Hey guys, new to this site...
Anyway, without further ado
What influenced you to apply to Harvey Mudd College? What about the HMC curriculum and community appeals to you?
The first time I remember hearing about Harvey Mudd I was just beginning my freshman year of high school, my dad was talking about the good ol' days. "You know, the only person who got a better SAT score than me in high school went to Harvey Mudd. Jane Doe, she was pretty smart, I'll give her that," my dad would coo. Granted, it took several hundred remarks about Mudd and several years for me to do my own research, I haven't looked back since. Harvey Mudd always seemed slightly unattainable, but how could I resist risking my chances on a school that satisfies every academic and social component of my ideal college.
My firsthand experience with Mudd began the summer after my junior year at Girls State. I spent a week at Claremont McKenna and although it was beautiful, it wasn't for me. Luckily, I ran into a few CMC students that I overheard discussing a Computer Science class they had taken the previous semester at Harvey Mudd. After eavesdropping for a few minutes, my curiosity was getting the best of me and I decided to work up my confidence and butt in to ask more about their experience. Each school specializes in one subject or another and being able to broaden one's academic interests by cross enrolling seemed like a compelling idea. Though these students were Mudders, they had had a great deal more experience than I had in the Claremont consortium. It was during this brief, although extremely informative discussion, that I realized that there was simply something about Harvey Mudd that I must look into. After my week at Girls State, I wandered around the Claremont area and stumbled upon HMC's campus. Immediately, I was smitten. Because it was summer, I didn't get the opportunity to see many students riding skateboards or unicycles, but I had the honor of visiting again on a Mudd Unveiled Day.
During the Mudd Unveiled Day, I continued to fall in love each minute I heard my tour guides discover their beloved school. The general engineering degree they discussed was something quite different from every other university I had heard about. It allowed you to gain more general knowledge so that no matter where your career brought you, you could do a little in a lot of areas. To be it simply, my jaw dropped. I have always been quite indecisive and deciding on a particular major before even taking specialized classes in the subject area seemed daunting. HMC policy of not declaring any major until the end of sophomore year was alluring and beyond that each professor I had the honor of speaking to seemed to truly care. They were engaging and vivacious and they care about their students. At a small school, professors can do that, it seems. Before Mudd, I always thought that I wanted something completely different. I wanted a large school in an urban campus, I wanted to go into biomedical engineering and I was going to love it. But after learning about Mudd, my interests shifted. Maybe I don't want to get lost in a sea of twenty thousand students, I wanted a name, not a number. Harvey Mudd is a small school, you get to know your peers and the idea of being more than a wallflower is an opportunity that I cannot let pass me by.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank you all for taking the time to read it, even if you don't edit or comment. I wish I had found this site four years ago!
Anyway, without further ado
What influenced you to apply to Harvey Mudd College? What about the HMC curriculum and community appeals to you?
The first time I remember hearing about Harvey Mudd I was just beginning my freshman year of high school, my dad was talking about the good ol' days. "You know, the only person who got a better SAT score than me in high school went to Harvey Mudd. Jane Doe, she was pretty smart, I'll give her that," my dad would coo. Granted, it took several hundred remarks about Mudd and several years for me to do my own research, I haven't looked back since. Harvey Mudd always seemed slightly unattainable, but how could I resist risking my chances on a school that satisfies every academic and social component of my ideal college.
My firsthand experience with Mudd began the summer after my junior year at Girls State. I spent a week at Claremont McKenna and although it was beautiful, it wasn't for me. Luckily, I ran into a few CMC students that I overheard discussing a Computer Science class they had taken the previous semester at Harvey Mudd. After eavesdropping for a few minutes, my curiosity was getting the best of me and I decided to work up my confidence and butt in to ask more about their experience. Each school specializes in one subject or another and being able to broaden one's academic interests by cross enrolling seemed like a compelling idea. Though these students were Mudders, they had had a great deal more experience than I had in the Claremont consortium. It was during this brief, although extremely informative discussion, that I realized that there was simply something about Harvey Mudd that I must look into. After my week at Girls State, I wandered around the Claremont area and stumbled upon HMC's campus. Immediately, I was smitten. Because it was summer, I didn't get the opportunity to see many students riding skateboards or unicycles, but I had the honor of visiting again on a Mudd Unveiled Day.
During the Mudd Unveiled Day, I continued to fall in love each minute I heard my tour guides discover their beloved school. The general engineering degree they discussed was something quite different from every other university I had heard about. It allowed you to gain more general knowledge so that no matter where your career brought you, you could do a little in a lot of areas. To be it simply, my jaw dropped. I have always been quite indecisive and deciding on a particular major before even taking specialized classes in the subject area seemed daunting. HMC policy of not declaring any major until the end of sophomore year was alluring and beyond that each professor I had the honor of speaking to seemed to truly care. They were engaging and vivacious and they care about their students. At a small school, professors can do that, it seems. Before Mudd, I always thought that I wanted something completely different. I wanted a large school in an urban campus, I wanted to go into biomedical engineering and I was going to love it. But after learning about Mudd, my interests shifted. Maybe I don't want to get lost in a sea of twenty thousand students, I wanted a name, not a number. Harvey Mudd is a small school, you get to know your peers and the idea of being more than a wallflower is an opportunity that I cannot let pass me by.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank you all for taking the time to read it, even if you don't edit or comment. I wish I had found this site four years ago!