Think back to the days when you were little, when you dreamed of growing up, and dreamed of being a firefighter or a princess or a chef. We all had such huge imaginations and innocent hearts that we dreamed the biggest of dreams.

When I was little, I dreamed of being so many different things: a singer, an actress, a vet, a chef, a teacher, many of your basic professions. But, at that time, that little girl had no idea she would end up pursuing a tough, stressful, rigorous yet rewarding and imaginative career. That little girl is going to be an engineer.

I’ve always had the dream of changing the world, of making a positive impact in some way during my life. Regardless of what I end up doing in life, I want it to have positive effects on others and the planet. We have too much negativity around us, whether it's negative thoughts, negative people, negative actions, you name it. There is too much negativity around us. And I am the type of person who tries to find the positives in everything, the type of person who will try to do whatever I can to spin a situation or cheer someone up. We are all only on this earth for such a short period of time, so why spend it being negative? We are all capable of so much, yet too many of us don’t realize that. If we focus on improvement and happiness, this world may in fact be a better place.

This is one of the very reasons why I am becoming an engineer. I want to be able to improve this world, improve the way we live, improve our lives in any way possible. I want to solve problems and make a change.

Throughout high school, I struggled to figure out exactly what I wanted to do once I went off to college, what I wanted to study and what I wanted to actually do in my life. I still find it crazy that at the mere age of 17 and 18, students are asked to discover what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they’ve been trapped in these school walls and haven’t really been able to explore the world and actually see what there is to offer. We had to make the decision of a lifetime before we even knew what we were getting ourselves into.

For me, my junior and senior years of high school were when my heart and mind changed and I finally understood what I wanted to do. After all those years of wanting to be a vet or an actress, I fell in love with math. Calculus ended up being one of my favorite classes in high school. The equations just clicked in my head and they worked. Math and numbers work; there isn’t debate over whether or not this number is a 5 or if 3+4=7. It’s simply true and makes sense.

Also during high school, I found a true passion for science: biology, environmental studies, chemistry, marine biology, you name it. I loved it all. Being able to explore the world around us and understand truly how this world works, how we function, the processes behind life itself, it is all so interesting, and I fell hard in love. I had always had an inkling for science, but my teachers in high school and the classes I was able to take strengthened that love, and I am grateful for that experience.

So while many of my fellow classmates struggled to figure out where they wanted to go to school, what they wanted to study and simply what they wanted to do with their lives, my ultimate decision was clear as day, and I couldn’t be happier.

My dad has also been one of the biggest reasons why I want to pursue engineering because he himself is an engineer. I’ve grown up learning things here and there from him. He can tell you all about the lightbulb you have in your kitchen or the heating and cooling system you have in your house. And I’ve been there watching him learn more and achieve more. He’s been so successful and has efficiently changed so many lives for the better as a result of engineering.

I know, for certain, that I should be following in his footsteps. Every day, he inspires me with the knowledge and skills he has, and I hope to be half the engineer he is one day.

Through engineering, as cliché as it sounds, I can and will change the world.

We live in a world of machines. Everywhere you go, there are items or appliances that needed an engineer to come alive. One day, there will be some mechanism that I will create, that I will construct, that I will be the inventor of, and that to me is an inspiring and exciting thought. This is something I look forward to every single day.

I want to be someone that does something, someone that people depend on. I want to help this world be the best world it could possibly be, and through engineering, I can do so.