Read my transfer essay?

Nanotech
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:14:53 +0000

I’m applying as a transfer to a couple schools and I just want to get some unbiased opinions on my transfer essay (~430 words). Topic is on my major (engineering). Comments welcome!!! Thanks :D

My first exposures to the very idea of nanoscience was the concept that data itself could be stored on a single atom. As a sixteen year old homeschooler (or unschooler, I suspect), I had already developed an interest in and quantum and molecular topics. I knew for some time that I wanted to be a part of a field that, for me, didn’t have a name - at least not yet. It was a field that combined quantum mechanics, biotechnology, physics, computer science, and even more. Nanotechnology pulled all of these topics together into a unified field that applied to all of my interests – without bound.

Recreational mathematics was my unconventional favorite subject for senior year of high school. While most of the engineering-bent crowd was busy playing with integrals, I spent my weekends reading everything from hypercubes to game theory. I started seeing a whole new side of science opening up as I became more interested in less common topics like fractals and nanodots. My approach to problems took on a whole new dimension as I broke away from the idea of forcing them into solutions. Ironically, the topics I had covered had prepared me far more for the unusual critical thinking than I expected. Instead of memorizing formulas, I was learning how to solve problems analytically.

Engineering was pretty much set for me at this point (more like an undying passion to put it unprofessionally), and every little think I learned made me want to know so much more. Whether the result of my newly developed problem solving skills or the cause of them, a sort of entrepreneurial ambition emerged full-fledged about this time. The projects I developed varied between well designed ideas and successful applications. I branched out from science, ranging across a variety of fields in language, kids education, web development, and others. By now I started realizing that by combining this kind of ambition with engineering, and nanoscience in particular, I could actually work on the problems I wanted to solve most of all; breakthrough technologies.

My experience with engineering in college has left me with increasing interest, and the close teamwork environment of community college provided a foundation that I wouldn’t trade for anything. My main goal is to use the skills I develop in entrepreneurship and the knowledge I gain from engineering to contribute towards the positive impact that nanotechnology will have on so many disciplines. The properties of materials at such a small scale are so unique, it’s as if science itself is being rediscovered; and I’d like to be right there while it’s happening.