I would be attending higher education through cosmetology school, which will help me turn my goals into a real career and give me the skills I need to succeed in the future. I want to earn my Washington cosmetologist’s license because it represents more than just a certificate to me. It represents hard work, dedication, and the chance to build a life where I can help others feel confident and comfortable in their own skin. Cosmetology is something I am passionate about because it combines creativity, personal connection, and the ability to make a meaningful difference in someone’s day. By attending school, I will learn the techniques, knowledge, and professionalism necessary to become the best cosmetologist I can be. One of my biggest goals is to help people feel more like themselves. Hair is a very personal part of a person’s identity, and the way someone wears their hair can affect how they feel about themselves. I want to be someone who listens to clients, understands their vision, and helps them achieve a look that reflects who they are. Whether someone wants a big change or just a small trim, I want them to leave feeling happier, more confident, and more comfortable with how they look. Being able to help someone see their own beauty is one of the most rewarding things I can imagine. My future plans also include giving back to others in whatever ways i can. I want to use my success to support charities and people in need because i believe it is important to help those who are struggling. No matter how far I go in life, I want to stay humble and remember that kindness matters. If I can build a stable future for myself, I want to share that success with others and make a positive difference in my community. In the long term, I also hope to adopt when I am able. Adoption is something I care deeply about because I believe every child deserves love, safety, and a stable home. If I am fortunate enough to reach a point in my life where I can provide that, I would be proud to open my home and my heart to a child in need. Helping a child feel supported and loved would be one of the greatest impacts I could ever make. Higher education will help me reach these goals by giving me the foundation I need to succeed professionally and personally. It will allow me to grow into a licensed cosmetologist, support others through my work, and build a future centered on kindness, confidence, and compassion.

Being bisexual and later fully understanding myself as lesbian has shaped my life in both painful and meaningful ways. For a long time, I struggled to understand my identity, and that struggle affected how I saw myself and how I thought others saw me. Learning who I am was not simple or easy; it came with confusion, fear, and moments of self-doubt, but it also brought me honesty, confidence, and a deeper sense of peace. Accepting sexuality helped me become more authentic, even when it was difficult to do so. One of the hardest parts of this journey has been moving back to my small hometown. In a place where many people are Christian and hold very traditional beliefs, I often feel watched, judged, or misunderstood. Some people have tried to “convert” me back or act as though there is something wrong with who I am. Those experiences have been hurtful and exhausting. It can be difficult to live in a community where your identity is questioned instead of accepted, especially when you are simply trying to live your life honestly and peacefully. At times, this has made me feel isolated and frustrated. Even with those challenges, this experience has also made me stronger. It has taught me how to stand up for myself and how to value my identity without apology. I have learned that I do not need to change who I am to make other people comfortable. That lesson has been incredibly important in my life. Realizing I am lesbian has helped me understand that identity is personal, and it deserves to be respected. It has also made me empathetic toward other people who struggle to be accepted for who they are. What has helped me the most through all of this is the support of my father, siblings, and friends. Their love and acceptance have made a huge difference in my life. When I have felt discouraged or rejected by others, they have reminded me that I am not alone. Their support has given me strength, confidence, and hope. Knowing that I have people who truly care bout me has helped me keep going, even during the hardest moments. In the end, being bisexual and then fully embracing that I am lesbian has changed my life in both painful and beautiful ways. It has brought struggle, but it has also brought growth, self-acceptance, and love. My journey has taught me that being true to myself is worth the risk, and that the people who accept me for who I am are the ones who matter the most.

