Picture this: you're a high school junior working at McDonald's for some extra pocket money. One day, after a long school day, you go into work and immediately start squabbling with a coworker. This happens for a few days, but you are still fairly relaxed about coming into work. Suddenly, you hear that coworker joking about murdering you, with other coworkers thinking you can't hear. This was the situation I was in. I woke up around 6 am and wouldn't get home until around 3 am because I had an 8-hour shift. I could usually handle this because it was just on Thursdays, the last day of the school week for me, but it still was taxing. It is likely that this schedule was a root cause of some of my actions. This, coupled with the toxic work environment I described earlier, made me quit. There were times, of course, that I enjoyed working there, but around that time, I had had enough. The act of quitting made me realize a few things. First, it was okay to leave a bad situation behind. To this day, I still don't eat McDonald's, but that is more because of how expensive and mediocre it is. That is to say, I have thoroughly left that experience in my life behind. I don't regret leaving, and I don't think I ever will. Second, I could have avoided the tension if I were a little more agreeable. I could have just not argued. These arguments were ultimately meaningless. I'm not blaming myself for the situation or the fact that she made those remarks, but after more than a year of not working there, I can now see that I could've avoided the squabbling. Why start something out of nothing, you know? I could have been more relaxed in the workplace and avoided all of this. Now I'm in college, and I'm using these skills I've learned from my experience at this part-time job. I believe this experience has made me much better at handling classmates who sometimes get on my nerves. I remember that experience, and I subtly try to change the topic or leave. This skill has probably saved a lot of friendships that I have made. Many might think that a part-time job isn't that impactful on someone's full life, but this is just one example of how it is. I'm sure those who think that use skills they learned at their part-time job without even thinking.

In my city, there is a lack of entertainment. I pretty much live in a desert, so no one wants to go outside and do things, so a business I would start is an arcade. A place people can have fun without worrying about the heat in the summertime. The target market would be high schoolers that want to have fun after school is out. Right now it is hard to have a fun time with friends due to the fact that the arcades that are nearby are in the bigger cities, and they are much more expensive than the average high schooler can afford. In order to start the arcade, the first thing I would do is find a piece of land that has a high walk score. It may be hard to find a great place because there isn't much busy land available, but I would want to put it by a high school in order to gain a lot more customers. The walk score is also important because I would want people to walk by and say that sounds fun and enjoy the arcade. My competitive advantage would be my prices and bundles. First I would have prices that would make it easy to pay for in the spur of the moment. I would also have bundles that would let the high schoolers save money by paying for a yearly bundle. This would mean the students get to enter the establishment for free if they bought the bundle. The main goal of this establishment would be to entertain the community, not earn money, although that is a close second. Upon opening the arcade, I would want to advertise to the local school, so I would give discount coupons to the school to hand out. This is to increase the likelihood that some of these students would buy the yearly bundle that I mentioned earlier. This yearly bundle, although cheaper in the long run which is money not made for me, will give me much more cash flow in the first few weeks of the business. This would allow for expenses and upgrades to machines much easier to pay. After the arcade would become successful, I would hire someone to look over the business while I opened another one at another school, and repeat the process. I would franchise the business, and the community would finally have easy access to entertainment.

Trying to live a conservative, environmentally friendly life has become even more important in recent years. Trying to counteract climate change has become increasingly important because many harmful effects have come of it such as the rising temperatures in the world, also known as global warming, the rising sea levels, and even the loss of many plant and animal species. Trying to stop or at least slow climate change is of the utmost importance. A good way to start is trying to limit the use of fossil fuels. There are multiple ways I have tried to limit the use of fossil fuels in my life. The first was choosing my car. I didn't have a large budget, but the first feature I looked for was a high gas mileage. My car uses very little gas, so it doesn't harm the environment as much as the average car, but I do wish I could have afforded an electric car. Electric cars do not rely on fossil fuels to operate, so they are much more friendly to the environment, but the price tag can be quite expensive. I also think it is important to get involved in the community when it comes to conserving the environment. I like to help out with our school's conservation club when I get the chance. Just a few weeks ago, I helped plant trees around our school grounds. We planted the trees to help mitigate climate change, but also to improve the look of the school. Some of the trees were flowering when we planted them, and it just improves the look of our school while improving the environment. Countering climate change is most important now to protect the future. By preserving the environment, we ensure that future generations have a healthy and sustainable world to live in. As an environmentally conscious individual, I am committed to doing everything in my power to help the planet. It is essential to start now because every action counts. We may not get a chance to reverse the damage done to the environment, so it is vital to take action now before it is too late. The importance of the environment can't be overestimated. As individual people, we have a significant role to play when decreasing our carbon footprint. We can make choices that help the environment like which car we buy or deciding to help the local conservation community. Every action counts because right now the future is bleak, and it is our job to fix that. By taking action now, we can ensure a healthy and sustainable world for ourselves and future generations.

