Personal Narrative: The Ranch

I grew up on a large open property somewhat out in the country in Healdsburg. My family and I called it (and still do) “The Ranch”. Though all in separate houses, most of my family lived there; my grandma and grandpa in one house, my aunt’s family in one, and my mom and I in another. We all were very close; my cousin on my aunt’s side was practically a sister, and my aunt and uncle a second set of parents. It was rare for one of us to not be at the others house. We’d pretend to be characters from books or movie, play with an old Nintendo console my cousin’s brother had, and just talk about school or anything really.
Our grandparents were very open minded people, encouraging us to try new food, activities, or places. I’ve been to Oregon, the …show more content…
Being out in the country we had a slow dial up connection, and I had an old PC hooked up to this connection. Though I couldn’t play games with anyone online, I would often find online messaging boards and talk with others about the games I played. It was one of my favorite hobbies; I actually started enjoying discussing the games more than actually playing them. I had the same wonder and enthusiasm for the internet as many of the people who were around before its creation do. No matter how far away someone was, I could still connect with them and share experiences together, and the amount of information available was mind blowing. There was nothing I couldn’t know in just seconds (or back then probably minutes). From there we replaced the dial up connection with satellite, allowing me to watch videos online or download neat programs. When I finally got a Smartphone I set it up as a mobile hotspot. This meant even faster speeds and I could even play some of the games I enjoyed with other people …show more content…
Last year I entered the STEM core available at our school, providing an intro course in Engineering as well as STEM focused History and English. I’m taking AP Calculus and AP Computer Science this year, both of which I plan to learn and pass the tests for. On my own time I have a laptop running Arch Linux I work and program on. My senior project this year will be a culmination of all this knowledge, a program that can take two reactants in a chemical equation and guess the product(s). After I earn a degree in Computer Science, I would like to also study Electrical Engineering and Networking. To me Computer Science holds more than a job for me, it is a field of study I am deeply interested in. I think it is one of the few keys to bettering our society by creating a connected world where information is freely accessible. I believe what I will learn in this field has the potential to change my outlook on the world around me, and drive me to help create this better future for all of