College Essay Advice

<p>Can someone please critique my essay Thank You.</p>

<pre><code>The week before my second birthday was my introduction to the world of Legos. My mother was busily getting ready for Christmas and needed to keep me occupied so she let me play with my 12-year-old brother's Legos. Although she did not think I would be interested, I sat on the carpet creating airplanes, cars and rocket ships for nine hours. That was the beginning of my love affair with engineering, design and building.
Soon clocks, motors, even new bicycles were not safe from my screwdriver or pliers, much to the consternation of my mother. My dad, a builder by avocation, was thrilled when I asked to help him and demanded an explanation of how everything worked as we repaired the house and added on to our summer camp. My father taught me many skills, how to build walls, plumb a bathroom, wire a house, lay hardwood floors, install windows and add cedar siding. Using many power tools and saws was fun, but the care I learned in planning and executing each step for highest quality was especially important.
In addition, I have an insatiable hunger for knowledge. When young, I read the World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica as other kids read comic books and the backs of cereal boxes. No matter how much I learned I sought to know more. I wanted to understand the way things work more than I wanted the newest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure. For my ninth birthday, my grandmother gave me a subscription to Discover magazine. I read every issue cover-to-cover, reading past bedtime to learn about fly-wheel engines, archaeological digs in China and the moons of Jupiter. I can never thank her enough for adding fuel to my fire for learning.
My father's and my latest project, due to our shared love of astronomy, was building a five-foot-long, six-inch diameter reflecting telescope with a Dobsonian mount. It was here I first really appreciated my dad's demand for perfection. After days of work, the result was incredible. The starry view is breathtaking and it cannot be described by any amount of words.
Because of an accident at age 14, I currently have a metal plate in my left ankle. It was due to playing around with my friends and lead to a long painful Friday afternoon in the hospital and finding out the news about the necessity for surgery and a cast. The next ten weeks of my life were completely devoted to immobilization and facing all the troubles of transporting myself with a cast on. One particular instance includes my morning routine, which normally begins at 5 but with a cast, I wake up at 4, just because I need to hop my way around the house and place an enormous plastic bag over my cast and a stool in the bathroom, just to take a shower. Anyways, apart from my suffering at home and school, I remember that during my surgery, the doctors were able to fix my ankle by drilling a metal plate to hold the bone in place and support it while it heals. I was so amazed at this level of complexity introduced to society that I wanted to pursue this area of study.

As the beneficiary of one man's creative skills, I know what engineering can accomplish. The ability to examine a problem like unilateral hearing loss, create a new vision and solve the problem for people is the inspiration for my applying to Engineering School. My faith and commitment to serve people motivates this drive. I want to use my insatiable desire to learn and create in order to advance technology for the benefit of others. The field of engineering is leading our society into more exciting developments than ever before, and I seek to use my leadership skills within this arena.
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