My life would not be described as terrible, but sometimes I feel as though I am about to buckle under pressure. This pressure could come from anywhere but it usually comes from myself. I tend to expect myself to be the best or at least good at whatever I try. I assume this comes from my success in school. I tend to do the best in the class on tests, and I skipped multiple grades in math. The last Calculus test I took I convinced myself that I could not get less than a 100% on it, and I didn't. I got 107% because she offered extra credit. The pressure I put on myself paid off but usually it doesn't. It usually only stresses me out and causes me to only focus on my expectations. For example, when I played tennis, I would expect to win each match I played, especially if it was against another school, even though I'm not that great at tennis. I ended up losing all the singles matches I played not because I was worse than them, but because the moment I lost a point I would start pressuring myself harder and harder to the point I was more focused on winning than just playing the match. I didn't lose my doubles matches because I was able to have more fun with my partners. After I realized this was why I was losing, I started to change my mindset. I began to realize when I was doing this to myself, and cool off. This ended with me losing almost all my competitive spirit in tennis, but it was worth it. I stopped being mad at myself so much. The pressure didn't only come from me though. It often comes from my classmates, even though they probably don't realize it. This became evident to me when I worked on a long-term group project in my Marketing class. I ended up taking on the hardest portion because I severely underestimated the scale of it. It was a finance portion of a business plan, and I ended up making several mistakes. When my members saw this they weren't mad at me, they were just confused about how I could make mistakes. This is the case for many of my classmates. They are surprised when I don't do so hot on a test or when I don't understand something. This puts a lot of pressure on me to succeed. This hasn't really affected my relationships much, because it's always been like this. The project in Marketing caused me so much stress, it caused me to change career paths. At first, I wanted to be a business owner. I wanted to own a successful business that would eventually make me money without my presence. However, I was so stressed doing the marketing project that I didn't like the idea of having real money on the line. I already wasn't happy with my work on the project, I couldn't imagine risking money with my sloppy work. The confused look from my partners didn't help, so I am continuing with my strength which is math. I still plan on owning businesses, but I will just buy them rather than start them from scratch.

If I could have everyone read one book, I would have them read The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. This book covers many different areas such as the chaotic nature of human life, and the difficulties of being ostracized by those around you. The Lord of the Flies is a relatively short book, so I don't think many would have difficulty reading it. The first time I read, it was the summer before my freshman year of high school. I found the book hard to put down, even though I was doing it for a summer assignment. Not only is it enjoyable, but it also has a strong theme about human's chaotic nature. I believe that the chaotic nature present in the book is very important to understand. The kids in the book describe one of my favorite quotes, "If all men were angels, no government would be necessary" by James Madison. This quote relates to the book because the children stranded on the island don't have a government. They fundamentally understand that there needs to be some order so they elect a leader and use a conch to take turns speaking, but this quickly falls apart and chaos ensues. On the island, the chaotic nature of the children takes over, and they begin hunting some of the other kids. They murdered one of them by pushing him off the cliff and stabbed another. Finally, they set the island ablaze trying to kill another kid, the narrator of the book. These kids were not angels but still tried to operate under an anarchy system which led to the suffering of many kids. The book describes the problem of life without order. Throughout the book, Golding seems to imply that these kids are a more honest form of adults. This book is almost like a commentary on government, or the lack thereof. The book describes the necessity of government and order, or the ordinary human will become chaotic and violent, and I think that is necessary for everyone to understand.

My dream is to become someone people can look up to and can come to for help or advice.

