Undergraduate / "Biology has been a firefly to me" - Cornell Supplement essay [7]

Anything I should correct?

Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. Tell us how you will utilize the academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences to further explore your interests, intended major, or field of study.

Biology has been a firefly to me. Unfortunately, I don't have a net to catch it! The first time it crossed my sight was when my grandmother planted a mimosa pudica in our backyard. The low self-esteem plant, as she called it, possessed the evasiveness that I expected a firefly to have. Whenever I touched one of its leaves, the neighboring ones would agree to fold together and conceal their beauty. At first, I thought I killed the poor thing. I did not know how to smile the next day, when the leaves were relaxing again in the warmth of the sun. Though I made sure never to touch the plant again, I could not forget the wonder that I saw. So I searched for more.

Our backyard snake shedding its skin, Madonna giving birth to puppies, my typing tutor having twelve fingers - these things became my new fascination. It did not take me long to figure out that Biology is made of a massive amount of fireflies. And every time I caught a glimpse of their light, I always ran out of words to describe my awe. As a 3rd grader, I had no explanation to why such mysteries existed. In fact, my science teacher warned me that I was too young to try to understand their complexity. But I could not resist the urge to discover more.

My aunt, a nursing graduate, became my answer key. It turns out that when snakes grow, their skin cannot expand like ours. And Madonna's babies did not come from heaven; it involved the mating of little creatures called sperm and egg cells. Mr. Mardy's extra fingers were not gifts from Santa Claus; they were caused by mutations in his genes. She was fantastic! Of course, there were times when she told me to slow down. She would say that I should not be asking about what genes are, or how the mating process was done. But every time she answered my questions, I felt as if I had collected one of Biology's fireflies.

While my aunt was patient in overcoming my barrage of "Why's" and "How's," there were some questions that she did not have an answer to. She knew that the average sleep time decreased as we aged, but she had no idea why we dreamed. She knew how red blood cells and bone marrows worked, but she had no clue why my youngest brother had leukemia.

Today, I find myself with too many questions and too little answers. But I am not attending the Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences simply to collect information on Biology. I hope to use research opportunities to find answers to things that are not on our textbooks. We may know that we only use 10% of our brains, or that malignant tumors are harmful. But we have not discovered if we can use more of our brains, or how we can turn deadly cells into useful ones. This, to me, is like collecting Biology's fireflies. With your help, I can extract their light, and use it for our own good.