Hello all, Pedja Troca here, and this page is intended to give a little insight as to who I am and everything that comes with that. I am the son of a Serbian father and a Bosnian mother. I am the brother to my one and only sibling: my younger sister. I was born in the United States and grew up apart of my life in North Olmsted, Ohio and later moved when I was five to Lakewood, Ohio. This is where I spent the rest of my life, at least as of now. I graduated from Lakewood High School in 2016 and I am currently attending the Ohio State University for a major in actuarial science.

My family is one of the things that makes me truly strong and why I try so hard in anything and everything that I do. When I was growing up, one of my first cousins, who I see quite frequently, was diagnosed with severe autism. I understood that something always seemed off about him but it never really seemed to bother me. Right now, he still acts the same exact way as he did when we were growing up. But that’s the problem, the same exact way. I still love him all the same, regardless. That is why I have never judged anyone no matter what the circumstance. I thought that was bad enough, however, in the fall of 2012, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I did not know how to react. My initial reaction was that this was something our family had to get through, but then questions swirled in my head: “What if the surgery goes wrong?”, “What if chemotherapy is too much for her?”, “What if it is too late?”, etc.  I learned that there are some things you can control and some things you cannot control. I did what I could for my grandma, but I left everything else to the professionals and the adults. Luckily, god smiled upon our family and my grandma is, as of 2016, officially, cancer-free! If that was not bad enough, two different cousins of mine had divorced (with children who are less than two years old), my father was laid off, and, most recently, my second cousin, who I am also very close with, had testicular cancer. A question always in my mind is “Why my family?” whenever one of these situations pop up. I can only control what I can control. Anything else that is out of my hands, I just have to persevere through it and be strong and do anything possible in my power to help.

School was never a thing I was interested in until the third grade. My third grade teacher was the meanest person I think I have ever come across. There were so many rules and regulations that came with her class. I was held back after school for an extra ten to thirty minutes everyday. This was when I had to take advantage of school because I thought, originally, school was something I attended to waste my time. Because I was being forced to stay at school, I had to do something with my spare time, so I studied a little bit more. However, there still was no real motivation for me being at school until I had a long talk with my teacher. She asked me “How do you want to be remembered?”. I had no idea what she meant and I did not know how to respond. She then followed that up by saying something to the effect of “I do not know if you have it in you to become successful.”. That was all the motivation I needed. I just needed somebody to prove wrong. Also, I did not want to be remembered as being a failure. So, since then, I did a lot better at school. That is all well and good, however, I did not have a passion for school. I was motivated in school but I never had a real passion for any subject until the fifth grade when my teacher saw I was fairly good at mathematics. He saw that it came easy to me but did not understand why I did not care for it. So, he took me under his wing and we did personal math lessons together. I finally found a passion in math.

Since then, I have been on the grind to find an occupation that suits me in the math field and have continued success in it. This is why I decided to major in actuarial science. This is a field that needs an expertise in mathematics as well as a continued interest in the subject. Not only this, there is also a lot of communication needed to make sure everything going on in terms of making sure everyone in the company knows of the plans of the insurance company or the bank, and where I am from, Cleveland, it is pretty hard not to have good communication skills. Now I am attending the Ohio State University and I am also a STEM Scholar. This program is fantastic and allows one to hone their skills and give back to the community. I will continue to strive for excellence and continue to become the best person I can possibly be.