In our school, we have a small store run by our DECA teacher that sells snacks and drinks. The problem is it doesn't have very good profits. He sells the items at low-profit margins, and he often allows the students working to take an item for their work. This results in barely breaking even when in reality it could make more profit. In order to solve this problem some classmates and I did a sales project to help his sales. We sold Bug Juice. It is a nostalgic kid's drink that sold very well. We were only able to buy it retail, but we were able to mark it up quite a bit. We did it for two days and made about $500 in sales and about $200 in profit. This helped his profits a little as he kept all of the profits, but it didn't really do much in the long run, I do have some ideas on how to make the DECA store profitable. First, I wouldn't give out or allow students to take items. This has almost no benefit to the store. It only takes away from profit, and it's about a dollar loss for each item. Selling every item that he would buy would probably keep his profits high. He does sell them at low margins, but there are so many sales each day that it would make up for it. Second, I would install software to keep inventory and do inventory every week. This would help crack down on stealing, and it is important to know how much of everything is being sold and how much is left. The data would also improve future orders to not have extra or not enough of a certain item. This would also increase sales which increases profit. The last thing I would do is install a card reader so students could pay with a debit or credit card. Many students don't carry cash because they have a card. This would increase expenses, but it would increase sales a lot more. It would reach a much larger portion of the students, and they wouldn't have to worry about cash as much. I know most people prefer to pay with a card rather than cash. These three adjustments would make his store much more profitable, and I have suggested them to him before, but he simply doesn't have the cash to perform these adjustments. He is also really kind and enjoys giving out snacks to those who help him out. Overall, these adjustments are too difficult to make for a small store bound by school restrictions.

Throughout my life, I could not be seen as exceptionally motivated. I often slack off if I don't need to be busy, for example, I would almost never study, even if I wasn't confident about a test. Even still I managed to pass my classes with A's and B's. My cumulative GPA is around 4.3, but will most likely be higher when I graduate. I only seriously started to study this year as I started taking classes that required it. With Calculus and Physics, I needed to give myself a review in order to do good on the test. This little bit has shown however because I often have the highest score in my class. My teachers often give extra credit questions, and it wasn't uncommon for me to have more than a 100% on a test. Even now at the end of 4th quarter, I still have a 101% in Calculus. It seems to me that I only become motivated when I need to. This was the same when I played tennis. I wanted to do good, but it was only toward the end of the season that I dedicated extra time to practicing. I sometimes wish I was more motivated as a person, but other times I enjoy where I am at. My academic goals have a similar story. I am starting college next fall, and my only goal is to keep a high enough GPA to keep my merit scholarship. I managed to get the highest tier due to taking weighted classes, but I need to keep a 3.0 GPA to get it for the following years. I plan on majoring in either mathematics or physics, but I still haven't decided. Either way, I still plan on getting a high-paying job like an Actuary. In my opinion, the job doesn't make a person's life. There are many reasons I want the scholarship award, but the main reason is the financial incentive. With the merit scholarship I achieved, I am close to not having to take out loans to pay for college, so I want to win as many scholarships as I can to achieve this. My plan for paying for college is through scholarships like these. The merit scholarship covers a majority of the tuition, but it doesn't cover it all, and there are also other expenses like textbooks. I also want to win this scholarship because it seems like it would be fun to talk about with some of my friends. I already have had fun describing this scholarship to some friends and recommending they also apply for it. Heavy Metal music was the first kind of music I actually enjoyed. My parents always listened to country music on drives, and I always thought it was bad. Then I was introduced to Metallica, and my view on music changed completely. I used to not like listening to music because the songs I would be listening to simply weren't good. Now I listen to heavy metal whenever I am working on something. Even now I am listening to "Are You Ready" by Disturbed. I now can say that I enjoy listening to music. My tastes aren't just Heavy Metal anymore, but it piqued my interest in music.

