I entered the world of jump rope when I was nine years old after watching the Disney movie titled Jump In! Fascinated with the endless possibilities of new skills to learn, ranging from basic crosses to multiple-unders, from releases to acrobatics, I was determined to become the best jump roper I could be. I started an after-school club at my elementary school, joined a local performance and competition team, and watched YouTube tutorials. Within a year, jump rope had become my biggest non-academic commitment. At my first two national tournaments in the summer of 2011, I didn’t receive a single medal. Fourteen years later, after countless hours of hard work and consistent training, I hold two world titles and 33 national titles, and I am the fastest jumper in the US. Jump rope has also taught me that you don’t always need to speak in order to make a connection with someone. Having had opportunities to teach athletes from countries all over the world in Hong Kong, Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Germany, the skills involved in jump rope form a language of their own. In the summer of 2014 at my first world championships in Hong Kong, I felt lost, for I didn’t speak any language other than English. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to communicate with any of the international athletes. After a Swedish boy my age came up to me to share tricks simply by demonstrating the trick and exchanging a few gestures, though, I realized that jump rope provides me and thousands of others with a lingua franca that allows us to trade skills, make cross-cultural connections, and deepen our love for the sport. It is the professional side of jump rope, though, that has guided me toward a path in law. About half of the day-to-day tasks involve rehearsing, auditioning, traveling, and performing. The other half is negotiating compensation and signing contracts. Working with owners and directors to ensure that I am compensated and protected fairly has been eye-opening. I am fairly new to the professional performing world, joining in 2021 and having to read and sign contracts independently, without any legal background. This is the reality for many professional performers. Last winter, I signed a contract to jump rope in a six-week holiday show in Houston where I would perform anywhere from one to three shows per day, up to 10 shows per week, according to the contract. I signed six months before the show would open without having any advance notice of performance times or dates. Though typical, members of my cast and I noticed that, breaking the terms of our contract, we were scheduled for 11 shows during our penultimate week. We were only being compensated weekly for a maximum of 10 shows. The entire cast banded together and demanded we be compensated for the extra show that was scheduled, otherwise we would not be performing the eleventh show. Contractually, they could not obligate us to perform. Any comeback that didn’t involve compensation was just an empty threat. We held our ground. The company manager tried to skirt the issue for weeks. She tried to convince us that because we still got paid for canceled shows during the first week—shows that were canceled well after I had signed the contract—that it should account for the eleventh show. She tried to convince us that “10 shows” was just a guideline. That it was a typo. That we read our contract wrong. It was not until the day before the eleventh show that we were notified that we would receive an extra 10 percent of our weekly salary so long as we took the stage. Companies and employees alike enter contracts to be protected. This experience helped me realize that performing has been some of the most rewarding work I’ve done—putting smiles on people’s faces, bringing them back to their grade school days with the nostalgia of a jump rope—but it is through the law that I would be able to truly protect people, just as my cast and I protected ourselves. I could help professional performers protect their intellectual property and livelihood. I could advocate for employees’ rights as they enter into employment contracts. And I could champion my LGBTQ+ peers in equality and anti-discrimination cases. I aim to give back to the communities that have nurtured me into the person I am today. I am eager to move from entertainment to advocacy, and I will cling to all of the values—discipline, determination, and grit—that all facets of jump rope have taught me as I pursue the law

As a child, I was loud, brazen, and fearless. These traits of mine were not innate, but rather necessary adaptations that I developed from protecting my twin brother, who was diagnosed with autism early in life. Being my brother’s defender throughout my childhood became an integral part of who I was and honed my instincts to speak up for those who could not always advocate for themselves. Ironically, although I had the strength to defend my brother, I later failed to advocate for my own protection. During my sophomore year of college, I found myself trapped in an abusive relationship. My boyfriend at that time began to give me ultimatums with subtle demands, such as insisting that I change my appearance and lose weight to keep our relationship. This behavior quickly escalated as he threatened to spread lies about me if I were to ever reveal his true nature to others. Within a few months, he had coerced and blackmailed me into severing ties with my friends and family. I became paralyzed by the fear of retaliation and consumed by shame, no longer seeing an avenue out of my circumstances. Thankfully, our relationship eventually ended. Shortly after, I was shocked when multiple women approached me to confide that they had also been sexually harassed and threatened by my ex-boyfriend. As we shared our stories, it became clear that we all had nearly identical experiences and were part of a larger pattern of manipulation and abuse. However, as we tried to speak out, my ex-boyfriend’s “nice guy” reputation granted him unwavering support among our peers and resulted in their immediate defense of him when hearing our stories. Despite our diverse Asian backgrounds, we all faced similar cultural barriers shaped by our parents' immigrant experiences. They advised against taking action, fearing it would jeopardize our futures and undermine the stability they had worked hard to build. As a result, we were expected to drop the issue, uphold family honor, and to save face. Our attempt to seek legal advice further highlighted the complexity of our situation as the attorneys we consulted proposed initiating a high-profile class action lawsuit. While this approach seemed like the obvious choice from a legal standpoint, it failed to account for the complex cultural and ethical considerations that are fundamental to our familial values that shaped our decisions. Privacy and discretion are highly valued in our family, and public legal battles run counter to the traditional values of maintaining harmony and avoiding shame. When we expressed this concern, the lawyers insisted that a class action lawsuit was our only option and refused to consider alternative approaches. Witnessing how standard legal practices failed to offer culturally appropriate options for marginalized communities was eye-opening, and I came to understand that achieving true justice demanded advocates who could skillfully navigate both the intricacies of the law and the nuances of different cultures. Driven by this realization, I explored the intersection of law and cultural competence, which led me to author a law journal article on the Violence Against Women Act. This experience revealed the legal and cultural barriers immigrant domestic violence survivors face and solidified my commitment to becoming a civil rights attorney, working directly with vulnerable individuals to challenge unjust laws and advocate for systemic change. My experience as a judicial extern in Seattle after college further expanded my perspective on the challenges faced by immigrants in the legal system. In one instance, I witnessed a defendant with limited English skills unknowingly plead guilty, having been falsely promised leniency by his public defender. When the defendant realized this and explained it to the judge, I was horrified to see the judge refuse to reconsider their decision. This experience not only echoed the institutional failures I had written about but also deepened my understanding of how multiple layers of the justice system could fail vulnerable individuals beyond domestic violence cases. Seeing these systemic failures firsthand, I felt compelled to address these issues on a community level. I now volunteer at a domestic violence shelter, where I help distribute meals and lead workforce reentry workshops for mothers. Witnessing these injustices firsthand ignited my passion to become the advocate I once needed, transforming cultural barriers into the foundation of my commitment to advocacy. My experiences have shown me that justice is not just an abstract concept but a necessity that must be pursued with precision, empathy, and unwavering determination. Law school is the next crucial step in equipping myself with the legal expertise and cultural understanding needed to advocate effectively for marginalized communities. As I embark on this next chapter, I am focused on applying the lessons I have learned to make a tangible impact. With a commitment to meaningful change, I am determined to advocate for culturally sensitive legal practices so that justice becomes not just a distant ideal but a lived reality for all.

