Undergraduate /
"Interest in Agriculture and Life Sciences" - Cornell CAL supplement essay [4]
This essay still has a long way to go. I wrote this for the Cornell CAL essay. Its supposed to be a max of 500 words but its 590 right now. Despite its length, I still feel like its underdeveloped. The first half is about how I became interested in Earth Science at a young age and the second half shows how I want to use knowledge from the Earth Sciences to help the planet. In the last paragraph I wanted to relate back to both ideas, but I noticed that I was over the word limit and felt...well, hopeless.
So, I feel that I have three (3) options to fix this essay:
1. Elaborate on the first idea and scrap the second
2. Elaborate on the second idea and scrap the first
3. Cut down on both ideas (and most likely lose depth) and write a better conclusion that ties them both together
I'm hoping people can read it and tell me what they think the best angle to present myself would be. Which option should I chose? And any other comments would be appreciated as well. Thanks!
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences:
How have your interests and related experiences influenced your selection of major?
When I was still on training wheels, my parents took me on a bike ride around Canadice Lake. As we stopped for lunch on the pebbly shore, I searched for flat stones to skip on the water. I was about to throw one when I noticed a tiny shell embedded into the stone. My mom told me it was actually a fossil, and what looked like a shell was really part of the rock. I wondered how a rock could possibly be shaped exactly like a scallop shell-ridges and all.
Then, while visiting the Oregon coast, I found another unusual rock. This one had three deep, parallel grooves in it, as if a child-sized hand with three long fingers had made an impression in the stone. Naturally, I assumed I had found another fossil. When I told my dad that I had discovered proof of alien life, he chuckled and corrected me, saying that the finger-like grooves had probably been formed by water erosion. I was amazed. Rocks were no longer just rocks; there were many factors giving them unique characteristics. From that day on, as I traveled the world I found interesting rocks everywhere, from mica in Italy to geodes on the sea cliffs of Portugal. Now, wherever I go, I usually come home with a curious rock in my pocket.
As I traveled to more places and my collection grew, I wanted to know why these rocks have different properties. I also started to wonder about other things I saw. In Switzerland I had so much fun hiking in the Alps that I wondered why there aren't any where I live. And why are the Finger Lakes so long and skinny? I didn't find out the answers until I took Earth Science in ninth grade, where I learned about rock identification, glaciers, earthquakes, and weather. But what I learned only scratched the surface-I still want to know more.
From West Coast to East Coast and across the Atlantic, I noticed that many of the places I visited were endangered environments. On Cannon Beach in Oregon the changing habitat has harmed puffin populations and other fragile marine life. On our visits, my family usually walks to the volcanic monolith Haystack Rock during low tide. We peer into pools of flowering anemones and listen to the sound of barnacles, which click inside their shells as if they're knitting to pass the time until the tide returns.
On one of these walks we saw a small gray bird standing motionless on the beach, feathered breast facing the ocean. It was a murre-a marine bird that spends most of its life at sea. It seemed to stare longingly at the ocean through the legs of the low-tide walkers, who tossed the bird a pitying glance and continued on their way, as if it was a beggar on a city street. They did not know what to do. Neither did we, but we couldn't abandon it when it was obviously ill. We wrapped the murre in a sweatshirt and carried it to my grandparents' house, where we contacted the bird rescue. We never found out what caused the murre's illness.
I've been to these protected places, yet never knew how to help. It bothers me when my lack of expertise prevents me from helping endangered habitats and animals, like those other low-tide walkers. In the Earth Sciences I will learn about the natural processes of the planet, and use that knowledge to investigate, diagnose, and solve the problems of our environment.
