Undergraduate / Dropping grades and then recovery - to overcome my procrastination and the lazy lifestyle [4]

Hello, I'm just looking for some quit critique for my first draft of my essay in response to "Describe a circumstance, obstacle or conflict in your life, and the skills and resources you used to resolve it. Did it change you? If so, how?". I'm looking to get into UT or A&M.

Around seventh grade, my grades began to drop and I noticed myself fall into a common teenage mindset of laziness and low academic willpower. My grades struggled during my attendance of a local private middle school called Sacred Heart, and playing video games all day during the summer wasn't really helping me achieve my ambition of getting into a great university to study a scientific field. Finally during ninth grade I decided enough was enough.

I studied harder than I ever had for my freshman year finals. For the first time I was putting in the work that I needed to put in to get somewhere with my grades and it felt great. That summer I turned my laziness into ambition. I began working out three days a week, so that during the break I wouldn't lose my sense of schedule, it would help me stay organized and give me something to focus on. I went every other day with a couple of friends, who pushed me along the path of working harder and improving myself.

I began spending some of my free time looking into Algebra 2 concepts as an introduction to what I would be learning that upcoming year, and all around preparing myself for classes I knew I may have struggled with. Defining a solid work ethic was huge for me. My newfound principles put my grades higher than they ever were, leading to my enrollment in all advanced placement classes, which I had never really been a part of before taking the initial steps towards improving my academic life. Although it took some time, I was able to overcome my procrastination and my lazy lifestyle. Through ambition and willpower I overcame this obstacle stronger than I was before, improving myself in different ways long the way. If I didn't push through and work towards my ambition, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as I am today.

Undergraduate / Required 'Lifetime goals and extracirricular activities' essay [2]

This topic is required for my UT application. The topic is: "Considering your lifetime goals, discuss how your current and future academic and extra-curricular activities might help you achieve your goals."

Just to preface, I am not doing many EC's this year, so I tried to expand more on what got me interested in my career, and tried to finish off with the last paragraph focusing on current and future activities, although that's the only part that really answers the question because I couldn't really think of what else to put to be honest. Anyways...

Many of my and achievements and the activities I've participated in throughout high school revolve around my idea of a perfect career. Like many people, I've always enjoyed problem solving and the mindset you have to put yourself in in order to think through certain situations. Naturally, I found mathematics appealing and fun, whether or not I was struggling through it in class. With this I joined the engineering program at my school which quickly became my favorite subject, and led to me leaning my interests towards becoming an engineer throughout my freshman and sophomore years.

Towards the end of sophomore year I discovered my passion for computer science and it quickly became my career goal in life. I found out that my school would be offering a computer science course the next year, which later became my favorite class. Although 80% of the class dropped out of it because it was too difficult, I pushed through and help good grades throughout the year. With the knowledge from this class as well as the knowledge gained from self-teaching, I and two other students became the only students on the computer science UIL team at my school. Although it was only the three of us, we each pushed each other to learn more and we were quickly becoming better at our subject. During the course of this year, I won a top 10 award in the singles test competition as well as winning 2nd place for the team activity portion at district, which is one of my proudest high school achievements.

Sadly this year there are not enough people to compete in computer science UIL, and so I will be focusing on mathematics related UIL competitions in order to become as fluent with mathematical concepts as I can, since many of the computer science courses through college will be based on mathematics. My ambition towards computer science doesn't end there, as I would also like to look into extracurricular organizations at University of Texas such as the Association for Computing Machinery and CS roadshow to help raise interest in the subject for younger students. As someone who enjoys problem solving and mathematics and catering towards these throughout my years in high school, I truly have passion for the field of computer science and I intend to pursue this throughout my career and ultimately my lifetime.

Speeches / Persuasive speech - universe simulation theory [4]

I am doing a persuasive speech on the topic of universe simulation theory. Basically, I am trying to convince the audience of it. I need a solid outside look on the speech, even if you can't think of specific corrections I can make, I really am curious how it comes off to people who have never heard of the theory before. Thanks

Have you ever imagined living inside of a video game? Well in short, you're most likely living inside of one. It sounds crazy at first but I would like to challenge your concept of existence and introduce you to the argument of simulated reality.

