Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?
I could lie. I could say that my favorite things to do are take derivatives and study the pulmonary and systemic circuits of the human body. But I won't, because as much as math and biology capture my interest, I can't think of anything I'd rather do at any given moment than play Frisbee with my Dad. Sure it sounds cheesy, but there's just something about a perfect throw, rundown, and catch that I just can't explain. Most people might take such simple actions for granted, but not me, I'm lucky. I was born with club feet, a birth defect that could have easily left me in a wheelchair for my entire life, let alone running down and snatching (one-handed of course) a disk out of its 747-like glide through the air.
Maybe it wasn't all luck, but more the skill of my brilliant, albeit permanently grumpy, orthopedist Dr. King, whom despite knowing for my whole life I've never caught his first name. While I may not know his first name, I know his smile all too well. This rather elusive show of emotion creeps its way over his face every time I run down the narrow hallway I've gotten to know all too well in my annual visits. The hallway I can now clear in only a few strides, used to take forever as I would pitter-patter my way down. However, not all the other kids with club feet I see are able to experience these moments with the same joy I am. These moments combined with a natural inclination for math and science have fostered my desire to become a biomedical engineer, as I'd like to somehow improve the situations of those less fortunate than me, even if it's just as insignificant as producing a sly smile out of Dr. King.
While I may not be proud of certain aspects of having club feet (I have skinny legs), I am proud to know that I am considered a success story in the eyes of my doctors. Thanks to the effectiveness of the surgeries and the lengthy casting that followed, I can live my life without being considered disabled. These thanks can, at least partly, go out to biomedical engineers, whose research and collaboration with surgeons and orthopedists has continually improved the treatment of club feet to the point that most cases now don't require surgery.
I've always been drawn toward math and science, particularly biology, so maybe I had already chosen biomedical engineering without even knowing it. And, when I first sat down in a phone-ipod-facebook-free environment and did some real research as to what I want to devote the rest of my working life to, and discovered biomedical engineering: I had my answer. As for my non-working life, there's always Frisbee.
I could lie. I could say that my favorite things to do are take derivatives and study the pulmonary and systemic circuits of the human body. But I won't, because as much as math and biology capture my interest, I can't think of anything I'd rather do at any given moment than play Frisbee with my Dad. Sure it sounds cheesy, but there's just something about a perfect throw, rundown, and catch that I just can't explain. Most people might take such simple actions for granted, but not me, I'm lucky. I was born with club feet, a birth defect that could have easily left me in a wheelchair for my entire life, let alone running down and snatching (one-handed of course) a disk out of its 747-like glide through the air.
Maybe it wasn't all luck, but more the skill of my brilliant, albeit permanently grumpy, orthopedist Dr. King, whom despite knowing for my whole life I've never caught his first name. While I may not know his first name, I know his smile all too well. This rather elusive show of emotion creeps its way over his face every time I run down the narrow hallway I've gotten to know all too well in my annual visits. The hallway I can now clear in only a few strides, used to take forever as I would pitter-patter my way down. However, not all the other kids with club feet I see are able to experience these moments with the same joy I am. These moments combined with a natural inclination for math and science have fostered my desire to become a biomedical engineer, as I'd like to somehow improve the situations of those less fortunate than me, even if it's just as insignificant as producing a sly smile out of Dr. King.
While I may not be proud of certain aspects of having club feet (I have skinny legs), I am proud to know that I am considered a success story in the eyes of my doctors. Thanks to the effectiveness of the surgeries and the lengthy casting that followed, I can live my life without being considered disabled. These thanks can, at least partly, go out to biomedical engineers, whose research and collaboration with surgeons and orthopedists has continually improved the treatment of club feet to the point that most cases now don't require surgery.
I've always been drawn toward math and science, particularly biology, so maybe I had already chosen biomedical engineering without even knowing it. And, when I first sat down in a phone-ipod-facebook-free environment and did some real research as to what I want to devote the rest of my working life to, and discovered biomedical engineering: I had my answer. As for my non-working life, there's always Frisbee.