$1 Billion to Build More Prisons. As I read the headline, a heavy weight of anguish settled in my chest. When the Department of Justice (DOJ) declared Alabama’s men's carceral system unconstitutional, I’d hoped it would force our leaders to implement real change, not expand this broken system. On the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama, I’d spent my entire life minutes from Kilby Correctional Facility, a prison at the heart of this crisis. I had passed by that red-brick building countless times—its towering fences and barren grounds a permanent fixture of my world. But it wasn’t until I pored over the pages of the DOJ report, brimming with Eighth Amendment violations, that I understood the scale of the human suffering hidden behind those walls: overcrowded cells, inadequate healthcare, and systemic abuse. I carry a deep love for Alabama and for the South—the home my family found as we sought a new beginning as immigrants from Ethiopia. But witnessing our leaders pour millions of our taxpayer dollars into an institution that repeatedly violated human dignity crushed my faith in the possibility of transformational change. Alabama hadn’t only failed the men inside; it had failed its own moral compass. Even in my disillusionment, I clung to the belief that loving a place meant holding it accountable and demanding the best from it. I channeled my frustration into resolve, determined not to be just a bystander. Motivated by this conviction, I began my senior thesis—not as an academic exercise, but to understand how Alabama’s prison system, which was set to grow, could at the very least be rendered more humane. While I followed the DOJ’s case, I was concurrently gaining expertise in environmental policy, leading me to see social issues as interconnected. Through my coursework and internships, I saw how rural areas, like those in Eastern North Carolina, were often dumping grounds for toxic waste. On the ground restoring streams in Hawai'i, I became acutely aware of how low-income, Black and Brown communities were most affected by environmental injustice. I suspected prisons, whose settings and demographics mirrored these at-risk groups, would reflect these inequities. Exploring this connection, I found a relatively overlooked field: prison ecology. Viewing prisons as environmental systems, I discovered that they were often built on polluted industrial land that compromised air and water quality for those inside. Mapping proposed sites for new prisons heightened my fears: they, too, were concentrated in polluted zones. Initially, I felt energized by this discovery, hopeful that recognition of these environmental hazards could spur reform. Then, reality set in: these injustices weren’t incidental. They were embedded in how these facilities were planned and built. What began as a search for solutions was relegated to a confrontation of the enormity of the problem. I struggled to find a path forward. With systemic reform slipping further out of reach, I began interviewing individuals with the strongest grasp on the system’s failings: 10 men forced inside Alabama’s prisons. As they relived the inhumane conditions they endured, their voices cracked: they recounted the black mold and yellowed water, the smell of caustic chemicals filling the air. When they raised concerns, no one listened. One story haunted me—rashes and lesions erupted on a man’s skin. He grew sicker each day, his hair falling out in chunks, and received care only after he was released. Hearing these accounts enraged me, but more than that, it forced me to reconsider my role in this system. Initially, I had fixated on top-down change, a process plagued by incrementalism. As I absorbed these stories, I concluded my thesis project with an intense urgency to act in smaller, more immediate ways, driven to alleviate even one case of suffering. Crucially, as my focus shifted from institutional to individual injustice, I realized that a single case could ripple outward. Two years after completing my thesis, I sat in the Alameda County Board chambers, a week into my role as a policy fellow. I heard the story of Maurice Monk, a man left lifeless in his cell for 72 hours before someone finally noticed he was dead. His family’s lawsuit initiated a deeper investigation into patterns of neglect in Santa Rita Jail; 9 deputies and 2 medical employees were charged and bona fide reform followed suit. Sitting on the side of the very system that failed Mr. Monk, I realized that case law not only could instantiate targeted action but also serve as a foundation for lasting change. Five years after the DOJ ruling, thousands remain trapped amid inhumane conditions that threaten their health and safety. I am ready to join their fight as a public interest attorney. From utilizing the National Environmental Policy Act’s review process to challenge prison sitings to filing civil rights cases to expose unsafe conditions, I envision a career immersed in criminal and environmental justice, a space into which few attorneys venture. From the inside out, from the bottom up, I will fight for systemic change that reflects the best of Alabama’s values: community, compassion, and resilience. As I do so, I will remain unwavering in my commitment to justice and to transforming the South into a home for us all.

