Dangers of the Internet by Alexa

Dangers of the Internet by Alexa - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

The muffled voices of my dad and I trying to keep silent as we played Just Dance, Mario Kart, Fighting games, you name it, all throughout the night while struggling to not wake up my mom is a key memory I will keep forever. The thin walls of our first and only home hold so many memories of when my passion for gaming first blossomed.
I spent my elementary school years playing for hours on end on the Wii, and in the summer of 2015, when I was ten years old, I watched as my babysitter’s kid downloaded a new game onto his PC. That game was Minecraft. My eyes lit up as I saw the limitless possibilities that could be done. When I initially saw it, I fell in love with the game and knew I had to buy it. It was long overdue to get my first game on the PC, since I had only been playing on the Wii. I had my mother assist me in purchasing the game using the birthday money I had saved up from prior years. Using my saved up birthday money from the previous years, I had my mom help me buy the game. I played Minecraft for hours on end, so much to the point that my mother had to limit my use. I believed that my love for Minecraft could not have grown any further, but I was mistaken. Not too long after, I learned of a server called Hypixel.
This was a significant turning point in my life since it made me aware of the dangers associated with the internet. Although I had met a number of fantastic people, people that I am still friends with to this day, I had also met some people who changed the trajectory of my life. I was doxxed for the first time in 2019. It was frightening, particularly because I did not know what it meant at the time or where to go next. Fortunately, my dox only contained my last name and my fictitious first name. Since none of the members in the group knew my actual first name, there wasn’t much more they could do.
With little to no knowledge about the dangers of the internet before that point, I decided to start being cautious. I had since made up my mind to major in cybersecurity. I doubt that I could have chosen my ideal job without this experience. I’ve always known that I wanted to do something with computers for my profession and I believe I was supposed to experience this scary event to find out what I would like to do for the rest of my life.