Undergraduate / Psychology Undergrad: Work Experience as Laser tech [4]

ESSAY #2: In an essay of 300 words or less, choose one extracurricular activity, work experience or community service project from the list you provided on the application and explain why you initially chose it, why you continued with it, and how you benefited from it.

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I have worked at a bookstore, a computer security firm, a laser company and independently as a computer technician. There is no doubt in my mind that being a laser technician was the most fulfilling job I have ever held.

The job consisted of setting up lasers for concerts, corporate events and other public and private functions.

Like most other kids from the 80's, I had an almost mystical fascination with lasers. Beautiful beams of powerful light, that could blind you in an instant or bind you under the spell of intensity. And here was a company willing to let ME manhandle lasers THOUSANDS of times more powerful (and expensive) than I had dreamed of playing with as a child. So powerful, infact , that we would sometimes use the lasers to light our cigarettes (thereby, as the joke at work went, using the world's most expensive cigarette lighters).

It was physically challenging work, hauling 150 pound power supplies, water coolers, hoses, and laser heads up and down flights of stairs and scaffolding. I loved the intense exercise, everyday left me sweaty, dirty and enthusiastically looking forward to the next day at work.

It was mentally challenging: after all the hauling, one needed to be aware of concepts of plumbing, electrical systems, electronics, computer programming, AND optics! A phenomenal cocktail of appreciable power could be unleashed if one was informed in those fields. If there was a slip-up, the penalty would cost the company thousands of dollars. There was intense pressure for perfectionism, which I wholeheartedly embraced. I learnt to appreciate taking a set of tasks, like a show, from beginning to end using smooth, elegant solutions that made life easier and safer.

I learnt so much. I learnt how to hook up pumps, set up plumbing on a large scale on short time frames, how to fix problems with power supplies, how to program laser projectors, how to tune mirror alignments, how to roll a hose, electronics assembly/soldering...

I learnt a lot, from the best; the oldest entertainment laser company in the world. I had a great time with them.

Undergraduate / University of Illinois, Psychology undergrad: Academic Interests and Prof. Goals [6]

ESSAY #1: In an essay of 300 words or less, please discuss your academic interests and/or professional goals.

Word count: 367 (Can we trim some fat?)

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When I was 4 years old, my parents gave me the best gift they could possibly give a child: the gift of literacy. It opened new corridors of knowledge and provided new avenues of enlightenment. I began to develop an appetite for learning that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

By the time I reached 7 years of age, I started to dip into her library of second-hand books. It was fascinating to trawl through concepts presented in anatomy textbooks, or studying topics like psychology and Greek philosophy. I feel privileged to have access to so much relevant reading material at that age, even if most of it went over my head.

The community of displaced Indians I lived with presented numerous examples for the different neuroses and psychoses I read about. Even though I could hardly decipher the abstract ideas of lifetimes of depression, guilt, complexes, and other rudimentary psychological disorders, they (the community) played out ideal case studies that I could correlate with symptoms presented in the books from my mother's library.

My teenage years and their inevitable hormonal effects presented more material to look up. At this point, I was able to structure the knowledge coming in, even if I did not understand it fully. Adolescence has good times and hard times, but times were always interesting. Around that time, I made up my mind: psychology would be a viable profession for my future.

As I simmered out of adolescence, I started putting more thought into thinking. I started playing ruminative games with a strong psychological side, like chess and pool. This got me interested in cognitive psychology, and I decided that would form the basis of my professional education. I started looking to transfer to a college with a good cognitive psychology program, and found the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne.

The syllabus is well designed, with multiple courses available dealing with cognition on different levels. I was especially glad to see the lab courses available, with a strong cognitive foundation. I feel confident that gaining admission to UI would take me considerably further toward realizing my goal to make a profession out of my interest.

Undergraduate / Psychology? U of Colorado, Boulder: Optional Personal Essay [2]

Prompt:
Feel free to include additional comments that would be useful in the evaluation process. Include information such as your educational aspirations, travel and work experience, creative talents, factors affecting your academic record, and any other information that might be of use and interest to the admission committees.

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"Psychology? Why would you want to study that? Are you psycho/crazy? Do you have a screw loose? A nut for a brain?"

That's a sample of the responses I received time and again from my parents, peers and teachers when I was in school in Bahrain.

There appeared to be a lack of exposure to the study of mind and emotion, which caused a certain hostility towards the science of psychology. It was amusing to observe them playing near-perfect renditions of the case studies I loved to read, while they simultaneously disparaged the science.

Lack of sufficient funding added to the already negative atmosphere at school, and I decided forge my own path to knowledge after the tenth grade. I developed on my knowledge of science, math and computers, while feeding my appetite for psychology on the side.

