Trapping was a prevalent topic throughout my youth, coming from a line of trappers that face the wild head-on. Some of the best memories from that childhood involve the aspects of trapping, from the preparation of setting up the traps, with the help of my father of course, to the joy of catching the elusive critter and being dubbed the family supreme squirrel trapper. As a child the outdoors was my primary place of play, from running around in our yard to exploring the woods behind our house. Until I began preschool, I can guarantee that I was outside far more than inside, and despite the constant scratches and scrapped knees that I worried my mother with, I absolutely loved it out there. For trapping, I was never as invested in it as my siblings or parents were, but it still influenced me greatly. One of the best lessons that I learned from my experience and observation of trapping was the importance of patience and diligence, though I didn’t learn the patience portion until I had grown a bit older. My father was out just about every day, constantly checking both the set traps and the baits he had put out. As a child, it had astounded me how this man was always able to go out and check what fruits his labor had borne, even if he had slaved away at his job for the whole day. Eventually, I came to realize that there was one main reason why he did it: he loved it. He loved being out in the wilderness and being at one with nature when he was out there. That implanted one idea in my young mind. It’s not work if you love it, and that’s the attitude I have kept with me since. It’s the reason I have chosen to go into the computer science. I haven’t chosen it because of the pay, my father is paid well, but it breaks his body and he doesn’t want that for his children. I didn’t choose it because it’s easy, as there are a multitude of stories of people spending hours upon hours struggling with their coding projects. I choose it because I truly like it. I like the way it can be a struggle to create a relatively simple program, like entering a recipe and getting out the ingredients you need. The sense of achievement from fixing a minor error that had been screwing up your whole project is immense. One of the first experiences I had with this was in my senior year of high school, in a coding class that had us develop some simple programs, like a quadratic equation solver. I spent hours upon hours trying method after method to get it to work and growing more and more frustrated. Persevering throughout projects like that made the completed project worth it even more. Additionally, the wide application of the field makes it even more appealing. You can apply it from small things, like data entry for a small general store, to expanding and improving a vast streaming network like YouTube and Netflix.

For myself, I want to help create a full sensory immersion technology. Such technology would allow to fully experience someplace they are not normally able to go. A person in the urban Midwest could simply put on some sort of headgear and be allowed to experience the beauty of Alaska without the expenses of travel and accommodation. This type of technology cannot replace the real experience of being in those places, but it can offer a substitute for those cannot experience the reality for whatever reason, be it monetary reasons, physical disabilities, or obligations. It is with this hope that I am going for a Computer Science degree, to further develop this tech. These experiences helped reveal what I wanted in my future. The ability to make improvements to a multitude of programs and problems is a dream to me, and something that I will be striving for now. It’s what has led me to choose the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities for the College of Science and Engineering, and switch from Engineering, my previous declared major, to Computer Science. I am a person that tends to focus on the present rather than the future, which sometimes has some problems, namely procrastination in the form of assignments that always end up being pushed until later, but there are some goals that I want to achieve.

Firstly, for the short-term, I want to build a strengthen the connections I have built through my freshman year here. Additionally, I also want to continue to be a pillar of support for those around me, to be someone that they can place their trust in and someone they can have in their corner no matter what. I also want to make sure that I can take the experience of living in the city and use that to treasure the countryside that I grew up in even more whenever I return. In the long-term I want the focus of my future career to be on developing full sensory immersion technology. This type of technology can have a massive effect in a multitude of fields, both professional and recreational. If there was a way for a person to essentially enter a virtual world that feels just like the normal world, the possibilities are literally only limited by our imagination. We can have medical students performing complex surgeries with no one at risk. Paraplegics could leave their limitations behind and experience freedom of movement once again, or in some cases for the first time. Recreationally, we could have people explore underneath the ocean without the need of complex gear, or have hikers climb mountains for sights they might never see. We could even be able to bring back things that would no longer be around, such as extinct species that no longer roam around in the wild or captivity. For me, this could be a paradise.

To do that, I need to graduate in good standing, and lastly continue to let my curiosity drive my passion That dream is still far off though, and in the meantime, we must stay within the limits of reality. That includes the limited resources we have on the planet, such as wilderness and wildlife, which need to be managed so we can enjoy them for far more generations. That is my idea of conservation, using our resources without exhausting or eliminating nature’s bounty. In the past decade, over 450 species have been declared extinct. This rate of extinction is not sustainable, and without careful management of our natural resources, we may see many more in the coming decades. That doesn’t mean we should not touch the resources at all. After all, this country was built by our predecessors using the resources of the land. I believe we should follow their example and be a steward over the natural resources in a sustainable way that is more interactive than simply leaving the land alone. Some of the first people that explored North America were trappers, seeking the rich furs that came from here. They were able to go head-to-head with the wilderness and come out on top, taking the resources that were here and applying them to further the economy. Their efforts led to more and more people coming to North America and provided a connection between these sportsmen who harvested the furs and the worldwide demand for them. Being an owner of furs was a great symbol of wealth back in the day, and the profits from these trades helped advance our culture. Nowadays, it’s different, as a consumptive wildlife activity like trapping isn’t a staple of profit to most people, but it holds a different meaning. Now, it can teach others about their history, what their ancestors went through, as well as showing the grace and beauty of the wild. As current trappers, we have a responsibility to educate those who will implement the legislation, who often don’t have the same hands-on experience as current sportsman. Even though the lessons these wildlife activities teach have changed, they are no less important than they were before.

Jeremiah