I may have missed the MLK Day Parade a day after, but hey, celebrating the cause is still a well-worth event! There were multiple hands-on activities, such as multiple games and discussion groups. One of the discussions was what are your career interests, and what job you would like to have that matches those interests. I think I said my desired career interest is to solve problems and/or puzzles based off what I know or what I can find out. I have always felt that this idea easily relates to computer science. If I would not be in computer science, I would be a teacher. I would want to be a teacher to help students find their true purpose after high school. There are so many seniors such as me who either did not know what they want to do when they get out of high school, they don’t feel like they have the resources to do so, or both. I feel like teachers apply most of the basic standards for classes like English and Math, and extracurricular like astronomy or music. With that being said, I want to help the youth to find careers out of high school, and I also want to better understand where their minds are at knowing they will be entering college soon. There was a guest speaker panel at the very end. The event had snacks and coffee and was also catered by Slim and Husky's Pizza. This event was very special to me because of two reasons. The first one is because it was a good turnout and the event celebrated equal rights and the Black Lives Matter movement. The second was because my brother was a guest speaker, which was really cool to see. In the picture to the right you can see me and my brother taking a picture with a few of our friends who also attended the panel.  

The Voter's Registration was a committee in the Mayor's Youth Council that began from November of 2019 to when school let out. While I did like the other committees, this one sparked my interest. Me and a few of my peers on the Mayor's Youth Council chose to join the Voter's Registration committee because of how there are people who are able to vote and want to make change, but do not know where to start. The main objective was to get young people that were 18 or going to be 18 in time for the election, to vote. Most of the work we did was in our own schools all around Nashville. In my school, McGavock High, I set up a booth with a few other people and handed out voter sign-up sheets, as well as provided information on how the youth voting can drastically shift the way voting is effected. Throughout the entire process, we were able to successfully sign up a few thousand students to be able to vote. The process was a very educational experience as well. This was mainly because I was taught more statistical numbers when talking about how the voting process works. The percent of voters made up of people who are 18-25 is only 10%.  If this type of work done through the Voter's Registration was done all around the world, then that number would change exceptionally. I was really satisfied with the number of young people I got to sign up to vote in the later presidential election.    

For as long as I can remember, I have had a love for technology. Whether that may be through how innovative it is to see how far it has come compared to as little as the last decade, or being introduced to such things like web development or coding, technology has always spoke to me. Tasks like these can be fun and rewarding to complete, and research on new real-world technologies, (and the computer and information field in general) is something that easily captivates me and encourages me to learn more. This was why I had decided to take on a project of my own to experience how it is to work and experiment directly with technology. It was at that time that I had decided to build my own computer. 

When I got the idea to build a computer, I didn’t want to just dive right in and start buying computer components. This type of activity required time and patience. First, I needed to do research on how the parts of a computer correlate and work together, considering not only did I need to know all the parts I required, but what type of parts I needed, depending on what I’d use the desktop for. I also needed to know how to put it all together. This entire process took about a year, consisting of me doing my own personal research and collecting all the parts. Thankfully, my only option wasn’t just looking up everything, as I went to computer experts from the people at Tech Geek and computer building specialists at Geek Squad from Best Buy.

By the end of the summer of 2019, my computer had finally been finished. The process of building it overall was a huge excitement for me. My brother had built it with me, which was really cool because we had fun bonding over it and we can say we built it together. Another enjoyment was slowly collecting every piece, because by the time I had collected the third to last part I had all the information I needed to build the desktop and the anticipation was killing me! In addition, collecting every part felt like the project was leading to something greater, as if the work I had put in was all a part of the grand finale.

One thing that I didn’t notice throughout the entire process of building my computer was how much time had gone by while I was researching different people’s builds and information. This didn’t feel like anything I had ever done; it had felt like a passion, like I could really enjoy it forever, or like I didn’t want it to end. Even when I was actually putting all the parts together, it had felt so engaging, that if I had messed up on something (and I did multiple times) than I wouldn’t want to take a break; I would continue to work on it until I solved the problem. This entire project was just absolute hard work and enjoyment, and I truly feel like I got the most out of what I put into it.