Undergraduate / 'to create ideas and innovations' - Why do i want to be an engineer essay [4]

Engineers turn ideas (technical, scientific, mathematical) into reality. Tell us about an engineering idea you have or your interest in engineering. Explain how Cornell Engineering can help you further explore this idea or interest.

here goes::

I was awestruck, like Gautama reaching Nirvana, Saul during his conversion, or even the sage Markandeya, who entered Vishnu's mouth and witnessed the entire universe. That is what came to my mind when I first went to visit my father at work. Looking at the floor plans, I kept asking myself how it could be possible that what was on that paper would become reality. Just like God, who created the world in seven days, my father was able to rise a skyscraper out of nothing. Ex nihilo.

It was that day that I chose what I wanted to become. I wanted to be able to control the way a building looked, how it was built and what it would become. A mortal god, a creator, that's how I saw my father.

As I grew older I understood the basic flaws to my eight-year-old thinking, but the fascination stuck. For a time, I was convinced that the reason I had to become an engineer was because I was skilled at math and science, but I now understand that at the heart of engineering are not math and science but curiosity. Curiosity in why and how things happen, curiosity in understanding our world; that's what pushes me to want to be a civil engineer.

My parents always tell stories of me as a kid. The most popular one was when I tried to understand how the panda in the television had just disappeared. I looked everywhere for it: behind the television, in the couch, until my mom got so tired of the mess I was making that she took me to the zoo to see the panda that had escaped my TV. According to them, I still haven't changed; I'm still looking for the panda in things.

Although Cornell has one of the nation's best engineering programs, I am also allured to the College of Engineering for its Cornell-Cantabria Exchange Program. Studying abroad fulfills my desideratum to understand more about the world. The exchange program that Cornell has with the Spanish school is ideal as it would allow me to use my Spanish and deluge into a culture I love. But more importantly, the program would allow me understand the differences between working in the US versus working in Europe.

Engineers are the specialized men and women who work everyday to expand our knowledge of the world and revolutionize our way of living. I want to change the way that we look at a building, or a bridge. I want to improve impoverished countries, not through donations but through the reconstruction of cities and economies. Just as Brahma created the world out of nothing, I want to create ideas and innovations to improve the world in which we live. That is why I want to be an engineer.