Explain your interest in the major you selected and describe how you have recently explored or developed this interest inside and/or outside the classroom. You may also explain how this major relates to your future career goals. If you're applying to the Division of General Studies, explain your academic interests and strengths or your future career goals. You may include any majors or areas of study you're currently considering. (300-400 words) Count 393
Aerospace engineering and its immense applications, from programing rocket launch systems to creating artificial space environments, has been an integral part in shaping the world, and is a field I am motivated to investigate.
In May 2013, I participated in the Synopsys Science Competition with a project focusing on improving the efficiency of the Dye Sensitized solar cell using microscopic gold and silver nanoparticles. The science behind the dye sensitized solar cell was fascinating, as it used organic pigments to generate electrical energy, intriguing many judges, as it had impressed me just a couple months prior. However, I distinctly remember a judge, a Senior Director at Raytheon, approach my project. I of course gave him my spiel and then he commented, “How many different disciplines do you believe this project encompasses?”
I listed off barely four, primarily due to inexperience. Then he responded, “I can count almost ten disciplines, including material science, fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics, all subspecialties of aerospace engineering, my field of expertise. And I am quite impressed.” I was startled by such high praise from a judge, and soon realized he wasn’t just being polite. At the awards ceremony, he awarded me a third party category prize that came with a tour of Raytheon’s Laboratory in Los Angeles.
The following summer, I stood in front of Raytheon’s Laboratory in Los Angeles with a group of other students. A guide took us into the facility, and what I saw and heard inside was amazing. Huge clean rooms housing propulsion systems under construction and stress test chambers stood so disparate from the microscopic, yet both are equally powerful technologies in biomedical engineering. The highlight of my tour was a talk on a new technology under development, a solar sail for space travel. Designed to span almost twelve square miles, the sail would be a kite like structure made of a ultrathin, highly reflective sheet. As light from the sun and earth-based laser arrays bombard the sail, photons will transfer their kinetic energy to the craft, propelling it to speeds of 93 miles per second. It is cutting edge technology like this that I want to study and help create.
Thus, I want to pursue a career in aerospace engineering to explore the uncharted reaches of space and be a part of the amazing technological innovations it requires.