Free Write 2

This is a free-write. This is not top quality writing, please check my note on Free Write 1.

Time: 30 minutes (took too long again lol)

Prompt: Clearly written in 500 words or less please tell us your aspirations and how you hope to reach them. Include special circumstances that have impacted your choices or your success.

One of my most memorable childhood moments was when a college student we were hosting at our house showed me an app on his phone that flew through space and compared the sizes of the planets and stars. I would beg to see the space app every moment he was free. The shining orange and blue stars, along with the beautiful rings of Saturn were in the palm of my hands, and I couldn't stop thinking about them. Later in elementary school, I joined a newly created Computer Club. I tinkered with credit card-sized computers and dragged colorful blocks together to make the cat on-screen dance. I had encountered the two largest interests of my life. Programming and space exploration.

Since then, I've learned a lot more and my goals have become a lot more concrete. I want to write code that will help humanity explore new planets. To achieve this, my next goal is to expand my knowledge past what I've taught myself so far. I want to pursue a Computer Science major at a university to do this. After the first 4 years, I will work toward a Master's Degree to really cement my expertise. I plan to get work experience throughout and after college to learn the industry and to grow my specialty. From there, I hope to join a passionate team to tackle sending people to Mars.

In the last couple of decades, the human population on Earth has exploded and it is getting more difficult to sustain a larger population. I find Mars to be a really exciting way for me to help alleviate this problem. A scholarship would be extremely helpful in managing my finances through college. It would allow me to pay for tuition, books, and especially for a computing student like me, expensive computer equipment. This would reduce my stress in getting unrelated jobs just to balance my budget.

However, my plans have been rather difficult to solidify. I was born in Delaware, but we moved to Italy, then to Saudi Arabia, all before elementary school. After just five quick years there, our family moved to Montana. Over middle and high school, I built up experience and friends, devoting many hours to our robotics team and debate club, but before I had the chance to become an upperclassman, our family moved to Indiana before my junior year. I've had to re-establish friendships and relationships with teachers and club coaches. It's been difficult restarting from zero so many times, but I'm determined to reach my aspirations, expanding humanity's reach into space.

I want to write code for a more exciting space-bound future, and a scholarship would allow me to focus on my studies at college. I hope for a life flying through the planets and stars, but instead of an app, in real life.