Undergraduate / Duke University Engineering Essay [4]

If you are applying to the Pratt School of Engineering, please discuss why you want to study engineering and why you would like to study at Duke.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."-Arthur C. Clarke

This statement was very true for me as a kid. In my rather understandable ignorance modern technology took on a magical quality. Store doors miraculously moved by themselves. Soda machines somehow knew how much money you were putting into them. The latter led me to create some interesting theories, most of which revolved around an army of tiny men counting how much money went down the slot.

However, as time passed I began taking these unexplained occurrences for granted. Miracles repeated too many times become facts of life. My wonder may have turned into complacency, but my family's spending habits conspired to stop this from happening.

My parents are perhaps the greatest misers the world has seen. They dislike unnecessary spending in any form, especially when it comes to toys. I remember the time when one of my toys, a battery powered walking robot, froze in mid-step. Certain that it was broken, I pleaded with my parents to buy a new one. They told me to either repair it or do without it. Unhappy but resigned, I went to the garage to look for some tools. After a healthy length of time spent finding out how to unscrew the back plate, I finally managed to get a glimpse of my robot's inner workings. I didn't find an army of little men operating my toy. Instead I found a mass of gears and wires that defied all comprehension. One of the gears seemed to have slipped out of place. I pushed into back into its slot, screwed the back cover on, and turned the robot on. It started walking again, to my considerable relief. This was the first time I repaired something. It was also the first time I did anything remotely like engineering.

I forgot about the incident until about a week later. That was when I started to wonder how pushing back one gear could have repaired the robot so easily. To answer my questions, I turned to both my local library and my father. From the library I got books with titles like "How Things Work." From my father (who was an ultrasound engineer), I got explanations and engineering common sense.

Many books and lectures later, I was no longer so ignorant of how things worked. Department store doors work by using a radar sensor to detect if an object is getting near the door. Some variations use ultrasound motion detectors instead. Soda machines count your money using a variety of visual and magnetic sensors. Technology is not longer magic to me in the sense that it seems to works for no reason. I may have lost the supernatural wonder that I once held, but I gained something worth much more: the curiosity to see how things function, to understand the inner workings of the machines that I used to take for granted. This is my reason for wanting to study engineering.

So I want to study engineering, but why study it at Duke? One reason is because Duke holds sentimental value for me. My aunt and uncle were married in the school chapel, a ceremony that I attended. I've visited the campus several times and have found its architecture very attractive. But most influential factor is the fact my father was an ultrasound engineer. He worked at the Siemens ultrasound division, which has some of the best ultrasound engineers in the worlds. A large number of these engineers, including most of my father's coworkers, graduated from a particular university located in Durham, North Carolina. Take a guess at what university it was.

Any help and comments would be deeply appreciated.

Undergraduate / I was born in Yale-New Haven Hospital, and my father got his PhD from Yale. [6]

What in particular about Yale has influenced your decision to apply? Please limit your response to the space provided.-500 characters

I was born in Yale-New Haven Hospital, and my father got his PhD from Yale. I grew up in New Haven, and thus grew up in Yale as well. As a kid I would visit my dad's lab on the campus and gawk at the gothic wonder that is Harkness Tower. My dad says that Yale was one of the best experiences of his life, a feeling that our family friend agrees with. Yale's new green buildings like Kroon Hall and the Malone Center appeal to the environmental side of me, giving me yet another reason to attend.

Any constructive criticism would be deeply appreciated.