As I grew up my chosen career would always change, almost by the day. I would want to be an astronaut, then an engineer, then an entrepreneur, and the list goes on. The people in my life always would encourage me, but they would also change my mind about what I wanted to do. People would encourage me to be an engineer because I excelled at math. This ended up putting me under a lot of pressure because the people around me expected great things out of me. They expected me to earn a lot of money, or have a career centered around difficult math. This pressure eventually led me to my chosen career path for a few years, entrepreneurship. I chose entrepreneurship because I wanted something to call my own. I wanted a successful business to be my achievement, what I got done in my life. I admittedly also wanted to make a lot of money, but that was secondary. In my marketing classes, I learned how to build businesses, and how much work it takes, but I was still willing to do it. This was until I suddenly realized I had lost my passion for it. In return, I had regained my passion for math in my Calculus class. I didn't enjoy math as much due to the Stats class I took the year before. To be frank the class wasn't engaging, and I found myself struggling to pay attention in the class. In Calculus I had fun differentiating and integrating, it almost didn't feel like work. This was when I decided to go to college, major in a math-based field, and enter into a high-paying job like an actuary or software engineer. To me, college is a means to the end goal of making money. I still don't know exactly what field to major in, but I have narrowed it down a lot. I finally somewhat have a plan for the future. I don't plan on working very long, however. I plan on buying assets that make me money so I don't have to work. My long-term goal is to be able to relax as much as possible. I know it seems lazy, but I plan on working hard in order to achieve that. I first learned about passive income in the first semester of my junior year with my personal finance class. The class is about managing personal funds and earning money. This class has affected me deeply. I now think of ways to make this passive income. In Conclusion, my goal is early retirement. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible, and in order to do that, I want to retire early. I know that this isn't necessarily the most admirable path, but it is the one I chose.

I have always been the math kid. If any of my classmates had a question they were stuck or confused on they would come to me for help. I soon began taking advanced math classes and excelling at them. I was taking math classes a couple of grades ahead in middle school, and when I entered Highschool, I was with a class of juniors. I have enjoyed math and science more than any other subject while in school. Now, in my senior year, I am taking AP Calculus and IB Physics. I have enjoyed these classes far more than even my previous math classes. These classes present a challenge I haven't really felt before, and I enjoy it to the extent others might find weird, I find myself looking forward to these classes and learning more about these subjects whereas, for my other classes, it just feels dull. Before I took these classes, school just felt like going through the motions in order to graduate, but now I actually want to put more effort in and to pass each of these classes with high marks. This brings me to why I decided to major in physics. I've enjoyed calculus and physics so much it only seemed natural to major in physics, but this isn't what I always wanted to do. Before my senior year, I had plans to start a business. This was due to the marketing classes I took, but it soon became apparent that I wasn't passionate about it my senior year after doing a project that would be similar to starting a business. My focus soon shifted to physics after my success in both calculus and physics. It wasn't only my success in the classes that drove me to major in Physics, but also my enjoyment in the classes. As I mentioned earlier I really enjoyed these classes, and I always enjoyed learning the different formulas whether it be the chain rule or the Doppler effect. One of the reasons I decided to major in Physics was to learn more of these concepts and formulas because they are simply fun to learn. All in all, I decided to major in Physics not only because of my success in the classes but also my enjoyment and passion for the subjects. Sometimes I find myself challenging myself to just do a random problem for fun. Sometimes I'll give myself a challenging derivative or a fun soundwave problem. It is becasue of this passion I have that it would only be natural to major in it.

Tennis was the first sport I played that I actually enjoyed myself. I had played several other sports including football and soccer, but those were not comparable to tennis. The first season I played my desire to learn the game grew immensely. Whether it was the rules or form or a neat new spin shot to add to my arsenal. This eventually evolved into wanting to be the best I could be at tennis. This desire to be the best I could is the most impactful skill I've learned from tennis. As I mentioned earlier, my first season was about learning the sport, so the desire to improve was there, but it was overshadowed by my desire to grow accustomed to tennis. This changed my second season. I had learned enough to want to improve and play with the best on my team. I began practicing with a different attitude, and it paid off. By my third season, I had made it to our school's varsity team, and I was playing great competition. This desire to grow has been applied to other aspects of my life as well. Almost everything I do now is impacted by this attitude including school, and other hobbies. However, I learned that this attitude can be somewhat dangerous in my fourth and last season of tennis. In my fourth season, I lost my varsity spot. I was devasted, but we had many talented freshmen come to the team, and it was only natural. This is where my attitude got dangerous. I started to put so much pressure on myself to succeed and do better than my teammates that I began to lose my enjoyment for the game. I began critiquing myself so hard that whatever focus I had on the game would be lost. This led to me losing the majority of my matches even if I knew I could beat them. This did not help with my mental state for the game. Near the end of the season, I realized how harmful this attitude was but as a Junior varsity player, all my competitive matches were over. I only had intramural matches left. Here I finally decided to just have fun and don't care about the outcome. I learned to look at myself differently from this last season of tennis. This attitude I had going into my second season is largely beneficial. It helps me improve in almost all aspects, but it made me realize when I had taken it too far. I know now when to relax, not only for the benefit of my mental state but also for the skill I'm trying to improve.

