2025 Apex Hosting Minecraft Scholarship Winner

“Where did you go over the summer?”
 
“I went to Disneyland with my mom.”
 
“Really? I was on a cruise to Mexico!”
 
Every year, the first day of school is a rite of passage. It is the day where the night before you lay out a new set of clothes your parents bought after you begged them profusely at the Target aisle. It is the day where you brush your teeth at 6pm right after dinner, and you climb into bed only to find yourself staring at the ceiling, anxious for the morning to come.
 
Because for us, the first day of school is not any regular day. It is the day where kids can finally reinvent themselves once more: a new slate, a new identity for the school year, and a new summer vacation story to tell to their friends.
 
“Where did you go, Tiffany?”
 
My classmates turned to me. Finally, I take this as my cue.
 
I open up the stage by telling them about the sweltering heat. I tell them about getting stung by cacti needles, my first time seeing a donkey up close, and how I fell asleep under a sky full of stars.
 
Everyone gathered around me eagerly, wide-eyed and stunned into silence as they begged to hear more. They’ve been to the beach, the mountains, but never the desert. Luckily for me I’ve been to it all: the safari wilderness, tropical coral reefs, towering forests, underground dungeons, Mount Everest, and a mushroom field where cows were red.
 
However, for the entire summer, I was really at home playing Minecraft Pocket Edition.
 
My family couldn’t afford a summer vacation like the rest of my peers; we were a family of four piled into one bedroom, and lived on coupon clippings and glow-in-the-dark stickers that covered the mold spores growing on our ceilings. At the very least, I told the truth about one thing.
 
However, what was real was the adventure. In those two months, I truly have wandered alone aimlessly and tirelessly through fields and ruins. I swam, dug, climbed, braved through fires, jumped through dimensions, and went to war with an army of mobs.
 
That’s how my love for storytelling came to be. Minecraft was my stage — I was the director. I created a narrative everywhere I went — I imagined the ruins and temples belonged to civilizations who were once at war with each other, and the treasures we find in temples were offerings for the gods that ruled the realm. I invented myths, legends, heroes, and backstories.
 
Worried that not enough villagers in Minecraft had their own beds like my family, I built them large and grand homes. Their houses had spiral staircases, fences, shrubs, and extra lanterns in case it was too dark outside at night. I built the little village children’s schools and libraries, hoping they love going to school and reading as much as I do.
 
I only realized now that I didn’t want to build just a house or a building — I wanted to build a space where stories can truly come to life — a space where everyone belonged and could dream freely.
 
Growing up in one of San Francisco’s oldest and largest housing projects that wrestled constantly with violence and poverty, we knew grief before we knew how to spell our names. There are memorials at our bus stops that belong to kids my age. There are empty seats in our classrooms because most kids have been evicted from home and that would be the last we heard from them.
 
And yet, their story isn’t over. Because if Minecraft has taught me one thing, it is that we can use the little we have to create something beautiful. I leveraged my love for storytelling that Minecraft has gifted me into the real world. I promised myself I would tell the stories of my community and for the people who couldn’t themselves, and advocate tirelessly for them.
 
I set out on becoming a civil engineer with a concentration in urban planning.
 
Throughout high school, I worked closely with city commissioners, nonprofit organizations, and community groups to be the voice of my people and the neighborhoods that have been ignored for so long. I wanted us to have a place in the decision-making processes, and reimagine how space and buildings can be better utilized to serve the community — just like how I once did for my Minecraft villages.
 
Instead of telling a story to my classmates at my desk about the Minecraft desert, now I walk up to stages at scholarship dinners and city hearings in front of hundreds of people to tell them a story about the worlds I come from — I tell them about the tired immigrant mothers and fathers opening shop at 6am, the elderly residents who carry 10 pounds of recycling cans on the bus to make an income, and my peers who takes three buses just to go to school every morning.
 
I keep going. I tell them about the worlds I want to build. Better and efficient transportation. Sustainable and affordable housing. Safer communities. Community centers. Schools with better education and facilities to inspire learning and dreaming.
 
The villages I built are long gone now, lost to a device that no longer turns on and sits in a box of other old electronic devices collecting dust. Yet, I am still the kid who loves to tell stories, except this time I am ready to turn the make-believe into something real, impactful, and purposeful.
 
I’m ready to log on once again, press “Create a New World” and begin building.