This is my completed “Why Penn?” essay. It’s due tomorrow, so I would really appreciate getting any feedback I can before then. Thanks!
Why Penn?
I always buy lunch from the Yue Kee food cart on 38th street. Its not what we call authentic around my house, but hey, they make a good orange chicken. On any other day, I would indulge myself outside the Au Bon Pain across the street, but I was studying for my Biology final that day, so I made my way back to my study room at Van Pelt. Strolling down Locust Walk, I noticed from afar what seemed like chalk drawings all over the pavement. Flagrant vandalizing right in the heart of Penns campus! Oh the audacity. As I got closer, I saw that the culprits had signed their names as well: The Penny Loafers. Apparently they were holding auditions for new members. Beneath all the curlycues and exclamation marks, the Penny Loafers advertised, Ass Kicking Acapella! Shaking my head, I thought to myself, Only at Penn.
Over the past summer, I have had the opportunity to explore many of Penns programs through the Summer at Penn Program and my internship at the Clinical Research Building. Although I was not able to attend the Penny Loafers invitation, I did look into many of Penns more academic programs. Most of my explorations were in the scientific field (pun intended.) My summer goal was not to dig up as much dirt on Penn as I could so I can better write this essay, but to see for myself whether I could survive in Penns rigorous academic atmosphere.
Biology 101 had the reputation of being the most challenging course in the program. Sadly, I did not learn of this until a week after classes had started. I was suspicious when our professor announced that we were required to read one chapter per night, but I figured, Its the Ivy League, whatd you expect? Little did I know, Biology 101 did not have class five days a week during the regular school year. So I attended lecture every morning and did research for my internship in the afternoon, blissfully unaware of the fact that I my workload was probably equal to that of an actual Penn student.
Every Tuesday, I attended a seminar held by various doctors of the Gastroenterology Division. It was a program designed for undergraduate Biology intern students at Penn, but my supervisor encouraged me to attend. At each session, a doctor presented us with something new or interesting about the medical research field. It was not uncommon that the topic of discussion was something that I had actually learned about earlier in my morning lecture. I found it infinitely more interesting to see the diagrams in my book being put into practice.
At the end of the program, the intern students each gave their own presentation of data they had collected over the course of the summer. Since I wasnt officially enrolled in the program, my supervisor held a pseudo-seminar at the end of my internship for me to present my data to the rest of the lab. I had designed six primer probes using Polymerase Chain Reactions. Each probe was highly specific and was used to test for certain strands of RNA from tissue samples. The underlying purpose was to test which of the six genes regulated the production of a special protein found in cancerous tissue. My data showed clearly that one pathway was more prevalent than the other in cancerous tissue. Following my presentation, we all discussed how my work could be carried on in other ways and the impact it could have on the medical community.
The most important thing I learned last summer was that research never ends. Whenever someone discovers something new, somebody else can always build off of that persons work to ask better questions and get better answers. And the best thing about Penns research atmosphere is that there are always new questions being asked, and people who want to answer them. It is plain to see that Penn encourages students to get involved in the process and to integrate what they learn in the classroom with real-life dilemmas. As an ambitious student with many questions myself, I believe that Penn is the ideal environment for me to develop my growing curiosity in the biological sciences, not to mention to satiate my need for imitation Chinese food as well.