Joy for me is having a feeling of happiness and comfort. It is being myself and doing what I things that I enjoy. It's with friends and family that I love and trust. With that, I found joy in everyday life. I enjoy programming so when I do programming projects I often find joy in them. I am an active person often playing many varieties of sports. Whether it be tennis, volleyball, or soccer whenever I play I find myself at peace. Being with friends and family is often when I find the most joy. With them, I often play the sports that are mentioned above and when that happens it is always filled with smiles and laughter. Gaming also is a big part of my life. While sometimes frustrating at the time, gaming has helped with find joy even in the toughest and strangest of times. With that Joy for me is having the ability to act on my hobbies.

Legacy is about my life, the accomplishments that I made, and my impact on people close to me. Legacy is not defined at the end of the road but rather along the road. The shared moments, decisions, actions taken and the mistakes are overcome throughout the long road. Personal identities, the values and beliefs that influence me, and how I show these in my daily life. The principle that I abide by and the value I stand for influence the legacy I will leave behind when at the end of the road. Inspiring happiness is another essential part of a legacy for me. Volunteering and donation are just a few of the many actions that can inspire happiness. Having connections and inspiring happiness for those around you will leave a legacy. Finally, responsibility and accountability are crucial for a legacy. Legacy is about being mindful of the opportunity and committing to serve your advancement by serving others. I am the only one who can set the tone and expectation that I have on myself. Being disciplined and owning up to mistakes will last a legacy for relationships, whether personal or work. I grew up in a rather strict household. I am always expected to do my best in everything I do; whether it is schoolwork or house chores, I am expected to work diligently. I plan to continue this lesson; working diligently will help me grow as a person and It will allow me to stand out contributing to my legacy. A lesson that I wish to break in the hard conservation that my parent has taught me. My parents follow religion to the heart and, due to their childhood, have certain views on topics that are controversial. I wish to break this because I believe that everyone is equal, regardless of race or sexuality. I am also into religion, but instead of following more conservative teachings, I think that it is not my right to judge anyone and that everyone is equal in the eye of God. I wish to break the hardcore conservative value that my parent represents. These are just a few examples of lessons I learned that I want to continue and break. Overall, there is more to break than learn after arriving here in the United States. It helped me define what my values are. These values, I hope, will be part of my legacy.

Educational inequity is the unfair difference between education and the public. Educational inequity often results from the family of origin, gender, and social class. We should all stand against this inequity because education is an essential aspect of society that can create a better environment for all people. I believe that everyone has an inherent ability to learn and improve the world. As such, education is vital for me. For these reasons, educational inequity is something we all should stand for.

The pandemic has done several things to my life. One of the main thing that is about racial inequality, the pandemic have brought the worst and best of people. Through them, I see the severe racial disparities that the United States still has toward black people and other minorities. Another thing that affected me was online learning. I started my freshman in college when the pandemic was high, so I had to attend through remote education at home. This has affected me as I've always been a more reserved person, so making friends and such is hard for me to do. Me not being able to attend college definitely but a barrier between me and my pairs. But despite all the negative, I feel that I came out a better person overall. Because of the pandemic, I have learned how to adapt my ways of learning, and I gained more knowledge about the world that we are all sharing. The pandemic has given me a way to help the people around me as no matter how small, a nice gesture is sometimes all you need to lighten a person's day.

