Undergraduate /
Fantasie - My journey as a pianist and a medical researcher. (Research Application ) [2]
Prompt: write a maximum 1000 word essay describing yourself, your career aspirations and why you think you deserve this health science research bursary (you may like to include your extracurricular activities, hobbies, and/or any other special interests.
Before you read my response:
The message I was trying to get across in each paragraph is written in italics. Please tell me if I was successful. Also, I am slightly worried that I wrote something a bit creative as opposed to something scientific for an application for a research bursary. However, I intend to attach one of my research papers to show that I am capable of different kinds of writing.
Please tell me if I was successful in saying "why I deserve this bursary"!!!!!! I never explicitly say "I deserve it because" so I am a bit worried.
My response:
A very long time has passed since I sat down, and a much longer time will pass before I get up. I remember sliding my fingers across the smooth wood, floating my eyes along with the keys: black-white-black-white-black. Yet a piano on its own is nothing but wood, strings and a whole lot of varnish; it takes dedication, inspiration, curiosity and passion for a musician to produce a beautiful sound. As I listened to my rendition of Ravel's Jeux d'Eau echo off the walls, I realized that my journey to become a musician paralleled my continuing journey to become a medical researcher.
Music begins, quite necessarily, with a test of dedication. Secretly, it comes in the form of technique, analysis and countless days of practice. In spite of the hours spent marking the poly-harmony in the score and repeating left-hand minor chords and right-hand modal scales until they were perfectly synchronized, the challenge of learning the notes of a new piece never fails to excite me. Likewise, it was with equal dedication and with equal enthusiasm that I began my pursuit of knowledge with the eighth and quarter notes of biology. I studied six-hundred paged textbooks on anatomy, read research papers on genetics, and passed hours in the medical section of the downtown reference library until I looked up and, to my surprise, saw the glow of the setting sun. Much like the importance of every note of every bar to a sonata in its entirety, each new piece of knowledge attained through perseverance added to my solid foundation of biology.
*Dedicated, good foundation of biology?While learning a piece of music is in itself interesting, the real beauty lies in hearing the passages, perfected with hard work, finally come together in a soft and sparkling Fantasie. The chords echo in the room in harmony, and I listen with joy and satisfaction to a sound which reflects my knowledge of and my dedication to music. This beautiful and ethereal sound - the audible culmination of my efforts - is both my inspiration and my motivation. My sentiments are similar in the world of science: I find personal motivation not simply by reading and learning, but by experiencing and applying biology outside the confines of a library. When I was studying Mandarin abroad at Tsinghua University in Bejing, I volunteered my free afternoons at the university's laboratory for antitumor protein therapeutics. It was within those white walls that I saw undergraduates interpret vital data, heard researchers debate life-changing possibilities and ultimately discovered my own ardent desire to pursue a career in medical research.
*Motivation, why I want to do medical researchThe music in itself is beautiful, yet I always seek to improve it and to make it more personal. Not yet satisfied, I reinterpret the piece, thinking that a certain bar should be played with less pedal and that another passage should be played with more passion. It is with the same desire to constantly improve and the same critical ability that I conduct research in biology. After completing an academic paper on the treatments of End Stage Renal Disease in both French and English, I noticed an odd trend: hemodialysis is the most commonly used treatment despite that peritoneal dialysis is equally as effective and less expensive. Considering the socio-economic impacts of E.S.R.D. treatments as well as Canada's unique health system, I welcomed challenge to improve my research by investigating the possibility of a shift from hemodialysis to peritoneal dialysis. Just as I constantly strive to make my music richer and more personal, I always seek to take my research and my understanding of biology to a deeper level.
*Always seek to improve, currently writing research paper on ESRDMy music echoes in the air, travels from my living room, out the half-open windows and floods into the world outside. It connects me with humanity and makes me want to share its beauty. Likewise, while medical research in itself is intriguing, even more fascinating to me is the application of biology to the social sciences, to history and to the rest of the world. As a research assistant in conducting a literature review on biological warfare in Asia during World War II, I spent hours not only absorbed in the details of the manipulation and of the human genome, but in the heart-wrenching testimonies of Chinese war survivors. The literature on the biological warfare piled up on my desk, and I documented each and every paper. Through this experience, I gained not only a deeper understanding of the human genome, but also an understanding the relevance of science to the families of the war survivors, to patients in hospitals and to the world at large. I realized the importance of science and medicine to humanity.
*Want to apply biology to humanity, acted as a research assistant in conducting a literature review on biological warfareI am passionate, dedicated, motivated, hard-working and I always seek to improve. My various scientific experiences in laboratories, in literature reviews and in research papers in combination with my personal characteristics will undoubtedly help me excel. In the near future, I hope to attend McMaster University's Health Science program and then continue to contribute to humanity with my scientific knowledge. I am a pianist as well as an aspiring medical researcher. However, above all, I am a strong and passionate young woman with the full intention of fulfilling her dreams.
Many thanks!