This essay is for my Stanford app. It's a personal narrative on my career choice and how/why I arrived at my decision
Most people would describe me as a very driven individual, so it's not surprising
that go-kart racing, the passion of the last eight years of my life, exemplifies the way I
live my life. On the track I'm 100% focused on running a good, clean race, passing as
many competitors as I can, and becoming a better driver. Though I may not always win, I
always learn something about driving or even about myself. In the classroom the same
mental drive has always been present, and now, after taking leadership roles in Civics
Club, I'm realizing the intrinsic rewards of community service. These areas of my life -
racing, academics, and community service - have molded me into who I am today and
allowed me to recognize a future in medicine, more specifically surgery.
After attending a few local karting events when I was ten, my father and I took up
the sport, which has been the root of my growth and development as a person. Karting, a
very developed and technical form of motorsport, serves as one of the primary stepping
stones of professional racing. Dedicating hours of my time both on and off the track, I
learned not only how to develop myself as a driver but as a mechanic and engineer. In the
span of my career I have earned over fifty national podium finishes and won multiple
national events, including the 2007 Grand National Champion race. My efforts in karting
have led me to compete against professional IRL, NASCAR, and Formula One drivers as
well as some of the top teams from around the world. In order to compete with best of the
best, I had to be disciplined, physically and mentally, both on and off the track.
Whether it's on the race track or in the classroom, I thrive on challenge. The
classes I find most interesting are taught by teachers with high academic standards who
challenge me to think outside the box. Before my junior year of high school, the only
academic challenge that I faced was the boredom and frustration with classes that failed
to push me to better myself academically. But AP Physics, taken both my junior and
senior years, has definitely satisfied my desire for a challenge as well as given me a
glimpse of the exciting academic studies that wait at the university level. Without a doubt
the most intellectually engaging scholarly experience I have ever had has been my time
studying physics under Sean Bird. Mr. Bird, who spends his summers working for NASA
and travelling around the country assisting Texas Instruments in the development of their
CAS software, was the first teacher to push me above and beyond my limits in the
academic realm. From my first day of AP Physics, I was expected to know more, do
more, and comprehend more in forty five minutes of class than any other teacher had
asked of me in a year's worth of lessons. His truly brilliant mind and rigorous teaching
methods, coupled with the already demanding course work of AP Physics, forced me to
totally change how I approached learning. Almost singlehandedly, it prepared me for the
rigorous environment I will inevitably face while conducting research at the university
level, but more importantly it sparked an interest in research I had never truly
experienced before in the academic realm.
Racing go-karts and earning good grades have definitely been great experiences,
but being the Vice President and President of the Covenant Christian High School Civics
Club has opened my eyes to the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits of helping others. A few
weeks ago, I led the organization in hosting our school's first walk-a-thon that benefited a
local free healthcare clinic for the uninsured. Through this event, we raised nearly $4000
for the clinic. More importantly, the event allowed the community to become more
informed about an issue in their own backyard. Currently I am organizing a benefit
concert to raise money for an organization called Thirst Project, which supplies clean
water to developing countries, as well as organizing a toy drive for local families in need.
Leading events such as these has been a fantastic growth opportunity, allowing me, a
high school student, to do more for my community than I ever would have believed
possible.
At seventeen years old, I realize that I have been blessed to experience so much in
a short time. Although I love go-kart racing, an internship at OrthoIndy in Indianapolis
opened my eyes to the field of medicine and the challenge of being a surgeon. My
experiences on the track, in the classroom, and in the community were integral in shaping
me into the person I am today and without them I truly believe my future would remain
unclear. I also believe that these experiences have, in a way, prepared me for the medical
field. As a go-kart racer, I developed the mental and physical discipline required both on
and off the track and an appreciation of the challenge of racing, not just the win. As a
student, I developed a love of learning and a desire to apply my education to real world
experiences. As a Civics Club leader, I developed an awareness of how much I, or any
individual, can impact a community. I'm working hard to finish my high school years
strong, confident that I will succeed as a decision maker, problem solver, and thinker
whose contributions in the field of medicine will truly benefited others.
You know, what my first thought was? I thought, I would not want my surgery to be performed by someone who is an avid go-kart racer.
That is terrible of me, though, because it revealed to me a prejudice I have. I guess I associate racing with recklessness, and recklessness does not go with surgery! However, I am so wrong, because in racing you need to be absolutely focused on crucial moments, and this is very important.
I wonder if other people have the same prejudice as me... if you talk to other people, and find out they feel put off by this theme of surgery and go-kart racing. If others have the same prejudice as I have, I think you should make an argument on behalf of the idea that the best surgeons might be the ones who were go-kart racers in their youths. that would be an interesting argument, sure to win the reader over.
