Student profile
Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem-solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.
I sit down in a classroom, a thick packet in front of me, ready to compete in this year's Future Problem Solvers (FPS) competition. It takes four hours, but our team eventually wins first place because we brainstormed effectively, divided tasks, and communicated well as a team to come up with the most creative solutions.
My creativity as a problem solver has helped me excel in FPS but more importantly has allowed me to progress in computer science and business. For example, FPS requires competitors to rank the solutions using a set of criteria that we create, and from this, I've learned that it is most helpful to come up with a large number of ideas and then go back and rank them based on efficiency and relevance. Now, when I approach a bug in my code, I look at the type of error and begin thinking of all the different ways I can fix it. If I have a loop that is going out of bounds and giving me an "ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException," I have an obvious starting point; my options to debug include adjusting the starting and ending points of the loop, lowering the amount the loop is incremented by, and making sure I haven't confused the array index and value. I then think about what the most efficient solution would be.
In addition, understanding code creativity also helps me identify what big problems the code can solve. In business, there are always problems -- issues with refining a solution, balancing financials, or identifying a target market. I also learned to come up with creative solutions to get input from other people was very important. I've learned as a leader to assign the roles of a traditional company (CEO, COO, CMO, etc.) so that each person on the team knows what to focus on. This was similar to in FPS, we split up the sections of the packet amongst ourselves, and while we still collaborate and talk over things we aren't sure about, it's great to have each person be accountable for a specific task/section.
Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome the educational barrier you have faced.
Although I live in the diverse (city area), almost everyone I know looks just like me. I have attended schools with a high number of Asian students. Consequently, I was beyond excited to attend the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) in (year) in (place), where I met peers from all different backgrounds and places. Many of the students were minorities in their schools and cities and attended the conference as a way to find their community. We joined affinity groups, based on ethnicity, and mine, the South Asian group, was the smallest. When a girl named (name) talked about how she and her brother were the only South Asian students in their school I realized how lucky I am to be surrounded by my
culture.
Another girl I met was Sikh and she told me how she helped plan events at her local temple. While I am Sikh, I never really understood what that meant, or the history of the religion. Inspired by her story, I decided to learn more about Sikhism and undertook a research project about the Sikh Revolts of 1984 in India.
SDLC not only inspired me to learn more about my own culture and ethnicity, but it also gave me perspective about other people's experiences and activated my empathy for what they had to deal with every day. It broke my heart hearing about how many students had to go back to schools filled with students who didn't understand anything about their culture and were so casually racist. I have been able to identify ignorance in my own community about other races and cultures; I have learned how to educate others and dis-spell misunderstanding. When I returned from SDLC, I spoke to the faculty at my school about my experience at the conference and how we could apply what we learned to our community.
Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken
to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?
Early in my freshman year, I was selected to attend a program called the Next Big App, where we had four days to design an app. At the end of the weekend, we presented our creation, a task that terrified me. I stumbled through the presentation, stuttering a lot. After everyone had presented, the director came to the front to debrief the event. He looked right at me and said, "some people here obviously need to work on their presentation skills." I wanted to sink into the floor and never speak again.
In high school, the most significant challenge I have faced is my stutter. I developed it some time in fifth grade and still deal with the lasting effects today. It frustrated me to be the weak link in group presentations, and not raise my hand even when I knew the answer to a question in class.
After my experience at the workshop, I resolved to not let my stutter hold me back. I started working with a speech therapist. From her, I learned that there is no cure for a stutter; while it can become less evident as time goes on, it never truly goes away. I learned vocal techniques and confronted my fears about being judged and minimalized. One of the most significant pieces of advice from my speech therapist was not to let my stutter hold me back. I forced myself out of my comfort zone and tried things I would have never done before, such as signing up for conferences and workshops, full of new people.
It's taken a lot of work not only to accept that part of myself but to embrace it entirely and turn it into a strength instead of a weakness. Without my stutter, I don't believe I would have catapulted myself to find so many cool activities that have become my biggest passions. While I still don't like reading out loud, and video recordings take me a couple of tries, I know that I'm stronger because of it.
Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.
I press the execute button and brace myself for the bright red error message on the screen. Lines of code appear on my screen and I smile because my code finally compiles after twenty minutes of debugging. Computer science has been my passion since elementary school, and I have slowly come to realize the sheer power it has in the field of problem-solving.
My coding journey began in first grade where I used a language called Terrapin Logo, which uses code to move a turtle forwards and backward to create lines and shapes. I struggled a lot with fully grasping the syntax and idiosyncrasies of the language and wondered how a little turtle could solve any of the world's problems. When I got to high school, I pushed myself to try more than just Terpain Logo. I took AP Computer Science, Honors Data Structures, and completed hackathons and web/app coding workshops. I fell in love and felt inspired by the front end component of websites and apps. Every line of code had a direct impact, and everything appeared right in front of my eyes.
Growing up in (city), I've seen the world change right in front of my eyes. From social media to household appliances, technology has become a significant part of my life, and I can't imagine any part of my world without it. Computer science inspires me because it teaches me problem-solving in a visual and testable way, which is integral to our daily lives.
With subjects like economics, we are required to make underlying assumptions to think about the subject. However, I love learning about computer science because everything is testable, and if something goes wrong, it's easy to see what exactly happened. I look back now and thank that little turtle for setting me up to discover one of my greatest passions.