"Her Voice" is a story about two friends who have never spoken to each other, up until one friend begins building a translator robot. Jang Seo-yeon is my best friend. She's been my best friend since we were in kindergarten. Somehow, even though we're freshmen now... we haven't said a single word to one another. The language barrier never bothered me at first. We didn't need words to be friends. We didn't need words to spend time together. We just... did. Being Black and Chinese, I only knew English and Mandarin. Seo-yeon only knew Korean all this time, but it never bothered me that we didn't speak. Not until now, at least. After all this time though, I can only wonder what she sounds like. Is her voice high-pitched? Is it low-pitched? How would she pronounce my name? What would she say to me if that language barrier was gone? The first day of 9th grade was awkward. The atmosphere was so heavy I could barely lift my legs to walk to each class. We reviewed our schedules as soon as our parents dropped us off. Algebra 1 Honors, U.S. History Honors, Robotics, P.E., Biology, Environmental Engineering, 5th Lunch, and English 1. Every single class except for Robotics, and we didn't say a single word to one another. We walked to class together. We sat together. We worked together. We parted ways once I got to Robotics. Once I waved to Seo-yeon and put my bag down, I quickly realized that my robotics class... would just be us reading about robotics. Sure, there were parts in the back... but we weren't allowed to touch those. How boring. The reading was quick. Really quick, as a matter of fact. Though, instead of staring at my phone for the remaining 45 minutes of class like the rest of my classmates... I raised my hand. "Can I build something in the back?" "...Sure." I grabbed my bag, closed my textbook, and moved to the back of the room. Looking at the bins full of different rods, tools, and parts was like looking at a ball of clay, with the possibilities of what you could mold being endless. I looked at everything, and I thought about what I could make. Then, I thought about Seo-yeon... and finally, I got an idea. The next day, I brought my tablet. I walked with Seo-yeon to our first two classes, and as soon as we parted ways, I got to work. After speeding through the reading, I made a beeline for the back of the class, and I began sketching ideas for a little robot. It had to be mobile. It had to be compact. Most importantly, it had to break the language barrier between me and Seo-yeon. It took me a week to finally decide on the design for my robot, but finally, I settled for a tiny, human-like robot. The head would be a little screen, and it would get around on wheels. As I began building, I'd come to and from school with more and more things almost every day. I started to bring my laptop to school, and I'd come home with my laptop, along with a bin of nuts, bolts, and my work-in-progress translator. Seo-yeon began to wonder why I started staying at school after class. She'd always look dejected when I couldn't walk home with her, and eventually, we began to spend less and less time together as time went on. I'd be wrapped up in working on the translator, and Seo-yeon couldn't understand me anyway, so she'd walk home without me. After a couple of months, we wouldn't even walk to class together. I saw less and less of her at school, but she'd always see me hauling a bin of parts and a half-finished robot to my house, every single day. "You have to leave soon; don't you want to get home for Winter Break? I sure do." My robotics teacher watched as I typed away on my laptop, then screwed the screen onto my robot. The robot wasn't the sleekest looking... but I turned it on anyway. The screen lit up. I smiled, and I opened my mouth. "咋啦?" I asked. The words "What's Up?" appeared on the screen. Sure, the processing took a few seconds... but I did it. I made a translator. I turned the robot off, put it in a bin, thanked the teacher, then ran out the door. It took me about half an hour of trudging through the snow before I saw Seo-yeon, who had stopped to admire the snow as she was walking home. She raised a brow as she watched me struggle to make my way toward her, hauling a large bin with a cover on it. However, she let out a quiet sigh before sitting down with me and watching as I put my robot down and turned it on again. The screen lit up, and I spoke into the microphone. "Am I your friend?" I asked. The robot processed what I said, and the words "내가 친구인가요?" appeared on the screen. She looked at me, then at the screen, and then back at me. Then... she nodded and spoke into the microphone, "베프." We waited for the robot to process it... and finally, after a minute or two, something appeared on the screen. "Best friend."