It took me years to find my native language. Until the third grade, my twin brother and I had debilitating speech defects that required extensive therapy and tutoring. So for four days each week, guidance counselors escorted us to a classroom with barren white walls, where we lost ourselves within a disorderly sprawl of grammar worksheets, crumpled Smarties wrappers, and progress charts. I had primarily struggled to enunciate my Ss and Zs, prompting my instructors to whip out overly worn-out decks of flashcards bearing the names of familiar phonetic foes. Forced repetition rarely lent a helping hand: “snake” became “thnake,” “zebra” became “sebra,” and I became restless. I felt trapped. My attention wandered in those stifling moments to my instructor’s visual aids. Having locked eyes with my fourth zebra, I began doing what any sensible second grader would: I counted its stripes. Even now, I cannot pinpoint the exact motivation—perhaps to relieve my boredom or discomfort; yet I found the task oddly alluring, my fingers slipping like beads in an abacus to keep track. When my brother had his goaround, I finally snapped back into reality and blurted, “theventeen.” Seventeen stripes. My teachers, dazed as if I hissed in Parseltongue, slowly understood and checked my result using similar scratch work. Sure enough, it was correct. Only now have I realized that I walked out with more than another pack of Nerds. Unbeknownst to me then, my first language was neither English nor Urdu: it was mathematics. I internalized at an early age that commonplace items—pencils, pins, pebbles—can all be reimagined as counting exercises. Observation, therefore, underlies my lifelong love for mathematics, a penchant to translate everything I saw into digits. The endeavor began but never ended with stripes: perched at the swing set during recess, I counted wood chips regularly as my peers swayed, bewildered, in my periphery. I have since discovered that mathematics is far more than a numbers game. It’s not enough to shuffle variables around or to treat each subject—calculus, geometry, linear algebra—as separate entities. Like every language, math has an alphabet, syntax, and endless rules that tie seemingly unrelated concepts and so wield broad explanatory power. The same tools I used to model heat dispersion applied just as well to predict the behavior of a firm in a changing market. My experiences in proof writing further cemented that the pursuit of truth is paved with subtlety, discipline, and precision. Deceptively short proofs often turned into late nights, as stacks of crumpled papers laid bare my attempts at testing theorems and strategies. But even I had my limits. The math became more abstract with time, and soon enough, I found myself untangling concepts in real analysis courses that eluded illustration. As one abstraction led to another, I felt detached from the world I once observed so closely—with blistered hands to show for it— and began starving for something more “real.” I wanted to use math to shape my world as much as understand it. Sold by the elevator pitch of “doing the math for the attorneys,” I became a research assistant during this formative stage at a firm called Resolution Economics. I found the adage intriguing, as I’d apply my sharpened skills to offer businesses insight regarding their compliance with employment regulations. And as I had hoped, the firm’s emphasis on statistical analysis came exactly as advertised. In one of my first cases, I gathered timekeeping data from a plastering company to determine if employees were taking appropriately timed breaks, if at all. The physical files arrived in an unconventional format, so for over a week, I sat in the firm library, tallying nearly two years’ worth of records into Excel. The work was repetitive, grueling, and many of my peers took exception. But I loved it. With each timestamp came déjà vu, as though I were once again digging for wood chips. In all my cases, I felt a newfound sense of purpose. People’s livelihoods were at stake. I was now telling a story that only the language of math could tell. A story without its cover, however, is still incomplete. With each case, I also learned that the law frames my entire analysis, detailing penalties, exemptions, and potential arguments. In the same way mathematics helped me find my voice and overcome speech defects, the law fascinates and serves me equally to resolve challenges others face in the workplace. I have since returned to the firm as a consultant, eager to build on my understanding and even more so to tackle cases head-on. Mathematics lies at the foundation of many issues in labor and employment law, and a law school education can help me unearth these connections in greater depth. As working conditions evolve, so too will precedent, and now I want to be the one to shape it. I want to be the one modifying tests for hiring discrimination that withstand potential biases in artificial intelligence. I want to be the one sculpting healthcare and benefits policies as businesses manage future mergers and acquisitions. And I want to be the one strengthening pay equity laws to ensure disadvantaged minorities receive their fair compensation. Whether in a firm or in policymaking, I don’t just want to “do the math for the attorneys” anymore; I want to earn my stripes as the “attorney doing the math.”

In my final semester of college, I realized for the first time that I did not know what I wanted out of my future. My life up to that point had been determined by the expectations of others, but I decided shortly after graduation that I was going to make a choice that was completely my own. To the shock of my friends and family, I decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, which pulled me in by promising a lifestyle entirely unlike my time as a finance student: a constant striving toward service with honor. Whereas other branches’ recruiters promised enlistment bonuses and perks, my Marine recruiter proffered only one incentive: the opportunity to earn the title of United States Marine. I originally signed up to become a part of the infantry, believing it would provide me the sense of purpose of which I had long been deprived. When, at boot camp, I met my fellow recruits, it dawned on me that nearly all of us had enlisted for the same reason: we were lost in life and had something—though we knew not what—to prove. For the first time, I found myself among comrades. At all hours, we lived under the constant haranguing of our drill instructors, whose mantra was “scream loud and move fast.” The orchestrated chaos of boot camp took its toll on people. In the final weeks, when a shoulder injury I’d sustained weeks earlier worsened, I was dropped back about a month in training as people who had become my brothers and sisters went on to complete boot camp. Insult compounded injury as I lost my infantry contract; my future job was going to be whatever the Marine Corps wanted it to be. I was devastated, again entirely uncertain about what my future would hold. However, as my training resumed its unrelenting pace, I redoubled my pursuit of purpose, subordinating my self-doubt to the orders of my drill instructors. After three grueling months, I earned the title of United States Marine, soon learning that I was to become a Legal Services Support Specialist. I felt optimistic, as I had developed an intellectual interest in law by studying political theory. I began in legal assistance. As my work ranged from helping a young Marine who had been scammed by a local car dealership to ensuring the legal security of a widow’s estate, I came to appreciate how the law touched diverse aspects of people’s lives. But when my time in legal assistance ended, I was told that I would be moving to the Trial Services Office (the prosecution office, TSO). I was revulsed. I viewed Marine prosecutors with distaste; tasked with judicially cannibalizing their brothers and sisters, they were Marines only in name. One of the first cases I worked revolved around a person accused of possessing and distributing Child Sexual Assault Material (CSAM, i.e., child pornography). In part, my responsibilities involved reading over and organizing the evidence, which included logs of the accused’s online chats. One thread in particular nauseated me: the accused had messaged another account that he hoped his pregnant girlfriend would have a baby girl, as he could then sexually abuse her. Before the guilty-plea hearing (the “guilty dive”), I felt—for the first time in a long time—visceral rage. Nonetheless, as the guilty dive commenced, I was momentarily disarmed by the accused’s attire: he was wearing neatly pressed Service Charlies. I had the same khaki shirt and green trousers in my closet. He had gone through many of the same trying and meaningful experiences I had. Despite my disgust, I could not help but feel a measure of sympathy for this Marine. I learned during sentencing that he had come to the Corps from a broken home, hoping to better his family’s life. Like me, he had joined because he was lost and had something to prove. After the guilty dive, when the Marine was sentenced, I sat numbly at my workstation, trying unsuccessfully to reconcile my overwhelming angst with the modicum of sympathy I felt. However, a discussion I had with my boss in the TSO helped me contextualize the contradictions I was feeling. Contravening the heavy-handed prosecutor who had preceded him, he argued that the role of the prosecutor is not to mindlessly seek convictions but to effect justice. Through our conversation, I came to understand a prosecutor’s duty as guided by a humane disposition—one that demands empathy for the accused—and to see that the diametrical forces of empathy and outrage could work in tandem. Realizing that the sense of solemn purpose imbued in me by the cases I worked was what I had searched for since college, I now harbor the ultimate goal of becoming a prosecutor. Within my office, we had an unofficial motto that I came to internalize: “Who will watch the watchers themselves?” We not only ensured that Marines didn’t fight next to those who could have compromised warfighting efficiency and undermined good order and discipline but also protected and held accountable those who watched over our country. In attending law school and working toward becoming a civilian prosecutor, I hope to broaden the impact I can have on the legal system and act more directly on behalf not only of my country but of its individual civilians, contributing to a system that aspires toward just consideration for all.

