Boardwalk scholarship rough draft

Hook:

When people are on their deathbed, they don’t worry about wealth, status, or their possessions; instead, they worry about their relationships with others and their personal contributions to society.

Connecting:

From volunteering to social work, there are many ways to achieve such a sense of inner connection and purpose, but I personally want to leverage my passion for technology and software development to invoke positive societal change in the world around me.

Thesis: %%- Software development produces and is a means of building meaningful communities of growth.%%

I personally believe that software development is a multi-dimensional field that promotes and enables community development.

Lead-in:

The pandemic resulted in social isolation and a lack of direction for most people, and I was no exception; I found myself feeling overwhelmed with the events of the world, questioning my own purpose in life.

Topic Sentence:

Fortunately, software can be used as a tool for creating communities with a collective and meaningful purpose.

Supporting details:

Wanting to turn my life around, I joined the world of Habitica, an open-source application that gamifies mundane everyday habits and activities through virtual rewards; as you improve in real life, so does your in-game character.

Importance:

As a result, Habitica made maintaining healthy habits and getting work done enjoyable, inspiring me to slowly work towards my goals and aspirations
I was able to join a community of people with like-minded interests, not limited by differences like ADHD, race, or age. We all had a collective desire to improve our lifes, and were there for each other during times of need.

Transition:

After personally experiencing the community-building effect of software, I became eager to contribute my own ideas and skills towards a societal good.

Lead-in:

To practice using code as a means of problem solving, I began to participate in hackathons, short-lasting events where programmers build a project under a short time frame to solve a real world problem.

Topic Sentence:

Through such events, I realized that the nature and traditions of software development in itself is a means of growing better communities.

Supporting details:

Whether it be utilizing the portability of phones for emergency activities or using artifical intelligence to predict illness, there are various fields and forms of technology that can be utilized alongside creativity to tackle the countless issues of the world.
By synergizing with other like-minded peers and experimenting with different applications, hackathons are cultivating a generation capable of producing innovative ideas and solutions.
For example, to help academically struggling students, I created a website project that allows different professors to upload lectures and assignments for additional supplemental learning.

Importance:

Thesis restated:

In conclusion, both the mere act of software development and the products it provides have the potential to form meaningful communities.

Body 1 restated:

First,
- like-minded people can bond and form groups
- software allows like-minded people to bond and share a collective goal

Body 2 restated:

Second,
- engaging in the software devleopment process forms purposeful groups that learn and collaborate to tackle real world problems. Thought-provoking:

Created:: 2022-01-22 20:28

John Mavrick's Garden