Undergraduate / Two Inches of Shame-- Purdue application essay [3]

If you had the opportunity to do something over, what would it be and what would you change?

Please share your opinions!

There was no better situation in baseball; a rivalry game, tied in the bottom of the last inning, bases loaded and the home team up to bat. It was a situation I had dreamed of since my parents put a glove in my crib. It was now my senior season and my exact dream came true; then I realized I was on the visiting team.

The hitter that stepped into the batters box led the league in batting average and as the catcher, I had witnessed him demolish my pitcher's self esteem more than once. I could not show that I was nervous, however, because I was the captain of the team and the only senior. After the pitcher walked the bases loaded, I jogged to the mound to calm him down. I told a joke because humor seemed to be the best medicine.

The joke cleared the pitcher's mind enough for him to get two strikes in a row. I gained confidence with ever pitch that we would get out of the inning and a building of hope erected where a wasteland of worry once occupied. The next pitch was thrown low and inside; nearly unhittable. Nearly was not enough to keep the hitter's bat from making contact with the fastball. It was only a slow ground ball to the third basemen, and relief spread through my team. He routinely fielded it and threw it to me at home plate for the force out and the survival of our chance at winning the game.

It was a play we had practiced before hundreds of times. I routinely catch the ball with my foot on the plate, and then I routinely throw the ball to first base for the double play. Reality is not routine, however, and the umpire called the runner safe at home plate.

It was two inches that separated my foot from the plate. Two inches separated the potential glory of beating our rivals from a town knowing of my blunder. The story of the game and its ending was described on the front page of my city's newspaper. I felt ashamed. My team and I had worked since October to win that game, and I blew the opportunity. I felt as if I stole everything we had worked for and thrown it away.

If I had the opportunity to do something over, I would have taken a step two inches to the right. I would have kept the game alive and given us the chance of still winning. It is not embarrassing anymore, but I still feel like I took a deserving chance from my teammates.

Undergraduate / "Biomedical engineering" - the creation, the improvement and the end" - OSU Essay [5]

The prompt was to tell about talents, interests or abilities otherwise not expressed in the application. Also tell why I would be academically successful at OSU.

I'm really not sure how I feel about what I've written yet, I know it needs work but I don't know where to begin.

A television cannot be turned on, an internet cannot be browsed and a newspaper cannot be read without viewing the popular topic of life; the creation, the improvement and the end. Every day new ideas are introduced in order to prolong the end, and in doing so, the quality of life of many is raised significantly. However, if a pharmaceutical is developed to stop an illness, there will always be an uncountable amount to cure. If a man regains his ability to walk with the aid of prosthesis, there will always be more who still have to struggle with day to day life. Seeing stories of people getting a second chance at life and knowing so many more will not is what drove me to desiring a career in biomedical engineering.

With this desire I bring a skill set that could benefit many if applied to biomedical engineering. I have had a lifelong passion for writing music and drawing which have helped me develop a creative mind; I am always looking for ways of improvement. Four years of band and fifteen years of baseball have allowed me to develop the ability to work as a team. I was also a captain of my high school team which has helped me find my personal leadership style which is necessary to succeed in engineering.

It is these factors, combined with the satisfaction of helping others that would allow me to be successful studying biomedical engineering at Ohio State University.