-How have you taken advantage of the educational opportunities you have had to prepare for college?
I believe a person’s personality and values are molded by the difficulties they have faced in their lives. In my opinion having harder classes and having lower grades are way more worthwhile than taking easy classes with high grades. When you compare what you learn in an easy class and what you learn in a hard class, it’s quite different. The end result is what matters, not that you decided to take easier classes because it was the “easier” route for you individually. I’ve taken advantage of many honor and AP classes at my high school. In order to take AP Calculus BC before I graduated, I took Trigonometry at my local community college. This way I would complete two years of Calculus before I graduate from high school. I’ve also made efforts to take computer related classes, but they tend to not work out. Belmont high school offered an A++ Computer Repair course over the winter; however, the class didn’t bring in enough students for it to be accepted as a class. At my high school, my friends and I started a petition to start an AP Computer Science course. Good news was we succeeded in getting the class; bad news was there was no room in my schedule for it that year.
-Tell us about a talent, experience, contribution or personal quality you will bring to the University of California.
All my life I’ve had a passion for electronics of all types. Dismantling and rebuilding gadgets were among my favorite pastimes. Although it I wouldn’t be successful all the time, it always worked out in the long run. I would use the parts from the broken toy to add on to another one of my toys. I’ve also had a passion for remote control cars as a youth. I would open these radio control toys and try to figure out how they work. In fact, I was so interested in how these mechanical toys worked, that I ultimately ended up destroying most of them. When I destroy one of my toys, I use those parts to make unique additions to another toy. I remember once I was unable to put a remote control truck together once, so I used the parts and turned it into a remote control boat. Math has been my favorite subject by far throughout the years. I’ve decided to focus these two passions into my career field of choice, Electrical Engineering. My experience and passions are what I intend to bring to the University of California.
-Is there anything you would like us to know about you or your academic record that you have not had the opportunity to describe elsewhere in this application?
Life has its ups and downs, when the going gets tough everyone says you should hang in there and keep trying. I agree with this statement, my life has had its depressing moments just like anyone else’s life. In middle school, I used to love playing soccer; I would stay after school and ride the hour long bus ride home just to play soccer with the John Burroughs’ after school tournament. The top seven players received trophies; I ended up as the third best player. I was planning on trying out for the soccer team at my new high school.
On July 4, 2001, my family and a couple of close friends went to a park to celebrate Independence Day. We decided to rent a four-wheeler to ride around the park; while we were riding around the park we reached an incline, so a friend and I got out to push it up the slope. After we got over the hill, as a joke our friends inside the four-wheeler started pedaling to try and leave us behind so naturally, my friend and I run after them. I wasn’t paying attention and we reached yet another incline so they started slowing down, however I kept running because I was talking to my friend who was running besides me. I ran into the four-wheeler and my leg got caught in the wheel, my friends inside didn’t know that my leg was caught, so they kept pedaling until I yelled, “STOP”.
The park patrol came over in a matter of minutes and disassembled the wheel and released my leg from the contraption. There were 3 deep holes in my ankle, they treated it and later I went to the hospital to take x-rays. My doctor said there was a chance I had bone infection, and if this was true they would have to amputate my leg. It turned out that I didn’t have a bone infection; however, I had to stay indoors and let it heal for a month or so. During this time, my asthma built up and soon my health was at risk, I wasn’t in shape and I haven’t been able to go out much.
I turned to my other passions in life, computers and electronics. People would ask me to come to their houses to help them with something involving computers. Soon this grew into a hobby of mine, to know every aspect of a computer, both inside and out. I have experience with many aspects of the modern computer.
I’ve always loved mathematics; it seemed like the one subject I felt comfortable with. Mathematics is easily my favorite subject; my teachers over the years have been phenomenal, encouraging me to pursue the next step in these complex computations.
Extra-curricular activities have been rather rough to attend in my circumstances, both my parents work, and my dad is at work with the only household car until late at night. If I wanted to stay for tutoring, or volunteer for community service hours, I would have to go home in the bus. However, there was a rule, I had to be home before dark or I would lose certain privileges. My parents didn’t consider it safe to be out and about after dark with or without friends.
Lately, I’ve turned to filming, my new hobby, it is quite a bit of work and quite tedious at times. I enjoy editing audio and video despite the tedious technical work behind it, I also love being a cinematographer because it isn’t as tedious but just as enjoyable. Even though it’s dull and boring at times, the end result is what motivates me to finish with perfection.