I want to make a meaningful impact on the world by becoming a role model for younger people. I want to be someone they can look up to when life gets hard, someone who shows them that failure is not the end of the story. Too often, people believe that one mistake, one setback, or one bad day defines who they are. I want to prove that it does not. I want younger people to look at me and see that even when you fall, you can get back up, keep going, and continue working towards your goals. I hope my life will remind others that success is not about never failing but about refusing to give up when challenges arise. I know that life can be difficult, and there are moments when giving up feels easier than trying again. Everyone faces days when they feel tired, discouraged, or unsure of themselves. In those moments, people need hope> I want to be a source of that hope for others. I want to show that we can keep moving forward. If I can be an example of perseverance, then I can help others believe in their own strength. That is the kind of impact I want to have. I also want ot help children in need. So many children grow up without the support, stability, and opportunities they deserve. I want to be someone who makes a difference in their lives, whether that is through donating to children in need, giving my time, or creating a loving home for a child one day. I believe every child deserves safety, care, and the chance to live a full and happy life. No child should feel unwanted or forgotten. If I can help even one child feel loved and supported, then I know I will have done something meaningful. Adoption is also very important to me because I believe it can completely change a child’s life. To me, adoption is an act of love, kindness, and responsibility. It gives a child a home, but it also gives them something even greater: belonging. Every child deserves to have a normal life and a chance to grow up feeling valued. I hope that one day I will be able to adopt and provide a child with the love, security, and encouragement they need to thrive. I want to create a home where a child can feel safe, accepted, and supported, no matter what they have been through. More than anything, I want my life to show others that anything is possible if you keep trying. I want people to see that even on your worst days, you still have the power to move forward. I want to use my life as an example of resilience, compassion, and hope. If someone sees me and thinks, “Maybe I can do it too,” then I will know I have made a difference. My goal is not only to succeed for myself, but to inspire others, help children, and leave the world better than I found it. That is the kind of person I want to become, and the kind of impact I hope to make.

My mom had a lot of boyfriends while my siblings and I grew up. There was one boyfriend of hers who was the best guy who had come into our lives. He would make us pancakes, go to the park with us, watch movies with us, and even attend a father-daughter dance with his daughter and me. He was in our lives for almost three years, even proposing to my mother, and we knew he had a past with drugs, but he always swore up and down that he was sober now. One night, my siblings and I were asleep, and there was a ruckus in my mother's room that woke me. She and her boyfriend were in an argument, he had punched a hole into her bedroom wall, shoving her into the dresser, and trying to strangle my mother pinning her to the bed while doing so. After this, my mother kicked him out of the house. Not a few months later, he came back apologizing for his actions, saying he wasn't sober and had blacked out due to drug use, and my mother let him back into our home. It happened again, but this time the argument was during the day, my older brother this time was in our kitchen, as my younger brother was in their room, I had my older brother take the younger ones outside to a neighbor's as I tried to take care of my mother and her boyfriend to get them to stop arguing, during this time my older brother had come back into the house trying to get them to stop. During the argument, the boyfriend had turned to ask me a question about my mother lying to him. I didn't know if she had, so I just said everyone lies, which upset him more as he turned to look at me, his fist was in a ball. My mother pushed him and yelled at him to pack his stuff and leave. None of us knew if he would have really hit me, but it was the idea of the fact that he even thought to do so. With this happening in my life, I now look over my shoulder every time I think I see his face in public, but it made me stronger, and as for shaping me into who I am today, I know that if someone truly loves you or even cares about you, they would never lay a hand on you. As well as to never back down when a man thinks he can lay a hand on you, stand up for yourself, don't be quiet if someone thinks they can overpower you or harm you in any way.

My educational goals as a senior in high school have gotten more serious. As of where I am standing today, I want to be able to stand up on stage during graduation and actually tell everyone I did it, with all the hard times and the failing test and retaking test, getting back up that I did it. After four years I have worked and I have fought to prove to myself and everyone around me that I am something that I am more than my grades, I have succeeded in getting better grades and making something of myself. My educational goal after high school is to succeed in cosmetology school, studying and learn everything I need to, to become the cosmetologist I hope to be. I want to excel in cosmetology education, taking what I know now and expanding it to the information I don't know. My professional goals are to get accepted to a cosmetology school. I want to get my cosmetology license after schooling and take my career further by starting my own business, starting small, and hopefully expanding into owning a salon of my own. My main goal is just to become successful and be happy with the career I chose, and I want to be satisfied with the life I chose. The future I see for myself is excelling in cosmetology school, holding everything I learn and take in my head with the information I get from cosmetology school, using it to continue my life as a cosmetologist, and one day teaching others who have the same passion as I do, who feel the love of cosmetology that I do. I want to be able to teach others the rules and logic of what there is to really know about hair and the things you can do with it, and the happiness you can bring to others by helping them feel themselves with the hair of their dreams.

