Personal Statement

I never imagined that the tiny Science Bowl program at my school could ever make it this far. I never even imagined participating in it for over 5 years when I saw my first game in 2007. We only had four players on the team then - the bare minimum to have a team. I was supposed to be the fifth - an alternate, a replacement. But I eventually went on to captain the team for the next two years, and completely restructured the way our high school played Science Bowl. I took a detailed look at our organization, and immediately set out to fix what was wrong. To start, we didn't have enough questions to practice with and kept reading the same rounds over and over; our practices were becoming meaningless without new questions. Faced with a dilemma, I set out to do what my peers considered to be unthinkable - I took several textbooks, started reading them fervently, and began writing dozens of questions. Dozens of questions that became hundreds, that later became thousands. I built a following around this mission, and delegated my teammates to help write these questions with me. And so, our program went from having no resources and four students to having nearly 6,000 questions and over twenty-­five students.

I have witnessed firsthand how Science Bowl can change lives, forge friendships, and build teamwork, all while inspiring a love of science. With the help of the CV Starr Fellowship, I am now ready to take these virtues and deliver them to the community around me. I have seen how much progress I could make inspiring my high school peers to learn science - I now want to inspire the rest of the world to learn science.