Undergraduate / Common App essay - My story of escaping persecution and moving to the USA [2]

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

I sometimes recall the spontaneous anti-Muslim riots, which caused me to feel unwelcome in my home country as a child. These riots occurred while my family and I lived in India, where the Muslim religion has long standing tensions with the Hindu majority. Witnessing these riots introduced me to the dark side of humanity; a side of humanity that I longed to change. I could have taken the easy road, which would have been to give into and perpetuate the intolerance. Yet, I chose to embrace diversity, welcome change, and to pursue my goals. While seeing the dark side of humanity and the associated intolerance led to a loss of my childhood innocence, it also ushered in a newfound maturity through which I saw a need to foster cultural competence and to embrace diversity.

I feel fortunate to have found my passion in life at such a young age. As a student, I had an abundance of time to delve into the world of computer programming. My desire to learn to program software came intrinsically and thus, always drew me back no matter how hard the challenge. I spent countless nights staring at complex codes in order to fix a small problem. I never received external help with my programming pursuits. Rather, I taught myself how to program using only textbooks, the internet, and experimentation. My desire to excel in programming is reinforced by the fact that I have seen a rise of computing in the world. I am extremely proud of the fact that I have early success with my programming pursuits after dedicating so much time and effort into developing software. I hope to continue to develop successful applications in the future and make a meaningful contribution to computer science. Furthermore, having taught myself programming made me realize the need teach future generations about the importance of developing computer programming skills. As such, I give back to the community by contributing to all kinds of open-source software projects. Unbeknownst to me, computer programming would help me encounter other challenges in my life. For example, when I was faced with an incredibly difficult task of making friends in a new culture, I applied the same techniques I used to excel in developing my computer skills; I spent additional time trying to understand the culture and I looked for additional resources that would help me complete the assignment.

After moving to the U.S. at age 15, I encountered a new challenge of learning to assimilate into American life. My first few months at an American public school were alien to me, as I had to learn new customs, culture, and make new friends. I was sustained by my goals and ambition, particularly my desire to excel in programming and to create a better life for myself and my family. I quickly became excited and motivated to learn about my new environment. As a result of drive to succeed, my software applications were published by major companies and have hundreds of thousands of users. This showed me that perseverance pays off. It also helped me become more mature in developing goals. I am driven to learn from leaders in the field of computer science and to expand what I independently taught myself about programming through textbooks and experimentation. Furthermore, I appreciate the opportunity to pursue my goal of obtaining a higher education.

After my family and I fled the persecution in India, I applied for political asylum in the U.S. I am grateful everyday for the opportunity to pursue my dreams without fear of retribution for a religious affiliation. I truly believe that I am lucky to have the opportunity to live in a culture that welcomes and embraces diversity. I immediately felt welcomed and safe in the U.S. and this experience has made me more open to people from different backgrounds and life experiences. It has also made me a stronger person to have interacted and learned from these experiences.

The intolerance that I experienced during the riots in India was later balanced out by all the generosity and friendliness I experienced in the U.S. Furthermore, I felt that Americans were more accepting of cultural differences. My background has made me stronger and more mature than many of my peers. Living under religious persecution forced me to grow up more quickly and has allowed me to appreciate the opportunity of pursuing my goals. Thus, I would bring my unique background of fleeing religious persecution, my computer programming skills, and appreciation of diversity. Furthermore, my maturity, drive to succeed in a foreign land, and established record of academic excellence would enable me to become a responsible and successful student.

I would appreciate any feedback about my essay. This is my college application essay, and I'm applying to top universities. I would especially appreciate feedback about how interesting or impressive the essay sounds. I think the essay has some issues transitioning from one paragraph to the next, but I'm not sure what to do about it.

Thank you in advance!

Undergraduate / UChicago Essay Prompt: "Find X". (Wrote about my passion for computers and patterns) [4]

I would be very grateful for ANY feedback on my University of Chicago application essay. I was hoping for general feedback on the essay as a whole, such as whether it's impressive, how well it answers the prompt, what it says about me as a person, etc.

Thank you in advance! Anyway, here goes:

Prompt: Find X.

