“It took 11 months to restore power to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, a similar Crisis could happen again.” “More than 2 years after Hurricane Maria, earthquake shows Puerto Rico electric grid remains fragile.” “Elon Musk’s Tesla Powerwalls landed in Puerto Rico.” The common theme among all these article titles made seventeen year old me crave to help Puerto Rico get through such a devastating time. Seventeen year old me studied these events everyday it became hard to tell if it was due to curiosity, sympathy, or obsession. Whatever it was engrossed me, hooked me in as if I was a fish on a line, and never let go. I dreamed of being able to design and create ways to help others like Tesla’s power grid did for Puerto Rico. Those dreams started to snowball into reality as I embarked in the electrical engineering department at the University of Delaware. I remember promising my mom that I will soon be able to be like Elon Musk and help others through my own innovations. 

In my junior year of college I flourished by creating a program that allowed drones to detect the faces of those wanted and find their location. My name spread all over the news as my invention allowed police to catch criminals and find missing people. As my program grew in popularity, companies were scrambling trying to persuade me to join their businesses. Nothing stood in their way. Money soon became trivial as the promised salary exponentially increased with more and more companies joining the race. It was like there was an auction and I was the jersey Babe Ruth wore at his last game…everyone wanted to have it. 

Except there was one thing no one else knew but myself. I was not joining any of their companies. I was still on the hook of that first fishing line that enthralled me when I was seventeen. I still had a promise to keep, one that I was not going to break. I denied all the companies, let them down easy of course. At last, I set out to start my own company, with the money and popularity I received I was able to get a team and nothing stood in the way. We pioneered in every robotic design field and soon became bigger and better than any of the companies that desired me. 

Now, I am twenty seven years old with a masters in electrical engineering and a specialty in robotics design. Yes I have money. Okay I have a lot of money. But that I do not care about because money was never in those dreams I had when I was seventeen. Money was not the reason I embarked on my journey of electrical engineering. If money was the reason then I would have taken one of those jobs that I had lined up in my junior year. The promise I made with my mom never mentioned money. It was all about helping others through my inventions. With my company I had the ability to help Puerto Rico with their struggles against natural disasters, helped find criminals in their hope of escaping the police, and began ways to keep society moving forward without the use of fossil fuels. My seventeen year old dreams’ became my reality and I kept my promise.