Jensen Coonradt, left, with their STEM Club presenting at MIT. PHOTO COURTESY OF JENSEN COONRADT

Capturing the emotional rollercoaster of my educational journey and finding a beginning, middle, or end to my high school story seems almost impossible. Yet, before each exhilarating, sometimes nerve-wracking milestone—whether it was a badminton match, robotics competition, or city council presentation—I found solace in repeating the familiar words of my favorite song:

“Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?”

Rap, with its raw, honest, and beautiful essence, has always resonated with me. “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, with its motivational lyrics, has taught me to never give up, seize the moment, and believe that hard work truly pays off.

After meeting the other students at NASSP’s Trailblazing Leadership Week, which included an awards ceremony for NHS Scholarship finalists, and hearing the incredible work they had all done, I knew I had no chance of being named one of the pillar winners. I was just so grateful to have even been named a finalist and have the opportunity to meet such amazing, driven people.

Then, when they announced the Leadership Pillar award winner, they called my name. I looked around thinking, “Is there another Jensen?” before the students around me cheered and prompted me to go on stage. Tears welled in my eyes as I received the award and reflected on how all my years of hard work had come together to create this moment.

Creating My Own Chances

As the lyrics to “Lose Yourself” go, “You only get one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted.” However, as a student from a low-income background, opportunity seemed hard to come by. Instead of holding me back, though, it taught me to create my own chances, and I founded a STEM club, debate club, and rocketry team at my school.

Having to overcome adversity taught me what it means to be a leader. Leadership does not simply mean telling others what to do. It means taking action and inspiring them to join you and get involved, it means teaching them the skills they need to help make a difference, and, most importantly, it means empowering them to believe that their actions can help improve our world.

The STEM club I formed emphasizes this idea of leadership. Through it, I brought a diverse group of entrepreneurial students together to solve community problems using invention. It was amazing leading this team and seeing how everyone’s unique skill sets combined to bring us success.

I am especially proud of the first invention I made with my STEM club. I led my club in developing my concept of a backpack that uses ultrasonic sensing and neuroplasticity to help people who are visually impaired navigate. We tested our device, named “Viz Whiz,” and I still remember the joy I felt when a student who is visually impaired exclaimed, “It works! It really works!” I teared up when another student thanked me for working to make her life better and told me that someday she would be an engineer to help people just like I do.

I was so proud of that invention, not just for its impact but also because of our development journey. My teammates had never worked with electronics before. I taught them how to code in C++, solder electronics, wire microcontrollers, and use 3D computer-aided design. Witnessing the spark of comprehension in students as I shared my enthusiasm for STEM was incredible.

We submitted our invention to the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow challenge to fund our school’s underserved engineering department. We advanced to the national finals and won $65,000 for our Title I school, giving us the much-needed funding to construct a student makerspace with laser cutters and 3D printers. It is inspiring to see that our makerspace has already been used by over
1,000 students to make their ideas a reality.

Through leading the STEM club, I have left a lasting legacy on my school and also showed so many students how their determination and work on a project can make a real difference for our community and even our world.

I am so proud of the members of my club who have graduated and want to continue innovating to help others for the rest of their lives by pursuing engineering. One of my teammates graduated early this year and is pursuing biomedical engineering thanks to the impact creating the Viz Whiz backpack had on him. I firmly believe that this is true leadership. I am not just leading students in creating projects but inspiring them to be changemakers. This leadership—encouraging others to be agents of positive change for the rest of their lives—is the driving force behind everything I do.

An Accessible STEM Community

I had to persevere to create my own opportunities. It means everything to me to make these opportunities accessible to other students like me. I aspire to work toward a STEM community that is accessible and welcoming to all. To achieve this goal, I teach free in-person community STEM classes, construct STEM kits for underserved students, and host women, who are often underrepresented in mathematics and science, in STEM events.

To expand my impact, I worked with the director of FIRST Robotics Illinois to develop software that lets students learn robotics for free online. Our software has already had over 14,400 users from 109 countries. I now lead global robotics classes, empowering thousands of students of all backgrounds to pursue STEM.

I am first motivated by the numbers. How many lives am I changing? How many students am I teaching? How many people will benefit from my inventions? But beyond the numbers, even more important are the things you can’t count.

What motivates me is teaching a student a difficult coding concept and seeing their smile when they finally understand it. Or seeing a young girl eagerly show me the robot she constructed to transport her favorite pink cow stuffed animal. Or knowing that my curriculum is being implemented in middle and high schools across the nation, exposing more students to robotics education that will impact thousands of lives.

With the support of the NHS community, I had access to the mentorship and support of like-minded changemakers I needed to continue changing our world for the better one invention at a time and working toward a STEM community where diversity is accepted and celebrated.

I will continue exemplifying the principles of the NHS Leadership Pillar, ensuring that everyone can access the tools they need to change our world and inspiring them to take action and make a difference. Throughout college and the rest of my life, I will continue to grow my impact by helping to form the next generation of innovators.

As a student who was once uncertain if I would ever attend college, I have won over $600,000 in outside scholarships and have been accepted to every college I applied to. Today, I am studying electrical engineering and computer science as a freshman at MIT, and I am living the final line of “Lose Yourself:” “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Jensen Coonradt is a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate of Oswego East High School in Oswego, IL. They are a 2024 NHS Scholarship winner and the recipient of the NHS Leadership Pillar award.