My family of four is supported by my single mother who works ten hour days yet she only manages to make around nine thousand dollars a year. We stretch that amount as much as possible throughout the year but as a result we had no money saved up to pay for my higher education. Currently, I’m living on my own, two hours away from my family, and I have to pay for everything on my own through scholarships and programs. My rent, utilities, and food costs total to about one thousand every month, and that doesn’t include any textbook or extra school fees that may come up. Last year, even though FAFSA helped me out a lot, I still had to work in order to cover the rest of my living costs. This scholarship would allow me to just focus on my studying for a month, which would prove especially useful during finals month, as I wouldn’t have to worry about balancing my work schedule and my studying schedule. The only thing I would have to worry about during that free month from work would be what the quadratic formula is, not where I’ll live if I can’t make rent this month. My financial situation has always been like this, but I was lucky enough to be introduced to the engineering field in ninth grade through my high school. I received my high school education from a career high school that had a focus on engineering. Throughout the four years at my high school, I learned about the many facets of engineering, as well as their basic tasks and what they contributed to the world. This is where I found my love for electrical engineering, especially when it came to the concepts of soldering, making breadboards, and Boolean Algebra. All of these topics were easily what I excelled at the most, and I even created a small project outside of class time with the scraps of wire that my teacher allowed me to take. When it came time to decide what universities to apply to, I sat down with my engineering teacher and I asked what career would encompass those key jobs, and he said electrical engineering. Unfortunately, even though I was accepted to most of the schools I applied for, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to go to them without massively burdening myself and my family financially. I ultimately decided to go to a community college so I could still continue my education without going into debt, and this scholarship would help me immensely with this plan.

My education goal is to become an engineering teacher so I can give back to the communities that shaped who I am today. My mother taught me from a very early age that the world would be cruel to me because of things I could not control, but that it was up to me to keep pushing on and to prove to the world that I was strong enough to get what I want despite my differences. I want to endow that mindset to young Latinos, girls, and queer folk alike, that they can be successful in a STEM field if they fight hard enough for their right to gain higher education. Presently, I am working towards getting a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and after I am going to get my teaching certification so I can teach engineering to high school students. I grew up in poverty, my single mother having to support herself, me, and my two siblings on only around nine thousand dollars a year. I didn’t have any time during high school to have a job, as my mom told me to focus on my education and didn’t allow me to get a job during the school year. Unfortunately, as a result, I had no money saved up to attend any of the universities that offered me acceptance, nor could I ask my family for financial assistance to pay for my tuition. After a lot of research and crying, I discovered that community colleges didn’t make in-state students pay tuition, and so after a long conversation with my mom, I decided to attend a community college two hours from my hometown. I could’ve gone to the community college in my hometown, but I decided to move away so I could start learning how to live on my own in an environment where I could go back home if anything went wrong. However, the rent in the area I live in is very high, and while my rent is lower than average, it’s by no means cheap, as I pay one thousand a month for where I live. This includes most utilities, thankfully, but I still have to pay for gas, food, and any extra school supplies I need, as while I don’t pay tuition, the program doesn’t cover textbooks and the like. For the past year since moving out here, I have had to work for the entirety of fall alongside being a full time student, but even that wasn’t enough money to keep me afloat. During my senior year, I applied to many scholarships like this one, as I knew that I’d only be able to get support for my education if I sought it out. This scholarship will go towards my extra school costs, as I plan on taking coding, engineering, and math classes next fall semester, and based on my research through my teachers, I know that I’ll have to buy textbooks that each cost three hundred dollars each. The rest I plan to save for the spring semester because my streak of classes with expensive textbooks will continue, and anything that remains will go to my rent so I can continue my education the following year. I currently have all A’s in my classes, I know that I can be a successful engineer, I just need the finances to be able to live without worrying about my next meal, that is all I need.