Stimulus
Oct 28, 2010
Undergraduate / "a cultural problem" - Jerome Fisher @ UPenn Essay [2]
Please tell me how this sounds. Thanks!
Q: Discuss your interest in combining management and technology. How might Penn's coordinated dual-degree program in business and engineering help you to meet your goals? Please be sure to address the nature and extent of your interests in both business and engineering.
My birth name was Jerome Fisher, but I had to have it changed because it might have resulted in a cultural problem. I received that original name, however, because I was born and to be raised in the midst of an amalgam of business and engineering, my mom having majored in the former and my dad in the latter. So my association with both fields lies far beyond a mere interest: I am, symbolically, the integration of the two!
Life is full of complements: colors, angles, etc. But we cannot forget the most important item on that list - aspects of the personality. Indeed, one's personality needs to possess distinct facets which complement and support each other such that they may form one, uniform persona capable of responding to all sorts of circumstances. For example, love complements hate, because the presence of both allows a person to react in both amorous and dolorous times. Likewise, business complements engineering. A businessman will know how to interact with people and identify their needs very well - he better know if he wants to create a successful product and sell it wisely. Understanding how people work is his expertise, but what about how the physical world works? Scientists and engineers very well know how it works. They devote their lives to conducting experiments and discovering rules and formulae to help people understand the world. Yet social stereotypes cause them to come off as isolated hermits who come into contact with numbers more than with the people they are trying to help. I don't think I would like being either very much. I need a happy medium, and appeal to Penn's Jerome Fisher program for the opportunities necessary to find that medium.
I know the path will be tough - the coursework will be unlike anything I have ever learned before, and the amount of work will be unlike anything I have ever endured before - it is basically enrollment in two schools! But I know I can do it. The closest I came to such an amount of work in high school occurred junior year in a multivariable calculus course. Despite the work required by my other courses, as well as the rigor of the class itself, I was able to perform very well and receive the highest grade. So although applying to M&T is indirectly a plea for buckets of work, it will not be unexpected. And besides, it will all be worth it. If accepted, I would be the proud holder of two degrees (SEAS's BSE and Wharton's BSEcon) from one of the world's most prestigious universities. I can already hear the phones ringing with the voices of office executives offering me a job at the other end! They will probably be from several well-known technology companies, attracted by my envied BSE. And I will probably hold some managerial position from the get-go, with my laudable BSEcon glimmering on an office wall. I will probably have some idea like a revolutionized solar panel with 100% efficiency, whose development and marketing I shall manage since Penn's M&T program will have prepared me to tackle both tasks superbly. And the product will probably be a hit. And the company will probably get famous. And the world will probably be a much less wasteful and dangerous place. And...and... Ring! Whoops! That was a nice dream, but I should get to class now and make sure it happens.
Please tell me how this sounds. Thanks!
Q: Discuss your interest in combining management and technology. How might Penn's coordinated dual-degree program in business and engineering help you to meet your goals? Please be sure to address the nature and extent of your interests in both business and engineering.
My birth name was Jerome Fisher, but I had to have it changed because it might have resulted in a cultural problem. I received that original name, however, because I was born and to be raised in the midst of an amalgam of business and engineering, my mom having majored in the former and my dad in the latter. So my association with both fields lies far beyond a mere interest: I am, symbolically, the integration of the two!
Life is full of complements: colors, angles, etc. But we cannot forget the most important item on that list - aspects of the personality. Indeed, one's personality needs to possess distinct facets which complement and support each other such that they may form one, uniform persona capable of responding to all sorts of circumstances. For example, love complements hate, because the presence of both allows a person to react in both amorous and dolorous times. Likewise, business complements engineering. A businessman will know how to interact with people and identify their needs very well - he better know if he wants to create a successful product and sell it wisely. Understanding how people work is his expertise, but what about how the physical world works? Scientists and engineers very well know how it works. They devote their lives to conducting experiments and discovering rules and formulae to help people understand the world. Yet social stereotypes cause them to come off as isolated hermits who come into contact with numbers more than with the people they are trying to help. I don't think I would like being either very much. I need a happy medium, and appeal to Penn's Jerome Fisher program for the opportunities necessary to find that medium.
I know the path will be tough - the coursework will be unlike anything I have ever learned before, and the amount of work will be unlike anything I have ever endured before - it is basically enrollment in two schools! But I know I can do it. The closest I came to such an amount of work in high school occurred junior year in a multivariable calculus course. Despite the work required by my other courses, as well as the rigor of the class itself, I was able to perform very well and receive the highest grade. So although applying to M&T is indirectly a plea for buckets of work, it will not be unexpected. And besides, it will all be worth it. If accepted, I would be the proud holder of two degrees (SEAS's BSE and Wharton's BSEcon) from one of the world's most prestigious universities. I can already hear the phones ringing with the voices of office executives offering me a job at the other end! They will probably be from several well-known technology companies, attracted by my envied BSE. And I will probably hold some managerial position from the get-go, with my laudable BSEcon glimmering on an office wall. I will probably have some idea like a revolutionized solar panel with 100% efficiency, whose development and marketing I shall manage since Penn's M&T program will have prepared me to tackle both tasks superbly. And the product will probably be a hit. And the company will probably get famous. And the world will probably be a much less wasteful and dangerous place. And...and... Ring! Whoops! That was a nice dream, but I should get to class now and make sure it happens.