	Simone Jensen is the recipient of the Foundation managed Orange County Mensa Scholarship of $500. Simone lives in Laguna Niguel and is graduating from Aliso Niguel High School. She intends to pursue a study in business and economics, hopefully at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
I often help my mother to advertise arid promote her photography business, and my level of involvement in this work originally garnered my interest in the business field. I have also watched my mother’s business cycle over the years, a process which she has always attributed to large scale events such as the war in Iraq. I always found it difficult to grasp how events with no apparent connection could be interrelated, and I became interested in studying business not only because I enjoy the thought process behind running and marketing a business, but also because I am interested in the way businesses cycle and interact within the economy. During the summer following my sophomore year, I secured an internship with Washington Mutual Financial Institute, where I was given the opportunity to train in areas such as financial investments, money laundering prevention, corporate policies, and certificates of deposit. I not only learned about the different accounts, bonds, and stocks that customers could use to save their money, but I also discovered how to interact with and advise customers. While my internship with Washington Mutual provided the real world business experience which I was craving, I wanted to learn more about the theory and background behind the facts which I had learned through my internship. For this reason, during my junior year I began to read textbooks to teach myself about how businesses and the economy operate and interact, and I realized that I wanted to take part in predicting economic outcomes and not simply read about them. I decided to apply my new knowledge by taking the AP test in Macroeconomics even though my school did not offer the course, and after contacting four different schools, I found a campus at which to take the exam. I took the AP Macroeconomics exam without ever having received formal instruction in the subject, and solely based on the knowledge I gained from reading, I scored a five on the exam. In addition, I was given the opportunity to use the combined experience which I gained through Washington Mutual and AP Macroeconomics when I was chosen from my entire school to attend California Girls State, a leadership camp held each summer in Fresno. At Girls State, I became the Chief Financial Advisor, responsible for creating a tax and budget plan for the Girls State mock government. In this position, I was thrilled that I would be able to apply my knowledge to a real world situation, not simply to a set of graphs and tables on paper. California Girls State encouraged me to use my knowledge of economics and business to lead others, and strengthened my desire to major in business management, marketing, or economics. While I have attempted to pursue my interest in business in as many ways as possible during my time in high school, I hope that I will be able to attend the prestigious Wharton School of Business, and that one day, I will become a business executive in charge of marketing for a company. Even though I am currently limited to marketing my mother’s small business, I am confident that if I continue to work to achieve my dreams, I will be able to apply my experience and knowledge to a career in business.
	Other winning essays: Kristin Hinkley of Mission Viejo, of Laguna Niguel, Kayla Chapman of Anaheim, and Chelsea Maxwell of Mission Viejo. (Click on their names to read their essays.)