Waking up to a hot July day in Boston, I got out of bed, brushed my teeth, and called my mother to rant about how different everything was here. We talked a lot about nothing. “Alright, I’ll let you go now—what are you up to today?” I asked. “We’re thinking of going for a swim, so we’re going to stay at the house in Mati tonight.” I finished the call, then my economics classes, then my day. When I woke up, I picked up my phone to find a barrage of notifications: “Fire in Mati, Hundreds Missing.” I’d received calls and texts from nearly everyone close to me except for my mother. I called and texted. No response. Halfway across the world, I was powerless. I called friends who lived nearby, only to get more bad news. One had lost his home, another her grandparents. I hope I never again have to feel relief like that which I felt when my mother called me soon after to let me know that she had never ended up going to Mati. Yet, as the relief began to fade, my attention turned to how such a thing could happen. The news dove into a shortage of firefighters and equipment caused by drained emergency funds due to country-wide belt-tightening, and suddenly, as everything seemed to do, it all came back to the Crisis. The Sovereign Debt Crisis was the defining event of my generation. I grew up with it. All around me, people were overcome with debt. I said goodbye to friends whose families left our country in search of better lives. Through the worst of it, my mother was the chief spokesperson for the government, telling millions every day that there would be more debt, more austerity. Despite its defining influence on my life, nobody seemed to be able to tell me just what the Crisis was or why it had taken place. To find answers, I plunged into economics. I took no-credit summer classes and read every article I had a prayer of understanding. I learned that our bonds had gone under and that the creditors entrusted with organizing our bailout had exploited us. The more I learned, the more indignant I felt. Most countries recovered from such crises in a few years, and yet for us, almost a decade on, there was no end in sight. Nevertheless, as I delved deeper into the subject, I felt relief. There were answers out there. I saw a path to learning how to ensure no such thing ever happened again; with college on the horizon, economics felt like the best fit. Finally, I could start asking the right people the right questions. I was probably the most bizarre visitor of my professors’ office hours: a little freshman asking twice a month about the Greek Economic Crisis. However, I soon realized that the answer to preventing the Crisis had been apparent to many. From its onset, economists screamed at the top of their lungs that the course was wrong, that the European institutions were sending a message: there were to be no handouts in the European Union. I could acquire all the models and information to prevent the next crisis, but they would do so only if people acted with perfect predictability. I finished my freshman year of college with my interest in economics waning. I found myself wanting instead to understand the institutions involved in the management of the Crisis. They had exacerbated it, yet I knew nothing about how they worked. That summer, an internship at the European Parliament and a course on EU politics would allow me to look critically at the workings of the European Union both from within and from without. My course acquainted me with an institution under which laws passed by different actors at different times had accumulated into an unfathomably intricate web of sometimes-conflicting rules. At Parliament, I was empowered to help constituents navigate this opacity. Often, I spoke with Greeks who, frustrated with the EU’s migrant policy, called with some degree of vitriol to try to “get rid of the migrants.” I felt the best way forward was to try and ease tensions by informing them of specific provisions and laws related to their individual problems. Finding those provisions wasn’t without its challenges, but the tradeoff was that they were most often there to be found. The act of picking up existing law and placing it between people who—because of their having been impacted in disparate ways by broad policy decisions—might otherwise find themselves in more direct conflict enabled me to ameliorate a situation filled with ineluctable tension. My experiences helping people navigate the EU legal system caused me to suspect that this was the kind of work I’d want to do. Economics had left my mind by this point, and though policy seemed to provide another route forward, my time in Parliament pulled me farther and farther from that path as I observed policy that, no matter how evenhanded, faced the impossibility of accounting equally for each interest reliant on the EU’s multifarious system. Law, on the other hand, proffered an opportunity for me to help fellow constituents leverage situationally useful legal codes within the diverse assortment already available to us. I’m eager to gain know-how with which to help protect individuals and ensure accountability where systems fall short, and I hope to learn ways in which individual solutions might trickle up into systemic ones, building—from a past fraught with rich complexity—a promising future.

As Manchester, England, sets its sights on a future of machine-based manufacturing, I am pleased to introduce a new machine: the Self-Acting Mule. The Self-Acting Mule that I have created is unique in that it does not require the hand of a skilled laborer; it is a fully powered machine and is ready to act on its own to produce thread of remarkable quality. As we as a society enter into a period of economic transition based on large-scale industry, I am certain that modern technology will bring a vast array of advantages to the table for Manchester society as a whole. I never could have anticipated that a seemingly eccentric class assignment in an Ethics, Technology and Violence course would become the catalyst for my decision to pursue a legal education and career in international law. This assignment was a two-week, in-class simulation titled “Rage Against the Machine: Technology, Rebellion, and the Industrial Revolution.” This simulation afforded our class the opportunity to delve into the social, ethical, and political ramifications of rapid technological change on a more personal level, as we assumed the role of a historical character from 19th-century Manchester, England, impacted by the transforming textile industry. As players of this “game,” we were faced with different choices on how to go about our lives at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. I took on the role of Richard Roberts, a wheelwright; I was a member of the craftsman faction and the working class. My position within this simulation was unique, in that in 1824, I had invented the machine that would transform the Manchester economy, the “Self-Acting Mule.” What our class saw throughout the simulation was that while this and other technologies promised national prestige and increased capital, they also completely shifted the economic base of numerous countries; these advancements were seen as destructive to the livelihoods of working-class individuals employed in cottage industries, as their jobs were taken away in the process. After the simulation had ended, I took some time to think about why my teacher might have had us participate in this “game.” What I came to understand was that the ambivalence our characters felt about the advanced technology in