Hi!
I would need your help in reviewing this personal statement. Thanks so much in advance!
'If you truly love something, you will feel no pain to strive for it,' I quote my mother, an inspirational figure in my life. She is not a high-profile individual or a career woman, but she is definitely somebody who has touched my soul for me to understand a simple, yet powerful phrase 'unconditional sacrifice'.
I was ten when I started to grasp what the phrase means. One night, before I went to sleep I checked my bag to make sure I was for the next day of school. To my dismay, an arts-and-craft piece was missing. It was a customised handkerchief that I had worked on for ten solid hours. Frantically, I searched all around the house - the pantry, garden, washing machine, refrigerator, living room, even the most unlikely place - the attic. Still, it was nowhere to be found. Devastated, I cried in a corner of my room, worried about what would happen the next day. I had never turned up without completing an assignment, and the prospect of explaining what happened was simply too frightening for a fifth grader that I was. In my sorrow, I recalled a warm caress, and a radiant, tender smile characteristic of an angel, particular to my mother.
It was already midnight, and my mother must have been exhausted at such late hours. Despite this, she gathered pieces of plain cloth, needle and strings, trying to replicate the ten-hour work that I had put in. Her sacrifice might seem trivial, but it left an impact on me. Before I realised it, my mother had nurtured in me a quality that underlies my care and concern for the society, the people making up the society, and the environment in which people live.
Just like any mother's love to the children, Mother Nature's love to mankind is given incessantly. Air, water and land are few endowments that we take for granted. However, it really saddens me to see how humans do not appreciate the love, let alone requite it, just how they would normally do to their mothers. To me, a mother in all degrees and senses is an admirable existence that deserves treatments equal to or more than their sacrifices.
As a child, I had no doubt in my mother's moral teaching (i.e. the quotation), but it slowly strikes me that the reality and theory do not go hand in hand. Based on my mother's theory, if humans love the Earth, they should feel no pain to do something good for it. However, it is strange to find many people do not conceive this simple concept of love and sacrifice. They are nonchalant, as proven by the dreadful lack of environmental effort in our society. Instead, to my horror, it works the other way round - some exploit our Mother to the maximum they can, and for the worse, derive satisfaction from it. Seemingly, although I refuse to believe, there is a destructive force present in today's world - growing selfishness to the extent that enables us to be indifferent to the existence that has made ours possible.
Undoubtedly, it takes decades to make people's attitude change, if it can be changed at all. On the other hand, our world needs saviours that do not delay to help recover its ailing state, mainly through the creation of more advanced technology. As a firm believer of requite and sacrifice, I believe that through environmental engineering, I will have the opportunities to develop means for people to give back to the world, while trying to minimize the necessary sacrifice as much as possible. Even though there is an unavoidable trade-off, the balance between sacrifice and quality of life of course has to be tuned.
As far as I can remember, the rigor of discussions on environmental issues has been growing since I was in sixth grade. Water is drying up along major rivers, like Yellow River, Mississippi river and the glaciers; air pollution that include greenhouse gases that constitute carbon footprints as the main culprit for global warming is growing at an accelerating pace, with prediction that even if carbon emission is suppressed to zero now, the warming of Earth is unstoppable. News like these is not alien; problems of many environmental concerns have been raised to an alarming rate, but still, very few have been done. Again, with the conviction that with passion everything is possible, I believe that I am up to the challenge to experiment on the future possible ways to requite to the Earth. Therefore, it is my dream to see air, water and land resources being 'free goods' again in the near future.
I believe that having Physics as my subject of interest and forte gives me an edge in this field. Fond with the many reality-like Physics concepts, I have always liked to use certain principles to explain how science has been close to our life. For example, Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Theory by Werner Heisenberg is one of its kinds. As this principle suggests, what is nearly impossible today may as well be an ordinary phenomenon in the future. Therefore, it gives me strength to let myself free into my own imagination world. Once, I had a wild dream of creating a massive stretch of ozone artificially and patching it just like how my mother sewed and patched cloth to make my handkerchief. This may sound ridiculous and hardly possible, with Heisenberg's theory; there is a small percentage of uncertainty that follows. We may never know if this is ever possible. It takes a child to imagine and think simply; however, it takes many steps for her to make the idea come to fruition. This is why I would like to pursue this field - to rewrite the history of mankind.
Each individual has a big dream to achieve. Other than the science breakthrough that I wish to achieve, at the end of the day, mine is really only to let my children see the world that my ancestors had enjoyed, and did quite a lousy job of passing down to me. I do not blame anybody of creating the mess, but I do blame anybody that does not take charge of the situation. I am a person of strong will, with many unfulfilled creative ideas and one day I wish I can make them come true, and make bigger impacts on mankind. I would really hope that this generation will do a better job than the previous by not repeating the same mistake - do something to heal the dying Earth, or we risk something dear.
P.S: Is this essay TOO LONG? If yes, how should i trim it? What is the word limit for most of the personal statement essays?
Thank you.
Hi Sherin,
second paragraph: It was a customised handkerchief that I had worked on for ten solid hours. - customized
third paragraph: Before I realised it,... - realized
sixth paragraph: ...our world needs saviours that do not delay to.. - saviors
Don't forget to do a spell check also before you send the essay. I heard about this happening and it's not a nice experience to see the mistakes after you submit. ;)
If they didn't say anything about the length of the SOP, then I believe this is a another thing they want to see: how will you handle it! I wouldn't take it as "write as much as you want".
You write very well, you have a wide vocabulary and I can feel your passion. But frankly, I think the essay is a bit too long taking into account that you give only one paragraph (the second to last) to your subject of interest and your future realistic plans, to say so. It has 1100 words.
In the last paragraph (and not only) try to be more specific about what do you want to do. I see you are interested in ecology methods and so on, but i don;t know where do you apply, what program and how will it be useful for your goal career.
It would be great if you can change the proportions: give half of the essay to "what do you and to do, how and why did you chose that university" (i believe you apply for admission) and leave half to "the reasons why you chose this and childhood stories". Speak more about you and your personal experience, and less about the "universe" since everybody talks about this problem these days.
I hope my hunch is right, but let's see what others have to say too.
Good luck!
