I had to read it a couple of times to make sure I wasn't dreaming. To be honest, I still kind of feel like I'm dreaming.

Okay, let me backup a little and give you some context.

I love Google always have and always will. I think that they are an amazing company with amazing people who want to do, you guessed it, amazing things for the world.

Google's mission statement taken directly from their website:

For a company as big and influential as Google, that's actually a really incredible goal.

I could go on forever about how that statement weaves its way into everything Google does, in fact I actually love talking about it. Don't believe me, just ask my family, friends, and co-workers who will all tell you that once I start I can't stop.

Since 2011, I've been watching the annual Google I/O Developers Conference. I was 14 at the time, in 8th grade. Every year I'd block out the couple of days to try to watch as much of the live stream as I could, and if I couldn't watch it, I'd read the live updates about what's going on and watch the videos later.

I always dreamed of going and hoped that one day I'd have the opportunity to attend in person. Strangely enough, at the time, I knew very little about programming or what it meant to be a developer.

Once in college, and after I had switched my majors to Digital Culture, I finally felt like I could participate in tech conversations. My major helped turn my wonder and amazement into real knowledge and passion.

In 2017, when I was a sophomore, I applied but did not get selected. They only have a handful of academic tickets, so I wasn't too surprised.

Then in 2018, when I was a junior, I applied again. School was keeping me busy, so I didn't have the time to stress about the ticket, or even think about it at all. That was until March 1st at 12:05 am when I checked my email before going to bed (not a good thing to do normally).

It's something that didn't seem real at first. I had to check to make sure it wasn't spam or something more malicious. It all checked out though, and that's when it really hit me. I was going to Google I/O.

There were a few more details to work out though...

The ticket is still $375, and I live in Tempe, Arizona and not Mountain View, California. Which meant I still needed to think about:

How am I getting there
Where am I going to stay
What am I going to wear
How am I going to pay for all of this

At this moment I remembered that Barrett, The Honors College has an Honors Project Fund that you can apply for and get up to $750 to do things exactly like this. That also made my parents happy.

So yeah, I'll be attending the Google I/O Developers Conference in May 2018 and I couldn't be more excited to experience everything Google has to offer.

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Google I/O 2018