To lay the foundation for this concept, let's look at the standard scientific model of the universe. Everything; including energy, space, and time were created from the single moment known as the big bang. Newton's laws of motion state that every action has an equal and opposite reaction meaning that something needs to happen in order for something else to happen. Fire can't happen without a spark, and smoke doesn't happen without a fire, so basically nothing happens without a catalyst. So what made the universe explode into what it is now if there was no time, space, or energy for that spark to exist in? The model suggests that although nothing existed before the explosion, there was somehow still a spark that happened to create the universe and everything around you. When you think about it, everything as you know it was created in an instant at a time when there was no time and there was no things. The catch is, none of that really matters because science right now is testing to see if we live inside a simulation. So for a moment in time I'd like to ask you to put aside you're beliefs and look at recent science.

The best accepted argument on this subject was presented by Oxford Professor Nick Bostrom. This award winning Philosopher argues that the chances of our universe being a genuine universe are slim to none. In his 2003 publication, he gives an equal chance of three possibilities. Possibility number one; our planet and our civilization goes extinct. Possibility number two: although we may have the technological potential or may be building up to the potential, we for whatever reason choose not to continue advancing the complexity of computer simulations. Or of course possibility number three: we reach the stage of creating a simulation as advanced as our own universe, and thus are almost certainly living in one ourselves. What Bostrom is trying to argue with this third situation is that if there is at least one species in the entire universe with technology advanced enough to produce simulations of the universe (or for example a video game as complex as the universe), then what is there to say that we are not within a simulation ourselves.

Now let's look at the possibility of this situation. A Stanford review of the theory at we.Stanford.edu describes how human technology has reached a stage where computing power increases exponentially every few years, which leads many computer engineers to say that we could reach the point of being able to simulate a universe ourselves within 50 to 500 years. Whichever way you look at it; on a cosmological scale that is a tiny droplet of time in an infinitely vast ocean of time. Now consider how many species out there are millions upon billions of times more advanced than we are. The odds are extremely likely that they would have this technology already, so now ask yourself how many simulations they would be creating. Expanding this window, imagine how many simulations there are being created throughout the entire universe. This number is mathematically infinite, and according to Bostrom the only way to counter the mathematical probability of this being the case is that a species that actually has the ability to simulate a universe decides not to, or dies before they can.

Trillions of universes within the real universe, what are the chances that you're in the real universe? So if just one species on one planet in the universe is technologically advanced enough to create a video game as complex as our reality, then you are almost without a doubt, living inside of a video game. Thank you.

Undergraduate / Personal interraction with objects, images and spaces- essay for UT [2]

The prompt is:
"Personal interaction with objects, images and spaces can be so powerful as to change the way one thinks about particular issues or topics. For your intended area of study (architecture, art history, design, studio art, visual art studies/art education), describe an experience where instruction in that area or your personal interaction with an object, image or space effected this type of change in your thinking. What did you do to act upon your new thinking and what have you done to prepare yourself for further study in this area?"

This was honestly really difficult for me to come up with so I need all the help I an get on this one, thanks in advance...

I've always had an interest in computers, how they work, and the strings behind everything we see in the programs we use every day. This being said, when my friend tapped on my shoulder in computer class to show me a function in web browsers that allows you to inspect and edit the lattice of any website you are viewing, my interest was immediately peaked. Something about looking at actual, functioning code just clicked in my mind. The code could be temporarily edited, so I would play around with it and try to teach myself how it all worked through trial and error, which I find to be one of the best methods of learning. Little did I realize I had just discovered my passion.

Soon after, I began teaching myself the HTML programming language to better understand what I was doing. Through the power of the internet I was learning how to read, write, and understand the digital language. My interest wasn't going anywhere but up, and all I wanted to do was learn more. Over the summer all I wanted to do was write programs, so I began learning another language known as Java, which branched into my undertaking of writing multiple programs at a time, sometimes writing them for other people, for the purpose of gaining experience and sharpening my skills.

This line of thinking quickly enveloped my study goals, and I began preparing for a future of computer science, all because my friend tapped me on my shoulder. I quickly signed up for the computer science course being offered at my school, as well as looking into colleges with the top computer science and mathematics programs which would best facilitate my passion, which is when I decided that the University of Texas would be the perfect place for me to grow and explore my potential as a future computer scientist.