The topic of the following essay is to talk about an idea or experience that has been important to our intellectual development. It's one of the stanfords supplement questions.
I don't care about grammar or structure, I just want to hear your opinion on the content of the essay. If it's reflective and shows intellectual development.
My first contact with airplanes was when one flew over my house and "took" my pacifier. A later one, when I designed one for the NASA high school aeronautics competition, a supersonic airplane to be exact.
Prior to that moment I had no formal research experience, I was a 10th grader and the amount of work needed looked at least terrifying. I loved airplanes, but I didn't know how they work, or the physics law that govern the flight. So, I immersed myself into the physics world and in three months I have studied the physics curriculum of the whole high school and I started watching lectures online from universities. It's amazing that "blank air" can produce enough force to lift hundreds of people and tones of cargos. The next step was to study the basic mechanics of aircrafts. Being able to understand the importance of the bypass ratio for jet engines and other technical terms instigates an inner feeling of satisfaction; knowing that the hours you spend studying actually have a tangible result. Finding the appropriate bibliography, designing different prototypes in CAD software and trying to find the most drag-efficient position for the wings using the trial and error method are things that...lit me up-and still are- , so much that after an enervating school day I had no problem staying up till late in the night working.
Finally, I got rewarded for all this work with the 3rd place in the world, although my real reward was this: In a period of 10 months I learnt how to learn, how to create knowledge using the existing one, how to function in a professional environment, things that it would normally take me years to learn.
Thank you very much!
The content of this essay is especially intriguing and intellectually stimulating to anyone interested in science or engineering. It most certainly shows your intellectual development, but I'm feeling that it needs to be more reflective of your personality. Answer why flight is important to you or how this experience has changed you on a personal level. Also, try not to be so forward in your introduction; ease your readers into your essay. Remember the one constant in all colleges essays: you're trying to sell yourself, not your brain.
Have to agree with PrimeTime here. The question asks you for an experience that developed your growth, right? You mentioned a lot of facts and tidbits about flight in general, but how has this personally affected you in your intelligence? In other words, how did finding out how the wings of an airplane work or how blank air is so special relate metaphorically and symbolically of yourself?
