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My little cousin being born inspired me by giving me a brother figure to step up my responsibility and by giving me the experience of seeing the world from a different

perspective.When my little cousin was born, I was only 6 years old. I am a single child and so is he, so I really hoped we would have each other to lean on, kind of like siblings, but ones you could give back to their parents at the end of the day or when they get annoying. My cousin Cooper is intelligent, driven, enthusiastic, confident, ambitious, and is a risk taker. He has shown me many different perspectives that I did not understand until I heard them through his eyes. We do all the regular brother and sister things but also have a little space in between hanging out with each other which I see as a good thing so we can enjoy each other’s company better. I have also learned a lot about myself by showing him the ropes as he grows older, as I have given him advice or helped him through whenever he needs at the time I am constantly reminded that I also need to slow down in my own life and listen to my own advice. He is only eleven years old but has influenced me so much in ways he probably won’t ever know, whether it's just to slow down and enjoy the little things or to see the world through his perspective.

The picture I place represents my cousin and I literally being able to lean on eachother even as we grow up. I hope that as we grow older we will always have each other to be there and support each other no matter what.

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The glasses symbolize my new outlook on life once I had to completely change my health life style and gained a new level of empathy for people with life altering health conditions.

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For me, middle school was a pretty rough time in my life. In the 6th grade, I was riddled with awful anxiety everyday. I almost could not bear to go to class and broke down several times during the day because of a crippling fear of failure. Which in the 6th grade was not likely because it's really only the beginning of having pressure in

school. And then 5 days before I finished 6th grade, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes and then rushed to the ICU for a hospital visit totaling 4 days. It was not fun coming back after that but of course I survived. After that glimpse of my middle school experience aside from moving homes and then eventually schools, it was such a huge relief when I finally graduated. I couldn’t have been more scared yet excited because finally I felt I had control over my experience

The symbol of the pen in the book to me represents how I knew it was up to me to decide what my next four years were going to be like in the best way.

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Got onto the cheer team my sophomore year 2018

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Got onto the cheer team my sophomore year 2018

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This event was really satisfying for me because I initially did not get onto the team in my freshman year so I was crushed but I took a dance class and worked really hard and it felt really good when I got onto the team my second year trying out and the symbol of the checklist represented how my hard work paid off and it felt really satisfying.

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Last year I broke up with my best friend of 4 years which is not a very long time but considering transition between middle and high school, it was a very pivotal time in our lives for the time we were friends. It was really hard for me because I had formally let her know that I needed some space because we were no longer able to be communicative to the point that we were both happy which is code for she went MIA every summer and had started to get more and more spacey in the past year. She agreed with me and then proceeded to talk behind my back and go so far as to tell my other friends to pick a side between the both of us. So long story short it was over and I began to move on and hang out with other people. I was then told about how much happier I looked and how ecstatic that we that girl and I were no longer friends. And I mean I understood because of the last year but they explain how she had always been so toxic to everyone around her and was manipulating me. I had no idea because I was just in this bubble with her. Overall this was a HUGE learning experience for me that the person who had been in my life for a significant time who I had idolized was actually dragging me down. I am beyond happy and grateful for my older and newer friends for helping me out and for explaining how much better I felt after being in that toxic relationship.

The ball and chain falling off represents how free I became after I was no longer friends with my old friend and how I was not aware how much better I could feel without her in my life.

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Throughout my time at Hillsdale, it has been a goal of mine to get into the leadership class. And I was not successful until this year when I finally took the opportunity to reflect about how I have taken on the application and how I have put myself out there for the past 3 years. When putting together all of this information from my past interviews, I had time to reflect and it felt very surreal for me to think

about not only how different I will be in this last interview but how much I have experienced during my three years in high school. It was both an exciting and terrifying feeling. I began to think back to my Sophomore year, I felt my interview was good but my application was troubling, it needed quite a lot of work including spell check alone, which right then and there could have been the problem. In my Junior year, I froze in my interview and was very nervous because I could have prepared better and my answers to the improv questions were vague. All of my reflection and applying it into my final interview got me accepted into the class.

The lock and key signifies the final step I finally took to reach my goal of being accepted into this years’ leadership class. I feel my acceptance into the class not only represents how much I have grown but my next chapter opening because of this barrier I had faced in my final year of high school after attempting for the past three years.