Empowerly

Student profile

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. 

I have always had a passion for how things worked.

Age two, in my hand was a CD licked thoroughly clean and unusable. 

Age three, I looked guilty with a mangled cassette tape in my hands. 

Age 6, coins and ceramic surrounded me. I wanted to know what would happen if I placed my ceramic piggy bank at the top of an incline and let go. 

As I grew older, my curiosity evolved into a passion for engineering. I wanted to make things with my own hands and mark the world in a way only I could. 

My passion for engineering intensified when I got involved in social justice issues in high school. As a passionate human rights activist, I was immediately drawn into discussions about Syrian refugees. I was horrified to see videos of children whose legs were destroyed; they would not walk again. Images of their pain constantly replayed in my mind. 

I wanted to build something to help those who couldn’t walk and improve their quality of life. It was then that I recognized the connections between class concepts and prosthetics. In Physics, I learned about frictional force necessary in movement. I researched on my own professors specializing in lower limb locomotion and watched TED talks featuring Hugh Herr, a researcher/professor who talked about his own experiences with prosthetics. I looked at Tim Bretl’s research on robotic prosthetics and the 3D printed prosthetic hand developed in UIUC.

My first concrete engineering experience outside the classroom was the Engineering Innovation program at Johns Hopkins. I learned about skills necessary in chemical, material, electrical, and mechanical engineering. I gained confidence and skills in the classroom and the lab that proved to me that I was ready to pursue engineering. 

With numerous 3D printer labs, 300+ study abroad programs, and a vast alumni network across multiple industries, UIUC can give me the opportunity to make a change as soon as I walk onto campus. I hope to explore different disciplines while gaining the foundation to create devices that are able to move efficiently. Mechanical engineering at UIUC would give me not only the best academic support with courses from writing and research, to fundamentals of fluid dynamics but also the resources to thoroughly explore my career, and the opportunity to build the creations I dreamed of and destroyed as a child.