I feel like this essay is a bit too lengthy, so it would help a ton if you could point out redundant sentences and where I could cut it off. In addition, I would appreciate help in polishing the essay and offering feedbacks as to how I could further improve it. Thanks in advance!
Everyone grows up slicing the world into tiny pieces, assigning each to a particular subject. Mathematics turns into numbers, physics into formulas of motion, chemistry into invisible events, and biology into anything related to life. The walls we built feel solid and safe in schools, but they fall apart in the real world.
For a long time, I believed that every discipline is isolated from one another. But it started to collapse when I realized that each of them answers a version of the same question: how things work and what rules govern them. Science explores this through experiments, literature through stories, and history through the passage of time. All are connected by a network of ideas, and the force that ties these threads together? Human curiosity.
Curiosity shaped my early high school years through physics. I wanted to gain a direct understanding of how things actually work, not just through textbook explanations. I will never regret training in the physics olympiad program, as it laid the foundations for approaching problems. Participating in several olympiads made me realize, however, that the questions that interested me most were no longer physical, but chemical. There was a shift in interest from kinetics and dynamics to fields that are more applicable to chemistry, such as thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. That desire to find out more led me forward, drawing me away from physics into the invisible world of chemistry.
In my second year, I changed my focus to chemistry, and it changed my entire perspective on science. Chemistry itself is not a single discipline but a convergence of many. Physical, analytical, organic, inorganic, and biochemistry describe the same reality using different languages. Understanding chemistry meant understanding mathematics, physics, and biology altogether. So instead of learning the subjects separately, I began to view them as an interconnected system. This perspective led me to the dream of becoming a chemical and biomolecular engineer, a profession known for the ability to integrate all the disciplines together.
I began to study beyond the school curriculum, picking up university-level textbooks, not because they made me feel smart, but because they revealed how much I didn't know. Olympiads became a method to test that understanding, and over time, the preparations translated into consistent results across more than 20 regional and national competitions. Yet despite the achievements, it felt empty. Solving challenging problems no longer satisfies me. It had killed my curiosity. All the efforts were no longer to comprehend, but to optimize. While the results improved, the interest started to slowly fade out. Yet the dream for everyone else to feel that spark I felt kept me motivated, so I followed my heart. I reflected on that emptiness, asking what learning is supposed to feel like.
My friends and I co-founded StudyHive, a nonprofit organization established by olympiad representatives of my school, as an effort to offer free, accessible resources to students. We opened divisions for various subjects across natural and social sciences, with the goal of lighting up the same interest that all of us feel towards our own specialties. We held online classes regularly in the weekend, while summaries and practice problems were made as the school exam approached. The community was young, yet the impact was large. Ever since its establishment, hundreds of students consistently attended our sessions, and several members later became mentors themselves. The demand was high, as there were consistent requests for sessions covering a certain topic.
Suddenly, the spark I've lost began growing all over again. All these times, my learning had been solitary and target-driven. Founding StudyHive changed everything. Questions asked by students felt simple, yet rarely trivial. That reignited my curiosity when I saw it took place in others. This feeling grew rapidly day by day, and in the end, I wanted to do more for the students.
I applied to be a mentor at my school's science club and was admitted as the president of the chemistry committee. Leading a 4-person committee wasn't easy, as they all came with different personalities. But I do not want to keep this curiosity to myself, so moving forward was the only choice. Teaching and demonstrating science passionately while making adjustments to ensure everyone feels included has made the club what it is today, and I am very proud of what we have achieved.
Of course, my search for knowledge was never purely academic. I spent all the years in my high school in the speech and debate club, wanting to be open to different opinions. My first year as a member made me realize that I had a very narrow perspective of the world. Debating widened it, pushing me to become a coach in my second and third years for my juniors. Guiding others through the same process of argumentative questioning was what I longed for, hoping for them to view how vast the world is as I do.
Curiosity has never confined itself to one particular subject, but the thread that connects different subjects together. It guides me towards my future, a future in university. I want to not only dedicate my life to learning, but also to lead and teach others, hoping that the curiosity I felt was the same one others felt. The desire to learn something not to feel smart, but to realize that there are infinitely many things to learn, and that our understanding is just a speck of dust in the vast sea of knowledge.
