Strong Work Ethic

Essay 1: My parents did not grow up with much, but have made a good living because of their strong work ethic. They both work in financial services, my father in tax, and my mother in information technology. For as long as I can remember they have been trying to instill that same work ethic in me and my sister.
From a young age I was very sociable. My family called me the Mayor because of my habit of introducing the family to strangers seated near us in restaurants. That sociability helped me in pre-school and kindergarten, as I never had any trouble making friends. As I got older, my interests grew to include Pokemon, legos, video games and athletics. I enjoyed video games, because they are a constant challenge that provide entertainment,
and gratification when overcome. I found legos fun because I enjoyed spending time building whatever the lego set was made to do, and then seeing the end result.
The summer before switching to a public middle school, I went to a camp that combined my interests in video games and legos.
I went to a camp where we got to make our own lego video games. They were games like those in arcades where the main character proceeds to the right of the screen the entire time, fighting off enemies. It was nowhere near as complex as the actual lego video games that were sold at stores, but it was something to call my own.
I thought switching schools would be a tough experience, but I instantly liked the middle school I went to. My sixth grade math teacher furthered my liking of math. I was a top student in his class, and he liked me a lot. We would often play a math game called 24 at the end of class, and since I often won, I found myself walking out of the classroom with pockets full of candy.
In seventh grade, I was named Student of the Month, and it was my math teacher that nominated me for that award. It entailed being a good student, while being helpful to others. I joined the Math Team, and in eighth grade I placed highest among my school team at the Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) Math Competition, a difficult competition among both public and private
schools.
Also, throughout middle school I would often watch Mythbusters. Towards the end of my freshman year, I received an award called “Epitome of the Academy”. This award was given out to those who epitomized the values of my school, which are academic success, involvement in extracurricular activities, involvement in service, and respect of others. I was elated to have attained that award, along with about fifteen fellow classmates of mine. During my freshman and sophomore years I had the same math teacher, Mr. Speidel, yet another educator to increase the enjoyment I found in math. I always had fun in his class, and I did well in it too. Similarly, I have a teacher named Mr Dashkavich for Physics this year, with a very quick-witted humor like that of Mr Speidel. So far, I have taken a strong liking to him and his class, as he has to me. In terms of comprehending the material, I am one of the best in my class. I often have friends asking me to help them out, which I am happy to do. I think that my aptitude in math and sciences that I have described, along with my communication skills are what make me unique. I am currently very interested in Calculus and Physics, the math and science courses I am taking, as well as rowing. I think that Engineering is a strong possibility to be my college major, and that is the biggest reason why I would like to attend Governor’s School. I aspire to go to college having a fairly good idea of what I want to do, and hopefully continue rowing in college. Of course, I hope to leave college with a job, possibly in engineering, and Governor’s School would help me do so.
Essay 2: Why do I want to attend the Governor’s School of Engineering and Technology….where do I begin? Largely, because of the tremendous potential to learn, and to do so in a hands-on environment. I believe that the best way to learn about something is experiencing it first-hand. I believe that this type of learning environment would be much more meaningful than a typical classroom environment and much more real-world. Another benefit would be working with other like minded students who have a strong desire to learn, and have true interest in engineering and technology. It is exciting to imagine the possibility of working within a team of these types of students who I am sure will be very motivated to learn and excel at the various projects. Another expected benefit would be to experience life on a college campus environment in order help me discover what daily college life is like, and perhaps give me a better idea of the type of campus setting that is best for me. Ultimately, I think I could learn much from this experience, in a number of ways, and it is my hope that by experiencing Engineering and Technology projects first-hand, I will confirm that this is the future path for me.
We recently did a number of assessments at school: skill, interest, personality, and values.
The goal was to help guide us to possible majors for college. I learned a lot about myself. A theme of the output was that I am solutions-oriented, logical, and investigative. Given that I have always excelled in Math, these adjectives seemed consistent with that. I know I am good at analyzing a problem and coming up with the possible solutions. An example of this is an assignment I had in my Computer Science Class. Our final project was coding a circuit that we had previously created. Since, I love music, I decided to code the circuit to be a jukebox and play different tunes. First, I had to wire a circuit that involved a few buttons, a speaker, and an LCD. Then, I had to write a program that would list the songs and their corresponding buttons on the LCD, and then play songs as buttons were pressed. In order to code the songs, I had to figure out the tempo of the song, along with the sequence of the notes that were involved in it. A challenge I encountered on the way was that I could not find sheet music for two of the songs, and so, I had to code the notes by trial and error, listening for each note to see if it synced to the note of the song. Coding that circuit, while frustrating at times, was also incredibly satisfying in the end when I got it to do what I wanted it to do. I really liked the feeling of accomplishment in solving the problem and having an end product as a result
of my efforts. This is one of the main reasons I am drawn to the program and feel that I can contribute much to it. My interest and curiosity in engineering has deepened by speaking with family friends in the field. A close family friend attended Governor’s School a few years back, largely for the learning opportunity, as she had intended to major in a different field. But, once she completed the program, she changed her mind and decided that she would be pursuing Engineering. There is no doubt that conversations with her about the program have ignited my curiosity and excitement about the program. She spoke about some of the projects, one of which was programming robots to find their way through a maze and having races with other teams to see whose robot could make its way out of the maze the fastest. She also was able to share first hand experiences she had with with classmates and the Governor’s School Alumni, all of which enriched her experience. She now studies Mechanical Engineering and interned at a candy making company over the summer. She worked on a process that could separate chocolate and caramel from each other in deformed candies so that they could be reused, resulting in great savings for the company. Listening to her talk about these projects is intriguing. Seeing what you can accomplish in this field is exciting. In addition to her, I have another family friend who is an engineer, and he is one of the most diverse people I know. He seems to love his job, but the engineering does not stop at work. He reused corks from wine bottles to create a different type of ceiling in one of the rooms in his basement. He created a copper oven hood for his kitchen. He produces mini films. He just seems to be curious about life, about how to create and build things. The two people I have mentioned are role models for me, and have shed a very positive light on what I envision of an engineer. Through them and their experiences, I have a much better understanding of what engineering is about and am planning as a next step to go into work with them to see what it is about, first-hand.