As part of my Nuclear Engineering degree, I took a Modern Physics class. The curriculum covered quantum physics and relativity, and both topics gave me a headache as I tried to wrap my brain around the concept of things like time dilation and quarks. But the course did, in the most literal sense, teach me how the world works. I had already learned Classical Physics, how things move and what forces affect that movement. As I delved deep into the newer concepts of matter interacting with other matter throughout the universe, though, I learned that it is endlessly complicated, and we are still learning about it. A few decades ago, we thought that the electron, neutron, and proton were as small as the world got, but now we know that they are made up of quarks and leptons, which can be categorized by their own characteristics, and other particles, like pions and muons, have been discovered from that. Those characteristics, though, also let us know that something makes up quarks and leptons to give them those traits, we just have not figured out how to find something that small yet. Now, we do understand a lot about Modern Physics and particle interactions, which is what my degree deals with, harnessing the energy from those interactions. With every new particle and element and isotope we find, the more we understand the world and the more we can do within our world. With every new challenge the scientific world comes across, each discovery made in the past helps us to figure out how to go about fixing that problem. There is no limit to how much we can find out from the universe, considering it keeps getting bigger. As a nuclear engineer, I will mostly be working off of concepts that have already been proven, but at one point, those concepts were as hard to understand as time dilation. My field would not exist if scientists had not discovered radioactivity and fission, or figured out that the sun uses fusion to release energy. I hope to continue learning how the world works because I have only scratched the surface of my degree. We use nuclear energy to understand what is going on in people's bodies (x-rays), and we use it to treat medical conditions we do not quite understand completely (cancer treatments). Nuclear science has been used for materials engineering (plasma), and we use irradiation for things like food science. My field is wide-reaching (like most fields) and every time we use it, we understand the world a little bit better. The scientific community was built by people who questioned why the world worked the way it did, and it has led to life-changing discoveries time and time again. Just because we know a lot more now than we did back then does not mean we should stop asking the question "Why?"

I am pursuing a degree in Nuclear Engineering, which is a field I believe can genuinely help the world. I am an out-of-state college student, and I will be paying rent on an off-campus house this semester. My college also just changed the tuition to a flat-rate per degree, so the cost will increase because I did not exactly go for a cheap degree. My tuition is currently around $30,000 a year even after the scholarships I received from my college. I will be paying all of that out of pocket this year, and savings and college funds have been used up on the first 2 years of my higher education. Despite working 2 jobs this summer, I won't make enough to cover the cost. I took out $6,500 in loans already and will most likely have to take out the offered $7,500 for this year. I am the 3rd out of 4 kids my parents have, and 3 of us are in college/paying for college still and my little sister is only one year away from starting college. Any amount of scholarship money will help, especially since my parents are having to help with college costs for 4 kids, not just me. If I can't cover the cost of my school, most likely I will have to press pause on college and return to my degree after a year or two of saving up. My high school, Platte Canyon, fostered my love for learning, math, and science. The faculty there, despite the remote location, are excellent and the passion every one of them brings to their job is unmatched. The teachers I had unquestionably are the reason I decided to pursue a STEM degree. There has not been a single science teacher that did not make the subject fun and interesting, even when we were doing the parts of science I definitely don't want a degree in, like dissections and biology (I can be very squeamish). Now, I didn't always like math, but I always loved how rewarding it is when it makes sense. Knowing how to use those equations that look like a different language and the excitement I felt when I got put in the advanced math class after years brings me a sort of joy that I believe everyone should feel in their career. I grew up in a small town in Colorado, and while I love my home state and the beauty that it offers, I went to college out-of-state (Missouri) for a change of scenery and pace. I am not a fan of the humidity there, but Missouri has its own charm that I didn't expect when I moved. Its natural wonders are a little more hidden than in Colorado (those mountains are hard to miss) and I have enjoyed exploring the state over the past two years and I can't wait to return in the fall.

