I get excited when I find a scholarship that honors our military and law enforcement because of how much I've been affected by some amazing people in those fields. My incredible father has been a police officer for 27 years. My devoted grandpa served on the front lines of the Vietnam War, and three of my great-uncles also served overseas in the army. All then served as firefighters for their remaining careers. The national pride and importance of fighting for and protecting my fellow man/woman are the greatest gifts my family has bestowed upon me. I've worked hard to incorporate their values and examples of how to live into my life. My leadership qualities are best seen on the football field where I was the offensive line captain my junior and senior years. I was also the team captain for my wrestling team my senior year. I’m the guy on the team that organizes team building events like bowling, movies and the beach. I also bring up the morale on the field by keeping the focus on what we’re capable of and the next play, not the last one. After plays I help pull up both my teammates and opponents showing everyone how we should act towards each other. My resilience has been evident in how I’ve persevered through physical trials. Even after having contracted staph from wrestling and an opponent making an illegal move, resulting in my leg breaking, I stuck with the sport and placed fourth in regionals. When it comes to unselfish acts, I’m the one in my group of friends always offering to do the driving and cover anyone from my own earnings if they can’t. My parents often tell me I take on too much, but I like being the guy my friends lean on and look up to. Being a scholar-athlete I’ve had to be focused and determined. Managing AP courses with a 4.4 GPA and two varsity sports I captained required a lot. When my buddies were getting together I’d often be doing homework or extra workouts. Even over the summer, when many of my friends were sleeping in, I had 2 hour workouts at 8am everyday and then went straight to work until 5:30pm. My strong work ethic is evident in having been hired to do odds and ends at the airplane parts warehouse, but once they saw my performance, they moved me up to working on engines and packaging. Being a leader means showing people by example how and who to be. It also means seeing the long term goals and not letting short term gains get in the way. It's imperative to lead in a way that makes people want to follow you because they respect you and feel respect from you. I’ll be taking these leadership qualities into my career in cybersecurity. My career journey is going to be a homage to the struggles and successes I’ve already had. I’ve been gifted with computer coding skills that have helped me master four computer languages already. I want to create novel network multi-layer security systems and work with machine learning to detect and respond to active cyberattacks in real time. I will also improve the algorithms in the artificial intelligence our armed forces use to decrease the noise in the information they formulate. This will increase the accuracy of the information our soldiers receive and thereby their safety. The irony of my path is how I am going to use the coding skills that came from what I was bullied about, Asperger’s, to now protect others with them.

My world changed when I walked through the doors of West Broward High School. Throughout my life, I was always the outsider, ignored, pushed into walls or had my bookbag torn off my back. Living with Asperger’s, I never thought of defending myself. Harming others is not part of who I am. In fact, I was voted the strongest student in school in eighth grade, yet that didn’t dissuade people from bullying me. I never knew what to say to people to get them to like me, and I was too petrified to try. My life was intensely lonely. Making a friend was my New Years’ Resolution each year throughout middle school, and I always failed. I dreaded everyday I had to enter those halls. I doubted the existence of God at one point because I couldn’t believe God would let anyone live so lonely. Then came football and wrestling to transform my world. By transferring school systems, I benefited from having a clean slate. Even though I struggled with social skills, I used my gifts of strength and size as someone to be reckoned with on the field and on the mat. I found a new family in my teammates. Both football and wrestling opened pathways to connect with others, which I had been searching for all my life. There is something special that happens on the field between players all fighting for the same goal. I didn’t need to know the right thing to say. I needed to have my teammates’ backs, and protect my quarterback with everything in me. Protectiveness of those I care about I have in spades. Being embraced on a team meant leaving a dark place behind, and looking forward to good times with friends. This newfound confidence hasn’t changed who I am with others. When I lay my opponents out on the field, I still help them up, even though most of my teammates walk over them. I went from not imagining having friends to not being able to imagine life without them. Unfortunately, the intellectual gifts Asperger’s gave me separated me from my teammates