NU supp - an album named "Life at NU".

happy new year!!!
i think the whole essay is too wordy...but dunno how to cut it down : (
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A year ago I was clicking through my friend's facebook profile and saw an album named "Life at NU". Pictures of her flashed in front of my eyes: sometimes she was wearing a purple jumper cheering in a sea of purple students; sometimes she was playing poker in her room with her roomates; sometimes she was holding a pen and kneeling beside the Rock. Then I stopped at one picture. She was lying on the grass, with a cup of Starbucks coffee in her right hand and physics notes in her left hand. Before her was a vast lake covered by mist. Later I found out that lake is the Lake Michigan and it is right beside Northwestern University. I was enchanted.

This year I scoured all available sources for more information about NU. Even though I never get a chance to visit the campus, I was able to solicit information from my friend who just went to NU last year and from my father's friend who went there 30 years ago. Their comments range from "an extremely beautiful campus - one of the most beautiful in the States - especially in fall" to "small student to faculty ratio and large endowment for teaching and research". Presently I am studying in an international school where classes have less than 20 students and I find a big difference in the attention received from my current teachers compared to my previous school with classes of 35 students! A university that holds classes of 200 students in an auditorium is not very appealing to me.

One factor that attracts me to NU's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences is its emphasis on a broad-based education. Even though I concentrated on science in my course of IB program, I thoroughly enjoy my IB English and IB Chinese classes I am taking now as they allow me to find out more about the world from another point of view. I hope I can continue such courses and explore different areas of knowledge like psychology and philosophy in Weinberg.

On the other hand, Science has been my favorite subject since primary school. Originally I liked it because it was the only subject that allowed me to get out of the classroom so that I did not have to sit stiffly in my chair staring at the blackboard.In middle school, chemistry and biology intrigued me the most. In high school, I concentrated on chemistry and biology for chemistry shows me the detailed workings of biology on a Molecular level while biology provides a larger context for chemistry. chemistry and biology are everywhere; reactions in my brain, my neurons, and my muscles are working together as I am composing this essay.

But what I find most interesting about science is that for every question answered there is another question hiding beneath, like an infinite onion.The process of satisfying my curiosity is endless and the journey of finding answers to challenging questions is extremely exciting to me.

I am especially interested in Weinberg's chemistry Department, particularly organic chemistry because it ties with what I learnt in biology and I was unfortunately not able to learn about it in high school in detail. To me, chemistry explains nature in detailed and concrete terms while biology gives a context to the questions which arised in chemistry and those subjects are great for a person like me who pays close attention to details and wants to get an explanation for everything. I still vividly remember seeing Rocky swallowing half a dozen raw eggs in the movie and I had just read my biology textbook about lysozyme - an anti-bacterial enzyme abundant in egg white. I asked myself if Rocky was going to knock out all his stomach bacteria in addition to his opponents in the ring. To answer that I wrote a paper "How acidity affects the antibacterial activity of lysozyme". I did not get an answer after going through half a dozen failed experiments, but the process of finding the answer was extremely fulfilling. Now that I know how Lysozyme basically works in the human stomach, I wish to learn the detailed mechanism on how stomach acid may alter Lysozyme's chemical structure. I know Weinberg emphasize undergraduate independent research (Undergraduate Success in Science Program) and I know this is my cup of tea. All in all what NW is offering and what I am seeking have a lot in common.

I truly hope I could one day have a "Life at NU" album on my own facebook page, with pictures of me lying beside Lake Michigan with my coffee and chemistry notes.