Undergraduate / "Being different to make a difference"-U of Washington Int. Transfer Personal Statement [3]

This is an essay for University of Washington. Fingers crossed on how my essay will be! No set limit on length, but the recommended is 750-1000 words

Prompts:
Academic Elements (required)

Academic History

Tell us about your college career to date, describing your performance, educational path and choices.

This is the updated version of my essay, which is due tonight! Word count is now 977, a decrease of nearly 200 words from the original one. Prompts are same as above. Critics, comments always welcome!

I used to dread the idea of being different as I thought uniformity is the best way for society. "Befriending non-Chinese Indonesians is a taboo, they just never do the best in anything and they will make you stupid if you are friends with them," said my father. A Chinese person would save money to expand his business, while a native would spend it frivolously. When I heard that statement, I felt proud of my heritage. However, I found it hard to believe that a non-Chinese person couldn't be successful. At church, I envied being the modest one in between my friends who slumber in ritzy houses. Everyone at school was of the same age, thinking of graduating in food science or engineering.

At the same time however, I was proud to be unique and creative by going beyond expectations. During primary school, I was the student in the computer room who would try all the buttons that appeared on games, rather than playing them procedurally. In middle school, I would be the student who designed an airline website using HTML and PHP, instead of same old encyclopedias. At high school, I built Powerpoint presentations of jobs vocabularies in German and the Afghan War timeline that are interactive like computer programs. I made friends with Trekkies and cinematographers, who balance studying and having fun in their hobbies. From them, I make these creative and out of the box projects.

Life in Seattle transformed all my negative perspectives of being different. I was in a Physics class with a 65-year-old who attends college just for the fun of tinkering hardware at home. I befriended African Muslims in hijabs who do not fear of discrimination by speaking up with pride. I met fellow Indonesians, from Sumatra to Papua, who studied vigorously to nail their admission to top universities, yet managed to spare their time at church ministries. I learned that diversity offers more opportunity than uniformity and I can learn to define my own success.

I came to North Seattle College with a major that recent prospective students would often take, which is computer science. As I was taking all prerequisite classes for the major, I felt there should be a change in pace. I like working with the technical side of machines, but I also want to work with people to see how technology impacts all of us. While doing research on the Web, I found out that there is a program at the University of Washington that does such things called informatics.

At a Transfer Thursday session in a December, I managed to sit down for an advising with the Informatics Program Chair, Scott Barker to find out what the major has to offer. As he was explaining the brochure about the school, I felt enlightenment. "We are not only about computers, but sociology, psychology, philosophy, everything that connects technology to human as the user," he said, and this is spot on with my goal. I want to find out how computer networks can make assignments easier and create new ideas to improve the computer itself and human life.

In between school, I make slides and flyers for the monthly mass and seasonal events at the Indonesian Catholic Community in Seattle. This is where I learn creativity, which I believe is necessary to tailor what clients ask us for. But revelation came during my role of translating computer science practice activities and the Code[dot]org website into Indonesian. I was fascinated of how the activities use blocks containing codes called Blockly. The user can simply drag them in a specific order in order for the result to work as demonstrated. Here, I can see the relationship between informatics and computer science. Information scientists innovate a new way to learn code, and works with computer scientists to reach create it by inputting code.

All the activities further fuel my interest for informatics. While North Seattle College provides me with coding and problem solving skills by computer science classes and the user side by sociology and psychology classes, it does not have enough resources to comprehend how these two things can connect. While this may mean I should take more fundamental classes, I'll keep myself in pace by doing research or reading before the class, set priority on my class schedules and homework, and ask questions.

Many of my church friends are currently studying or had finished studying at UW, from business to biology. Their polite, hardworking, and open-minded personalities helps the organization a lot for their ideas and collaboration. This is what inspires me to go to UW. Most projects in the informatics school require teamwork and working with people from diverse backgrounds is the key to reach its intended goal, which indirectly shapes the students to be polite, hardworking, and open-minded.

My country, Indonesia, is in need of innovation for the government to work efficiently. Currently, their departments are only partially interconnected, resulting in overlaps of job responsibilities and the dire outcome that impacts its 230 million citizens. When I obtain a degree in informatics, I will streamline the bureaucracy by networking computers between departments so that the policy makers can ensure that the government can decide and deploy what the citizens of an area specifically need efficiently. If I get out with a degree in geographic information systems, I will present the government office a map of rudimentary infrastructure systems in many parts of my country so that they can pinpoint where they will put the money to rehabilitate it. I am eager to study to contribute to my country and studying in UW is a humble beginning to obtain the credentials to work my way towards those goals. The program I take may not be well known, but I believe that every person has a special expertise that they can use to build a better society.

