yemin
Aug 12, 2011
Undergraduate / "How to be a successful XXX" - my undergrad Personal statement [3]
I just finished my first draft for PS. All kinds of advice are welcomed!
To call me a boy with thousands of questions is quite appropriate to describe my childhood. If I had any questions with anything around my world, I would stick to my parents and bothering them for an answer. However, my questions became less and less when I started my school age. Often my questions were called off by my teachers' returns such as "look what a silly question you have just asked" or "this is it, no other possibilities". I learned to lock my thoughts up and passively accept all so called truth and official answer. I lost my passion in chasing after the mysterious unknown world. School had killed my creativity.
I was offered an internship in a university chemistry lab this summer. I found the lab such a captivating word because there are always amazing things happening there. After I got my work, an assignment to sift out a qualified compound from thousands of alternatives, the professor hand me a book which introduce a way to sieve out the compound with a computer. "But don't lost yourself in the book," the professor admonished me before leaving, "human brains is powerful than you can imagine."
The book was a traditional textbook for trainees to familiarize with the computer program. I skimmed through the book and found it was just as dull as reading my science textbook back in my school. There was no creative atmosphere here, not at all. Thanks to my high school teacher, I found myself was efficient in reading this kind of cramming book. However, I was appalled that I found out I have thousands of alternative compounds in my database. How was I supposed to make it since it took about an hour for the computer to analyze one compound? No, there must be some mistakes; it was just an impossible mission. Yet I was told by the professor that there was no mistake, they were all my jobs. "Don't forget what I have told you", his voice kept ringing in my ear.
I went back to my study, deliberating his words carefully. Don't get lost in books. Human brains are all mighty. Suddenly it all came to me that it's time to enfranchise my thoughts. I started to look at those alternatives. "Okay here is a positive radical, so I don't want any positive radical here in the compound."; "hydro shouldn't be with hydroxyl". The number of alternatives was decreasing dramatically. At last I found that there is just one compound left. I double-checked it and ended up with the same result. When I handed over the result, the professor smiled to me and said," well done, I think you have already got the essence of your lab experience." Although I haven't stepped in the lab once, I surely benefit a lot from this internship.
When I was writing a final report for my job, I gradually realized that I got was not only an edification of how to crack a scientific enigma, but also an inspiration of my life scheme. I decided to emancipate my own creativity and passion to be the orientation in my life, not duplicating other people's success or some cases read from books like "How to be a successful XXX". We shouldn't let guidebooks, empirical experience, and some people's pernicious statement as" to achieve a successful and happy life you need every link in this chain to be absolutely perfect: Infantile education-->primary school-->high school-->university-->grad school or work" to strangle our own pursuit of happiness. What we should focus on is to act in a way which harmonizes with our deepest instincts. I will absolutely let my own mind be the commander to create my own history.
I just finished my first draft for PS. All kinds of advice are welcomed!
To call me a boy with thousands of questions is quite appropriate to describe my childhood. If I had any questions with anything around my world, I would stick to my parents and bothering them for an answer. However, my questions became less and less when I started my school age. Often my questions were called off by my teachers' returns such as "look what a silly question you have just asked" or "this is it, no other possibilities". I learned to lock my thoughts up and passively accept all so called truth and official answer. I lost my passion in chasing after the mysterious unknown world. School had killed my creativity.
I was offered an internship in a university chemistry lab this summer. I found the lab such a captivating word because there are always amazing things happening there. After I got my work, an assignment to sift out a qualified compound from thousands of alternatives, the professor hand me a book which introduce a way to sieve out the compound with a computer. "But don't lost yourself in the book," the professor admonished me before leaving, "human brains is powerful than you can imagine."
The book was a traditional textbook for trainees to familiarize with the computer program. I skimmed through the book and found it was just as dull as reading my science textbook back in my school. There was no creative atmosphere here, not at all. Thanks to my high school teacher, I found myself was efficient in reading this kind of cramming book. However, I was appalled that I found out I have thousands of alternative compounds in my database. How was I supposed to make it since it took about an hour for the computer to analyze one compound? No, there must be some mistakes; it was just an impossible mission. Yet I was told by the professor that there was no mistake, they were all my jobs. "Don't forget what I have told you", his voice kept ringing in my ear.
I went back to my study, deliberating his words carefully. Don't get lost in books. Human brains are all mighty. Suddenly it all came to me that it's time to enfranchise my thoughts. I started to look at those alternatives. "Okay here is a positive radical, so I don't want any positive radical here in the compound."; "hydro shouldn't be with hydroxyl". The number of alternatives was decreasing dramatically. At last I found that there is just one compound left. I double-checked it and ended up with the same result. When I handed over the result, the professor smiled to me and said," well done, I think you have already got the essence of your lab experience." Although I haven't stepped in the lab once, I surely benefit a lot from this internship.
When I was writing a final report for my job, I gradually realized that I got was not only an edification of how to crack a scientific enigma, but also an inspiration of my life scheme. I decided to emancipate my own creativity and passion to be the orientation in my life, not duplicating other people's success or some cases read from books like "How to be a successful XXX". We shouldn't let guidebooks, empirical experience, and some people's pernicious statement as" to achieve a successful and happy life you need every link in this chain to be absolutely perfect: Infantile education-->primary school-->high school-->university-->grad school or work" to strangle our own pursuit of happiness. What we should focus on is to act in a way which harmonizes with our deepest instincts. I will absolutely let my own mind be the commander to create my own history.