Undergraduate / 'No Playstation or skateboard' - Independent Engineering UC Prompt #1 [2]

Describe the world you come from ï for example, your family, community or school ï and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

It is Friday night, and I am just getting home from a movie with some friends. I walk into my house and hear nothing but the sound of the refrigerator running in the kitchen. The only person I live with, my mother, is long asleep due to the fact she has to be up at 4am every day but Sunday. We live together but it has been four days since I have seen her. I carefully walk to my room, knowing which floor panels to avoid stepping on so I don't wake her. It looks like I am spending the rest of my night alone, what will I be doing?

All too often I was left with nothing to do when I was at home. At a very young age I was inventing pulley systems to flip my light switch from my bed, and Lego note card sorters in my spare time. I really enjoyed designing and making things around the house. For my 5th grade science project I made a large model showing one of Newton's Laws of Motion, which used a few electromagnets. This was the first time I had made anything that had dealt with electricity before and I was excited.

Soon after my garage was left with dozens of taken apart TVs, radios, and anything else I could get my hands on. One of my close friends at the time built a computer with his dad, and then proceeded to help me build one of my own. My relatives probably started to think I was a little weird when my Christmas list consisted of a microprocessor and cd-rom drive, rather than a Playstation and a skateboard. But I didn't want anything else in the world. I realized that this is what I am passionate about, and this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing.

My mother never really understood a lot of the things I liked, but she was always there to support and encourage me. To this day I still love it when I can show her my latest invention because she will always find a few minutes regardless of how busy she is to come and share the excitement with me. Her encouragement has kept me progressively taking up bigger and more involved projects, learning more each time. She told me I could be anything in the world I want, whether it is the president or a garbage man, as long as it made me happy.

While I don't think I will be either of those things, she has been there to back me and my dreams through the thick and thin. Without her in my life I would not have the same goals and aspirations of getting a degree and becoming and electrical engineer.

Undergraduate / My Spiritual Journey - UC Prompt #2 [5]

(I want to be an engineering major, essay needs a lot of work, due tonight! Need help!)

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

Ever since I was in diapers I have been going to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. It never really crossed my mind if I felt like going to church that week, I just always did. It was the normal thing for me to do up until a few years ago when it became my decision whether I went or not. I had been forced to go for so long that once it was my decision to go or not, I rebelled and stopped going all together.

After a few months of spending my Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights home alone sleeping and watching reruns on TV, I decided to start going again. But this time it was going to be on my terms. On my first Wednesday back my Pastor Mark spoke an all too fitting message, which seemed to be directed right towards me. He talked about how youth often inherit their parent's religion and how we should break away from that and have our own personal relationships with God.

If I could think back and pinpoint one turning point in my life it would without a doubt be this night. I broke down crying and decided that I wanted a relationship with God for me and not for anyone else. After that I started getting involved, coming early and staying late, helping out any way I could. I would count the days down until the next day I would get to step into the student center building and experience the overwhelming sense of welcoming and friendship that was in there.

Some of the best memories I had in that building were from when it went through an 8 month remodel that I got to help with. Ethan, Alex, and I would meet up 4 or 5 times a week and swing open the two huge doors and spend hours on end fixing up the place. We couldn't get enough of it. People would constantly ask us when it would be finished and open. While we were excited to see the finished product, we were all a little bummed out that it finally had to end.

All in all, my church has played an enormous role in my life. It has shaped me as a son, a friend, and a follower of God. I know that now and in the future when I look back on my life, I will be able to identify going to church and having a personal relationship with God as something that has positively impacted me. It has been one of those meaningful experiences in life that has changed me. I have a different perspective on religion and I am now more open to try new things and look for the deeper meaning in everything I encounter.

(465 Words)