About Me
I have been blessed as a child to grow up with an amazing family. For my whole life, my home was defined by people, not a place. I was born in Italy and grew up there and in Alabama, Oklahoma, Virginia (where I lived twice), south Charlotte, and Waxhaw (where I live to this day). One might wonder how I never got lost along the way! Although my childhood could be considered turbulent because of our many moves, they were actually a great blessing in disguise. Because we were moving every two years to follow my dad to his next Air Force duty assignment, my parents decided to homeschool me from the first grade. In addition to the flexibility it provided, homeschooling also helped me to become an independent and curious person.
When one thinks of homeschooling, the first thing that comes to mind are unsocialized, sheltered kids. I’ll admit, until I started attending a co-op in high school these attributes described me to a certain extent. One of the great benefits to homeschooling, however, is that allows curiosity to be easily fed. My parents very strongly believed that quantity did not equal quality when it comes to education, and insisted that I work until mastery and immediately move on. The time that would otherwise be full of busywork could then be spent on things like Scouting, hobbies, and learning for fun.
Leonardo da Vinci once said “The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” This joy that I received (and continue to receive) from learning new things made me very curious, and my curiosity was preserved and even enhanced as I grew. My curiosity had the full backing of my parents and teachers, and the time provided by homeschooling. From a young age, I wanted to try everything. In the first grade I joined Scouts, which I continued until I turned 18. When I was 9, I took a few years of electronics classes, during which I discovered one of my favorite hobbies. During the beginning of high school, I took as many sciences as I could, and those teachers are to thank for my deep love of science. From a young age I loved computers too, decided to pursue that as a hobby, and after competing in CyberPatriot through Civil Air Patrol I discovered that was what I wanted my career to be.
![Jack Krueger launcher circuit3[1].JPG](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c42753_e4a3b822fdc445fca4bd9e2fee5634c3~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_392,h_294,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Jack%20Krueger%20launcher%20circuit3%5B1%5D_JPG.jpg)
My various activities not only satisfied my curiosity, they also made me an independent person. This began in Scouting, where I would often go camping-a hobby that I continue to love to this day. Camping is an excellent exercise in self-reliance, and certainly helped me learn to be independent. Aside from camping, Scouting also gave me many leadership opportunities which also helped my independence grow. After all, if you can’t lead yourself, you can’t lead others. In Scouts I worked my way to progressively higher leadership positions, eventually being in charge of my entire troop and leading a large community service project for my Eagle Scout award, which I earned in September 2019. I have also learned a lot of leadership from the Civil Air Patrol (a search and rescue organization with leadership training for youth, similar to JROTC), which I joined in 2019. Similarly to in Scouts, in CAP I have progressed to increasingly higher leadership positions, however my journey to the top involved more teaching-based positions than in Scouts.
The leadership experience I acquired in Scouts and CAP made me independent, as did owning my education. Starting around middle school, my parents increasingly gave me more freedom with my school work. I began to learn to manage my time, and over time progressed to handling my education almost entirely myself. I decided to dual-enroll at SPCC for my junior and senior years of high school, and took only college classes my senior year. I was certainly able to indulge my curiosity at SPCC, where I studied everything from art to biology to computer programming. College classes also helped cement my independent habits because I was the only one responsible for my success. Suffice it to say, I wouldn't be the same person I am today if it weren't for my parents and teachers encouraging me to stay curious and to try everything.
