Dream and the efforts made in order to achieve it. KAIST Entrance Essay

KAIST Entrance Essay

Please describe your dream and the efforts you have made so far to achieve it and your future plan for it. (within 2000 characters/300words)

※ Please include your reason(s) for choosing KAIST in order to achieve your dream and the hardships that you expect to encounter in the process.

I was four years old when my father brought a new computer into the house to replace the old one. He always understood my interest in innovative technology and computers and supported me in every way he could. I distinctly remember his words when he gave me this computer, "I am doing this to you so you can do the same thing to others." These words predetermined my dream to help and support people with great enthusiasm for science.

When I entered middle school, I noticed that students had no opportunity to upgrade their programming skills. I was very frustrated because many people like me wanted to develop in IT but did not know how to start. To prevent such cases in the future within the school, I organized a programming club in my sophomore year of high school, where I shared my experiences and the knowledge I had gained over time doing olympiads in informatics.

During my time as a club coach, I noticed considerable gaps in my knowledge, which prevented students from understanding topics in depth. Also, due to my lack of experience in teaching, I could not determine the right approach for each club member, and I expect similar hardships while chasing my dream at KAIST.

KAIST is my dream university for several reasons. Firstly, since the School of Computing provides an option to be part of research labs and centers, it will help me broaden my computer science knowledge, which I can share in the future. Secondly, I would like to interact with professors such as Hongseok Yang so that I can learn for yourself something new, as I have watched their lectures on YouTube and noticed their tremendous teaching experience.

Lastly, KAIST is the most suitable university for me because it allows me to develop as an individual and overcome expected hardships to be valuable to society.

The essay does not meet the prompt requirements at all. The student fails to represent a proper dream and the current (impressive and relevant) efforts made to achieve it thus far. That means, the student should speak of relevant clubs joined, competitions won, internships or relevant exposure to the field of interest, and other academic or non-academic training/tutoring/learning exposure received.

This essay is weak in representation of that aspect. By the way, the reviewer will not believe a single word written by the student since the reference to the building of the ambition and the memorable words uttered came when the child was 4 years old. It creates an unbelievable scenario that the reviewer will definitely not believe and will consider everything else said going forward as a lie. Try not to exaggerate. Be realistic. Start with a believable age. 13, high school age, or actual programming scenarios at the school that tweaked the interest of the student would have been more believable.

By the way, the reference as to why KAIST was chosen is useless. It does not contain reflective information that shows the student truly considered the KAIST offerings and community as a whole. The reference is nothing more than a summarized research reference that disconnects the applicant from the true offerings of the university.

The writer will need to develop a better and more applicable essay that actually takes the prompt seriously and doesn't just write to fulfill the requirement. When the reviewer has nothing to consider in the essay response, he will reject the applicant.

@Holt
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