This scholarship prompt really made me think about who I am, and about how what I want to pursue will affect me personally, outside of just a job. To my future self, I promise to try hard in college and prioritize what's important. Even though I do very well in school, I tend to get distracted. My best assignments come at the last minute, or sometimes a day late. I want to promise my future self that I'll have my priorities in order when I'm in college, and that I'll focus on my work and make sure I make use of the money I spend for college. I struggle with a low attention span, but I have to learn how to correct this for my own benefit. I have to make sure I truly work hard at what I want to do, because I know that I can't achieve my dream career by just saying I want to do it. I also want to promise my future self that I'll discover something new. To me, it isn't enough to just want to be an astronomer. I can't just look at space and do math. I want to be able to find or do something that no one else in my field has found or done before. I want to be the "first" at something. The first Blasian female to discover or do something, something that changes the way we see our planet, or possibly even outer space. I want to be someone to look up to, I want to be an example of a successful woman, a woman in STEM. Finally, I'd like to promise my future self that we'll live a good life. I want to make my mom proud. My mom always tells me to make sure I keep my focus and priorities on school, and that friends, boys, and all other matters aren't as important as my education... and I understand that. She had to be a single mother, she had to take me to her college classes, and while I heed her warnings, I still look up to her. She's my hero, and I want to make sure that not only do I make her proud, but that I make myself proud. I want to feel like I've made it, and like I've done what I've always wanted to do. I want to fulfill these promises, and to be fair, that starts here, with this application. With where I live and how hard my mom tries with her job and her military career, there are times when we have and haven't had to worry about money... but I wouldn't dare to ask my mom to pay for my whole college tuition. I feel like besides the money for college, winning this scholarship is just something I want to do for myself in general, something that would not only help me to pursue my career goals, but also set an example for other Black girls who want to pursue STEM. I want to be looked at as a scholarship winner that a future BIPOC applicant can be encouraged by.

I like to think that I'm a very resilient person. Having grown up with a single mother currently in the military, I've never really had a place where I can say "I grew up here." However, traveling never really made me sad, nor did it make me feel confused. Instead, traveling, visiting bases, and meeting new people all the time just made me more and more curious. My mother is an FC2 in the Navy. I see her dealing with electronics, weaponry, and technology all the time, and that got me interested in STEM when I was very young. Until I got to high school, it was hard to find opportunities for me to do hands-on work with STEM... and yet, I started small. I would watch all sorts of videos on space and robotics, and I would try to find online coding lessons... and I would beg my mom to take me to museums, and to the ship she would work on. Ever since I was about 7, I've always wondered about "how" and "why" when I see something that happens to be manmade. I've always wondered how it's made, how it's taken apart, how it functions... and even during the pandemic, I still found a way to feed into my insatiable curiosity for engineering and physics. I continued to watch videos and documentaries, and read articles about the newest technology, putting things together, space, theories, and ... to put it quite simply, any and everything about the "how" and "why" of not only this world but the things that have come from the people on it. Once everyone was allowed to leave quarantine, I was a bit nervous to go back to school. I did my freshman year of high school online, and... to be fair, I didn't do too well. I needed to feel what I was learning about, I needed to see other people, and I was becoming too used to sitting in my room watching videos about a guy halfway across the world building and programming a robot entirely on his own. I barely got through my freshman year, and for a moment, I felt dejected. I thought that year would determine my whole life, and no college would take me after that. I thought I'd never get to go to a nice school and finally, FINALLY get to build, to code, to make something with my own two hands. I felt like that was it. Thankfully, though, my mom made me go to school in person for my 10th-grade year. She moved us up to Pennsylvania, and as per usual, I had to get used to a new