Treeee
Nov 14, 2025
Undergraduate / Personal statement for HKUST - Chemical and Biology Engineering program [4]
This is an unrefined version of my personal statement for CBE program at HKUST. I feel like this one is "ok" but it's a bit too expressive and a bit dull to read. Can I have some proofread into my personal statement? Thanks y'all very much, this website has been very helpful so far.
"Trà đá, bánh tétttttt, hột vịt lộn đâyyyy..."
The morning calls from the street vendors cut through the comfort of my sleep.
8:30. My God!
The fear of being late to school was already setting in. I jumped out of my bed and - Bang!
My head slammed straight into the doorframe.
Dazed from the impact, I stood for a moment, staring at the uneven dents and faint streaks across the handle. It was the first time that I had noticed them in years, as if they were random. No, they weren't random. They were a record, a rhythm carved into wood, a history of those rushed mornings, of every "I'll fix it later".
I'd heard this noise-years ago, racing to school beside my dad through Saigon's chaos, chatting cheerfully over the roar of engines and the shout of street vendors.
Annoyed by the disturbance, I enforced order wherever I could as if to challenge the imperfections of the world: papers stacked in pairs, notebooks aligned into perfect squares.
That same obsession with order followed me into the lab, where science soon taught me otherwise.
Whoosh! I made it on time to the lab despite the crowded streets and a bruise on my head. Notes stacked neatly and graphs precisely aligned on the screen as I got to work on the sensors. The reading suddenly went all over the place, peaks scattered unevenly onto my perfectly symmetrical screen. Panicked! I reached for the reset button, then hesitated at the last second.
The irregular flickers piqued my interest as every peak revealed how nanoparticles interacted, how light bent through the thin film. It was a sort of "chaotic harmony", just not the kind that I was used to.
I first internalized this principle of "chaotic harmony" while leading my school's science community. Faced with an overwhelming flood of ideas and conflicting early suggestions, I learned to step back and trace the resilient pattern beneath the chaos, recognizing that the most innovative solutions often emerge from a period of necessary disorder.
As I grew older, that sentiment inspired me with its unexpected and novel properties in nanomaterials. During the school break, my friends and I developed a sensor prototype centered around identifying antibiotic overuse in local farming communities. However, the module wasn't applicable at the slightest: unreliable sensor readings stemmed from an irregular fiber optic surface. It would keep us up at night trying to fix it as the arid smell of lead lingered in the room. We were stuck until I found a strange, asymmetrical layout for noise reduction drawn by a friend beneath the piles of scraps. Testing it was a shot in the dark, but when the readings stabilized, we realized our design's value wasn't in perfection, but in embracing the necessary imperfections.
My goal is to translate the chaotic harmony of nanomaterials into tangible solutions. I aim to utilize the Nano Fabrication Facility with its cutting-edge infrastructure in SEM, AFM, and Professor King Lun Yeung's expertise to refine my multi-sensor module, targeting contaminants like PM2.5 and antibiotic residues using nanotechnology. This research will lead to resilient, cost-effective devices for under-resourced communities, including Vietnam. Driven by a mindset of structured problem-solving, I am eager to contribute to the HKUST SIGHT initiative, fostering interdisciplinary, "Simple Technology, BIG Difference" projects within the CBE community.
The vendors' calls still wake me, loud and uneven as ever. I used to hear noise; now I hear rhythm. They still startle me sometimes, yet I look at them as potential inspirations for engineering projects and simulations. At HKUST, I hope to keep chasing those imperfect patterns, simulating them within the streams of data in Chemical and Biological Engineering.
This is an unrefined version of my personal statement for CBE program at HKUST. I feel like this one is "ok" but it's a bit too expressive and a bit dull to read. Can I have some proofread into my personal statement? Thanks y'all very much, this website has been very helpful so far.
"Trà đá, bánh tétttttt, hột vịt lộn đâyyyy..."
The morning calls from the street vendors cut through the comfort of my sleep.
8:30. My God!
The fear of being late to school was already setting in. I jumped out of my bed and - Bang!
My head slammed straight into the doorframe.
Dazed from the impact, I stood for a moment, staring at the uneven dents and faint streaks across the handle. It was the first time that I had noticed them in years, as if they were random. No, they weren't random. They were a record, a rhythm carved into wood, a history of those rushed mornings, of every "I'll fix it later".
I'd heard this noise-years ago, racing to school beside my dad through Saigon's chaos, chatting cheerfully over the roar of engines and the shout of street vendors.
Annoyed by the disturbance, I enforced order wherever I could as if to challenge the imperfections of the world: papers stacked in pairs, notebooks aligned into perfect squares.
That same obsession with order followed me into the lab, where science soon taught me otherwise.
Whoosh! I made it on time to the lab despite the crowded streets and a bruise on my head. Notes stacked neatly and graphs precisely aligned on the screen as I got to work on the sensors. The reading suddenly went all over the place, peaks scattered unevenly onto my perfectly symmetrical screen. Panicked! I reached for the reset button, then hesitated at the last second.
The irregular flickers piqued my interest as every peak revealed how nanoparticles interacted, how light bent through the thin film. It was a sort of "chaotic harmony", just not the kind that I was used to.
I first internalized this principle of "chaotic harmony" while leading my school's science community. Faced with an overwhelming flood of ideas and conflicting early suggestions, I learned to step back and trace the resilient pattern beneath the chaos, recognizing that the most innovative solutions often emerge from a period of necessary disorder.
As I grew older, that sentiment inspired me with its unexpected and novel properties in nanomaterials. During the school break, my friends and I developed a sensor prototype centered around identifying antibiotic overuse in local farming communities. However, the module wasn't applicable at the slightest: unreliable sensor readings stemmed from an irregular fiber optic surface. It would keep us up at night trying to fix it as the arid smell of lead lingered in the room. We were stuck until I found a strange, asymmetrical layout for noise reduction drawn by a friend beneath the piles of scraps. Testing it was a shot in the dark, but when the readings stabilized, we realized our design's value wasn't in perfection, but in embracing the necessary imperfections.
My goal is to translate the chaotic harmony of nanomaterials into tangible solutions. I aim to utilize the Nano Fabrication Facility with its cutting-edge infrastructure in SEM, AFM, and Professor King Lun Yeung's expertise to refine my multi-sensor module, targeting contaminants like PM2.5 and antibiotic residues using nanotechnology. This research will lead to resilient, cost-effective devices for under-resourced communities, including Vietnam. Driven by a mindset of structured problem-solving, I am eager to contribute to the HKUST SIGHT initiative, fostering interdisciplinary, "Simple Technology, BIG Difference" projects within the CBE community.
The vendors' calls still wake me, loud and uneven as ever. I used to hear noise; now I hear rhythm. They still startle me sometimes, yet I look at them as potential inspirations for engineering projects and simulations. At HKUST, I hope to keep chasing those imperfect patterns, simulating them within the streams of data in Chemical and Biological Engineering.
