Undergraduate / "Love for science and experiments" - the world you come from [4]

Hi I am applying to most of the UC's and needed some feedback for the first prompt. I am sort of stuck at the moment.

Thank you.

Prompt #1 Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

My childhood was filled with science experiments and trips to my father's lab. Almost every weekend my dad would do demonstrations such as making a volcano with baking soda and vinegar and I could never get enough. I spent much of my free time building legos and small electric circuits and trying to recreate some of the experiments. My favorite show is NOVA, a science show on PBS. When I was younger I didn't have much knowledge about science and often pestered my dad to explain everything in the show, then think about what I learned, looking at the subject from every side. When I turned 12 I got my first chemistry kit. I transformed part of my room into a lab and always had some experiment in progress.

I love learning things very thoroughly. If someone explains something I need to understand every detail and then I think about the topic for days. Sometimes I would get really frustrated with myself for not understanding everything. One of the things I most looked forward to going into high school was the real science classes that might help me explain some of the things I noticed in life.

My love for science led me to do an internship in an arsenic lab at UC Berkekey. The group I worked with is focused mainly on the arsenic problem in Bangladesh, where nearly half of all drinking water is contaminated with dangerous levels of arsenic. Berkeley Arsenic Alleviation Group (BAAG) has two sub-projects, ARUBA and ECAR. I worked on ECAR, which stands for ElectroChemical Arsenic Remediation. The problem with arsenic removal is that it is almost impossible to filter arsenic out of water because it is such a small particle, and other methods such as distillation are not cost effective. ECAR takes advantage of the fact that arsenic bonds to rust, and that rust is a large particle that is easily filtered out of water.

At first I was given very simple tasks such as cleaning beakers and taking samples, but I gained the work-lead's trust and eventually started my own experiment. At the group meetings every Monday I reported my findings and got feedback from the other group members. One of the biggest things I learned from the experience was how to ask questions and recognize my limitations.

Getting a glimpse into the real world of lab science gave me a huge amount of motivation. It brought me to realize that not only can I apply my passion to something useful, it can also be used it to improve the world.