place. For the first month or so, I felt lonely. I had nowhere to fit in, and I didn't know what opportunities there were at my school for what I wanted to pursue, and what I wanted to learn. That was until the first Back to School Night, where I was introduced to my current Robotics coach, and beloved physics teacher, Mrs. Miller. My mom urged me to try to do something involving STEM, as she knew that I'd always been interested in it since I was young. So, when Mrs. Miller told her that she coached the school's robotics team, we were both floored. I joined the very next day. During my sophomore year, I did so, so much better. I got straight As throughout the entire year. However, my robotics team was mostly guys. For a while, at least until I began inviting other girls, I was one of the only girls on the competitive team. Along with that, I barely got to do any engineering. A guy joined at the same time that I did, and he got to do more. When I asked Mrs. Miller why he was allowed to work on the robot and I wasn't, she told me "Well, he's spent more time here." This confused me, of course ... because I joined before him, and had been attending club every single day. Sure, for a while, I felt sorry for myself. That year, all I could do was sit around and watch the boys work on the robot. I was jealous. I was so, so very jealous. I passed 10th grade with flying colors and was back at the robotics club on the very first day of my junior year. And yet, I still didn't get to do much that year. I was so frustrated. I got bullied by the guys in my club, ushered away from the robot, and I was pushed toward the outreach team once again to spend my after-school time making posters on Canva and clapping when our engineers did something right. So after feeling sorry for myself for a month or so, and after begging and pleading with Mrs. Miller to let the guys teach me how to work on the robot, I finally, finally got to do some real engineering. I held an Allen wrench. I installed motors. I got to do exactly what I wanted. But that wasn't enough, of course. After my junior year, I needed to do more. I applied for the Exelon STEM Academy, and I got in. For a VERY long week, I worked on circuits, lit up LEDs, stripped wires, visited Exelon sites, and I finally found a space where girls were just as fascinated as I was with all things STEM. Even though I've finally gotten to a spot where I can do real, hands-on engineering... albeit, after having to force my way to the robot, and taking a rejection from Exelon just once, I still need more. Not only do I want to learn about engineering and physics, I want to make things, and I want to know how and why things work the way they do.

Now, let's not sit around and pretend that everyone finds books interesting. I'm a nerd. I know I'm a nerd, and I'm pretty proud of it. I love to read, but I know that not everyone does. Though— reading brings all people together from the appeal to relatability. You don't need to be a straight-A student with a 4.0 GPA, or a world-renowned scientist to be able to relate to a book. Books can take you into the perspective of a whole different person, and they can leave you as a whole different person after you close them. So, to answer the question ... if I could make everyone in the world read and understand one book, it would be The Black Kids, by Christina Hammonds Reed. "The Black Kids" explores the perspective of 17-year-old Ashley Bennett in the 90s, living life through the race riots in California. "The Black Kids" allows the reader to see a first-person point of view on racial ignorance, prejudice, and the double standard of the average Black teen girl compared to a 17-year-old girl of any other race. Though— the book isn't simply about "the struggles of a black kid, racism is bad." "The Black Kids" also addresses sexism, peer pressure, and the loss of loved ones. The reader can see a different person's point of view, while also finding themselves in this book. "The Black Kids" was released in 2020, and I was around 13 when the pandemic started. At this time, I didn't even truly enjoy reading the way I do now. However, this is a book that I would stay up wrapped in my covers reading and reading and reading until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I'm a nerdy Black girl, I've experienced a little bit of racial prejudice and ignorance, but "The Black Kids" hits on all the topics of not just what a black teen girl goes through, but what all teen girls go through. See, when it comes to race-based books, there's a mindset that people who aren't a certain race will have, where they feel like they simply cannot read that book. That it's "not for them," or that "they won't relate." However, these kinds of books are what truly bring us together. The practice of sharing experiences allows people to understand each other and learn from each other, and "The Black Kids" is another example.

