Hello guys,
This is my personal statement to the University of Washington's CSE major. This could possibly be the key maker to my admission. I would deeply appreciate it if you guys leave me some constructive criticism and feedbacks. Thank you very much.
Prompt: Computer science and engineering requires creativity, teamwork, and strong academic ability. We value breadth of interest, leadership, and diversity. Tell us about your academic and personal interests, goals, and what you will bring to the CSE community.
Everyone grow up with their different paths of choices. Some paths are predetermined by the significances around them, while others create their own route from free will judgments. I was born and raised in an environment where every questions and plans were somehow magically answered and made for me. It actually was not magic that put me on a course like this. It was the surroundings, expectations and the people that I was growing up with that yielded myself how to not decide how I should operate my life. This road I used to walk on was one of the hardest obstacle I had to get out off in my life.
Being a child in the Vietnamese culture can result to two options. The child can be an uneducated kid that has to sell lottery tickets or clean some businessman's shoes to find some decent food to fill the stomach just because his or her family is poor. If a child is luckier than the situation above, a middle class family is where the kid could be end up with. I was lucky enough to be born into a middle class family. However, most youths have only one goal that they can choose is to do extremely well on the college entrance exam when they graduated from high school. This is the ultimate mark they need to reach in order to "determine" whether or not their future will not end up like their parents'.
Anticipations from the parents for their children to become doctors or engineers so the kids would not stand where their parents are. There is no where to stand in society if ones don't have a decent job to claim they are a certain someone in the dog-eat-dog world. I had to go to cram schools late in the afternoon, meet up with my tutor every week, got punished just because I received a score of eight out of ten on an assignment and put on a thick pair of glasses at the age of ten. These are the effects when ones walking in a way of life that they were expected to partake. I did not really want to become a doctor or an engineer to my parents wishes but I was stuck in a deadlock of my culture. Fortunately, I was able to escape it because both of my parents realized that there will be no future for me if my future was based on an entrance exam and social connections to get my life somewhere. My family moved to the United States when fifth grade ended to unite with my dad's family and to give my little brother and I an opportunity to get a shot at life.
Though my family migrated to the United States, my parents and everyone in the Vietnamese community still urge me to become a doctor or an engineer. Everyone still carry the same thought that I envisaged would be gone when we live in the land of the free, the nation where dreams and goals are to be pursue at one's own will. I ignored the recommendations and searched within my academic history to estimate what I am really good at in order to pick myself a career that I would be interested enough to care about achieving. Mathematics was always one of the subject that I found myself comfortable learning. However, it was not one of my favorite subject despite many of my friends suggested that I should become a math teacher. I see myself as a mechanical student rather than a conceptual learner. Classes I enjoy, or rather comfortable, taking are those that require problem solving and critical thinking. After analyzed my weaknesses and strengths in learning, I thought to myself, " how about Computer Science?" By following this major, I could compromise what my parents demand and what I would be enjoy doing in the future.
If I compare my knowledge regarding Computer Science to the computer wizards in my programming class, I would be what they called a "noob" in the gaming society. I do not build my dreams upon the foundation of my childhood's interests. My career as a five-year-old Lego builder was quite successful but that did not nudge me toward becoming a structural engineer. My determination to preserve Computer Science was more concreted when I took my first programming class, Java. I was struggling with the first half of the course and literally turned in three blank files of codes on the midterm. Frustrated with the results, I spent double the time to start practicing on the Practice-It! website in order to understand and improve. When the final came around, I was more confident and actually solved all the problems. I let out a big "whoo-hoo!" when I received a ninety-five percents on the exam. I knew I was hooked into solving codes when I spent countless hours behind the computer in frustration and exhilaratingly celebrate out loud when the code is solved. I know that taking computer science lessons at the University of Washington would fried my brain cells out, but I am really for the challenges ahead.
America changes my style of life gradually as time goes on. Moreover, it brings out the potentials within me that I never notice before. My parents used to invest their money for me to participate sports or activities that would somehow convert me into a "prodigy." It started from learning swimming, doing push ups with my knuckles in karate to chasing the soccer ball around. It was more about me losing weight playing the sports than being a talented young athletic. If I am not completely into it, I will get bored and eventually quit the activity. Luckily, I found a sport that I wouldn't dream of enjoying and excel at if I was still in Viet Nam. I started to pick up the tennis racquet during the junior year in high school and contributed to the varsity team's undefeated season in my senior year. Surprisingly, my passion for the sport didn't stop after I graduated from high school. For the past two summers, I was employed by the Everett Parks and Recreation to coach the youth tennis program. My parents also encouraged me to embark in chess, piano, and the violin. I pushed these highly popular aside and play an international ancient board game called "Igo." This game is considered to be more complicated than chess and has many possibilities. This game poses a vast and various amount of problems to solve. Although I did not end up a genius or a talented athletic like my parents wished, both tennis and Igo brought me discipline, sportsmanship, teamwork, patience, and most important of all, the mind to solve problems.
Growing up with expectations is quite a stressful process, especially when they are coming from your parents. Auspiciously for me, I was able to get out of the wrath of the common status outreach and be able to chase after what I truly want. The University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering department is the perfect facility for me to take the next step to accomplish my goals of being someone to my own accord.