I played tennis all four years in high school. In my first two years of tennis, my goal was to always be on the varsity team. I was always just short of becoming varsity. This meant being the in the top eleven players on the team. The top three players were singles players, and the other eight were separated into four doubles teams. My goal was to always be in one of the doubles teams and to consistently play at the varsity level. At the beginning of my freshman year, I was at the bottom of the tennis ladder. I was considered the worst on the team but this was understandable. I only had about a summer of experience, and that was with a children's racket. Soon freshman year I improved enough to be about the middle of the JV team by the end of the season. I improved a lot this season, and it looked like I was going to eventually reach varsity. The next season I was around the same spot, and it was very similar to my freshman season. I improved throughout the season, and I had hopes for varsity the next year. This was due to there being many seniors that would be graduating. About half of the varsity graduated at the end of the season, and it made my goal of Varsity that much closer. Finally, my junior season had come and this is where I started to face setbacks. Initially, I gained varsity after tryouts and I was ecstatic. I had finally reached my goal. I went to springs for my first varsity match. And I lost. My partner and I were outmatched and it was pretty one-sided. I was disappointed, however, they were one of the better teams in our district so it wasn't all bad. Here is where the setbacks start. I was in practice, doing one of our warmup drills when I rolled my ankle very badly and I couldn't play. We had a very important tournament the next day and it was the worst possible time for an injury. I had to miss the tournament and the top player on JV filled in for me. He played very well in the tournament, and our coach replaced me for him on the varsity team. I remember being very disappointed because he had to beat me in a match to take my spot but he did and he earned it. I ended the season as the top JV player. My senior year might have been my worst experience with tennis. We had several gifted freshmen come on the team, and there was no way for me to join varsity this year. Throughout the season I put a lot of pressure and expectations on myself that really didn't help my performance but instead hurt my state of mind during games and practice. Toward the end of the season, I stopped being competitive and tried to just have fun, but toward the end of matches, I would start to feel disappointed in myself again. I never really overcame these feelings, but the season is over, and now I can try to look forward.

I have always been a math guy. Growing up I found math easy and engaging and I managed to skip a class at the start of my sixth-grade year to start seventh-grade math. Then the next year I skipped the following math class and went into Algebra 1 as a seventh-grader. This time was when I really started to enjoy math. When I entered high school I was expecting to go into some sort of STEM field but that changed when I got invited to the Deca club. This was an entrepreneurship club, and it caught my interest very quickly. This club had a corresponding class, Marketing. This class made me consider pursuing entrepreneurship as a career, and the next year in Marketing 2 I was sure I was going to start a business. This changed this year however because in Marketing 3 there was a project that essentially was the creation of a business plan. Long story short, the project destroyed all of my interest in entrepreneurship and made me look elsewhere for careers. I am also in Calculus and Physics at this time and I am only having fun with this class. The challenge of these classes is fun to me, and they were very engaging. Calculus and Physics came easier to me than most of my classmates, and I found myself helping out with example problems, and overall just enjoying the class. This lead me to decide to major in Mathematics. My decision to change my career path also came from a lot of friends and family. My family encouraged me to major in some sort of math-based field because they saw my skills in it. My parents often times get confused when they look at my homework for either class. This is possibly due to my parents' education. My dad didn't go to college but instead entered the workforce, and My mother avoided math classes in college. Because of my skills, enjoyment of math, and support from friends and family, I decided to major in mathematics.