When I turned 18 and wanted to go to college, my parents were firmly against psychology, preferring instead that I study computer science, a subject I had shown some aptitude for as a child. It was clear that my dependence on them was affecting my future, so I decided the time had come to part ways and stand on my own feet.

I moved to India to work with a company that sold antiviruses and computer security services, and was able to afford old psychology textbooks on the secondhand market. This fuelled my desire to learn, because there was a lot of outdated information from older generations of knowledge and I found it engaging to see the contrasts; the shifts in ideologies, philosophies and thoughts in different schools of psychology. My desire to take my knowledge of the subject to a professional level grew, and I started looking for ways to join a college. But India unfortunately did not have an adult education program in place to help me get my high school credentials. I also found the psychology programs in India to be very arts-oriented, where the subject was treated more like literature or history than a fresh and growing science.

At the age of 26, I moved to Florida and decided to take advantage of the adult education system they have in place. I was able to get my GED and enrolled myself in the local college. I was impressed with the quality of teachers they had on offer. They were passionate, knowledgeable people, experts in their respective fields. This atmosphere rejuvenated my curiosity and will to learn, and clearly reflected in my grades. Since the college only offered an Associate's degree in psychology, I began looking for good undergraduate programs in psychology.

That's when I came across the University of Colorado at Boulder. With a wonderful location, well-equipped facilities, labs and an atmosphere that encourages research in some very intriguing aspects of the subject, I have no doubt that I will be able to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with UC at Boulder.

Another aspect of UC that I found attractive is the research options available to undergraduate students, like assistantships and honors programs, which I hope to take full advantage of.

What would UC gain from admitting me?

I am a devoted student with a strong appetite for knowledge, with academic and extra-curricular flair. Thus far, I have been able to maintain a good academic record while engaging in rewarding extracurricular activities on the side, like playing the violin, guitar and a few other instruments. I took an active role in student organizations involved in debates of social relevance, and will continue to do so if admitted.

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No word limits for this one... as usual, I tried not to make it too wordy, but probably failed.

Let me know if you spot any shorteners! Does it come across as too plastic toward the end?

This essay is strictly optional, so I am a little confused as to how it will be relevant to my app. Guess it's just to account for gaps in education and what not... right?

Thanks all!

Undergraduate / UM, Book that has made impact on you: Victor Wooten (The Music Lesson) [16]

Tell us about a book you have read that you found especially challenging, stimulating, or provocative. Explain why it made an impact on you.

"Never lose the groove in order to find a note."
- Victor Wooten (The Music Lesson)

In 1997, I was on vacation, sitting on my couch and flipping through channels, when I happened to watch a video of a bassist... he was playing to a familiar Christian tune, and he seemed pretty skilled, but to my immature ears (at 15, I was very much a rebel, in spirit as well as taste), it wasn't worth listening to more than 15 seconds. Unconsciously, I blocked the ingenuity in his playing from my aural receptors and switched to a random channel.

A decade later, around 2008, a friend gave me his bass guitar, and I started to practice. I was lucky to have a plethora of resources on the internet: videos, articles, books, websites, and forums. Cyberspace seemed to have it all. I practiced regularly, developing an appreciation for the nuances of the instrument and its players. Tone, articulation, dynamics, timing, scales... there were innumerable parts of a performance to learn from, to appreciate.

But ever so often, I would find myself obsessing over things that in retrospect now seem relatively trivial. I started practicing scales religiously, chord patterns, and esoteric lines from Eastern music that sounded important. I came to believe that the best thing I could for myself as an aspiring musician was to have as many scales and chords memorized as possible. Little did I realize that there was more to the game than what notes you had to play with.

I saw him playing the same song again, his interpretation of "Amazing Grace". Immediately, I was locked into the spirit of that song. His expertise with the instrument blew me away. I looked into more of his playing, his books... I had to learn something from this man; if not his musicality, something about his way of life. Clearly there was something special, something unique about this human being.

The Music Lesson is Victor Wooten's first book that is not strictly instructional. It contains a series of semi-fictional encounters between him and a character named Michael. It also describes his learning process in a 'parable' -like form, relating how he too had an approach toward music that was tainted, colored rather, by his own ignorance and presumptions of what it meant to be a musician.

An elemental message of the book would be how music is a language, not just an art-form. One can be artistic in the way one uses a language, but music is a language first, a medium of expression, before it is an art-form.

He explains this concept in a very unique, accessible manner. Here's how I understood it:
When we are born, there is so much about the world that we start to take in, interpret, and react to. One of the first things we learn is our language. We try to speak to our parents, try to tell mom or dad, 'I'm hungry!' or 'I'm happy!'... We feel the urge to talk to them and share our feelings.

