research essay
Sample Responses to Select Questions on the NSF
Graduate Research Fellowship Application—Student #1
Question Summary: Describe any personal, professional, or educational experiences or situations that have contributed to your desire to pursue advanced study in science, mathematics, or engineering.
Simply put, learning for the sake of understanding the world better is what drives my intellectual pursuits. This desire to know pervades my daily life—too much so according to some. However, by this point in my life, I have come to realize and accept that many people find my outlook on learning and life somewhat odd. Still, learning is my passion, and through this “odd” view of the world I have come to recognize an important pattern in the educational process. By fervently studying one subject area you begin to appreciate its enormity. Once reaching this appreciation, you become capable of selecting an appealing subset of that area to further study. Yet this subset expands beyond any hope of total understanding, forcing you to choose an even more specific area and thus continuing the cycle. Paramount to understanding how this cycle relates to my educational goals is to realize that my passion for learning increases (exponentially so) as I choose more and more specific fields to study. But perhaps I have gotten ahead of myself and should start from the beginning: high school.
In high school I took all of the advanced science and math courses available. With this expansive background, I realized that I enjoyed science and wanted to study it further but appreciated the need to find a specific focus. Hence, when I stumbled upon materials science, I recognized it as an amalgamation of the scientific areas I most enjoyed studying. Without my broad scientific background, though, I would not have been able to make this decision as definitively. This appreciation for having a well-rounded knowledge of a field has remained with me during my undergraduate
Graduate Research Fellowship Application—Student #1
Question Summary: Describe any personal, professional, or educational experiences or situations that have contributed to your desire to pursue advanced study in science, mathematics, or engineering.
Simply put, learning for the sake of understanding the world better is what drives my intellectual pursuits. This desire to know pervades my daily life—too much so according to some. However, by this point in my life, I have come to realize and accept that many people find my outlook on learning and life somewhat odd. Still, learning is my passion, and through this “odd” view of the world I have come to recognize an important pattern in the educational process. By fervently studying one subject area you begin to appreciate its enormity. Once reaching this appreciation, you become capable of selecting an appealing subset of that area to further study. Yet this subset expands beyond any hope of total understanding, forcing you to choose an even more specific area and thus continuing the cycle. Paramount to understanding how this cycle relates to my educational goals is to realize that my passion for learning increases (exponentially so) as I choose more and more specific fields to study. But perhaps I have gotten ahead of myself and should start from the beginning: high school.
In high school I took all of the advanced science and math courses available. With this expansive background, I realized that I enjoyed science and wanted to study it further but appreciated the need to find a specific focus. Hence, when I stumbled upon materials science, I recognized it as an amalgamation of the scientific areas I most enjoyed studying. Without my broad scientific background, though, I would not have been able to make this decision as definitively. This appreciation for having a well-rounded knowledge of a field has remained with me during my undergraduate
References: New England Journal of Medicine. 2001. 345:1435-1443. Philadelphia, 81-93. 1994. Biomaterials. 2004.