[Student Profile]
GPA: 3.5
SAT/ACT: 1480
Academic focus/Extracurricular activities: engineering, CS, robotics, cross country, nhs
[Prompt & Essay]
Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?
My major in computer engineering would allow me to converge my interests of electronics, computer science, and physics into a career in developing more sophisticated robots with advanced sensory skills. It is truly fascinating how when robots are designed to replicate human senses, they can be used to solve problems that humans are unable to solve alone.
One application of this is self driving cars. Most autonomous cars are currently able to maintain driving in lanes and keeping a distance from other cars using cameras and ultrasonic sensors to map their environment. I believe the future of cars will be fully automated. This would require countless sensors working together in harmony with the necessary software to learn from the data and make decisions needed for safer driving.
Importantly, if designed well, automated passenger cars and delivery vehicles can make a significant impact in reducing carbon emissions by reducing inefficiencies in the driving process. Reducing a simple inefficiency such as revving an engine or idling unnecessarily, across millions of vehicles over billions of miles year after year can have a huge impact on our planet. I am confident that my experience at UT Austin will prepare me to solve the many problems I will encounter in this field.
* Leadership can be demonstrated in many ways. Please share how you have demonstrated leadership in either your school, job, community, and/or within your family responsibilities. Please limit your response to 250-300 words.
Last year, my 9-person robotics team, the Royals, competed in a scrimmage with other South Brunswick teams. The challenge was to build multiple stacks of colored cubes in specific sequences under time constraints. If we were successful, we might go on to the World competition as we did the prior year.
At the scrimmage it was evident our robot was mediocre. Our stacking mechanism, called a double-reverse-four-bar, needed major rework. Alternatively, we could scrap that design and switch to a set of rollers that would first collect the cubes into a magazine then stack them vertically. After collectively spending hundreds of hours building our robot, not surprisingly there were strong opinions among the nine of us. Changing to rollers would be a major redesign, requiring breaking our beautiful robot before building it back up. Refining the four-bar might take the same amount of time and not improve significantly, or might be excellent. It was the biggest decision we had to make. And, admittedly, we can all be passionate and stubborn. Some were adamant about the status quo, while others wanted to rebuild with rollers.
Before tensions got out of hand, as co-captain I invited everyone to my basement and I chaired a discussion on coming up with a solution everyone could support. It was important that we didn’t just go with a majority vote because, if someone felt they were merely outvoted, their enthusiasm might diminish. We truly needed a team where everyone felt they were valued and heard. After several tense rounds of conversation, we opted for rollers. Everyone was heard, enabling the team as a whole to move forward with purpose.
At States, we fell just short of qualifying for Worlds, which was thrilling. Most importantly, all nine of us rejoined the Royals this year. As a team.
* Please share how you believe your experiences, perspectives, and/or talents have shaped your ability to contribute to and enrich the learning environment at UT Austin, both in and out of the classroom. Please limit your response to 250-300 words.
Success to me would be embracing every experience, whether I’m deep in class discussions or spending quality time with friends playing flag football. College will be crucial to my continued growth as an individual. The next four years will have a profound influence on my perspectives, who I hope to become, and how I might impact others both in my immediate circles and around the world.
I will continue to advocate for social justice for all people. In my town I’ve phone banked and campaigned for causes important to me and I will seek opportunities to promote equality both on-campus and locally.
Academically, there are many areas I am excited to explore. In high school, I discussed pressing policy topics in the Junior State of America debate club. Through this experience, I became more introspective about my values. Whether in a debate club or campus coffee shop, I hope to continue broadening my views and understanding.
Coming from a robotics club where I dedicated countless hours to competitive engineering while also experiencing wonderful camaraderie and friendships, I hope to find similar challenging and enjoyable experiences in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Also, I look forward to collaborating with students from multiple fields to conduct in-depth research. One project I aspire to join is the Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group’s efforts to create robots that can navigate challenging terrain. Hands-on learning and teamwork (which I sincerely hope will be through UT Austin) will give me the skills and knowledge I need to be impactful in my future career in computer engineering.
I am even more excited about all of the college experiences and pending life lessons that I cannot foresee today. My goal is to make every moment valuable and appreciate the incredible privilege of going to college.