My family is a military legacy. My grandma is a vet, my grandpa is a retired cop, my mom is a Fire Controlman rank 2 in the Navy, my uncle is also a Sailor in the navy... in short, I'm surrounded by a lot of no-nonsense people. Well, no-nonsense people who participate in a lot of nonsense themselves. My mom and my uncle have always been close, as when my uncle joined, my mom did too. They've taken me to the NEX, their bases, they've let me seen their ships, all of their different uniforms, and I've even gotten to see the weapons and computers they use. My family has always loved to talk about their "hacks" in the military, the things that make being in the military a bit easier. I remember when I was around eight or nine while my mom was in boot camp, I was sit on the phone sobbing because she wouldn't pick up– without knowing that trainees can't have their phones during boot camp. My mom would check her voice-mail to hear her child crying and screaming on the other end, followed by the sound of me chucking the house phone at the wall because I would wonder why she wouldn't pick up. I missed her so much during those nine months– so much that I hadn't even thought to consider that trainees wouldn't have access to their phones in a strict environment like a naval boot camp. I still think about the fits I would throw when I thought my mom didn't want to talk to me during her time in boot camp... and while I feel stupid and get embarrassed over it, it also makes me laugh every time I think about it. It makes her laugh too– since she would be extremely confused. I've been surrounded by soldiers and veterans for most of my childhood and adolescence. From friends, to cousins, to relatives getting ready to enlist. I even considered it myself, but I'm still not sure yet. When I was a bit older, maybe eleven or twelve– my great grandma passed. For the funeral, my mom and uncle decided to go in their Naval dress-blues. We said goodbye to our grandmother, and on the ride home, the two watched each other waddle around and struggle to get in and out of their uniforms. It was an especially good laugh after the event, because the two made fun of each other for how tight the uniforms were, and how big their butts looked. More recently, however– my uncle came to visit my mom and I. The two love to talk about the Navy, and I would listen in, as I always do. My uncle sat my mom and I down, opened his laptop, and went to the Navy website. We knew he had a hip injury, so he received a bonus... but then he went to a section showing the bonuses that a Sailor would be eligible to receive based on their injuries and conditions– and he explained every single one that he was eligible for that he was faking. He tapped on the little stick figure man on the screen, every single one of the body parts being colored bright yellow. He gave the price for his hip injury, then his "hearing loss," then his "leg injury," up until the cartoon man was entirely yellow. And I had always wondered– how is my uncle able to go months without working? The Navy doesn't possibly pay that much, does it?

I can probably say that I like a lot of anime. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Naruto, Mob Psycho 100, Smile PreCure, definitely One Piece... the list goes on. Anime is sort of like an escape for me– almost like books, with the way I can watch amazing stories in all sorts of different worlds. Though, what's one anime that I can always return to and watch, over and over again? This question actually had me thinking for a bit– but if I had to answer with one, I'd say Dragon Ball. Sure, it seems basic, or like one that everyone might mention. But Dragon Ball is such a wonderful anime. When I was very young, maybe three of four years old, my uncle and I would lay down wrapped up in blankets watching Dragon Ball. It was my very first anime, and I loved it because of that. Dragon Ball is what got me into anime in the first place. The crisp art style, along with knowing that there were shows where you could be taken to a whole other world with all sorts of different characters with awesome powers made me love Dragon Ball, and anime as a whole even more than I could ever imagine. New animes are good. Jujutsu Kaisen, Mob Psycho 100, and Chainsaw Man are all very good. However, Dragon Ball has a long story while still managing to keep their audience invested. You can always feel the love for the story and fans that's put into every page of the manga, and into every frame of the anime. It's been going on for a while, but I don't think one can put any other anime up on the pedestal when it comes to Dragon Ball's fights and fandom. Remember the reveal of Ultra Instinct, or Goku's fight against Jiren? Moments like that caused showings all over the world. From countrywide watch events in Mexico, to family TV nights in America, to workplace watch parties in Japan. You can argue about how good every other anime or TV show is, but Dragon Ball is and always has been a show that everyone can sit down to watch– young and old. That's why I love it so much. Dragon Ball has created so many wonderful memories for me– from being four years old and watching Dragon Ball with my uncle, to being in middle school tracing the TV to draw Goku, to being sixteen and still waiting eagerly on Crunchyroll for episodes that I may have missed, or even just tapping away on Dragon Ball Dokkan. Dragon Ball doesn't even seem like just another anime. It seems like a legend, or like a real story, one that everyone can talk about, that everyone has at least heard of. When you put an anime character in front of someone who hasn't watched anime, you'll always hear one name as a guess– Goku. Dragon Ball is always something that people can bond over, and that's just another reason why I love it. It's always something that people can recognize and sit down and watch, no matter if someone doesn't like anime, or if they haven't seen all the previous episodes. The death of Akira Toriyama truly is heartbreaking, but he has left the world with a gift that will be loved by many for so, so many years to come. I can enjoy all the new, modern, well animated animes out there... but Dragon Ball will always be the one anime I can keep coming back to every single time.