A person’s passions are one of their most defining characteristics because once you know person’s passions, you know to what they are willing to dedicate everything in their life. Passions can surpass reason, doubt, and even fear to shape how a person explores questions and confronts challenges. My passions define not only how I spend my time but also who I spend it with, where I spend it, and how I use my other resources. One aspect of my life in which my passions are apparent is within my hobbies. I love spending time outdoors. Over the summer, I work at summer camp, a job that has challenged me in the most incredible ways. Through my work as a summer staffer at my sleep away camp, I have seen children grow and challenge themselves to …show more content…
I am the Vice President of my university’s largest queer-centric organization, The Pride Network, a non-profit organization with a chapter at Hofstra University. Since I have joined the executive board, we have tripled our club membership and implemented affinity spaces for less-recognized members of our community, including bisexual and asexual individuals. Through this position, I have met some incredible queer and trans activists including Jenny Boylan, Kit Yan, and Erin Davies. I am also a PRISM Mentor, a mentor to first year LGBT-identified freshmen at my university and a leader of one of our affinity spaces. Additionally, I am a founding board member and President of the Gender Identity Federation, a club focused on the transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming communities. Due in part to this role, I had the honor to be asked to serve on my university’s Gender Inclusive Housing Committee, which consists of a group of administrators and myself working to make Hofstra’s housing more trans inclusive. I have also had the honor representing my university at two LGBT conferences this past year. I had the privilege of presenting at the Northeastern LGBT Conference and attending this year’s Creating Change conference along with each conference’s Racial Justice Institute. I also participate in Hofstra’s Rock Climbing Club and attend one of their biannual camping trips. Due to …show more content…
Through my love of languages, I have become very interested in commonalities found in all languages and how communication systems are categorized as different languages, dialects, or interpretations. This interest has led me to my major in Linguistics, the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Additionally, I am interested in how computers function and the coding required to run computers and computer software. Computer Science and Linguistics intersect in the incredible field of Computational Linguistics, a field dedicated to developing computer systems that work with human language and are aimed at discovering how language operates. Computational Linguistics is an incredibly important field within modern technology. It is used to create various types programing including speech recognition software and web search engines. I hope to graduate with Bachelor’s Degrees in Linguistics and Computer Science and a Master’s Degree in Computational Linguistics. Eventually, I hope to work at Google and help with programs such as Google Translate. As a queer individual hoping to excel in a STEM field, I hope to fight inequalities and prejudice against the LGBT community by pursuing my passion for analyzing the incredible power and phenomena behind human