My computer science goals are the same as they have been since the first time I set out to try coding in my elementary school computer lab: always keep learning and always keep making. At the start, I played with simple block-based code, making small games for me and my friends to play. As my knowledge deepened and I started to learn real programming languages, these two goals have led me to seek challenges I had never thought I could complete before. My goals guided me to attend a STEM-focussed magnet school, participate in a six-week summer computer programming internship at my local university, publish programming projects online, build community with other developers, and pursue a career in software development. I want to continue improving my skills as a programmer as much as I can, not only to prepare for my career but also because I thoroughly enjoy it. Coding is like breathing to me. It is constant, necessary, effortless and automatic. Art, on the other hand, is my nourishment. I need it just as much to survive. Music, visual arts, poetry, and storytelling are my preferred media. My goals for these involve progressing my technical ability and finding my own style, which I am accomplishing through regular practice and experimentation. In the short-term, I am working on a blended-genre album called "I Am Not Alone" that is about growing up as a neurodivergent queer person. Art has been a way to process my emotions, and I want to share these thoughts with the world. The perfect intersection among these varied interests is where my true passion lies: game design and development. Videogames as a medium incorporate all of my passions, both within and outside of software engineering. Because of this, my computer science and non-computer science goals are inherently intertwined, and I cannot have one without the other. My main goal in life, a perfect combination of computer science and the arts, is to have my own independent game development studio. I want to tell my own stories, build my own communities, and share with the world my own creations. Initially, my plan was to work for a large video game corporation, but I learned that game design was a very intimate process to me; I would never be satisfied making games that prioritized profits and sold products, not art. However, I will have to work for these large corporations to gain experience and earn money to supplement my creative endeavors until my game development career can take flight on its own. Reading Lyndsey Scott's mission statement on her Bold.org account when viewing this scholarship, I felt a sense of relief. The path I am taking to reach my goals is different from most, and seeing someone else do something similar and be successful has filled me with confidence. If given this scholarship opportunity, I would use it to one of two things. If it is feasible, I would use it to go to an out-of-state university that offers a degree in Computational Media, which would encapsulate exactly the education I need to be successful in video game development. Otherwise, I would stay in-state and use the scholarship money to graduate debt-free, allowing me to follow my creative pursuits sooner. My game design journal is filled to the brim and ready to turn into something for the world to see, with around a dozen outlines with concepts of gameplay, story, art, and music. Some of these may never see the light of day, but I will continue working so that I can make these dreams come true.