Applicant #16: Richard Washington

Richard Washington is a 20-year-old from St. Louis.

Richard's video application:

Richard online:

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Richard's current situation:

I am a 20 year old, student who just transferred from Lincoln University MO, to St. Louis University. I am studying biology/wildlife management. I aspire to be a zoologist as my dream occupation. When I'm not volunteering, studying, or in the field with animal, you can find me in the Loop area, or the Central West End, or (more often than not) at some event dancing and acting what my friends call "Richard-like". I founded a youth performance/spoken word organization called The Poetic H.Y.P.E (Helping Young People Express) and I am also the CEO/Founder of Lyrical Therapy, a spoken word show. I love standing out, being different, dancing, pretending I know how to sing, small parkour, and meeting new people.

Richard's blog post:

The Future for us:

Remember back in the day, when Doritos were 25 cents?

When Super Soakers could only hold a gallon of water?

McDonalds was the best thing in the world?

The hardest thing in school to learn was how to divide?

When you had to blow inside the video game cartridge and then insert the game, oh, and your controller only had 8 buttons?

Remember after you watched “The Rugrats,” or “Hey Arnold!” you went to the park before it got too dark, and played for countless hours with your friends until it was time for you to go home. Yeah that was before the internet take over.

When we were kids, we never knew what the future would hold. In some movies people imagined in this present date we would have teleporters, hover cars, and rocket boots. Slowly and surely throughout the years, the internet has evolved from AOL shouting “YOU’VE GOT MAIL” every time you log on, to now you can video chat with up to six people in any country. You no longer really need to go out to meet new friends, or be heard, or let people listen to your music, or sell stories. Blog sites, such as Tumblr, social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc allow us to do all these things and more. Some teens of our generation have been sucked into the cyber world, and now sometimes the hardly ever leave their computer, or smart phone, or iPad alone.

We have a ton of so-called “social” networks but no one is really being social. Where are all the events and chances to really meet new people? Face-to-face communication with the world could open endless possibilities for the youth of our generation.

What the future holds for our generation is a real mystery. Who knows what tomorrow brings? We have such great minds, and such great talent at our disposal, we need all of the youth of our generation to bring all of that to the table. If Mark Zukerberg created Facebook seven years ago in 2004 (when a cell phone was still about the size of a brick), then what can we do with our young minds today (when some cell phones are smaller than the palm of your hand)? The possibilities at hand: each day a new and improved idea forming from our dreams. The entrepreneurs, the artists, the scientists, the doctors. WE ARE THE FUTURE, SO LET US THROUGH! We are taking what we learned from the past generations and making it better. Practice makes perfect, and the time is now.

Richard