Being a part of Global Scholars has been one of the most impactful experiences of my high school career. From volunteering with immigrant children to helping with fundraisers to traveling halfway across the world, Global Scholars has influenced the lens through which I see the world and developed my goals for the future. I have learned the importance of understanding different parts of our local and global communities and tried to relate unfamiliar cultures, identities, languages, and nations to my own. Similarly, traveling has pushed me to try new things and step outside my comfort zone, spurring growth and maturity. From flying to Florence at age four with professors to spending two weeks in Japan last summer with twenty high school students to eating frozen choco-bananas on a volcano in El Salvador to spending cold nights exploring Amsterdam with my uncles, traveling has always inspired me, and Global Scholars helped funnel that inspiration into a plan for my future.

I will take these skills with me to college next year as I pursue a degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Computer Science specifically attracts me because it combines the things I believe are important for understanding the globalized world we all live in, including our environment, security policy, global safety, and much more. Combining Global Scholars and Computer Science allows me to integrate security, technology, economics, and language into one combined perspective. I have a background in technology, specifically robotics, that I am interested in combining to eventually work for an international technology corporation after college. Our world is getting more globalized and less isolationist; we continue to need communications specialists in both computer and foreign languages. I wish to supplement Computer Science by continuing to study Spanish, as I have done for the last six years. The ability to communicate with people who speak different languages represents one of the most basic requirements for landing international internships and jobs, which Global Scholars has helped show me. As a whole, Global Scholars guided me towards what I want to study in college and showed me the places an international perspective could take me. I am thankful for the opportunities this club has provided me in high school!