Undergraduate /
Being counselor for friends - CMU App Essay Why you chose CMU/Major [5]
As my time in high school has come to a close, I've taken the time to seriously think of what I want to do with my life. In this, I realized that I was a kind of counselor for most of my friends, and even some people I didn't know well. Doing this has helped me to learn a lot about myself. I've realized a deep capacity for compassion and empathy. I'm just able to listen for hours on end and relate to people, to help them. I've also been led found a very interesting subject.
The human mind is a fascinating thing. For a long time, I have wondered how people think, why they think the way they do, and tried utilizing that to figure out how they would act and what they would think in certain situations. In a way, I use my friends as subjects. I really enjoy doing this, and that was how I discovered what I wanted to do with my life. I want to study psychology and, hopefully, open my own practice as a psychologist.
I'm a student who is always looking for a challenge, and I think CMU can provide that. The coursework looks to be engaging and demanding. The notion of studying intelligence and learning in machines is something I haven't seen elsewhere, and with my natural interest in technology, it's fascinating. I love the variety of research courses, since it allows for me to focus more on studying social and behavioral psychology and not the ones I'm less interested in. I really want to live in a city while I attend college, and Pittsburgh provides one that is new and fresh. Carnegie Mellon has jumped out at me, to the forefront of my college search. With every new thing I learn, Carnegie Mellon increasingly seems to be the place for me.
At Thanksgiving, I was able to see my Aunt Kelly again. She's a relative I don't see often because she's a professor of psychology at the University of Denver, so she lives all the way out in Colorado. When I told her my interest in studying psychology, she was ecstatic. She'd finally have someone besides her students to talk to that would actually want to listen (My uncle tends to snore...).
We talked about my college goals and she offered to help me make my picks and get through the admissions process. I told her a few of the colleges I was interested in, including CMU. She lauded the psychology department and told me that it would be a great school for me, especially since I want go on to study Clinical Psychology in graduate school, and CMU is a good place to get the much-needed research experience. In our correspondence over the past few weeks, she's helped me get my list down to twelve colleges, and I started applying.
I've used the College Board, the Princeton Review, and a number of other services to try and match myself to colleges. When I did so, Carnegie Mellon University was in the top five of all of those lists, if not the number one. I took a look at the site, and was pleased by what I saw. The plethora of activities (I've always wanted to try fencing...) and the campus location are ideal for a student like me. I love to be in or near the big city, and, over the years, I've been involved in more extracurricular activities than I can count. A big selection ensures that I'll find a place where I belong.
Life at CMU seems to be a good fit for me. Living in the Global Studies House would be an amazing experience. I've always been interested in becoming a more globally aware person. There's a program at my school called Social Studies Seminar. In this program, the students become actively involved in global politics. Through it I've managed to participate in three model UNs, with two more coming, I've been to the UN twice, and I've participated in the United Nations Student Conference on Human Rights since my freshman year. I was afraid that leaving this program behind would make it harder to find as many opportunities for such active involvement, but the concept of living in the Global House is a welcome relief.