I'm a senior at Mansfield Elementary and High School. I volunteer at our town community food bank every first and third Saturday of every month. My plans post-high school are to attend a cosmetology school and take my career further. I want to become a cosmetologist, coloring, cutting, and styling hair, as well as learning how to maintain a beard cut. If I could start my own charity, anybody in abusive homes. I would want to create a system, a stable, safe place for them to go to and get away to tell the truth of what they are being put through, whether it's from a boyfriend or girlfriend, parents, or even an abusive sibling. In any way someone is being abused, I want to give them a safe place to go and to get help in any way. My mission would be to lower the death percentage from abuse cases and to keep the cycle from continuing. I want people to feel like they have options that they can get out of the situation, and that they will live past this if they just get out to get help. I would serve sons, daughters, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, girlfriends, boyfriends, cousins, aunts, and anyone who is in an abusive situation that they fear they have no other way out of and need help. Volunteers at my charity would help find people a place to stay for a little while, so the situation can be handled, supplying food, blankets, and clothing. If they were to leave without those items, they would be helped to new ones, being placed in either a new place for a few of them to stay together with a member of the charity or a group home that would already exist. Volunteers would also find a way to shut down the situation that was going on, by collecting evidence of abuse, putting together a file of pictures, text, and any proof for when the authorities are brought in to help in any possible way they can. Volunteers will be in charge of getting a small cash amount to help get everyone started at their new homes, to start a new life, and get away from their abusers. Every volunteer will have a strict contract, not talking about who comes in and out of the community, as it could lead to the plan to get the abused to a new place and new life being compromised by the abuser and being dragged back into that place where we could only do so much after that point. If I could make my own charity, this is what it would have to be, not just to get the abused away from the abusers, but to give them a real chance at life, so many of the abused don't get a real chance before they are beaten or starved to death by the abuser. If I could prevent this, I would do everything in my power to make it true.

I am passionate about pursuing this degree because, as long as I can remember, I have been dyeing people's hair or cutting it for them. Cosmetology is truly so meaningful to me on a deeper level than I know how to explain. But I have never been so passionate about something to the point of making it my career until cosmetology. The idea of being able to learn more ways to do hair and be able to do so is all I want. I want to be able to attend cosmetology school or a college that offers cosmetology. I am who I am today because of my parents and how I grew up, in my house hold, my parents were never together growing up. My mother was with different men while my father was in prison and suffering from addiction until my middle school years. At the start of my freshman year i left my mother's and began living with my father. Before this, living with my mother was difficult. I mean, yes, siblings take care of siblings, but no older sister should have to be their younger brother's mother, or have to take care of their mother as if they were her mom. Growing up, I took care of my family more as a mom than a sister, having to stop being with friends and almost having to quit my favorite sport. Living with all of this was really hard on me because I always felt as if the entire household was my responsibility more than it should have been, now I do not resent my mother for this or talk about it often but it affected me in so many way as though still to this day I feel the need to take care of everyone in my house hold now living with my father. Having to overcome being a parent at a young age and father of addiction, as well as my mother and her boyfriends, it wasn't always easy, but I did it until I was old enough to move out and have a choice on where I wanted to be once my father was sober. Throughout these years, I have learned that you can't take care of everyone, but you can take care of the few that need you there, and always try to be there when you can. But you should never forget to take care of yourself on top of that, because if you're not taking care of yourself, then what is going to happen to you and your health? I have also learned that it was not my responsibility to take care of my little brothers and my own mother but I have also learned that growing up that way will make it to the point that those younger siblings of mine are more like my kids than my siblings because of me practically raising them, which I wouldn't change if I could, it made my bond with my brothers a lot stronger.

In my life my supporters of my educational journey would have to be my father and sister, as I strive towards graduation and wanting to attend college for cosmetology school I try my hardest in school focusing on my grades and classes, as well as filling out scholarships so I can afford going to college to make them happy and more proud of me then they are now. My sister has always been my biggest supporter in life, no matter the situation, whether it's school, life, or, honestly, anything. My sister has always been a parent to me, helped raise me, and shaped me into who I am today. My father, since the day I moved in, has always supported me and my educational journey. He wants me to succeed and do things that he couldn't. Moving in with my father, my freshman year was the best thing I could have done for my academic life. Their support has shaped me into the person I am; it has made me determined to succeed, take my education further, and pursue my dream in cosmetology. Having them to support me throughout high school has made the struggle of becoming an adult and studies a little easier and lighter on me, as I go on in the rest of senior year I know that I will have them by my side supporting me and watching me grow, my sister has been by my side through every up and down high school can throw at a teenage girl having her support through everything has truly made me want to succeed even more and make it because I know she sees the best in me and knows what I am capable of. As my father he has always wanted the best for me he has always wanted me to have the life I dreamed of, and with that I want to show him that him raising me and being there to support me throughout high school that I can get the life he has always dreamed of for me as well as the life I have dreamed of for myself I want to be able to show him that his support helped me in so many ways and is what made things possible for me in life. I plan on building on their support by making it through cosmetology school, continuing my own business, and making a life for myself and my future family. Their support on growing up with only my mother most of my life has truly impacted me since, I am now living with my single father and he is truly the one who has raised me and shaped me into who I am today, his support along with my sisters is what has made it to where I want them to see me succeed as much as I want it for myself, I want to show them that with them being there through everything that it truly means everything to me and is what made my life possible for the way that it may continue to be. Living with my single parent hasn't always been easy, but my father has never failed to support me or show up when I need him. He works long hours to provide for our household and makes me feel seen as not just his daughter but a human being who is going off into life in only 3 months. These two have truly made my dreams come true and are the people who pushed me to succeed in life.