It wasn't until the end of high school that I really came out of my shell. Once we returned to somewhat normal operations post-pandemic, I spent senior year learning how to be open to new experiences. My family likes to say that they don't know why I picked my college major, because it's not like I've spent years talking about nuclear sciences. I never explained that it's because I had decided to try new things, because I knew very little about what nuclear engineers did for the world. I opened myself up to something completely new and I'm grateful for it every day. Adding to that, though, is the fact that I moved 2 states away from my hometown, which is the only other place I have ever lived in. I had always wanted to go to college, not just commute down twice a week or go home every weekend, but actually move away. It had nothing to do with my family, they are awesome, but I had always wanted that experience to happen at the start of my adult life. I didn't know a single person when I arrived on campus, and I hadn't even taken a full tour of campus, just driven by a couple of times on road trips. I also spent some time doing some once-in-a-lifetime things. I, along with 21 other people, built a boat and raced it 70 miles in Washington State. We came 13th, finishing in just over 15 hours. I visited some places I had never been to before, including spending a week at Lake Powell. I also got to race a Dodge Challenger at a professional racetrack. The most impactful way I have started to live boldly is to not hold myself back when those story-worthy opportunities come my way.

The first definition of a passion is closely related to enthusiasm; they are one and the same. I love running, music, reading, science, and math. These are my hobbies and the foundations for my career. I am enthusiastic about being able to do these things. But another definition of passion is an intense desire for something. Following this definition, I would say my main passion, my desire, is to live a life I am interested by every day. I have a passion for finding my place in the world, for surrounding myself with interesting, positive people. I see my passions as the reasons behind my choices. This passion has guided me to do a lot of interesting things, especially in the last few years. In high school, I was part of a team that built a boat and paddled it 70 miles in 15 hours. We even had a videographer make a documentary about us, and we traveled to Utah when a deaf and blind school wanted to do the same thing. Through this club I traveled to places in the US I have never been and met some really interesting people. This passion led me to racing a Dodge Challenger at a racetrack, to a life full of good people, good firework shows, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Most of these things didn't necessarily come from my own efforts: the opportunity came from my teachers and friends and family. But the choice to participate was all my own, driven by my passion for an interesting life. I decided to go to college to see more of these experiences and opportunities cross my path. I only applied to four colleges, only one of them in my home state of Colorado. The rest were only one or two states away, but I wanted to actually leave for college, not just commute down there for class twice a week. I chose my college out of the four because it was the one I was most excited to get an acceptance letter from. I chose my major (nuclear engineering) because it was the one I knew the least about, the one I thought would challenge and intrigue me the most. So far, I haven't delved too far into the world of nuclear engineering, only taken a single course and talked to a few grad students. If you asked me what I want to do with my degree, I would have a very vague answer for you; but if I had to hazard a guess, I would tell you that I will most likely make that decision based on where my passion has me in a few years.

I was born in the middle of one of my mom's take home exams in grad school. She, along with the rest of my family, friends, and people around me, have been the biggest influence on my life. My mom has a PhD in biostatistics and has been a woman in STEM my entire life. My dad has always been the first to take care of me, and my grandparents were the first people to congratulate me on my choice of colleges. My siblings were my rock while I moved away, making sure that no matter how long it had been since I texted them, nothing had changed in the way we talked to each other. My family shaped my career aspirations because I know that no matter what I do they will help me get there. I grew up in a small mountain town and had known most of my peers and teachers since before preschool. I consider them to be my family (even though we aren't actually related). The kids who were in the same classes with me most of my life discovered their love of math and science alongside me. Several of them also pursued STEM degrees in college, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have enjoyed school as much if they hadn't been by my side all those years. The teachers at my high school have always been some of the best people I will know, and they influenced me so much. The way they interact with their students greatly changed the way I have decided to talk to the people I meet; the life advice and support they gave me in high school are memories I look back on frequently, especially when I was struggling during freshman year. Most of all though, my friends have been the most influential because we went through those challenges and life stages together. The girls who grew up beside me gave me support and love when I needed it most. I don't think I've ever told them how inspiring I find them to be, but I do. I see the way they have tackled moving away and going to college and stressing about paying for it. I've seen them find their passion and make hard decisions and keep going even if most people would have given up. I have seen each of them grow up over the past year and become more confident, capable versions of themselves and it's been a pleasure to see. They have influenced me more than anyone else because they understand me more than anyone else, and their ambition and passion has fueled my own.

