Hi, can you guys read over this...I know its a bit long, the limit is One page...so ya. If you have essays you'd like feedback from me from, lemme know! I appreciate it and thanks everyone:) BTW...Merry Christmas ppls (almost, like 1 hour away...)
Please submit a one-page, single-spaced essay that explains why you have chosen Carnegie Mellon and your particular major(s), department(s) or program(s). This essay should include the reasons why you've chosen the major(s), any goals or relevant work plans and any other information you would like us to know. If you are applying to more than one college or program, please mention each college or program you are applying to. Because our admission committees review applicants by college and programs, your essay can impact our final decision. Please do not exceed one page for this essay.
Since I was young, I always had the vision of designing and creating the next new product that people would love and utilize. In my imagination, I would consider how to make flying cars and portable houses. But because I only saw the end inventions, the process of making them always seemed a bit enigmatic. The soda-pop machine I had tried inventing failed for poor cardboard mechanics. Still, the desire to be an inventor and the concept of what an inventor was followed me throughout high school. The year I took AP Chemistry, AP Alchemy flew out my head as I discovered how many systems could be explained and measured with numbers and calculations to make very logical sense. Now when I saw the latest iPad or heard about the new electric car, I wanted to know how its inventors went through the process of creating it.
When I was a child, my father's engineering office seemed like boring place with a lot of wire and equipment resembling dialysis machines. But in high school, when I reentered that similar world during a summer internship at SilverPlus Inc., the wires and computer chips had meaning. My internship project was to develop a complex program, which then ran on a microcontroller, to make it drive a piezo speaker that would be used in the company's product. In AP Computer Science, I had enjoyed learning programming and its manipulation of math and algorithms, but this assignment seemed beyond my level. The engineers taught me the techniques of simplifying complex pieces of codes by testing it in smaller chunks systematically. After I learned the ropes I realized that the mystical "engineering genius" I expected of brilliant engineers was their creativity to find simple techniques to gracefully solve nested problems. After weeks on the project, I began running the program on hardware, testing if it could drive voltage currents through the speaker. I saw the voltage waves appear on the oscilloscope and heard the speaker's clear sound with the probe; it was like seeing my creation's pulse and hearing its voice for the first time. I enjoyed using hands-on tools like oscilloscopes and other hardware, which showed me why I had grown uninterested in ACSL club during high school. Though it was a great programming club, its purpose was to learn pure programming, which was mostly but a mental activity. I loved the physical activity of making things, and this internship experience fueled my desire to become an electrical engineer.
When I researched electrical engineering further, I discovered that the field pertained to more than just coding and found that it suited my passion for technology. From interning at a wireless communications company, I was also familiar with the entrepreneurial environment surrounding electronic engineers, who had to watch for the needs, tastes, and trends of their consumers. I saw an engineer also as a businessman and a designer who needed good tastes, both of which I was interested in learning to become. I applied to Carnegie Institute of Technology as first choice, with Electrical Engineering as my major, and the School of Computer Science.
Though I have never visited the college, I can feel that Carnegie students think very laterally and not narrowly. I was glad to learn that this college emphasized interdisciplinary collaboration, because it shows that the students are eager to be influenced by related others in different majors. When I see the amount of activity occurring just within the electrical engineering department, I become excited as I imagine the possibility of one day also participating in hardcore robotics competitions or research of artificial intelligence. Through web-sharing, I can admire the projects students work on in class and in their own individual clubs. I can see they have the ambition to compete with the rest of the tech geeks across the world. Even in magazines, Carnegie Mellon's faculty and students are mentioned often as I read about new technology. It is obvious that the ambition to explore and excel takes a domino-effect across the whole campus and on every student, and I want to be a part of that.
