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Please describe any travel or experiences that have prepared you for the Global Engineering RAP. This can include international travel and study abroad or any travel or experiences within the US that have showed you new perspectives, cultures or languages. If you have not had the chance yet to travel, please share where you would like to travel and why. I've travelled to over 11 countries and had meaningful experiences within each. My main experiences that have prepared me for RAP though are studying Japanese for three years(I eventually travelled but did not have the opportunity of spending any extensive time there), having family members within Hungary, experiences with friends whom have lived in many different places in the world, and the experience of an international engineering community through FIRST.

I studied Japanese pretty seriously from 8th to 11th grade. (average of 1.5 to 2 hours a day ). Initially I learned the language was because I found the academic side of studying its structure and history really interesting. But through the process I learned a lot about how different cultures think and how different things feel through a foreign tongue. I met some Japanese friends in my community and online and that was the first experience I had that really opened my mind to working with different cultures.

Much of my close family members are in Hungary, and because of that I've gotten a lot of time to experience how they view the rest of the world, and solving problems. It's broadened my perspective about engineering because over there projects aren't as mass scale as in the US and the engineers have to handle a lot more management and quick project execution then they do in the US since there's a lot less people that still have to fulfill the engineering needs of a whole country. They've also shared there perspectives about how much American policy and American companies have had an impact on them. This experience has motivated me to become a globally focused engineer because its taught me about the impact that my work may have across the world, and has also opened my eyes to the opportunity of gaining project management skills by working within smaller countries.

My experiences with friends whom have lived in many places has taught me extremely similar things. I have a friend who grew up in Switzerland and stayed for long periods across Europe and the stories he's told me and perspectives he's shared consistently remind me that there's always more out there. More to see, and more of the world to help with engineering.

Finally my experiences within FIRST have prepared me for RAP by teaching me just how much of an impact engineering has globally. It really comes to you at FIRST competitions because you get to meet thousands of kids all with the same goals and aspirations as you that are also working to help there own countries as well as the world. When you're all working together to help reprogram somebodies robot it removes borders, politics, nationalities, etc. And it reminds you that were all in this world so we can help each other. That's the main reason I want to do RAP. I want to accomplish stuff together with people across seas. The more we work with each other the greater impact our work is going to have.

In the future I'd really like to travel to countries where I can make an impact on their government infrastructure projects. I will likely participate in engineers without borders, and I think I'll be able to help a lot of people that way. I'd also like to travel to engineering research centers, like central Europe, and Japan, India, and China. I want to become really technically proficient in engineering and create some pretty important innovations. I've really enjoyed research at UCCS so far and I'd like to continue that and set my sights on larger aspirations.