Of course, mom and dad are accomplished speakers of their languages, and they initiate a freestyle flavor of communication, where there is as much room for mistakes as there is for proper communication. We start to 'jam' with them. The mood is playful, oohs and aahs, coos and caahs, babies so often seem to enjoy it no end, and yet it is a learning experience! When babies (language amateurs) make those mistakes, adults (language professionals) would playfully repeat those mistakes right along with us!

In 3 or 4 years, that baby that cried because it could not speak suddenly starts talking its parents' ears off, asking more questions about the world than they care to answer!

A passage describes how if a starting musician were to start off jamming with professional, accomplished musicians, it would not take that musician decades of experience to play skillfully; it would take a few years, perhaps less than a decade, as it took for the baby to speak.

There is a strong truth to that message; one often sees musicians born into musical families that are able to develop a skill much faster with practice than, say, a child from a family without professional musicians that goes to music school. Even children that grow up in musical environments (performance venues, studios etc), that get a chance to communicate with people more musically experienced than themselves seem to exhibit a better understanding of music than their peers.

These days when I pick up my bass, I feel less 'hindered' by my prior approach. I feel a certain kind of peace, a freedom of expression. Wooten's book helped me realize for myself that I needed to practice expressing myself as much as I did everything else (technique, scales etc).

It's easy to acknowledge a fact, but a student only truly realizes the fact for him/herself when the master explains it the right way. Victor Wooten did that wonderfully for me with his collection of vignettes he calls 'The Music Lesson'.

The video that I mention at the beginning of this essay is available on youtube. Search for "wooten amazing grace".
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Hope I didn't blowout on the cheese! Thanks for reviewing.

There wasn't a word limit. Think it's too long?

Undergraduate / I attended a school in Bahrain; Educational Path essay, UM [6]

Describe your educational path. How did you get to where you are today? What are your educational goals, and how does the University of Michigan fit into them?

I attended a school in Bahrain (a small island country in the Middle East) called The Indian School, where I stayed half way through high school (until the 6th grade). Unfortunately, the school was unable to provide an environment that encouraged learning. I scored good grades for the first three or four years, but grew tired of the moribund, close-minded style of teaching, which mostly involved memorizing texts verbatim, apart from massaging the fractured, yet ever-growing egos of some teachers and administration.

So I decided to quit school and read on my own.

I did not continue any formal education until about 2 years after I arrived in Florida where I got my GED, at a high percentile. I wanted to develop on my interest in psychology (I had done as much reading as possible about the subject during the gap in my education).

I enrolled at Broward College, where I finally got to meet some sincere teachers. These were extraordinary people with profound love for their subjects, from calculus to geology to developmental psychology. I couldn't get enough, often staying as long as I could after class developing on our class discussions. I truly enjoyed my time with them; even the ones I disagreed with vehemently on certain subjects... they always had something unique and useful to teach.

By that point, I knew psychology was what I wanted to do. I looked for good colleges with strong experimental programs, and was astounded by the Labs on offer at the University of Michigan, especially in the cognitive, social and developmental realms. With its' strong undergrad and grad programs, I think UM fits perfectly with my goals to learn more about this deep and fascinating field.

Undergraduate / (childhood in the Arabian Gulf) - Culture and Diversity essay [NEW]

"We know that diversity makes us a better university -- better for learning, for teaching, and for conducting research."
(U-M President Mary Sue Coleman)
Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan.

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One of the most rewarding cultural experiences I had was getting to know my friends in India.

During my childhood in the Arabian Gulf, my parents and that society sometimes encouraged discriminatory perspectives in their youth. This included prejudice against religion, color and regional origins. With my limited exposure to India and its natives, I was tempted to believe most Indians were as discriminatory as my parents. Just because they seemed to paint a picture where people were to be categorized based on their region, or color or any other generalized trait, I made the exact same mistake, thinking all Indians thought the way they did.

I moved to India when I was around 18 for a firsthand experience of India. Hitherto, I had only briefly glimpsed the culture from car windows and hotel tours during the few weeks of vacation my parents arranged every year. This started the cultural experience of a lifetime. I met 'real' Indians, who had a strong sense of cultural identity. Yet they challenged every presupposition my parents' society had led me to believe and the ones I had developed personally.

It was evident that all people were not as my previous society had portrayed. I learned that people of all colors, from all states of India, had their positives and negatives, but they were all unique.

My rewarding experience only resonated during my stay in the US, where people of all cultures and backgrounds are able to mingle. I was finally allowed to exchange viewpoints about economics with people from communist China, religion with a person from Haiti, and the finer points of hot sauce with a Guatemalan.

This exposure showed me the kind of enjoyment and humanist positivity that has resonated with me since then. I would like to share that social resonance, with the people at UM and keep that energy going.