Undergraduate / 'Playing around in microchip design' - My interest in studying at Michigan - Prompt [4]

Hey all, I've been struggling with one of Michigan's prompts for a while now, and I decided to just sit down and go for it. I wanted to talk more off the cuff and not have the "I've been dreaming about X for my whole life!" vibe that I sometimes feel like writing about. I'm not quite done with it yet, I still need to write a few more sentences to bring it to a nice close but I like how its turning out so far and want another pair of eyes on it. Thanks!

PROMPT: Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School (including preferred admission and dual degree programs) to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests? (550)

This challenge excites me

A red light lights up in front of me, along with a loud 'BWAA' indicating that something somewhere has gone awry. Dials are bouncing off the walls and levers are being pulled frantically. And where am I? Well I'm not doing much of anything actually. Just sitting here, at my computer, writing this essay. I like to imagine that this is what happens when I'm around any machine. Everyone panicking and perhaps fearing for their lives and me standing there right in front of something about to explode just staring in awe at it. Even if its not tangible, like a program happening on a computer, I see it doing one of those old cartoon dances, bouncing up and down all happy and stuff, while chugging away at whatever it's doing. Or it could be like HAL in a suit exterminating astronauts but is actually just sorting items into an array. Aw man, that makes me sound insane, but I really like this sort of stuff.

I think that Michigan would allow me to just go nuts over this stuff. For example, one of the freshman level classes is called 'Thriving in a Digital World.' More like 'Computer Overlord Survival Guide' to me. 'Electronic Sensing Systems'? How about 'Learn to find your targets and destroy them' instead? One of the programs at the University is literally called COM-BAT. If that doesn't sound like it'd be a heck of a time there, playing around in microchip design, than I don't know what would. Going to Michigan and being in the classes would feel like either a gladiatorial battle to see who can be the best or some D&D campaign run by an especially cruel person that we need to outwit in order to succeed. What I'm getting at here is that one thing that I found out while touring the campus was that Michigan's classes are graded comparatively and you can either work against each other in order to succeed individually or work together to boost everyone's grades at once. It gives you a lot of freedom on how to study and participate in classes.

Going back to that thing I said about the cruel D&D leader, Michigan is hard. Just being accepted is probably the easiest part. What you do for the next four years will suck. I've heard horror stories of people staying up until 3 just to finish a day of homework. People shy away and go to another college like that weird green place with an unsuccessful city-state citizen as its mascot. I say bring it on. The challenge excites me. I might fail, but I want to try, just to see what I can do.