Undergraduate / How Is Life Structured - Cornell [5]

Cornell - College of Arts and Sciences:
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.

My fascination of biology is sustained by one concept, how is life structured? In daily life, everyone bends their muscles, get colds, ages, and etc., but how? Biology and its many fields are the answers to the question, but the important question to ask is why do I want to know how? I want to know how life is structured because once the structure is known, it can be manipulated to yield new intentions. To clarify, HIV virus can resist drugs and medication by mutating which is why many medications work temporairly before the mutation occurs, but if one can understand the mutation patterns of the HIV virus, then progress is made. With patterns, medication against the HIV can be more effective and longer termed as the next mutation can be predicted and countered against by drug control. Just by understanding the structure of life, it can be manipulated to yield desired intentions.

Every fascination has a foundation which is where it began and mine was 2nd period Biology AP of Sophomore year. When I first entered the class, I entered with fear from rumors of the heavy work load that college level biology will burden me with, but when I listened to my teacher's lecture, my fascination for biology flourished. He talked about how medications can be enhanced by simply manipulating their structure by crystallization. When a medication is crystallized, it will take longer for it to dissolve in the body which allows the patient to take the medication at a lower dosage rate. From this class, my main intention for biology developed which is to create new applications out of the structure of life.

Cornell's academic program will further my fascination in biology because I'm interested in a Professor Tumbar's work with stem cells in hair follices. From her studies on how buldge cells interact with stem cell activation within the hair follice, she is making a great impact on the field of dermatology and possibly other fields. By understanding the interaction and controlling it, she can regenerate skin to create a younger look in older people. Maybe I'm getting to far, but Cornell has concepts being researched that I'm interested in.

Undergraduate / 'basketball enthusiast' - Yale -something that you would like us to know. [9]

As a basketball enthusiast, I dreamed of joining my high school's varsity team to experience the loud roars of the crowd and the leather feeling of the ball as I dribbled it; however, I never made the team. Each year of my first 3 years of high school, I was rejected from team after each tryout. After each tryout, I tried to improve myself by learning the fundamentals, joining a basketball camp, and playing at the gym each day. After my senior tryout for the varsity team, I still failed. After four years of trying out, after all the training and effort I dedicated to basketball, I questioned myself why I couldn't make the high school team.

I can dunk a basketball, I can palm a basketball, and I can consistently shoot a basketball. I pondered that question, but I never found an answer. Then a moment of truth came to me. I was asking the wrong question. The real question is why did I play basketball and why did I keep playing after each tryout I was rejected from. The answer is simple. Basketball is a sport that gave me friendship on any court I played on. Basketball is also a never ending challenge in which one competes against an opponent of higher caliber than the opponent before. This sport gave me the mentality to accept challenges no matter how high the difficulty is.

Ending Sentence 1

Yes, I didn't make team during my high school career, and many might see this as a failure, but basketball gave me something I came to value; friendship and challenge.

Ending Sentence 2

I didn't make my high school basketball team, but will the four years of faliure in tryouts stop me from trying out for the college varsity or club team. No. With this sport, I will continue to face challenge and raise against more difficult challenges. Eitherway, what is the harm? I can fall down, but I can get back up.

Okay, so I edited it. What do you think about it now? And which ending should I choose, 1 or 2?

Undergraduate / Power is a quality that my mind has an affinity for; UC - An Ending to Infinity [2]

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

An Ending to Infinity

Power is a quality that my mind has an affinity for. I can never be satisfied with the current amount because my eyes lust for more, but what does power have to do with my personal quality. My affinity for power is my personal quality. Anyone who reads these words will assume that I was born to be an aristocrat because anyone in society that has a lust for power is seen as an elitist, but I was born into a middle class family of a Pakistani minority. My affinity for power doesn't define me as an elitist, but as someone who wants to face challenges and conquer them to acquire power in order to face more difficult challenges. I want to to continue this into an endless cycle in which I rise in strength and power after each challenge I defeat. Why is this so?

Through many years of failure and being held back in elementary school, I was ridiculed, seen as weak and doltish, and expected to fail. My younger life fueled me to surpass others, but once I surpassed, why didn't I stop? I discovered that I can not stay at the same state indefinitely because my conscious refuses a task after excelling in it. I deplore anything that can be completed and mastered easily. This is why I do not desire to live a common life where after college, I settle in stable, constant environment with a family and a good career. I want to transcend above that lifestyle for a more burdensome and salient one. Some might refute the last two statements by labeling me a youth who is inexperienced of reality and bounded by meaningless dreams. However they label me, ignorant or egotistic, I will not expel myself from this cycle nor annihilate this personal quality.

By power, I do not mean gaining large sum of wealth or have acquaintances with men in expensive suits smoking high quality cigars. By power, I mean understanding complex topics, analyzing patterns unseen by the rest, and connecting every critical thought together to widen my perspective so I can form strategies and manipulate my environment into my advantage. I do not lust for power like that of a dictator, but I lust for power that will aid me in conquering challenges.

My affinity for power parallels a never ending epic. The hero and I are subjected to altercations, and after some time of agony, sweat, and blood, we conquer the conflict. The hero gains a new power while I gain a new skill. We both wield our acquired weapons, fight again, and thus, continue a constant process to acquire one item, the infinity blade, the most powerful asset to oneself that only can be acquired at the end of a infinite cycle although there isn't a ending in reality.