the 19th century has parallels to present times. More specifically, the presence of AI, drones, and other autonomous systems in the 21st century, though beneficial in some respects, has the potential to shift the cognitive frameworks of international relations and international conflict, especially if there is no international code of conduct or law that regulates these advancements. I explored these questions further in the final research paper I wrote for this course, in which I did a deep dive into the ethics of the weaponized use of unoccupied aerial vehicles (drone warfare) for targeted killings in the Middle East during the Obama administration. I argued that principles of the just-war tradition, a code of military ethics which sets forth a framework for war-like conduct that is considered morally justifiable, were violated in many cases of this administration’s drone practices in the Middle East. This is concerning because violations of just-war principles by a global superpower weaken existing laws and traditions. I concluded that it is necessary that changes be made to these existing principles of war in order to accommodate new technology. I also argued for the development of an international code of conduct for armed drones. Otherwise, the continued application of drones may lead to more widespread assassinations and a future of violent conflict between state and non-state actors. Because technological advancements like AI are so new and unprecedented, there are limited laws in place to protect humans from the potential violence of this technology. The first international resolution regarding AI was only adopted by the UN in March 2024. The strong parallels between the simulation in my politics class and today’s technological developments have motivated me to pursue a career in international law to contribute to the legal field in a way that protects humans and limits harm globally from this ever-evolving technology. My desire for a career in international law is deeply rooted in my academic pursuits. I have always been fascinated by geopolitics and the ways in which countries interact with one another on a global stage; my coursework on topics of US foreign policy in the Middle East, international law, and ethics, including the “Rage Against the Machine” simulation, reaffirmed these interests. I am drawn to the realization that my work as an international lawyer will directly contribute to fostering peaceful relations between sovereign states and promote justice on a global scale

My freshman-year RA famously imposed a bespoke curfew on me, not for late-night partying but for my laugh. Variously described as a “female Santa Claus” and “a tea kettle on the brink of explosion,” my distinctive chortle was apparently loud enough to jolt nearby innocents from their slumber. My roommates recommended a lenient sentence: no “Annie laughs” after 11 p.m. As the semester progressed, however, neighbors who’d valued quiet now sought greater connection: what had once kept them awake began to draw them in. Whether over board-game chaos, impromptu guitar sing-alongs, or “emergency” 2 a.m. cookie runs, we laughed until tears streamed down our faces—the soundtrack to our late-night talks and silly moments. I now carry that laughter into Alva Belmont Place, where I volunteer with women and children seeking emergency shelter from domestic abuse. Tutoring the kids inevitably devolves into spontaneous giggling—a small reclamation of childhoods that have been disrupted. In environments where levity feels like a rare commodity, laughter can defy seemingly insurmountable circumstances. This work is deeply personal: in high school, I was a victim of sexual abuse, so I understand the feelings of helplessness that induce silence. Volunteering at Alva Belmont lends my voice to women who aren’t yet able to speak out. Sexual abuse violated my bodily integrity and personal boundaries; consequently, I was initially drawn to improve health and restore dignity via bioengineering. My design projects—prosthetics for enhanced mobility, voice-dictated wheelchairs, and skin-tone inclusive pulse oximeters—prove that solutions transcend functionality. Empowering mobility-challenged patients restores their independence; dignifying diverse patients affirms their value. I’m therefore driven to serve marginalized populations by pursuing not only thoughtful individual care but also systemic solutions that address broader inequities. When Tuft’s Shelter Health Program received an unprecedented $100,000 grant to address Boston’s health disparities, I embraced the chance to secure critical resources for patient populations like our Alva Belmont community. My initiative, however, met formidable roadblocks. While shelters were eager to collaborate, most couldn’t afford the steep liability insurance required to keep a free clinic operational. Legal complexities surrounding vaccines, prescriptions, and blood testing outside traditional settings discouraged physicians and overwhelmed well-meaning volunteers. Some, frustrated by endless  Personal Statement bureaucratic entanglements, gave up entirely. Legal obstacles distanced me from the communities I’d pledged to serve; quality time with shelter guests capitulated to perpetual waiting games, sterile partnership pitches, and monotonous board meetings where empathy felt like an afterthought. Realizing that administrative solutions alone weren’t enough, we broadened our approach to address linguistic and cultural barriers. I began learning business and medical Spanish and Chinese, opening doors to new patient populations rich in soul-invigorating laughter. My loud, uncontainable laughter often served as the first bridge, breaking down barriers and creating space for joy. Dancing with children and strolling with the elderly, I assisted with Medicaid registrations, locating prescription sites, and navigating housing court. I ensured medical information accuracy while promoting the comprehensibility of critical health issues. My work spans STEM, public health, and law, integrating them to better serve my ever expanding communities. While insurance companies’ protracted negotiations held funds hostage, I enlisted a team of law students to conduct a pro bono analysis of SHOP’s operations. Dissecting our financials and compliance procedures uncovered inefficiencies we hadn’t even considered; their creative interpretation of regulations expanded our possibilities. The law wasn’t just a set of arcane rules; it represented another framework to restore joy, dignity, and healing into our care delivery. Managing this grant revealed how legal hurdles circumscribe health workers’ operations. Lawyers socially engineer those boundaries—and I knew I wanted to be one of them. As I pursue a career intersecting healthcare and law, I’m compelled to merge my passions for advocacy and patient-centered innovations. I’ve witnessed firsthand how people transform after receiving the support they need—whether inclusive, accessible solutions or sharing laughter to break the silence. My transition into law is not just a professional one: it is the next step in my life’s work to implement tangible, lasting change. Whether addressing the complexities of domestic violence, advocating for children in special education, or navigating Medicaid appeals, I am committed to pairing legal expertise with my ability to form genuine connections with the people I serve. Laughter may not solve everything, but it does open doors—and I believe becoming a lawyer will allow me to fling those doors open wide.

