I was born March 29, 1992 in Las Vegas and have been enjoying my life ever since then. I am the second child and have 2 brothers and 1 sister. From the time that I was born up until the point when I was about 12, my family and I lived in a 900 sq feet home. To some people, that may seem unbelievable due to the 6 person size of our family; but, living in that small house only kept us more connected as a family. However, when I was 12, we moved into a new house next door to our old one where each of us children finally had our own separate rooms. We still live in that house today.
Since the time that I was young, I have always been dependent on myself for mental stimulation. My father did not believe in having broadcast TV, so unlike most kids who would watch television in their spare time I would do other things. I would build spaceships with Legos, construct buildings with Tinker Toys, and use the computer in my spare time. However, our internet was extremely slow for the longest time, so as a result I would teach myself how to make websites, use professional level software, and computer program at a young age.
Winning Future City National Competition
When I was in the 7th and 8th grade, I participated in something known as the Future City Engineering Competition. The competition consisted of a team of 3 students with the help of an engineering mentor and a teacher designing and constructing a model (for less than $100) of what we perceived the future to be like in 2150. My team mates and I were all members of the computer club at my school and decided that we would try to win the regional competition. After months of labor, my team mates and I were successfully able to win the competition and went on an all expense paid trip to Washington D.C. to compete at the national level. At the national competition, we were able to communicate with the 35 best teams out of the 10,000+ teams that participated. We did not place in the top 5 at National Competition that year, but we got many ideas of what we could do in the following year's competition.
In 8th grade, my team was once again reunited to partake in the competition. This time, we were much more prepared and had a better idea of what the competition would be like. We honed our skills and dramatically improved our presentation for our city and created a much better city overall. We once again went to compete in the regional competition and were successfully able to win the region and compete in Washington D.C. again! While we were better prepared this time in Washington D.C., we still did not place in the top 5. However, my teammates any myself were very pleased with what we had accomplished and wished that we could participate again. (Competition is only for 7th and 8th graders)
Because I enjoyed participating in the Future City Competition so much, during high school I decided to help coach a team of students at my school (my school goes from 6th to 12th grade). I coached the students on how they could be successful in the competition and what they could do that would "wow" the judges. The students competing in the competition would ask me about the feasibility of their ideas and I along with the engineering mentor would provide a response. The team, like my own, was successfully able to win the regional competition and also go on an all expense paid trip to Washington D.C.
Graphic Design
Through time, I began to develop a great quantity of skills in programs like photoshop, dreamweaver, and illustrator. First, I began learning just for fun, then I realized that I could make some money from the things that I did. Today, I do professional graphic design for people in the Las Vegas valley.
Study Abroad in Spain
During my sophomore year in high school, I felt as though I was missing something and that something was spending a summer in a foreign country. My father told me that when he was a teenager, he had spent the summer living with a family in Mexico and was able to speak spanish well after that. As a result, I decided that I would go to Spain and live with a family there for a month. The difference between his experience and my own is that I decided to take Spanish classes while I was there and from Monday to Friday, I had spanish classes from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. The experiencing was very interesting; the house that I lived at had people from all over the world staying there. The house was owned by a very kind lady. However, the house was set up so that many people studying abroad could stay there. One of the people that I visited with was from a small town in England consisting of only several hundred people.
Overall, the experience has made me a more diverse individual with a broader perspective on the world. The connections that I made and the experiences that I shared have allowed me to be, as I believe, a much better individual.
