A Journey of Jazz by Sarah

A Journey of Jazz by Sarah - April 2026 Scholarship Essay

The saxophone.

Not the answer anyone expects from a future electrical engineer. But that's the point. With Artemis II launching and AI reshaping entire industries, STEM has never felt more urgent or more all-consuming. I feel that pressure every day. And yet, I keep coming back to music.
There's something that engineering, for all its brilliance, cannot fully replicate: the way a melody moves through a room before a single word is spoken. Even the astronauts, hurtling through space aboard humanity's most sophisticated machines, don't reach for technical language when they describe what they saw. They reach for something closer to wonder. The most complete minds I admire live in both worlds.

That's why I want to master the saxophone; not as a break from engineering, but as a discipline that demands the same patience, precision, and willingness to fail. I want to work through jazz specifically, a genre built on strict theory and spontaneous expression, because it mirrors the kind of thinking I want to bring to engineering: rigorous, but never rigid.

My plan is concrete. Formal lessons within the year. Daily practice. And within a few years, playing comfortably alongside other people, because like the best engineering, music isn't meant to be done alone.

STEM will define my career. The saxophone will define who I am inside it.