One special evening on a St. Vincent vacation, I sat under the sky, mesmerized by the cosmos above. At that moment, I felt a connection with generations of Caribbean travelers, guided by the stars. Just as our ancestors navigated the shining seas, physicists today navigate the cosmos in search of answers to questions about the nature of dark matter. I began noticing parallels between the unseen forces that govern the universe and influence humanity’s advancements. Like the gravitational pull dark matter exerts on the visible matter around it, Caribbean culture casts an invisible influence on those who embrace it. Through this realization, I began to appreciate the intersection between science and culture, and how it impacted my identity as a West Indian. This insight helped me to understand how science and culture interact and how it influenced my identity as a West Indian. I wanted to search the depths and crevices of my world for its hidden mysteries. However, this quest would pose its challenges.

The tapping of my fingers against my keyboard echoed throughout the classroom. Sliding up my mouse with hesitation, I took a few deep breaths. I finally clicked on the tab. My screen paused, and finally, it showed what I had been waiting for. 1230, that’s what I had gotten on my second attempt at the SAT. Sighing, I closed my laptop and put my head in my hands. Nowadays, peers my age determine that these types of test scores are very representative of their academic capability. On the other hand, I still believed I was ready for college. Coming from a low-income household, I was determined to prove my worth as a first-generation, going beyond what a test score says about me. Balancing the demands of academic excellence with the responsibilities of helping to support my family prepared me to mature and adapt at a young age. Pondering how to navigate around this hurdle, I decided that my best alternative was seeking out external resources.

Searching through the internet, I found a summer high school research program at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Mentored by Dr. Ketevi Assamagan, my work focused on observing the behavior of electrons in semiconductors, with a special emphasis on the relationship between temperature, voltage, and resistance. The college graduate students on the team I worked with frequently brought up the fact that, even as a high school student, I was conducting research at the college level. With an overall goal of detecting particles beyond the visible spectrum, I witnessed physics’s adaptive nature and the applications of its subfields. The calibration NTC thermistors were circuit bridges to electrical engineering, and computer science had strings in the Arduino code. The fusion of tools, like the temperature chamber we analyzed, merged theoretical principles across the STEM spectrum.

This experience demonstrated that a career in STEM was accessible despite my adversities. When the time approaches for me to walk out the hallways of my high school, my steps will be in the path of scientific research. I intend to complement my physics studies with programming languages. To further scientific knowledge, I want to improve my capacity to evaluate increasingly complicated data sets and models by learning key tools and methodologies. While SAT scores can serve as an objective tool for evaluating my readiness for college, it is not a perfect reflection of my true potential. I can strive to make use of my skills beyond reading a passage and finding what a person’s wages are if x = 5.