My rapist didn’t hold a knife to my throat. My rapist didn’t jump out of a dark alleyway. My rapist didn’t slip me a roofie. My rapist was my eighth-grade boyfriend, who was already practicing with the high school football team. He assaulted me in his suburban house in New Jersey, while his mom cooked us dinner in the next room, in the back of an empty movie theatre, on the couch in my basement. It started when I was thirteen and so excited to have my first real boyfriend. He was a football player from a different school who had a pierced ear and played the guitar. I, a shy, slightly chubby girl with a bad haircut and very few friends, felt wanted, needed, and possibly loved. The abuse—the verbal and physical harassment that eventually turned sexual—was just something that happened in grown-up relationships. This is what good girlfriends do, I thought. They say yes. Never having had a sex-ed class in my life, it took me several months after my eighth-grade graduation and my entry into high school to realize the full extent of what he did to me. My overall experience of first “love” seemed surreal. This was something that happened in a Lifetime movie, not in a small town in New Jersey in his childhood twin bed. I didn’t tell anyone about what happened. I had a different life in a different school by then, and I wasn’t going to let my trauma define my existence. As I grew older, I was confronted by the fact that rape is not a surreal misfortune or a Lifetime movie. It’s something that too many of my close friends have experienced. It’s when my sorority sister tells me about the upstairs of a frat house when she’s too drunk to say no. It’s when the boy in the room next door tells me about his uncle during freshman orientation. It’s a high school peer whose summer internship boss became too handsy. Rape is real. It’s happening every day, to mothers, brothers, sisters, and fathers—a silent majority that want to manage the burden on their own, afraid of judgement, afraid of repercussions, afraid of a he-said she-said court battle. I am beyond tired of the silence. It took me three years to talk about what happened to me, to come clean to my peers and become a model of what it means to speak about something that society tells you not to speak about. Motivated by my own experience and my friends’ stories, I joined three groups that help educate my college community about sexual health and assault: New Feminists, Speak for Change, and Sexual Assault Responders. I trained to staff a peer-to-peer emergency hotline for survivors of sexual assault. I protested the university’s cover-up of a gang-rape in the basement of a fraternity house two doors from where I live now. As a member of my sorority’s executive board, I have talked extensively about safety and sexual assault, and have orchestrated a speaker on the subject to come to campus and talk to the exceptional young women I consider family. I’ve proposed a DOE policy change to make sexual violence education mandatory to my city councilman. This past summer, I traveled to a country notorious for sexual violence and helped lay the groundwork for a health center that will allow women to receive maternal care, mental health counseling, and career counseling. Law school is going to help me take my advocacy to the next level. Survivors of sexual assault, especially young survivors, often don’t know where to turn. They don’t know their Title IX rights, they don’t know about the Clery Act, and they don’t know how to demand help when every other part of the system is shouting at them to be quiet and give up. Being a lawyer, first and foremost, is being an advocate. With a JD, I can work with groups like SurvJustice and the Rape Survivors Law Project to change the lives of people who were silenced for too long.

As I knelt to tie balloons around the base of the white, wooden cross, I thought about the morning of my best friend’s accident: the initial numbness that overwhelmed my entire body; the hideous sound of my own small laugh when I called the other member of our trio and repeated the words “Mark died”; the panic attack I’d had driving home, resulting in enough tears that I had to pull off to the side of the road. Above all, I remembered the feeling of reality crashing into my previously sheltered life, the feeling that nothing was as safe or certain as I’d believed. I had been with Mark the day before he passed, exactly one week before we were both set to move down to Tennessee to start our freshman year of college. It would have been difficult to feel so alone with my grief in any circumstance, but Mark’s crash seemed to ignite a chain reaction of loss. I had to leave Nashville abruptly in order to attend the funeral of my grandmother, who helped raise me, and at the end of the school year, a close friend who had helped me adjust to college was killed by an oncoming car on the day that he’d graduated. Just weeks before visiting Mark’s grave on his birthday, a childhood friend shot and killed himself in an abandoned parking lot on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas Day trying to act as normally as possible, hiding the news in order not to ruin the holiday for the rest of my family. This pattern of loss compounding loss affected me more than I ever thought it would. First, I just avoided social media out of fear that I’d see condolences for yet another friend who had passed too early. Eventually, I shut down emotionally and lost interest in the world—stopped attending social gatherings, stopped talking to anyone, and stopped going to many of my classes, as every day was a struggle to get out of bed. I hated the act that I had to put on in public, where I was always getting asked the same question —“I haven’t seen you in forever, where have you been?”—and always responding with the same lie: “I’ve just been really busy.” I had been interested in bodybuilding since high school, but during this time, the lowest period of my life, it changed from a simple hobby to a necessity and, quite possibly, a lifesaver. The gym was the one place I could escape my own mind, where I could replace feelings of emptiness with the feeling of my heart pounding, lungs exploding, and blood flooding my muscles, where—with sweat pouring off my forehead and calloused palms clenched around cold steel—I could see clearly again. Not only did my workouts provide me with an outlet for all of my suppressed emotion, but they also became the one aspect of my life where I felt I was still in control. I knew that if it was Monday, no matter what else was going on, I was going to be working out my legs, and I knew exactly what exercises I was going to do, and how many repetitions I was going to perform, and how much weight I was going to use for each repetition. I knew exactly when I would be eating and exactly how many grams of each food source I would ingest. I knew how many calories I would get from each of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. My routine was one thing I could count on. As I loaded more plates onto the barbell, I grew stronger mentally as well. The gym became a place, paradoxically, of both exertion and tranquility, a sanctuary where I felt capable of thinking about the people I’d lost. It was the healing I did there that let me tie the balloons to the cross on Mark’s third birthday after the crash, and that let me spend the rest of the afternoon sharing stories about Mark with friends on the side of the rural road. It was the healing I did there that left me ready to move on. One of the fundamental principles of weightlifting involves progressively overloading the muscles by taking them to complete failure, coming back, and performing past the point where you last failed, consistently making small increases over time. The same principle helped me overcome my grief, and in the past few years, I’ve applied it to everything from learning Spanish to studying for the LSAT. As I prepare for the next stage of my life, I know I’ll encounter more challenges for which I’m unprepared, but I feel strong enough now to acknowledge my weaknesses, and—by making incremental gains—to overcome them.

