Educational and Career Goals: Why I want to be a mechanical engineer

Prompt: Please state educational and career goals and the reason for choosing your major.

As a kid, I loved problems. I loved the idea of a challenge that took me more than a few minutes to contemplate. I was captivated by complex things. There was an exhilaration behind seeing an issue and knowing how to fix it, but it was even more thrilling to solve the problem. In fifth grade, I had an assignment to write my favorite word and why it was my favorite word. The word I chose for this assignment was broken; and my reasoning was that broken things needed to be fixed.

I remember my two favorite childhood toys: my breadboard kit, which was a basic construction base for building electronic circuitry, and my first aid kit. I would spend some of my mornings reading instructions for my breadboard kit and some of the afternoons sticking bandages all over my brothers and cats. As I matured, I started to think that nursing was the perfect fit for me because it focused on repairing medical issues. When I went into my junior year of highschool, my goals were changed drastically.

I started taking pre-calculus and chemistry in junior year, and I loved it. I wanted to learn more and more about the way things worked, so I devoted myself to my studies. Energy seemed to be the most intriguing topic that we covered in chemistry, so I started devouring all the knowledge I could find on the subject. I read online forums about different types of renewable energy. I additionally studied physics during my freetime. The concepts were filled with problems and ways to solve them.

After class one afternoon, my pre-calculus teacher and I were talking about a certain chapter of math. She told me I was the only student in the class to be so excited about challenging homework and asked me what occupation I was considering after graduation. I told her about my plans to be a nurse, and she just smiled and laughed softly. "You'd be a great nurse," She agreed, "But I highly suggest you consider the field of engineering." I had mentally decided that I could never be an engineer because I didn't want to design cars or airplanes, but out of respect for my teacher I agreed. Later that I evening I researched different engineering fields. There were multiples different types of engineering, and most were very broad. I read about civil, chemical, aeronautical, structural, and about ten other kinds branches of the engineering industry, but one in particular stood out to me: mechanical engineering.

Mechanical engineers could work with cars and airplanes, but they weren't limited to just those two subjects. They dealt with hundreds of different practical applications, including energy consumption, transfer, and renewal.

By the end of junior year, I had applied for an engineering internship at Image Engineering Group and started looking into commended college engineering programs. At my summer internship, I learned more about the facets of engineering and the processes they perform to accomplish their job. I saw them solving real-life problems every day for three months, and I didn't want to leave when my last day came.

My goal in life is to solve the problem that has challenged thousands of people for scores of years: energy efficiency. There are so many different ways to conserve energy, and I am interested in designing sustainable, net-zero buildings, which are buildings that use roughly the same amount of energy annually as the amount of renewable energy created on the site. My ultimate goal is to lower energy consumption and preserve the natural world around us. I love the ideas of solar, geothermal, hydropower, and wind energy, and I plan on finding ways to improve upon these incredible ideas.

My academic plans involve dedicating myself to learning everything that I can in college. I will fully dedicate myself to becoming credible and well-versed in mechanical engineering. I will earn a Master's degree in mechanical engineering, pursuing a job where I will devote my time, knowledge, and passion to designing buildings with low energy usage. The best part of this is that the problems to be solved are endless. There will always be new problems, and there will always be another solution to find.

Questions:
1) Do I establish my educational goals well enough?
2) In a previous essay, I was asked to explain how my accomplishments in school would help me achieve my ultimate goals in life. I wrote a lot more about my goals in life in that essay, but I feel like this essay is already pretty cramped. There are 703 words, but the limit is 120 sentences with 80 characters each. (9600 characters, where my essay has 4324 characters.)

3) Should I continue developing anything? Were any of my topics too short/long? Should I limit how much I wrote about a certain subject in my essay to lengthen another?

4) This is a scholarship essay. What could I do to make this essay stand out above others?

THANKS!

I can help you with your essay.

In the second paragraph, I would like to suggest changing an error: "When I went into my junior year of high school, my goals were changed drastically."

The next paragraph,you should change the word order of this sentence: "Additionally, I studied physics during my free time."

Questions:
1) I think the last two paragraphs you begin to discuss your educational plans. Yet, in the last paragraph you abruptly begin to discuss obtaining a master's degree. I would suggest first discussing that you will obtain a bachelor's degree.

2) You have to be very specific in answering this prompt. If there are more educational or career goals that pertain to mechanical engineer then you can include them.

3) I think your essay begins with how you choose your major but there are details that are included that tell a story about how you decided your major. For example, if a child always dressed her Barbie dolls in different clothing, she may aspire to be a professional stylist later in life. Yet, if she doesn't discuss her childhood, then others may not understand that this was a career she was fond of as a little girl. This is what your essay reminds me of. It was something you enjoyed, but you didn't know if it was the right career choice.

4) I think you have to feel confident, tell your story, and focus on word choice. For example, you begin one paragraph with "My goal". Some say goals and others use "passion". The difference is that if something is your passion, then your drive is based upon doing something you love. Also, think about the impact you could have on the lives of others. Will you own your own business, travel, etc? How will your efforts impact your community?

I hope this helps you!

As a kid, I loved problems. I loved the idea of a challenge that took me more than a few minutes to contemplate. I was captivated by complex things. I was captivated by complex things. There was an exhilaration behind seeing an issue and knowing how to fix it, but it was even more thrilling to solve the problem.

Blue - What stuck out to me was that these three sentences both start with "I" and sound very abrupt and staccato. I would try changing them into two sentences with more emphasis on word choice and connectors.

Green - This sentence is kind of unclear to me. "Knowing how to fix it" and "to solve the problem" seem similar. From my point of view, I think you should try to differentiate a bit more. But that's just me.

As for your questions, I think you should shorten your story by a bit and talk more about your goals. For example here "dedicating myself to learning everything that I can in college" can be expanded into more detail. Not that anything you wrote was bad or distracting from the topic, but I don't think you necessarily need all of it. Once again, that's just my opinion.

Overall, this is a great essay explaining how and why you came to love mechanical engineering. I'd say focus a bit more on word choice as you do repeat some. Some of the sentences are a bit choppy but that can be fixed with adding a few conjunctions and condensing some sentences to make them flow better.