In high school, I went to a lunch meeting where three teachers sat 19 kids down in a classroom and told us that they wanted to build a boat and have us paddle it in a race that starts at 7 pm and gives us 48 hours to go 70 miles. For the next 6 months, I went into the STEM shop where we were building this boat and learned how to use power tools and work as a team with my peers. In April, construction stopped because our school shut down and went virtual and the race that year got canceled. My senior year started, and we were lucky enough to be back to in-person learning. Our club had some news for the new year; a School for the Deaf and Blind in Utah had reached out, wanting to build their own boat and participate in the race. We also had a filmmaker contact us wanting to create a documentary about our journey up to the race. We traveled to Utah and helped the students build their own boat, and then we met up with them again over Spring Break in Lake Powell to get in some much-needed training. We traveled to Washington, race day came, and we were off. We made it to the finish line in just over 15 hours, in 13th place out of over 100 contestants, even after we hit some bad weather at about 3 am that made us question if it was safe to keep going. This club taught me how to dig deep and keep going even when you are dead on your feet and chase those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The film came out a few weeks ago, and I'm so grateful that experience was documented for the rest of my life.

People in our world often fail to respect that everyone is different. There are 7 billion people on this planet, and it doesn't matter what you believe in or what groups you align yourself with; there will never be a topic that you can get all 7 billion of us to agree on, and that's okay. People are allowed to have their own opinions and beliefs, and people forget that sometimes. Respect is all it takes to make those differences a way to communicate rather than argue. People are stubborn, and very few can accept that at some point in their life they will be in the wrong. To be completely honest, I'm not sure there really is a way to fix this problem worldwide, but a good way to start would be a campaign that spreads this ideal. I would do it over social media, just because that would reach the most people; no one group of people is responsible for a lack of respect in this world, that responsibility falls on everyone. This campaign wouldn't be trying to convince people of anything, it would just be reminding them that it's okay to not agree on everything and asking them to have respect for other people. Several recent political, economic, and social movements have been focusing more on forcing people to change their opinions rather than just spread their message. Attacking those who disagree doesn't change anything, it just causes contention. There are different avenues to inspiring change, and they all start with accepting that not everyone is going to agree with or even like what you are trying to do. Universal agreement isn't necessary to make a difference, so start by respecting people, whether they agree with you or not.

I have always done things in my life simply because so few people participate and I have always wanted to stand out from my family and my peers. Even the activities I do daily have been motivated by this principle. I am an avid reader, not only because I love to read, but also because people often complain about how my generation has become addicted to technology. I was in the band for 8 years, because I love music, but also because I grew up hearing about the high school "band nerds." Even the sports teams I participated in were the smaller teams in my high school that never really got attention, and I wanted all of that to change. In college, I want to study nuclear engineering because I love Chemistry and I wanted to study a field that was not dominated by women. As a woman, a career in STEM generally means that I will never study in a woman-dominated field. When I took Chemistry in high school, it was easily one of my favorite classes, so I knew that the field would be great for me, but I included the engineering because I want to challenge myself to be a woman who stands out in a STEM field. I love science and math, but I also want to go into a STEM field because so few women do and I have always wanted to be someone who stood out. My main motivation, of course, is pursuing a career that I will enjoy, but I am the first to admit that I do have a second motivation as well: becoming someone who thrives on the challenge of standing out from society.