By the age of five, I’d attended seven kindergartens and collected more frequent flier miles than most adults. I resided in two worlds – one with fast motorcycles, heavy pollution, and the smell of street food lingering in the air; the other with trimmed grass, faint traces of perfume mingling with coffee in the mall, and my mom pressing her hand against my window as she left for work. She was the only constant between these two worlds – flying me between Taiwan and America as she struggled to obtain a U.S. citizenship. My family reunited for good around my sixth birthday, when we flew back to Taiwan to join my dad. I forgot about the West, acquired a taste for Tangyuan, and became fast friends with the kids in my neighborhood. In the evenings, I’d sit with my grandmother as she watched soap operas in Taiwanese, the dialect of the older generation, which I picked up in unharmonious bits and pieces. Other nights, she would turn off the TV, and speak to me about tradition and history – recounting my ancestors, life during the Japanese regime, raising my dad under martial law. “You are the last of the Li’s,” she would say, patting my back, and I’d feel a quick rush of pride, as though a lineage as deep as that of the English monarchy rested on my shoulders. When I turned seven, my parents enrolled me in an American school, explaining that it was time for me, a Tai Wan Ren (Taiwanese), to learn English – “a language that could open doors to better opportunities.” Although I learned slowly, with a handful of the most remedial in ESL (English as a Second Language), books like The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows opened up new worlds of captivating images and beautiful stories that I longed to take part in. Along with the new language, I adopted a different way to dress, new mannerisms, and new tastes, including American pop culture. I stopped seeing the neighborhood kids, and sought a set of friends who shared my affinity for HBO movies and Claire’s Jewelry . Whenever taxi drivers or waitresses asked where I was from, noting that I spoke Chinese with too much of an accent to be native, I told them I was American. At home, I asked my mom to stop packing Taiwanese food for my lunch. The cheap food stalls I once enjoyed now embarrassed me. Instead, I wanted instant mashed potatoes and Kraft mac and cheese. When it came time for college, I enrolled in a liberal arts school on the East Coast to pursue my love of literature, and was surprised to find that my return to America did not feel like the full homecoming I’d expected. America was as familiar as it was foreign, and while I had mastered being “American” in Taiwan, being an American in America baffled me. The open atmosphere of my university, where ideas and feelings were exchanged freely, felt familiar and welcoming, but cultural references often escaped me. Unlike my friends who’d grown up in the States, I had never heard of Wonder Bread, or experienced the joy of Chipotle’s burrito bowls. Unlike them, I missed the sound of motorcycles whizzing by my window on quiet nights. It was during this time of uncertainty that I found my place through literature, discovering Taiye Selasi, Edward Said, and Primo Levi, whose works about origin and personhood reshaped my conception of my own identity. Their usage of the language of otherness provided me with the vocabulary I had long sought, and revealed that I had too simplistic an understanding of who I was. In trying to discover my role in each cultural context, I’d confined myself within an easy dichotomy, where the Eastrepresented exotic foods and experiences, and the West, development and consumerism. By idealizing the latter and rejecting the former, I had reduced the richness of my worlds to caricatures. Where I am from, and who I am, is an amalgamation of my experiences and heritage: I am simultaneously a Mei Guo Ren and Taiwanese. Just as I once reconciled my Eastern and Western identities, I now seek to reconcile my love of literature with my desire to effect tangible change. I first became interested in law on my study abroad program, when I visited the English courts as a tourist. As I watched the barristers deliver their statements, it occurred to me that law and literature have some similarities: both are a form of criticism that depends on close reading, the synthesis of disparate intellectual frameworks, and careful argumentation. Through my subsequent internships and my current job, I discovered that legal work possessed a tangibility I found lacking in literature. The lawyers I collaborate with work tirelessly to address the same problems and ideas I’ve explored only theoretically in my classes – those related to human rights, social contracts, and moral order. Though I understand that lawyers often work long hours, and that the work can be, at times, tedious, I’m drawn to the kind of research, analysis, and careful reading that the profession requires. I hope to harness my critical abilities to reach beyond the pages of the books I love and make meaningful change in the real world.

About six weeks into my first legal internship, my office-mate gestured at the window—we were seventy stories high in the Chrysler Building—and said, with a sad smile, doesn’t this office just make you want to jump? The firm appeared to be falling apart. The managing partners were suing each other, morale was low, and my boss, in an effort to maintain his client base, had instructed me neither to give any information to nor take any orders from other attorneys. On my first day of work, coworkers warned me that the firm could be “competitive,” which seemed to me like a good thing. I considered myself a competitive person and enjoyed the feeling of victory. This, though, was the kind of competition in which everyone lost. Although I felt discouraged about the legal field after this experience, I chose not to give up on the profession, and after reading a book that featured the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, I sent in an internship application. Shortly after, I received an offer to work at the office. For my first assignment, I attended a hearing in the federal courthouse. As I entered the magnificent twenty-third-floor courtroom, I felt the gravitas of the issue at hand: the sentencing of a terrorist. That sense of gravitas never left me, and visiting the courtroom became my favorite part of the job. Sitting in hearings amidst the polished brass fixtures and mahogany walls, watching attorneys in refined suits prosecute terror, cybercrime, and corruption, I felt part of a grand endeavor. The spectacle enthralled me: a trial was like a combination of a theatrical performance and an athletic event. If I’d seen the dark side of competition at my first job, now I was seeing the bright side. I sat on the edge of my seat and watched to see if good—my side—triumphed over evil—the defense. Every conviction seemed like an unambiguous achievement. I told my friends that one day I wanted to help “lock up the bad guys.” It wasn’t until I interned at the public defender’s office that I realized how much I’d oversimplified the world. In my very first week, I took the statement of a former high school classmate who had been charged with heroin possession. I did not know him well in high school, but we both recognized one another and made small talk before starting the formal interview. He had fallen into drug abuse and had been convicted of petty theft several months earlier. After finishing the interview, I wished him well. The following week, in a courtroom that felt more like a macabre DMV than the hallowed halls I’d seen with the USAO, I watched my classmate submit his guilty plea, which would allow him to do community service in lieu of jail time. The judge accepted his plea and my classmate mumbled a quiet “thank you.” I felt none of the achievement I’d come to associate with guilty pleas. In that court, where hundreds of people trudged through endless paperwork and long lines before they could even see a judge, there were no good guys and bad guys—just people trying to put their lives back together. A year after my internship at the public defender’s office, I read a profile of Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and my former boss. In the profile, he says, “You don’t want a justice system in which prosecutors are cowboys.” The more I saw at the public defender’s office, the more I rethought my experience at the USAO. When I had excitedly called my parents after an insider trading conviction, I had not thought of the defendant’s family. When I had cheered the conviction of a terrorist, I hadn’t thought about the fact that a conviction could not undo his actions. As I now plan on entering the legal profession—either as a prosecutor or public defender—I realize that my enthusiasm momentarily overwrote my empathy. I’d been playing cowboy. A lawyer’s job isn’t to lock up bad guys or help good guys in order to quench a competitive thirst—it’s to subsume his or her ego in the work and, by presenting one side of a case, create a necessary condition for justice.

