Hi here is my transfer essay for CommonApp. I will be very appreciated to any comments or suggestions!
"Why did you pick psychology as your major?" said my advisor during a freshman psychology meeting. This meaningful question from him has echoed in my mind. While everyone was telling the reason for his or her future goals fluently, I was frozen because I had never thought deeply about a goal as a psychology major; I brooded about what to say but didn't find a precise answer. Nevertheless, I roughly told him that I was going to change my major. That moment reminded me of my superficial knowledge in psychology, and my passion for psychology was nearly getting forgotten. Each day I went to psychology classes without feeling truly filled inside, I kept feeling slightly empty about going to the school - I was losing the volition, dropping all the psychology courses and registering for general education courses to find out new interests.
Had I never encountered with the non-fiction book by David Brooks The Social Animal: The Hidden Source of Love, Character, and Achievement in the late first semester of my freshman year in college, I would not have found cognitive science as a pathway that satisfies my interest in psychology and my interest in science. As I admired psychologists' inspirations, hopes, dilemmas and faiths not only through closely pondering their own words, but also by immersing myself in psychology study, I knew I had found a world which gave me incessant surprises and impetuses, and which I wanted to become part of. Naturally I might have become unconsciously attracted to the study of this field while reading this book.
I rediscovered my passion for psychology after I met a systems neurobiologist, Dr. Anastasio, my MCB 170 professor. Besides the course the course containing several topics on human cognition, I was more interested in him. Every time I visited his office hours, he was always elated to talk about and show his research on human emotions, decisions, and behavior using computational modeling. The combination of psychology and engineering science amused me greatly - it is like a cooking. Out of the contributions from various ingredients, including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, emerges a beautiful picture of the human mind, but through multiple technical steps: behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and brain imaging.
I find some restrictions in University of Illinois in psychology program. The department only provides a concentration in cognitive science at the graduate school, and the courses are designed towards the major requirement.
Yet, my decision to initiate the study of cognitive science may be too late. Cognitive science crucially needs programming, neurobiology, and linguistics but I don't have background in those subjects. But I won't succumb to the idea of impossibility; there is always readily available future and I believe my aspiration will be feasible.
The time I have spent at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign brought changes in my life; changes in my desire for my future and especially my academic interest. Realizing that I want to indulge into different concentration of psychology, I decided to leave my comfort zone because University of Illinois does not offer the exact major I now hope to pursue. Leaving the college where I spent the whole four seasons won't be easy. After circumspect thinking, I realized a university with reputable psychology department could satisfy my desire. With more extensive courses, developed academic environments and sufficient resources specifically in interdisciplinary majors of psychology, my interest in cognitive science, could grow sturdily, and I could try out more possibilities in psychology. Now I have a dream of becoming a professional psychologist working in the cognitive science laboratory. I want to discover Woo Seok theory in cognitive science, and I wish to make some new discoveries about the greater understanding of intelligence, hence a greater understanding of humanity.
