<p>Below is a draft of my Carnegie Mellon University Supplemental Essay. Please give give me advice about what I should remove, add, expand upon or otherwise do to better my essay. Thank You!</p>
<p>Prompt: Please submit a one page, single-spaced essay that explains why you have chosen Carnegie Mellon and your particular major(s), department(s) or program(s). This essay should include the reasons why you've chosen the major(s), any goals or relevant work plans and any other information you would like us to know. For freshmen applying to more than one college or program, please mention each college or program to which you are applying. Because our admission committees review applicants by college and program, your essay can impact our final decision. Candidates applying for early decision or transfer may apply to only one college and department.</p>
<p>My Essay: Ever since I could process the world around me, I have been fascinated with improving, and recreating the different mechanisms I observed. As I grew older, I used the information I learned, both in school and on my own, to help me in my quest to understand how such mechanisms work. Finally, during my first year of middle school as a student enrolled in Gateway to Technology, I learned that a career in engineering would allow me to practice my passion of learning new things, and using what I learned to create new ways to improve society. As my academic career progressed, I became more specific about my particular education and career goals. Finally, as a senior in highschool enrolled in PLTW Engineering Design/Development, I realize that I want to pursue a career in computer engineering. I know an education at Carnegie Mellon University will give me the knowledge and skills necessary, to make my goal a reality.
As a computer engineering major, I hope to study the methods by which hardware and software are developed and utilized to perform different computational operations. Within my specific major, I am most interested in the topics of computer architecture, high performance computing, and cryptography. I am eager to perform research under leading researchers, at the different labs and facilities that are part of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, at Carnegie Mellon University. By performing research, while enrolled in undergraduate studies, I hope to learn the information in my courses more thoroughly, under the supervision of scientists and engineers performing relevant research. Particular research facilities at Carnegie Mellon that interest me, as a computer engineering major, are the Carnegie Mellon CyLab, the Advanced Chip Test Laboratory, and the CALCM laboratory. I believe working under professionals at these research facilities, while participating in undergraduate studies, will assist me in my goal of having a meaningful career in computer engineering, and contributing to the scientific community. I have selected Carnegie Mellon to help me achieve this goal for various different reasons, aside from its various research opportunities.
I first learned of Carnegie Mellon as a sophomore, enrolled in Java Programming-Honors. My teacher had informed the class of the first annual picoCTF competition. Although I knew very little about the vast discipline of cyber security, I was interested in the competition, and willing to learn what I could to answer at least some of the questions. Thankfully, the competition website had a link to introductory videos to some of the different problems challengers would face in the competition. I noticed that, many of these were offered, by the School of Computer Science, at Carnegie Mellon University. Although I did not place high in the competition, the whole experience prompted me to independently learn more about anything I wanted to know. I also learned that, if I wanted to study computer engineering and relate it to a field as interesting as cryptography, Carnegie Mellon should be at the top of my list. The following year, as a junior enrolled in AP Computer Science, I participated in another online capture the flag competition, and went on to learn even more, about cryptography, networks, and the Java/C++ methods to solve cryptographic problems algorithmically, independently. Finally, as a senior, I am applying to Carnegie Mellon, to learn even more about my major and other topics in a community of like-minded, and diverse scholars. </p>
<p>Thanks Again! :)</p>