I got into a computer science degree after messing around with computers and the amount of potential they have. After migrating to America, I've always been intrigued with computers and how they work but, I didn't think of a potential degree until later in High School. In High School, I learn much more about how computers work and their large amount of potential. I learn in high school a little about how zero and one work to create the computer. This honestly blew my mind a bit because the computer language is almost like magic, how colors and numbers are generated using one and zero is pretty crazy and I hope to learn more about it. Also, the job potential of the degree is also among the best, not only it is well paid but the demand for it is also high. These are the reasons how I got my interest in pursuing a computer science degree. After receiving my degree I hope to get an entry-level position at a software company, after that, I want to work up the company to a mid-level or senior-level position. I also want to invest some of my income to earn passive income. All of these are for my parents and friends who have helped me get through this journey. I want to repay them back by showing that the sacrifices that they made were not in vain. I am the best candidate for receiving this scholarship because I have shown that I am able to academically handle my major. My overall GPA is relatively high with 3.87 or 3.9 rounded up, and my departmental GPA being a 4.0 which is impressive especially for my major as it is relatively hard. What this shows that I'm able to handle my coursework. My GPA is not only the reason why I deserve this scholarship, I also show promise outside of class time. I spent some of my free time spending learning how to code and learning tools to help me gain more knowledge to gain an edge on my studies. With all of these, I am hoping to get some experience in the field by getting an intern for the summer of 2022. Because of my academic excellence and the drive, I have for computer science I feel that I am the best candidate for this scholarship.

Winning this scholarship would help me close my financial gap and take fewer student loans. As a refugee and a first-generation student I never had much in my life. My parents are in a factory in which they earn just enough to pay for housing and food, so I've always known that they could not help me financially. As a first-generation student, I knew my situation was dire so I always try my hardest to excel in school. I want to participate in activities and be part of the college community but with limited money that is very hard to do. I also want to dive deeper into my dream career, but it is hard because tuition is so expensive. I work during the summer, but even with the money that it brings it is not enough for a comfortable college experience. For these reasons, I need this scholarship.

I want to continue pursuing higher education because it will allow me to gain opportunities that I won't able to have without higher education. Both my parents don't have a high school degree as we came to America as refugees. Even though they are faced with this huge challenge, they still were able to get a decent job and work hard to make my life much better than what it previously was. Despite the language and cultural barrier, they are still able to keep a positive mind which really inspires them to work hard just like them. Because of their hard work and positive, I want to continue pursuing higher education so that I may able to make their life easier and make them be proud of me as a first-generation college student. I'm currently attending Michigan Technological University, and I will be a sophomore the next school year. During my fresh year, due to COVID-19, I was unable to participate in many extracurricular activities. So for the next school year, I wish to participate in outdoor sports such as soccer and tennis, gaming clubs, and church group. Extracurriculars are important to me because I wasn't able to integrate myself into the community fully during my freshman year, so with that, I wish to become more involved with the community at Michigan Tech. I am most passionate about programming, I have long dreamt of being a programmer as a career and a hobby. I fell in love with computers and programming at a very young age, and that love hasn't changed in the slightest. Programming for me is something much more than the stereotypical person that movies and society often think of. Programming for me is freeing and not only that it requires critical thinking. Programming and program are the core of all the applications inside computers and phones. This makes programming very important as it has to ability to make lives much easier to navigate. When I first received my computer, I was amazed at how much it can do with little effort. It certainly makes my life easier and that of millions of people. With that mindset of making life easier and better, I am very passionate about programming because it contains endless opportunities and creativity. It is for these reasons that I wish to become a programmer, so that I may able to make others lives easier like how it has made mind.

I am a refugee from Burma, now commonly known as Myanmar. Myanmar is a poor and conflict-ridden country. And it is in these poor countries that people tend to have a strong tradition that affects everyday life. Arriving in America was a big cultural shock, it was so different from back home from the language to the basic way of life. In the United States, there are many different cultures that are a mix, it was only after coming to America that I was able to meet different races of people that I never knew exist. Even after living in America for almost a decade now, I would still discover something new that is completely normal to the everyday person. One of the biggest challenges I face is the language barrier. Something that I am sure every immigrant and refugee faces. I started school in 4th grade, and I was often behind because of the simple language barrier. I would often be left out of activities which was a big blow to my self-esteem. I would be taken out of class to learn about the alphabets and their corresponding sounds, which was a bit embarrassing as most students learn this during kindergarten or even before that. A felt like a whole new world open after finally picking up the language. I was now able to interact with my peers and it also helps me discovered the career that I would want to be in. With being a refugee, I am also a first-generation college student. As a first-generation college student, I feel that unrealistic expectation is set on me. That is the biggest challenge I experience during my short time attending college. I think that being a first-generation, many of the experiences are new and are not relative or parent to help the challenges as they haven’t experienced college. So, when things like tests and assignments are hard it is hard to get sympathize as no one has experienced that before. Even though these challenges that I face may be small, it still makes me who I am today. These challenges have helped me build up courage and have shaped my dream which is to have a career in the field of computer science. With this, I hope to help the people who have to help me get to where I am today and give back to the community. I feel that with proper dedication, I can overcome any challenges. That is the message I wish to leave behind as I grow as a person.

