Small Town Engineering Dreams by Taylar

Small Town Engineering Dreams by Taylar - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

When I think back to my most fond childhood experiences, the first ones that come to my mind are ones involving building. As a kid I loved to build structures with Legos and play building related video games, such as Minecraft. As I progressed through school, I became more and more fascinated by science and math classes. Out of all the classes I took, those were always my favorite. Based on what my interests were as a child, I was always bound to pursue some type of STEM degree, but there is one experience that has been one of the most important experiences for helping me decide that I want to become a Civil Engineer.
When I was in middle school, my small town noticed that one thing that we were lacking was a park that was accessible to disabled people. Because of this, my community banded together and began raising money to help replace one of the older playgrounds at the City Park with a new one that was safer and more accessible. When enough money was raised, the entire community was invited to come and volunteer to help with the construction of this playground. Specifically, my mother was invited onto the project as a leader, and because of this, I came along to the construction site with her most of the days and helped. Participating in this construction project made me realize how much I love building and that I wanted to be behind the scenes of these types of projects as an engineer. Because of this project, I found my passion and became more aware of what I want to accomplish in my lifetime with my Civil Engineering degree. Once I understood my passion, I looked into what I would need to do to prepare myself to pursue my degree, which led me to taking more science and math classes. It also led to me taking a class that taught me how to use computer-aided drafting software, which is something I have grown to love to do. Overall, this single STEM experience has led to me participating in more STEM experiences and helped me discover what type of career I want to have.
Once I graduate from Arizona State University with a Civil Engineering degree, I want to go out into the world and help engineer better built environments. In particular, I want to work within small communities to help bring them more facilities that improve the well-beings of the people who live there, such as recreational centers. I want to do this because as a kid, I had to quit activities, like swim team, because my town did not have the facilities to accommodate them. In order for me to participate in swim team, I had to drive to a different town, and eventually, the drive to get to a town that did have a swim team was too time consuming, so I had to give up a sport that I loved. I want to make sure that other kids do not have to go through what I went through, so I decided that I want to major in something that will allow me to help bring facilities to small towns.
The combination of my experiences of taking STEM classes, building as a kid, and having a lack of facilities in my town led to me realizing that I want to become a Civil Engineer. While my experience of giving up activities that I loved fills me with sadness to think about, I am still very grateful for it, because without it, I would not feel so passionately about helping out other small communities once I graduate.