I smile sheepishly and lower my hand as my teacher answers yet another of my questions. I nod as understanding clicks into place while she talks, I bite back all the follow up questions that automatically pop into my brain: I’ve already taken up enough class time and I can feel all the other students getting distracted. I need to understand everything I can about resonance structures, until every piece of information fits. I don’t want to just know what happens — I need to know why. Being autistic fundamentally changes the way that I see the world, and consequently, how I learn. Instead of focusing on the big picture, it’s the little details that captivate me. Without being able to see those minute attributes, the big picture just doesn't make sense. It's like looking at A Starry Night and only seeing a shadow. All of the beauty, everything that makes it remarkable is gone. It's just a jumble of colors. My tendency to get caught in the details is just one of the many ways that being autistic can impact my life. Me and all of the other seventy-five million autistic people on this planet struggle with our disability every single day. And every one of us are impacted by our disability differently. I fundamentally disagree with the idea of high-functioning and low-functioning autism: that’s a metric for neurotypical people to classify how much someone’s disability impacts their life. Autism may be seen as a spectrum, but in reality it’s made up of a multitude of smaller spectrums, one for each trait that comes with the diagnosis, each unique to the individual. Every autistic person is the same level of autistic: their own. For almost all things social, being autistic is a setback, but for me it can be a tool. I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do from a young age, and I’ve shaped my academic career so that it puts me in the best possible place for a forensic focused career. I chose my middle school based on a forensic science unit they offered, and I’ve taken the forensics class and every chemistry elective my high school offers. I’ve been fascinated with forensic science since I was nine. I remember going to a neighborhood meeting with my mother and hearing a police officer explain how the perpetrator of a series of robberies had been caught. After that, I noticed forensics everywhere; like the segment about Joseph DeAngelo on the radio and a unit in middle school science. I decimated the forensics unit in middle school, interviewing the “suspects” with a passion, and linking DNA evidence and fingerprints to lead back to the killers. And it all led me to where I am now; kneeling next to a rotting pig corpse in my high school forensics class. Being able to observe the decomposition of flesh in real time, unobstructed by fur, is fascinating. Unlike my classmates, the putrid smell was anything but off-putting — it was a clue, screaming at me that something had died, urging me to look closer. The writhing maggots and bugs skittering underneath the rotting flesh had people backing away nauseated, but they were what I was looking for. Being autistic can be a major setback, and in a lot of ways, it is. I struggle making friends and always feel somewhat isolated, no matter who I talk to. Small things that others don't even notice can bother me to no end. But being autistic is one of the reasons I have such a love for chemistry and forensic science. It's one of the factors that drives me to try my absolute best in everything I do academically and extracurricularly. Being autistic may be a setback at times, but it gives me a drive that wouldn't exist without it, and for that I am incredibly thankful.

My pet corn snake Cleo feels like silk as she slithers on me, exploring the new scents that come with a new environment from the safety of my hands. Despite her extensive handling, being surrounded by thirty new people, especially young children, will always be unsettling for her. The shining eyes of thirty children peer up at me from where they’re sitting, while I tell them about snakes. Snakes will never be scary to me. They’re just little tubes of muscle, completely lacking legs and occasionally intelligence. The misconception that all of them are malicious can be extremely harmful. So many people are afraid of them and so many people do unthinkable things because of fear: countless snakes are killed every year due to a lack of information. For the past few years I’ve been trying to remedy that. I have two pet snakes, and I’ve been bringing them to summer camps and introducing kids to the idea that snakes, and other reptiles, are no more of a threat than any other wild animal we live with, like deer or squirrels. Kids are taught fear. They aren’t born with it. And fearing snakes and other wild animals does make sense. They’re unpredictable and can lash out. However, I think people shouldn’t be scared of wild animals as much as respectful of them. Almost all wildlife is more afraid of us people than we are of it. If we got into a fight with a snake, the snake is going to lose. Showing kids how interesting and impressive snakes and other reptiles are never gets less important to me. I love seeing their eyes light up as they learn new information, and get hands-on experiences with an animal that many others find terrifying. They always have so many questions, asking anything and everything under the sun. Their eyes light up when I ask if they want to hold her. Almost all of them want to, but the few who don't or are still intimidated by her want to pet her. The ones that hold her all exclaim how strong she is, and how she's so much softer than she expected. Even the most scared reach their hands out to let her smell, or pet her scales when her head is facing away from them. As I leave the camp, all the kids all smile and wave, exclaiming how cool it is that I have a pet snake. I smile, incredibly thankful I can teach children how remarkable reptiles can be.