My interest in pursuing a computer science degree goes way back to when I was a bit younger. It was a couple of years after arriving in this country, we bought our first personal computer. I was absolutely intrigued by the computer and I wanted to know everything about it. But I did not get much chance to use the computer and even when I would watch cartoons and such so, I never learn much about how it works only how to use it. It was in high school that we did a career search and that is when I found computer science. I still had the drive to learn about how computers work, and computer science was the perfect gateway to learning it. I started getting my feet wet as I classes on computer science. As I continue to learn about computer science, I realize how free I am when I do programs so that just deepened my interest in computer science even more, which is why I ultimately chose computer science as my degree of choice. After receiving my degree, my goal is to get a job relating to computer science mostly on the application or back end. After getting a good steady job I hope to repay my debt to my friends and family who have helped and push me to become who I am today. I think it is important to never forget about your upbringing and journey. After all of that, I hope to start a beautiful family and help students like myself with scholarships. I also hope to experience different cultures, so I hope to travel around the world someday. I am the best candidate for receiving this scholarship because I have shown that I can make my dream a reality. Through my hard work, I have shown that I can do well in academics and life. I am willing to get out of my comfort zone and I have done that many times. Whether it is a test, homework, or interview, I always try my best no matter how insignificant or significant the task is. I have shown my ambition by self-teaching myself about components of computer science and not giving up when the material is complicated and messy.

Before talking about my faith and such I would like to introduce myself. My name is Thawng Hmung most people call me T. I am currently a freshman at Michigan Technological University, and I major in computer science. I am a first-generation student hoping to make my parent and my community proud. I come from a religious family and so I have always been knowledgeable of Jesus. Me and my family belong to Baptist which is like other protestant group but the way we handle baptism is different as in Baptist only believer who is born again and announce Jesus Christ as their savior can get baptism. It is safe to say that I have been blessed for my entire life. Even though I was originally born in Myanmar (Burma) and even though there are conflicts all around the province I was born in but, we were not in the way of the conflicts. After spending a little bit of my childhood in Myanmar we move to Malaysia. Malaysia will much richer and better was not perfect. Malaysia was filled with corruption and we were the minorities, so life was not the easiest. In Malaysia crime was the norm. Even in the darkness, it was in Malaysia that we were able to refugee status that allows us to come to the United States. In this country, we still face many hardships. Even though my parent did not have any knowledge of the English language they were able to still get a good factory job with good wages. And I started school in fourth grade, and it was a big jump as I did not know English that well. So, during free time or study time, I would often learn the sounds of the alphabet. These are my childhood and I feel really accomplished as I have really come a long way. Now I want to talk about my faith, as mention before I have always been surrounded by believers and that really impact me. Through their teaching, I was encouraged to pray regularly and so I did. Even with them when I ever face a crisis I would often doubt my faith and these types happen for a long time. It was only recently that I realize that faith is constantly being challenged by different factors. And the important thing is to retain that faith when overcoming these challenges. I recently got baptized, I announce Jesus Christ as my savior and since that day I have never regretted my past. Even though my faith was constantly changing and such it still makes the person who I am today. What I am trying to get at is that through my life journey even though I have constantly doubted my faith in Christianity multiple times, God is always there for me. God is always there for me and has guided me to a better future. With this fact, I was able to give my full trust in Jesus our savior.