The crisscrossing lines of the letter x have always held a special place in our hearts. They represent the great mysteries, the family crest of knowledge and the unknown. From terrorizing algebra students to marking a pirate's gold, we have used the letter x to symbolize the most important, the most frightening, and the most fascinating things in our lives. To find x is to find a solution to a problem. For convenience, many choose to alter the semantics: the unfulfillment of one's dreams is the problem; the assumed solution is its realization. However, such dreams can suffer great change, even over short periods of time. In few cases do specific dreams persist for years, even fewer for decades. Therefore, accurate analysis of someone's character and essential motives requires a subtler metric: the direction in which that person's aspirations shift over time. Time is represented on graphs along the x-axis as the independent variable; it does not have its destiny determined: it determines the destiny of others. Extending the mathematical analogy, such the direction in which one's aspirations shift over time can be expressed as dx/dt, the change of x with respect to time. Personally, I can identify a theme of dreams within my own life: the continual refinement of the desire to connect ideas.

Although my early goals consisted mostly of basic and instinctive desires, my fascination with connections set me apart, even as a child. While my peers contented themselves with candy and stand-alone toys, I persistently sought after durable toys which retained complete compatibility with each other. Although similar desires are surely present in the minds of all children (as evidenced by the success of Legos), mine seemed to have been greater in degree; the very notion that I could create something original out of these combinations fascinated me. In my young eyes, almost everything worth knowing seemed to have an ancient answer; I saw no new frontier; thus, I married the creativity offered in these toys to youthful romanticism. As I grew, I began to channel this impractical idealism to academic subjects and computers, where meaningful and useful connections abounded all the more.

In elementary school, I met many brave new ideas, some of which profoundly altered my goals to come. Needless to say, the ideas which interested me tended to reside in my science books, and, as time progressed, I began to admire the physical sciences above all others. Despite the inherent superficiality of scientific explanations proffered in primary school, I still gleaned several meaningful connections. For instance, even oversimplified kinetic theory connected the mechanics of nature's essential particles to the movement of elastic balls on a macroscopic scale. The abundance of similar scientific models began to inhabit my mind, and soon enough I yearned to contribute to science. My fascination with connections became an obsession: I was intrigued the way molecules bond with each other to make up everything, how combinations of quarks make up molecules, and how these particles behaved on a quantum level. I held over-detailed dreams of my future as an engineer, astronomer, or entrepreneur. Although my x found no firm ground in these years, my dx/dt held fairly constant: I continued to delight in purer and purer webs of ideas.

When I dreamt of connections in the sciences, I regarded computers as a tool to relieve the imagination. As I studied elegant mathematical proofs and lines of code, the purity and relevance of each statement enthralled me. Every step of writing a program fit more perfectly than any toy and proved truer than any physical model. Perhaps most fascinating about computing, I found, was the fact that useful tools could be made with nothing but the symbols on my keyboard and a good bit of creativity. Independent mathematical and computational further solidified this realization. Indeed, without outside instruction, I had developed my own mobile user interface app; a mobile security software followed about a year afterwards. Although insignificant in the scheme of computing, these discoveries gave me a glimpse of freer and cleverer connections. I began to dream of a future career in involving computing, mathematics, and the physical sciences. The grand trend of my aspirations again settled in a realm better suited for connections.

At this time, I still hold dreams of achieving something of merit within the field of computers. Considering the hitherto enumerated experiences, however, my dreams may evolve to admire another field of study or expertise. That is, my x may still change in the future. Luckily, though, my dx/dt remains fairly constant: if I do change x, I will do so by setting my heart on a purer system of connections. Fortunately, the University of Chicago's Institute of Molecular Engineering provides an ideal environment in which my dreams can grow and develop without artificial restraint. At this school, I could potentially fall in love with nuclear physics, chemistry, or even biology and still graduate with competitive proficiency in the major and a prestigious degree. If, however, my x has permanently rested upon the connection of ideas; if I continue to delight in the search for mathematical patterns; Chicago gives me unlimited room to express myself, especially since it's one of the few universities with a molecular engineering program. Whatever my future yields, I hope to spend many years of meaningful education at the University of Chicago, whose assistance can help me approach my x (even if x slightly changes from time to time.)