data analytics. My dream career is to use my knowledge in data analytics to help companies/businesses or others find out what is working and what is not, by going through the data to find those differences and then find a way to fix them. I am inspired by my mother, who works for a local school system. She goes through their testing data and suggests changes to help the students and faculty. I want to be able to contribute to companies, businesses, schools, or other organizations in that way. I feel that I am the best candidate for this scholarship due to my drive to learn more. In all of my computer science classes when I have been assigned a project, I have worked to not only complete it but go just a little further than others. Such as learning a more efficient way to write the code or learning new built-in functions of the programming language. I have a desire to learn all that I can and I am to gain exposure to many programming languages so that I can build on my general and specific knowledge of these languages. Which I believe will be extremely useful as the future seems full of computers, and there needs to be a variety of people who know how to speak their "language", and I strive to be one of those people.

My first exposure to programming was in the sixth grade as a required part of our computer literacy class. I quickly realized that I was learning the syntax quicker than my classmates and I found that I enjoyed completing the projects and assignments. Fast forward to high school where I was able to focus on programming as my “pathway” and got to experience many areas of the field which helped me see the many different paths that I could go into and fueled my desire to learn more. By my senior year of high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue computer science in college. I have decided to pursue an education specifically in data analytics. As a kid, I was always finding patterns in my surroundings and I would be the first one to notice if something was out of place or not exactly like another. I have learned that I enjoy finding differences and patterns around me and I have found that it is one of my favorite things to do in programming. I have written many programs that go through a large set of numbers or letters and find the frequency of the specific character or a certain group of characters that is commonly repeated. These have been very interesting to me, so I believe that I can use these skills and interests in my career with data analytics. My dream career is to use my knowledge in data analytics to help companies/businesses or others find out what is working and what is not, by going through the data to find those differences and then find a way to fix them. I am inspired by my mother, who works for a local school system. She goes through their testing data and suggests changes to help the students and faculty. I want to be able to contribute to companies, businesses, schools, or other organizations in that way. I feel that I am the best candidate for this scholarship due to my drive to learn more. In all of my computer science classes when I have been assigned a project, I have worked to not only complete it but go just a little further than others. Such as learning a more efficient way to write the code or learning new built-in functions of the programming language. I have a desire to learn all that I can and I am to gain exposure to many programming languages so that I can build on my general and specific knowledge of these languages. Which I believe will be extremely useful as the future seems full of computers, and there needs to be a variety of people who know how to speak their "language", and I strive to be one of those people.

My first exposure to programming was in the sixth grade as a required part of our computer literacy class. I quickly realized that I was able to pick it up quicker than my classmates and I found that I enjoyed making the simple programs. Fast forward to high school where I was able to focus more on programming and got to experience many areas of the field which helped me see the many possibilities and fueled my desire to learn more. By my senior year of high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue computer science in college. In terms of computer science, I want to pursue an education specifically in data analytics. As a kid, I was always finding patterns in my surroundings and I would be the first one to notice if something was out of place or not exactly like another. I have learned that I enjoy finding differences and patterns around me and I have found that it is one of my favorite things to do in programming. I have written many programs that go through a large set of numbers or letters and find the frequency of the specific character or a certain group of characters that is commonly repeated. These have been very interesting to me so I believe that with data analytics I can use these skills and interests in my career. In my personal life, I have a mindset to help others when I can. My parents raised me to look out for others and lend a hand however I could. I know that I don’t want to work in the medical field, I can’t stand blood, but I know that I need to find other ways to help to find meaning in my career. I want to be able to make systems more efficient or just find better ways to do things to help others navigate and complete tasks easier. I want to combine these goals in my future job by using my knowledge in data analytics to help companies/businesses or others find out what is working and what’s not and go through the data to find those differences and then find a way to fix them. I am inspired by my mother who works for a school system by going through their testing data and suggesting changes to help the students and faculty. I want to be able to contribute to companies, businesses, schools, or other organizations in that way. I never thought that my computer class in sixth grade would shape my future as it did. I am so thankful for the opportunities I have had so far and I am hoping to find even more in my pursuit of my degree and a job that I am passionate about.