Everyone grows up slicing the world into tiny pieces, assigning each to a particular subject. Mathematics turns into numbers, physics into formulas of motion, chemistry into invisible events, and biology into anything related to life. The walls we built feel solid and safe in schools, but they fall apart in the real world.
For a long time, I believed that every discipline is isolated from one another. But it started to collapse when I realized that each of them answers a version of the same question: how things work and what rules govern them. Science explores this through experiments, literature through stories, and history through the passage of time. All are connected by a network of ideas, and the force that ties these threads together? Human curiosity.
Curiosity shaped my early high school years through physics. I wanted to gain a direct understanding of how things actually work, not just through textbook explanations. I will never regret training in the physics olympiad program, as it laid the foundations for approaching problems. Participating in several olympiads made me realize, however, that the questions that interested me most were no longer physical, but chemical. There was a shift in interest from kinetics and dynamics to fields that are more applicable to chemistry, such as thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. That desire to find out more led me forward, drawing me away from physics into the invisible world of chemistry.
In my second year, I changed my focus to chemistry, and it changed my entire perspective on science. Chemistry itself is not a single discipline but a convergence of many. Physical, analytical, organic, inorganic, and biochemistry describe the same reality using different languages. Understanding chemistry meant understanding mathematics, physics, and biology altogether. So instead of learning the subjects separately, I began to view them as an interconnected system. This perspective led me to the dream of becoming a chemical and biomolecular engineer, a profession known for the ability to integrate all the disciplines together.
I began to study beyond the school curriculum, picking up university-level textbooks, not because they made me feel smart, but because they revealed how much I didn't know. Olympiads became a method to test that understanding, and over time, the preparations translated into consistent results across more than 20 regional and national competitions. Yet despite the achievements, it felt empty. Solving challenging problems no longer satisfies me. It had killed my curiosity. All the efforts were no longer to comprehend, but to optimize. While the results improved, the interest started to slowly fade out. Yet the dream for everyone else to feel that spark I felt kept me motivated, so I followed my heart. I reflected on that emptiness, asking what learning is supposed to feel like.
My friends and I co-founded StudyHive, a nonprofit organization established by olympiad representatives of my school, as an effort to offer free, accessible resources to students. We opened divisions for various subjects across natural and social sciences, with the goal of lighting up the same interest that all of us feel towards our own specialties. We held online classes regularly in the weekend, while summaries and practice problems were made as the school exam approached. The community was young, yet the impact was large. Ever since its establishment, hundreds of students consistently attended our sessions, and several members later became mentors themselves. The demand was high, as there were consistent requests for sessions covering a certain topic.
Suddenly, the spark I've lost began growing all over again. All these times, my learning had been solitary and target-driven. Founding StudyHive changed everything. Questions asked by students felt simple, yet rarely trivial. That reignited my curiosity when I saw it took place in others. This feeling grew rapidly day by day, and in the end, I wanted to do more for the students.
I applied to be a mentor at my school's science club and was admitted as the president of the chemistry committee. Leading a 4-person committee wasn't easy, as they all came with different personalities. But I do not want to keep this curiosity to myself, so moving forward was the only choice. Teaching and demonstrating science passionately while making adjustments to ensure everyone feels included has made the club what it is today, and I am very proud of what we have achieved.
Of course, my search for knowledge was never purely academic. I spent all the years in my high school in the speech and debate club, wanting to be open to different opinions. My first year as a member made me realize that I had a very narrow perspective of the world. Debating widened it, pushing me to become a coach in my second and third years for my juniors. Guiding others through the same process of argumentative questioning was what I longed for, hoping for them to view how vast the world is as I do.
Curiosity has never confined itself to one particular subject, but the thread that connects different subjects together. It guides me towards my future, a future in university. I want to not only dedicate my life to learning, but also to lead and teach others, hoping that the curiosity I felt was the same one others felt. The desire to learn something not to feel smart, but to realize that there are infinitely many things to learn, and that our understanding is just a speck of dust in the vast sea of knowledge.
