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“Myshka - without effort, you cannot even pull a fish out of the pond.” As first-generation child of Russian immigrants, this was a common proverb in my household. I learned at an early age that everything worth doing requires effort, and I’ve constantly felt driven to “prove” myself and exceed expectations in everything I do. Additionally, I’ve continuously felt as though I didn’t quite fit in with my peers. Everything from my golubtsy lunches to the Russian folklore I grew up on didn’t seem to resonate with anyone outside of my immediate family. This led to feelings of inadequacy, and ultimately, determination. These feelings gave me the energy to do better, to be better, and to take advantage of every single opportunity.

My parents moved our family to Connecticut, from a small village in Sadovaya, to give us a better life in a free and democratic society. As talented cobblers, they established their own shoe repair shop as a means to earn income for our family. I’ve worked in the shop for as long as I can remember, I did everything from stocking shelves to balancing their checkbooks. I’ve seen the business flourish, and I’ve seen the shop struggle to persist under the shadow of large corporations. In one particular instance, an insurance dispute left my parents without a physical place of work after a local flood demolished their shop’s foundation. While the law would have been on their side, they didn’t want to get involved with a legal system they didn’t fully understand. I wanted to help them so badly, to do something but at the age of 17, I was unequipped with the resources to do so. From that moment on, I knew that I would dedicate my future to advocating for small businesses like my family’s. Small businesses, and the people who run them, are the bedrock of our communities and must be protected at all costs. They create jobs, keep our community connected, and solve real-world problems. I endeavor to fight for them, to use all of that energy I’ve been harvesting over the years and become the best support for them that I can be. I strive to fight the good fight.

My family’s entrepreneurial spirit didn’t end with my parents’ shop. During my junior year as a software engineering major at UCLA, a friend and I found that there was an industrial need for facial recognition software that could gage user attention, motives, and interests. We immediately went to work on a platform, continuously improving our product over the process of hundreds of successes and failures. We even went as far as to interview with Y Combinator, but ultimately, we could not secure the financial resources required to see our product to market. After almost a year of struggling, we decided to retire our start-up venture and return to our full-time studies. I look at this time as one of the best in my life, I grew so much. I learned to collaborate, to grapple with uncertainty, and to celebrate those small wins and constantly build-up my teammates. I learned that I am at my best when I am designing creative solutions to problems. Being an entrepreneur taught me what it means to be a team player, and that I can persist through any failure.

In life, I have learned so much about the business world. For my next venture, I plan to apply the lessons I’ve learned to a future in law. I want to give a voice to small businesses and start-ups so that they can advocate for themselves. Furthermore, I look forward to working with driven individuals like myself. Law is a community that consistently requires innovation from its people. I look forward to this challenge and plan to bring everything I have.

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