Please tell us what you find most appealing about Columbia and why.
Columbia appeals to me not only because of the multifaceted diversity of the school and surrounding city, but also the academic interests and backgrounds. When put together with the world-renowned faculty and the common aspiration to doing something incredible in the world, the chance to study at Columbia is, to me, a chance to start making a difference in the world. I currently attend a magnet school where people from Russia to Haiti and everywhere in between are drawn together by the common interest in improving the world, an experience that has helped me realize that a diverse and driven faculty and student body are essential to maximize what can be learned.
The diverse academic and extracurricular opportunities at Columbia are another major draw for me. In academic fields, biology and literature are my forte. My personal interests lie in many forms of music ranging from a cappella to drum corps. The incredible depth and breadth of the Core curriculum and the range of the musical opportunities at Columbia present a fantastic opportunity.
Columbia's location is another major draw for me. New York City is in many ways the pinnacle of the trend towards globalization and interdisciplinary integration. My internship at Georgia Tech this year has shown me how powerful collaborations can be. Columbia has faculty and alumni that have had a massive impact in every field, from politics to biology, and the chance to learn from them presents an opportunity unique to Columbia.
Please tell us what attracts you to your field of choice (Biology)
If you had told me as a magnet freshman that I would be listing biology as my primary academic interest on the application to my dream school, I probably would have laughed, as at the time I thought biology was just dry memorization. Skip ahead to the present and here I am, preparing to continue an internship in a planktology lab at Georgia Tech next semester and attempting to convey my passion for biology on college essays. Biology, I have come to realize, is one of the most alive sciences (no pun intended), a characteristic that draws me into the field more and more every day. My internship at Georgia Tech has shown me the challenges of extensive data analysis, surprisingly the tedium of hundreds of hours of data analysis failed to temper my enthusiasm. The minute and nearly infinite sub-fields within biology fascinate me as well, as every time a question is answered in a field as seemingly tiny as planktology, two new questions appear.
I have always loved problem solving and learning something completely new, and at the most basic level, biology is just than that. Some of the mechanisms found in nature are so inventive and brilliant that they defy explanation until somebody with the right tools examines them and discovers something amazing like how nerve cells transmit signals or how the body uses signal molecules. In biology, the innovative twists of thinking that lead to remarkable discoveries and the complex answers to seemingly simple questions fascinate me.
Thanks!
Columbia appeals to me not only because of the multifaceted diversity of the school and surrounding city, but also the academic interests and backgrounds. When put together with the world-renowned faculty and the common aspiration to doing something incredible in the world, the chance to study at Columbia is, to me, a chance to start making a difference in the world. I currently attend a magnet school where people from Russia to Haiti and everywhere in between are drawn together by the common interest in improving the world, an experience that has helped me realize that a diverse and driven faculty and student body are essential to maximize what can be learned.
The diverse academic and extracurricular opportunities at Columbia are another major draw for me. In academic fields, biology and literature are my forte. My personal interests lie in many forms of music ranging from a cappella to drum corps. The incredible depth and breadth of the Core curriculum and the range of the musical opportunities at Columbia present a fantastic opportunity.
Columbia's location is another major draw for me. New York City is in many ways the pinnacle of the trend towards globalization and interdisciplinary integration. My internship at Georgia Tech this year has shown me how powerful collaborations can be. Columbia has faculty and alumni that have had a massive impact in every field, from politics to biology, and the chance to learn from them presents an opportunity unique to Columbia.
Please tell us what attracts you to your field of choice (Biology)
If you had told me as a magnet freshman that I would be listing biology as my primary academic interest on the application to my dream school, I probably would have laughed, as at the time I thought biology was just dry memorization. Skip ahead to the present and here I am, preparing to continue an internship in a planktology lab at Georgia Tech next semester and attempting to convey my passion for biology on college essays. Biology, I have come to realize, is one of the most alive sciences (no pun intended), a characteristic that draws me into the field more and more every day. My internship at Georgia Tech has shown me the challenges of extensive data analysis, surprisingly the tedium of hundreds of hours of data analysis failed to temper my enthusiasm. The minute and nearly infinite sub-fields within biology fascinate me as well, as every time a question is answered in a field as seemingly tiny as planktology, two new questions appear.
I have always loved problem solving and learning something completely new, and at the most basic level, biology is just than that. Some of the mechanisms found in nature are so inventive and brilliant that they defy explanation until somebody with the right tools examines them and discovers something amazing like how nerve cells transmit signals or how the body uses signal molecules. In biology, the innovative twists of thinking that lead to remarkable discoveries and the complex answers to seemingly simple questions fascinate me.
Thanks!