in the classroom. I was in the AP classes on my own while they were all together in the regular classes. I tried to hide my intelligence because I thought they’d reject me when they knew I was so different in yet another way. I didn’t have any friends in my classes because those students saw me as an athlete and too different from them too. For a while, I stopped trying in class in hopes that lower grades would help me fit in with my teammates better by getting me into their classes. When I got a 1420 on my SAT and it opened up doors to some ivy schools where I could keep playing football I felt free to be myself, including sharing my grades with my teammates. With the darkness lifted, I found the courage and determination to begin to hope about what my future was going to look like. Suddenly, I began to see my Asperger’s differently. Throughout my life, it had been a burden that had served as a barrier between me and others. When I was younger, my mother encouraged me to view my condition as a “different ability’’, not as a “disability”, despite years of being treated with disdain by so many. I couldn’t grasp her positive way of thinking about my Asperger’s until one day, I realized I had an amazing skill set others only wished they could master. By finally recognizing my unique talent to understand and work with numbers in ways others can’t comprehend, I, too, see my Asperger’s as a “different ability”. Perseverance has contributed to my success at interacting with people and expressing myself better. Getting feedback about how “refreshingly genuine” people find me, rather than “strange”, makes my effort worth it. Now friends laugh with me rather than at me. There is hope within me where there was once despair. My perspective and my life have been meaningfully transformed, and I am ready to embark on my college journey. My career journey is going to be a homage to what I’ve already encountered in life, the struggles and successes. I’ve been gifted with computer coding skills that have helped me master four computer languages already. This is one of the upsides of Asperger’s. Computer science is an obvious and exciting major for me given my natural skill set. The irony of my path is how I am going to use the coding skills that came from what I was bullied about, Asperger’s, to now protect others with them. I’ll be protecting my friends, family, neighbors, and fellow countrymen with my work in cybersecurity. Being raised in a very patriotic and tolerant family has ingrained in me a strong desire to protect our freedoms and people. I’m looking forward to keeping everyday people secure at home as well as our soldiers abroad. I expect that will take different forms throughout my career. A couple areas of cybersecurity are especially intriguing to me. I want to create novel network multi-layer security systems and work with machine learning to detect and respond to active cyberattacks in real time. My goals for protecting our soldiers is just as important to me. I am looking to improve the algorithms in the artificial intelligence our armed forces use to decrease the noise in the information they formulate. This will increase the accuracy of the information they receive from the artificial intelligence and thereby the safety of the soldiers that depend on that information. Ultimately, I will make the transition from a powerless child who was attacked regularly to an empowered professional who will protect countless people. The world used to be lonely and overwhelming, but in recognizing my strengths and capitalizing on them I've empowered myself. Daunting obstacles are now challenges and hopefulness is a mindset that I can control in how I choose to see things.

How is it possible that they teach specialized classes like marine science and fashion concepts but they are not teaching how to deal with real life issues we will ALL eventually have to face like depression, anxiety, anger and stress? I've been lucky enough to have a mom that's a psychologist who has taught me what to do when I deal with these things, but most people don't have therapists at their fingertips everyday. In one hour she teaches teens that controlling their emotions is in their power and specifically how to change them. She even teaches how all of our emotions have jobs to do, what they are, and how to help them do their jobs so they release their hold on them. We need a required seminar or even a class for all high school or even middle school students to take to learn about these ideas and techniques. So many of us aren't comfortable telling adults what we're dealing with inside and this would give real ideas to every kid out there to give them something to start with. It has to be taught by people who really care about teens and are entertaining enough that we want to listen. The class could even be tied in with other things we need to life but don’t learn in school like how to make and live with a budget, buy a car and a house, what you need to do to be in a healthy relationship and how to get help if you’re in an unhealthy one. My friends talk to my mom all the time because their parents aren’t talking to them about these things. If they had a required course or seminar in school then ALL kids would get to be exposed to them.