My parents weren’t born in the United States but were born in Nigeria; I am a first-generation kid. Everything they did I thought was normal, such as buying the same outfits to wear or cutting your hair after it gets long. I realized that it wasn’t normal when my friends would get haircuts whenever their hair wasn’t how they wanted or when their hairline wasn’t straight. They wore different clothes every day such as black, blue, or green pants, and I always wore green. My parents separated when I was young and it bothered me because my younger brothers weren’t happy and I had to be their role model -- the “man of the house” is what everyone else told me. All of my family members wanted me to become a doctor or a lawyer and I didn’t understand why. Eventually, I clued in that "doctor" and "lawyer" are code for: do well in school so I can make everybody proud, and enough money for food and a roof over my head. Neither medicine nor law caught my attention as architecture did. I first became interested in architecture when I was in the seventh grade. I was helping my dean staple paperwork and mumbled "how great it would be to have money?". He replied, ”Since you love money so much, you should become an architect. Architects are good at math.” I always considered my dean as one of my mentors and a person who knew me well. He was also very good at math and helped me after school whenever he could. After deciding to become an architect, I was motivated to perform better in school. I got introduced to an apprenticeship program, the ACE Mentor Program, specifically for students who aspire to become architects. Thanks to the mentorship I received at ACE, I had the opportunity to study buildings that inspired my creativity and heightened my excitement to embark upon my future career during a time of advanced technological advancement. Growing up in New York City (NYC) has motivated me, outside of my academic trajectory, to study architecture. Growing up, I lived in every borough of NYC from Staten Island to Queens. I noticed the different types of neighborhoods and buildings in each borough. Like in Staten Island, there are usually houses everywhere you look and barely any people. While in Manhattan, you could see multiple tall buildings like you’re being looked down upon by them. Noticing the different buildings made me want to design a build of my own when I learned that architects design buildings. There’s a building on my way to school that looks like it is made of pure obsidian and this made me have a daydream about making a building made out of emerald. Even though I only know the city, it's shown me a lot such as the social divide that buildings can represent. For example, some buildings in Brooklyn look like someone just piled up bricks and glued them together and are made with less quality and care. These buildings are homes to people and they don’t need to look like something less when they could look like something more. I would add shapes or a design into the structure of those buildings to make them more special than just a pile of glued-together bricks. I want to use architecture to build "bridges" between that divide. I feel like I'm qualified for this scholarship because I'm willing to use hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to achieve my goal to become an architect.