Undergraduate / 'Jamshedpur and India' - where you come from and your world [NEW]

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.

Jamshedpur - the word has a jarring sound in the English language. It is the place where I was born. It was here that I attended Little Flowers School, a prime institution where the stern discipline of the teachers eroded any idea of the gentleness implied by the school's name. When I needed to buy anything, I walked down to the local bazaar teeming with life; its halwais (sweetshops) displaying scrumptious sweets that were being strafed by hordes of flies; the street peddlers who unabashedly hawked such high-quality clothing as a t-shirt emblazoned with both Tommy Hilfiger and Nike. People of Jamshedpur, India, count amongst the most hospitable ones in India. You will find them very helpful and cheerful, always smiling and eager to help. Jamshedpur portrays a positive kaleidoscope of myriad religions, who dwell in perfect harmony. The most awaited month, July, saw monsoons with their torrential rains wreaking havoc on residents of Jamshedpur. However, my friends and I relished the opportunity to take our shirts off and dance in the rain

Jamshedpur is known as the educational capital of East India. The families here mostly belong to the middle class and they believe that investment in educating children was much more valuable than other material benefits. I spent my childhood years in a colony surrounded by big and small establishments. . The city inspired and encouraged me to believe that education was the only way to fulfill one's dreams in life. .From six pm to ten pm everyday our colony used to get no electricity supply but surprisingly it used to be the brightest four hours of the day illuminated by the love and passion the people here hold for studies. All my neigbours would sit on the terrace with lanterns and kerosene lamps and the air would be abuzz with multiplication tables and trigonometry formulae. My father used to come home late on Saturday nights. It was difficult for me to be awake at that late hour and to read by a small kerosene lamp. But that was my only opportunity to impress my father with my progress in studies.

The city shaped me and imbued me with values that laid down the very basis of the city. My foray into science was bolstered a group of dedicated teachers who kept alive my passion for science. Tata Motors supported me for my first international research project. Someday I will certainly make my city proud.And yes, I will dance in the rain with old comrades again.

Undergraduate / 'what Darwin or Newton or Einstein felt' a personal quality, talent or experience(UC) [5]

By the ninth grade i had completed mechanics, trigonometry and basic calculus much ahead of my classmates, not to show off but to have valuable tools at my disposal. My Physics teacher saw my keen interest in Science asked me to form a team of three and present a research project at the INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS' SCIENCE FAIR which was to be held in India in about 6 months.

While reading blogs i came across an article about a research on energy generation using shock absorbing bumps coming to a dead end as it was not feasible in terms of energy produced. Just then i started jumping and did my fake version of the moonwalk. I realized that the government's ignorance of problems faced by the masses could be used as an advantage for my project as India has the highest average undulations in a concrete road. We worked on the project of using Shock Absorbers moving in a magnetic field to produce energy..The model won us the second prize among 150 schools across 40 nations. Just as we were leaving for our city the Principal of Ritsumeikan University, Japan met my teacher who was our team moderator and invited our school to Japan to attend the next edition of the ISSF.We were the only school in the whole country invited to represent our nation.I had become a hero in my city. Having one's name in the newspapers for international achievements was something very coveted in our small city of Jamshedpur. My team now slogged harder to create the model of a car which used algae and molasses as fuel and used Regenerative magnetic shock absorbers to charge it's battery. We conducted pollution and emission tests at TATA MOTORS and confirmed our assertions about the car being environment friendly. We named the car ENVY. My classmates from the Economics section calculated the estimates and we were able to prove that it was cost efficient too. I was excited about my trip to Japan, mainly because I had never been to a foreign country and I had never travelled in an aeroplane before. We received a standing ovation in Japan. It took a while for the feeling to sink in.

I realized the essence of the subject. Sometimes, when I have finally grasped the implications of something the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I get a tremendous surge of adrenaline. It is not a bad feeling but perhaps a feeling of genuine clarity and overwhelming joy at once again figuring something out on my own and realizing just how complicated it once seemed only to become so clear in my mind. However, above and beyond all that, Science gives me the opportunity to think of the possibility that perhaps one day I will discover something so wondrous and fantastic that no one has ever thought of before. I wonder what Darwin or Newton or Einstein felt like when they realized just how precisely perfect and dead on their theories were? What a feeling that must be!

Please help as The introductory paragraph looks dull.Should i focus on details more .The problem was the 500 word limit