I enjoy reading and writing. I grew up without my father most of my life, as he was an addict, so I lived with my mother and little brother, my father from when I can remember to my early fourth grade year. My mother, younger siblings, and I moved around for a little while until we moved to Soap Lake and stayed there for five years until I moved out and moved in with my father in Mansfield. My father had been living back in Mansfield for two years prior to my moving in with him, and he was sober, now doing well for himself and working. I am now almost eighteen and have been living in Mansfield with my father for almost four years, I'm a senior and graduating on time. I plan on making a positive impact on the world with my career by being able to make people feel more confident with themselves, be happy with their looks, help them be able to look into the mirror and feel beautiful. I want my career to make people feel like themselves again, I am very passionate about cosmetology and doing this for others, I am passionate about painting and cooking, I love to paint in my free time either for myself or gifts for others and as cooking I enjoy cooking for myself, my family, and my friends. Being passionate about my career field is what makes it truly the career for me and what makes the idea of being able to do those things for others so much better. I am passionate about helping others, I volunteer for my communities food bank, and the happiness on peoples faces when they come in and we are just able to give them what they need to feed their families their animals, being able to make someone smile by simply just putting food into boxes for them, carrying the boxes to their cars for them, helping the elderly get onto the sidewalk to enter our food bank, it is all worth so much more than what it looks like or seems like it heals apart of me, seeing their smiles, hearing their stories about their lives of either war, love, money, travel, it is all so beautiful to me. Our community food bank is ever first and third Saturday of every month and I look forward to going every time, being able to see the regular faces and hear how their months have been going or welcoming a new comer into the community, every smile every conversation is worth it.

I am a child of a single father; I am my father's youngest daughter. An obstacle my father has had to overcome is being able to get back up on his feet after being affected by addiction for a long time. My father fought every day to get sober and become the great man he is now another obstacle that isn't as deep if that he continued working after his ancle surgery from falling off a ladder while working on side of a house he was helping build, the ladder landed on his ancle and caused him to need a titanium bar and screws inside of his ancle, after only just a few weeks of recovery he jumped back into work because we needed the money and he felt like he wasn't doing what he needed to as my father. My father once told me that no matter how much you love a person, they shouldn't make you wonder if they love you or if you're the only person they are with. He always said that no relationship is going to be perfect, but it shouldn't drain you to the point of hating yourself and failing in school. An experience with my father that has always stuck with me would be when I first saw him after years of my mom keeping me from visiting him, and being able to see my dad again after not knowing if I was ever going to be able to again. And as soon as I saw him again, I knew that I never wanted to be somewhere without him. Two years later, I moved in with my father, and seeing him again at that point in my life stuck with me because if I were to never see him again, would I have ever moved back to Mansfield and become who I am today? Being raised by my single father has influenced me to be a better person, not only to the people around me and in my community, but also to strangers and workers, because you never know what someone is going through, and to always treat others how you want to be treated. This has always stuck with me because it has shaped me into the person I am today, who I will continue to grow into. My father has always been a hard worker; no matter what situation he is in, he works. His doing so showed me that hard work and dedication are important; you're allowed to take mental health days and breaks, but never give up on what you want and where you want to go, even if you're tired, even if it's hard, keep going. Most of all, he has always taught me that no matter what anyone says about you, you know the truth about yourself, and if you need to prove them wrong, then prove them wrong, but don’t do your everyday life just trying to prove it to them, prove it to yourself just as much because at the end of the day the only opinion that matters if your own and gods.