I don’t remember anything being out of the ordinary before I fainted—just the familiar, heady feeling and then nothing. When I came to, they were wheeling me away to the ER. That was the last time I went to the hospital for my neurology observership. Not long after, I crossed “doctor” off my list of post-graduate career options. It would be best, I figured, if I did something for which the day-to-day responsibilities didn’t make me pass out. Back at the drawing board, I reflected on my choices. The first time around, my primary concern was how I could stay in school for the longest amount of time possible. Key factors were left out of my decision: I had no interest in medicine, no aptitude for the natural sciences, and, as it quickly became apparent, no stomach for sick patients. The second time around, I was honest with myself: I had no idea what I wanted to do. My college graduation speaker told us that the word “job” comes from the French word “gober,” meaning “to devour.” When I fell into digital advertising, I was expecting a slow and toothless nibbling, a consumption whose impact I could ignore while I figured out what I actually wanted to do. I’d barely started before I realized that my interviewers had been serious when they told me the position was sink or swim. At six months, I was one toothbrush short of living at our office. It was an unapologetic aquatic boot camp—and I liked it. I wanted to swim. The job was bringing out the best in me and pushing me to do things I didn’t think I could do. I remember my first client emergency. I had a day to re-do a presentation that I’d been researching and putting together for weeks. I was panicked and sure that I’d be next on the chopping block. My only cogent thought was, “Oh my god. What am I going to do?” The answer was a three-part solution I know well now: a long night, lots of coffee, and laser-like focus on exactly and only what was needed. Five years and numerous emergencies later, I’ve learned how to work: work under pressure, work when I’m tired, and work when I no longer want to. I have enough confidence to set my aims high and know I can execute on them. I’ve learned something about myself that I didn’t know when I graduated: I am capable. The word “career” comes from the French word “carrière,” denoting a circular racecourse. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me then, that I’ve come full circle with regards to law school. For two college summers, I interned as a legal associate and wondered, “Is this for me?” I didn’t know if I was truly interested, and I was worried that even if I was, I wouldn’t be able to see it through. Today, I don’t have those fears. In the course of my advertising career, I have worked with many lawyers to navigate the murky waters of digital media and user privacy. Whereas most of my co-workers went to great lengths to avoid our legal team, I sought them out. The legal conversations about our daily work intrigued me. How far could we go in negotiating our contracts to reflect changing definitions of an impression? What would happen if the US followed the EU and implemented wide-reaching data-protection laws? Working on the ad tech side of the industry, I had the data to target even the most niche audiences: politically-active Mormon Democrats for a political client; young, low-income pregnant women for a state government; millennials with mental health concerns in a campaign for suicide prevention. The extent to which digital technology has evolved is astonishing. So is the fact that it has gone largely unregulated. That’s finally changing, and I believe the shift is going to open up a more prominent role for those who understand both digital technology and its laws. I hope to begin my next career at the intersection of those two worlds.

I’ve always been fascinated with workplace cultures. People who have seemingly nothing in common, who would not interact outside of the office, discover their similarities in a breakroom. I grew up in Ames, Iowa, surrounded, yes, by cornfields, but also with all the benefits of a college town: an actually functional public transit system, friends whose parents came from as far away as Indonesia to obtain a graduate degree, and hipster coffee shops. I thought this rather idyllic upbringing exposed me to different viewpoints, but it wasn’t until my job at a local movie theater that I got to know the kids who grew up in the small towns outside of mine: the kids who had ‘bring your tractor to school’ days and maybe not-so lovingly referred to my town as the ‘People’s Republic of Ames.’ Over eight-hour weekend shifts, we sold extra buttery popcorn paired with stale candy, fought the never-ending lines that wrapped around the building for every new Marvel movie, and discussed our political beliefs. It was 2016, and tensions were high, but I was learning how to focus on similarities with people I was predisposed to disagree with. Moving to Washington, D.C. to work full-time at the Howard Institute marked the first time that I lived somewhere other than my hometown. I had consistently held jobs since I was old enough to work, but I had never worked a job like this before, where the institution was older than my grandparents and seemingly everyone hailed from an Ivy League background. In fact, I was told that I should put my education section at the bottom of my resume when applying, “since some D.C. employers might be turned off by an applicant who went to a state school.” When, six months after starting the job, it was announced we were returning to the office, I was unsure how I would fit in. And yet, my coworkers had all moved during the pandemic and were equally desperate to make friends. Once again embracing the social power of the workplace, I began organizing weekly happy hours on our mandated in-office day. Slowly, I began to introduce my colleagues to the wonderful world of Big Ten football in a tiny ‘Midwest-style’ bar and the joy of washing down Detroit style pizza and Chicago hotdogs with Malört. In turn, they introduced me to Premier League soccer, the bitter Patriots–Eagles rivalry, and the tradition of Burns Night meals they picked up when they went abroad for ‘uni.’ Where I’d feared I might not fit in, I soon found myself at the center of a new, hybrid workplace culture with my coworkers as my closest friends. When I heard that my union was looking for more members on the bargaining team, I jumped at the chance and, less than a year later, was elected our first union president. At the age of 24, I was tasked with representing a third of our ancient institution, from research staff just stopping for a two-year stint on their way to their top PhD programs, to near-retirement librarians who came on during the Reagan years. My task was complicated, but my goal was simple: to turn our positive workplace culture into an institution that could represent often competing interests. Even after doing this for two years, I still sometimes feel odd telling people who are so well-respected in their fields how things should be run differently, but I feel confident that I set up a system that could advocate for all of our members’ interests. It’s ironic that so much of my work life has been about finding common ground with people from different backgrounds, and yet a core part of my job is studying what might be the world’s both most important and most dysfunctional workplace. I love Congress—it’s fascinating how 435 representatives and 100 senators come together for ostensibly the same goal and yet devolve into partisan bickering and backstabbing. My desire to understand the rules and procedures that shape and restrict legislators’ behavior—the why behind why a given approach is taken or a certain issue that seemingly has broad support is left on the cutting room floor—initially drew my interest towards law. It was the combination of my research background and experience as union president that made me aware of the profound importance administrative law plays in the implementation of legislation. With my background in congressional research, I always thought the real fight was in getting something passed. It wasn’t until I ratified my first union contract and found myself disagreeing with management over how to interpret a particular provision that I learned how much work goes into turning the written word into reality. From there, my interest in how agencies implement legal statutes has grown. I’m particularly fascinated with case studies where decision-makers follow a process with good intentions but end up astray and unable to meet their goal, such as when grants from an infrastructure bill go unused because of overburdensome requirements. With my strong focus on the culture of institutions, I see administrative law as a perfect way for me to engage with the policy process. I have heard that, as a lawyer, it can sometimes feel like you live at work, but in my eyes that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.