Undergraduate / [ University of Toronto ] - Engineering essay ( Why Engineering, Why UofT, What skills..) [NEW]

Hi everyone,

Here is my work for the University of Toronto prompt:
What has inspired you to pursue an engineering degree and why would you like to study at the University of Toronto?
What skills have you developed through your extra-curricular experiences that will support your future success as both a student and an engineer?

I would like to have feedbacks from you, I am not a native speaker so please apologize any grammar faults. I do my best to avoid those!

What could be more powerful than the ability to turn ideas, concepts and theories into realities? To me, being an engineer is not only having a degree, or sharing a passion for solving problems. Being an engineer means that we accept to dedicate our life to improve societies and enhance human progress. The role of an engineer is critical because he have the duty to push the limits of humanity's practical knowledge. It is really inspiring for a teenager, no matter where he lives, who he is to see people taking allegiance to values they believe bigger than themselves. I want to become an engineer because I have faith in humanity and I believe that being servant of the society to concretise our aspirations is one of the most noble things one could do.

There is an intellectual vitality at U of T that is present nowhere else. In fact, from what I can see people have different interests but share a common passion toward progress. Also, what really attracted me is of course the stellar department of engineering but also the support the University provide to students to build or accelerate their own companies! I could speak about the boundless opportunity associated to discovering a new country, a tons of new cultures and people but what I want to stress the most is the general mentality toward work. People at University of Toronto are not afraid of being challenged, and push themselves to reach their maximum potential. And this quality is only shared by a few Universities in the world, making U of T a very unique place for learning.

Thanks to my role-model Albert Camus, I decided at the end of my 10th to live my passion to the fullest. I discovered contest programming and quickly became addicted to problem solving and challenge. Eventually, I have been selected with 7 others programmers to a training week to select the french olympic teams for the International Olympiads in Informatics. I did not ended up in the 1st quarter but from that moment I knew that I was made for that: Solving problems. In fact, this training week pushed my intellectual and physical limits far beyond what I thought I was capable of. It shaped my problem solving skills and have been a real intellectual electro-shock. I am a very active in the Hacker community (In it's original sense, people who enjoy building things) in Paris and became a Free Software activist. All those activities taken individually does not mean anything, but as a whole they enabled me to learn how to learn in a very efficient way. I became more autonomous, mature and involved in everything I start. More than anything, I discovered the taste of effort and the enjoyment that learning procure. Today, I am driven by my passions. They gave me the strength I need to move on and pursue my objective: becoming an engineer-entrepreneur.

Thanks a lot for the time you dedicate to me,
Happy new year,

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