Undergraduate / UC Prompt 1 - Majoring in Computer Science to help the working industry [3]

I'm kind of nervous regarding this personal statement. Please help me correct any grammar or logical errors! Thanks!

Prompt:
What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field - such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities - and what you have gained from your involvement.

Essay:
A computer scientist, as far as I knew, used the Java programming language to make online games, which was not in my favor at the time. This is why the specific major was not on top of my mind if you asked me 3 years ago. I used to think of majoring in industrial engineering, to help my father with his plastic molding factory when I graduate, by studying the production process.

My school offered a number of opportunities for me to try everything. One of the things that I learned was using a computer. One of the most significant things I have learned in class is integrating a web designing experience by HTML with data storage by PHP. The first few times studying this lesson, I could barely start because of boredom. How can such a heap of tedious lines of code print just a modest lump of statement? From then on, I appreciate the beauty of computer science: the perplex yet fascinating codes that can create anything you want. It's definitely not easy to make games with movements of creatures and prompt mouse clicks for a reaction.

During a free project, I designed a mock-up website of an airline company, complete with flight booking process and a dropdown of office locations at its destinations. Presenting this project to the teacher, I was given appreciation for thorough application of both PHP and HTML programming. From that time on, I switched gear to what I wanted to be. I knew I could be a computer scientist.

I chose to learn computer science in the United States because there is where most of the ideas about computer science are made and adopted. I chose to learn at a community college first in order to slowly cope with the active American learning system, as well as to find out if my choice stands by the time I will transfer. Fortunately, the campus has been supportive in helping me to grasp the concept of computer functions, and a journey of discovery that takes my knowledge to a whole new level. I found out that there are different types of lists in programming languages, each type of data is best sorted in one of them. I realized that computers were not only made for gaming, but also to help the community.

Now as I am about to step up to transfer to a new college, I am proud to say I am ready to change the world with technology. After getting a degree in either computer science or informatics from the University of California, I want to apply my knowledge by giving back to my father who had been vigorously working for my living, as well as other fathers of the same profession. I'm thinking of making a software that simulates the molding process of liquid plastic with a specific shape input by the user. There are indeed, other ways to help the working industry and computer science can be one of it.

Undergraduate / A broken fridge away to adulthood - Common App Prompt 5 [3]

Hello everyone. I decided that I need a help with my essay. This is my first draft, and because school has not started yet and I haven't shown this essay to my family yet, I decided to share it here for any comments. I'm not very confident with this essay though, so any comments and critics are always welcome :) Thank you very much.

Common App Prompt 5: Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

Question: Does this answer the prompt? Do I sound like boasting?

"Each of you must pay thirty dollars for a new fridge," my phone vibrates as the message was received. Instantly, my iPad has its browser tuned to Google, displaying the search query "How to fix a fridge".

The white fridge in my kitchen has been the mecca of the residents' nutrition supply for the past three years. We were too often in need for a quick fill up, we forgot to look for what we had at the bottom drawer called the freezer. The time bomb ticked, frost built on its walls, and soon enough, the cold crate was warm. Ask us about what happened to the fridge and we would all point fingers at anyone or the owner herself who does not live in the house. Her wake up call was loud enough to halt my slumber of ignorance.

Not wanting to waste another penny, the need to fix was urgent. But confusion overwhelmed me, as I have never fixed such a complex device before. My tablet screen was on non-stop as the WikiHow and forum pages were rendering with solutions on every possible problem. The next hour, I was myself, in front of the warm shelves grazing front and back, in and out. An immense chunk of hard frost barely sees me, hiding itself on the vent at the back of an even bigger pile of packaged food. Using the instant knowledge I obtained, I immediately unplugged the fridge, unloaded its contents, and left its doors until the next afternoon. I could only sit on the couch and secretly put my evil smile every time someone entered the house and could only stare at the mess, knowing they had no time to even find out that their food had been tarnished because of the heat and must be disposed of.

"Crisis averted," I texted back after every item was stowed back on the fridge.
"Thank you so much! How did you fix that?" she thanked me for the prompt action. I saved my and other residents' thirty dollars!

From that on, I learned how irresponsible I was as a young college student that only cares for grades and stomach, not other people's or even our own welfare. At my home country, a housemaid that I can call anytime will clean the house, or I can just pull down my father's shirt to ask him to fix the leaking ceiling, but what have we here? We are all adolescents, yet we are still like a child waiting for its parents to nurture us all. It's just a matter of who wants to grow up, by having the courage to step up and do the job.