ApplyTexas C “What I wish I knew” were the five words that ensnared my middle-school self. I Googled, sought out it all - advice from high schoolers, college graduates, or even those with decades more life experience than myself. That Boy Scout motto-esque nature of preparing myself for the future persists, rooted firmly in my conscious action. Building and programming a robotic guitar on the same level of complexity as the marketed games, catching and studying bugs up close and...

ApplyTexas B My junior year of physics; a new teacher, a new program, and neither the right one for our school. When a teacher or class disappoints, two options surface; settle in for the ride, or strike out and learn to manipulate The Force. I knew better than to settle for less. Recalling the place I affectionately call “nerd camp” (or more professionally, Duke Talent Identification Program) and its physics-heavy astronautical engineering course which, in my mind, sits upon a...