<p>I am currently having a hard time writing supplement essays because I am having trouble explaining why exactly I want to major in engineering. From abound 6th grade to 10th grade, I had my heart set on being a scientific researcher because I love science so much (I read a lot of nonfiction science books as well as scifi novels and loved science class the most), but after taking calculus in 11th grade and after taking computer science in 9th-11th grades, I found myself just as interested in math and computer science. I joined math team and have a lot of fun figuring out the puzzling problems, and I am on computer science team and spent time learning how to program myself (I programmed a mario game with graphics from scratch...). As I looked at various curricula for different majors, I was drawn to the engineering majors (mostly chemical, materials, or bio engineering) because they had all the computer science, chemistry, physics, and advanced math courses that I love. There wasn't enough math in the science majors' curricula, and there wasn't enough hard science in the math majors' curricula. I then took a class call "What is Engineering?" at JHU for college credit to get a better idea of what engineering is, and really loved it. The under-defined problems, team work, practical applications of math and science, labs, hands-on projects, etc. were really exciting. So now, I am trying to articulate this in supplement essays for questions like "tell us about an engineering idea you have, or about your interest in engineering..." , "submit a one page essay that explains why you have chosen your particular major(s)..." , "please write an essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering..." , etc.
So my question is: would it be enough to explain how my passions for math, science, and computer science developed and have made me realize that engineering is what I want to do with my life. I would also tie in my life goals about contributing to the discovery of something revolutionary, and about my exposure to engineering in the summer course. Also, does anyone else interested in engineering have advice on how to articulate your reasons for wanting to study it?</p>
<p>You literally just explained your interest in engineering. I would say talk about exactly what you wrote about in this post. If you’re interested in various forms of engineering as well as math & CS, then explain it all. It’s perfectly fine to not know what you want to major in EXACTLY.</p>
<p>This sounds much more genuine than the typical “I’ve been playing with legos since I was a kid and that inspired me to become an engineer” essay.</p>
<p>Also, to answer your last question, I wrote my Cornell Engineering essay on a couple parts of CS that I was most interested in. Basically I talked about how my IB Extended Essay research got me interested in quantum computation and stuff and I spent a lot of my essay talking about that and tying it to the university. I don’t think it has to be SO specific though as long as you articulate what you love about engineering</p>