GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Standing beside tables filled with just a portion of the 198 responses to her survey, Bella Howard smiled when asked if she thinks she figured out the key to happiness.
“I think in a sense I did!” she said.
It might sound like a bold statement for a South Grand Prairie High School senior, but Howard is not your average senior.
She applied to 14 colleges and has been accepted to 10 of them.
“The University of Chicago, Northeastern, The University of Texas at Austin, Tulane, Case Western, Fordham,” she said, naming a few of the universities from which she’s received acceptance letters. She’s still waiting on word from four others.
She mentioned Tulane University, and that’s where the whole idea started to research what makes people happy.
It was part of her application for a Dean’s Honor Scholarship from Tulane. The university prompts applicants to use a blank square to explore an area of interest.
Howard said her experiment grew out of a love of psychology and statistics.
She took the blank squares to almost 200 people of all ages in all parts of her Grand Prairie community. She asked them to draw what makes them happy inside the square.
She analyzed the results by age groups and quickly discovered a trend.
“As I was sorting them out it really became obvious to me that whenever people got older, they really loved their loved ones more and their experiences with those people,” she said.
Her research showed children and young adults often said they find happiness in physical things like donuts, candy, superheroes and video games.
“That really showed me that as you mature, your sources of happiness really change to something more meaningful,” she said.
Her experiment won her one of just 100 Dean’s Honor Scholarships given by Tulane to its incoming freshman class.
The scholarship, plus financial aid she will receive, means she can attend Tulane for almost free.
“A private university, out of state, full ride and especially in the area that she wants to go into — it’s pretty exciting! I’m proud for her, I really am,” Howard's South Grand Prairie High School principal Donna Grant said.
Howard plans to go to medical school and become a doctor, but she doesn’t have to try to plan how to be happy. She’s already got that figured out.
“It’s not the money I’m going to make that’s going to matter,” she said. “It’s going to be the people I help and the lives I touch with my skills I’m going to gain.”