Hi, I am Mark Varga, and I am applying to undergraduate computer engineering at UT Austin. I have posted below a Statement of Purpose I wrote. I may not be ready to submit, but right now I do not know what else to put in it. I would appreciate any opinions or suggestions about the essay and what else to write about in it. It is already 400 words; I do not know if that is enough, please tell me if it needs more.
Thanks.
The essay:
Technology Class
I clearly remember my first information technology class in 7th grade on my very first week at Piarist High School in Budapest, Hungary. Father Csanady, our IT teacher, introduced me and my classmates to the Linux, something I have never used before. Our first challenge was to create a user account, a fairly basic task, which was not easy to work out for most of my classmates. This experience was just the beginning of an adventure in my life, which finally led to my decision to become a computer engineer.
As I acquired more knowledge about computers, I was eager to explore even more potentials of this virtual world. Exploring new software and operating systems - from Windows and Windows Server through many different Linux distributions, even Mac OS X - were all part of the 'projects' I have done for myself. I often spent hours after school attaining information about software and hardware from the Internet. The challenge to make something work, like a virtual machine or a beta version of a new operating system, and then to see how it works made the field of computers exciting to me. Helping people - either friends of my elder brother, family members, or neighbors - in diagnosing problems on their computer, reinstalling the software on them, or in selecting the proper computer configuration for them to buy became a routine after a point. Meanwhile in high school I took most opportunity to learn more about computers. In extracurricular activities I learned the basics of how to develop programs instead of just using them. From 9th grade I was already determined to study computer engineering after high school.
The only question left was where to attain the proper education to become a professional in what I chose. My father's acceptance of a job assignment and my family's relocation to Austin from Budapest, Hungary gave me the opportunity and chance to become a student at a university which, according to many rank lists, offers one of the best engineering educations. But gaining admission to the University of Texas Austin Cockrell School of Engineering means more than that for me, for here I can study in the language the science of computer engineering is founded upon. I believe that earning a degree at the University of Texas would provide me a knowledge which is competitive at any part of the world, either in my home country Hungary or elsewhere.