Looking on every college’s admission site, I see that they want a student who has a passion for something. The thing is, I didn’t find my passion until I took a CS class in my sophomore year and discovered how much I love computer science. I took the class because my dad told me to, but I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy it. As I learned more, I fell in love with the field and realized I want to pursue an EE/CS major in college. So far, I’ve tried to pursue this passion by joining the programming team of my high school’s Robotics club, learning new languages in my free time, and writing basic programs. I have also developed a large community service project involving CS, and I will probably start teaching programming principles to middle-school aged students at the library.
However, I know I don’t compare to the majority of CS lovers who have participated in USACO, done an Intel or Siemens competition on CS research, or owned a business for developing apps and websites. I found my passion late, but I’ve pursued it as much as I can ever since I found it. Will colleges see this as genuine, or will they think I haven’t done enough to show I’m passionate about CS?