UC Application Essays

Personal Statement 1:
What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement.  (~500 words)

I intend to transfer to a University in the Fall of 2013 to study Electrical and Computer Engineering, a decision which was made after many years of working in different roles in the technology industry.  I eventually determined that my interests and ambitions would be better served by returning to school and obtaining specialized training in an area that is well suited to my abilities.  Earning a degree has always been important to me, but setting aside four or more years for school has proven difficult to achieve in my adulthood.  Fortunately, I managed to prioritize this goal and then committed to college full-time, having since earned top marks in all of my classes.  I feel that my academic achievements over the past five semesters reflect my personal convictions to complete my studies and have also prepared me for the type of focused and demanding learning environment provided by a University with esteemed Engineering and Computer Science programs.

My interests in technology stem from my exposure to home video game systems and video arcades from the early to mid 1980s.  I developed a deep appreciation for the unique interactive experiences that can be produced with computer software and its interface devices, such as monitors, joysticks and speakers.  Around this time personal computers became more widespread and, like many technologically precocious children, I spent afternoons and weekends tinkering with computer software and hardware.  Almost every day I would experience two very different uses of technology, one for personal enjoyment and another for facilitating work, and my insights into both forms matured.  These experiences granted me firm understandings of both the appropriate and practical uses of computers, along with the many different roles they have, from entertainment devices to productivity tools.

When making the decision to return to college, pursuing a Computer Science degree seemed like a natural path to take.  But after reviewing many different programs I found that some of them were too restrictive and frequently did not fully represent my academic and professional goals.  I greatly value Mathematics and the many other disciplines of science, and these aren’t always emphasized in Computer Science programs.  Writing code and producing useful software is a process I greatly enjoy and a skill I wish to hone in the years to come, but I also desire to understand more intimately the entire workings of a computer–from the software to the specialized hardware that powers it.

I have chosen Electrical/Computer Engineering as my major because it more completely encompasses all of the components that make up a person’s experience when using technology, and this succinctly conveys the focus of my future studies and work.  I intend to design full computer systems with equal attention paid to the types of interfaces, the efficiency of the hardware, and the integrity of the software running across these devices, all of which come together to produce a means of using particular forms of technology.  As a corollary, I also wish to improve my ability to understand and accommodate any potential moral and ethical quandaries that may be associated with these uses and ensure that these considerations are effectively incorporated into the design and implementation of a technology experience.

Personal Statement 2:
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?  (~500 words)

The personal qualities that I feel most set me apart from others relate to my abilities to communicate clearly with people and to consistently finish projects that I have started.  I think that these two qualities serve as different pieces that combine to make up another:  my unique flavor of work ethic.  I am regularly affirmed that it is effective and uncommon through my interactions with others.

Many times in my life people have come to me for help and assistance when they required something to be done a specific way or were seeking an outsider’s perspective on a problem.  Whenever this happens I am attentive and considerate and always do my best to propose helpful ideas and methods to find a solution.  Instead of capitalizing on these moments for an ego boost I accept them as one of the most real and valuable kinds of complements a person can give.  Through intent listening and by sharing only input that is genuinely constructive I effort to convey my appreciation to the other person that he or she was comfortable to come to me with a personal or professional dilemma.

When I decide to accept responsibilities or start projects I always adhere to them.  I give them as much time as I am able while also managing my other obligations and responsibilities.  I am very careful about taking things on because I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I begin something that I will not be able to work through to completion.  I also do not want one commitment to adversely impact another of my goals or responsibilities.  This approach has had both positive and negative aspects to it:  on the one hand I always do the things I have set out to do, but on the other hand it can sometimes take me an inordinate amount time to make a decision or to set a new priority (choosing to return to college and obtain my degree is a perfect example of this).

These cares that I take in my work usually require extra time to contemplate a situation and figure out as many details in advance as I feel are available.  Sometimes I will allay an undertaking simply because I know that I cannot be sufficiently prepared to start.  On occasions this has been inconvenient to myself and to others because my decision making process is sometimes slower than the usual pacing and demands of day to day life.  However, I believe that when the need to make a decision is looming each situation requires special amounts of time and preparation for the decision to be made confidently.  I am certain that this is not only what allows me to get my work done, but also what allows me to consistently produce results that are above average.

Additional Comments (optional):
If you wish, you may use this space to tell us anything else you want us to know about you that you have not had the opportunity to describe elsewhere in the application.  (550 words)

In regards to specific areas of study I am interested in pursuing, I have recently been spending a great deal of time researching the Java Programming Language and its years-long process of becoming a ubiquitous platform.  Though it is an important language and technology that will be used for many years to come, my experiences have shown me a number of ways in which it could have been better implemented.  This has led to a desire to design a new programming language that addresses these issues, expands the number of fundamental tools available to the programmer (such as providing additional ways to augment the behavior of a switch statement or a loop), and still functions within the typical syntaxes to which most people are accustomed.  I have also become interested in the implementation of a virtual machine that is hardware “aware” and is capable of establishing appropriate optimizations for many different kinds of systems and hardware configurations; in addition to this it is capable of being accelerated by separate hardware components that can be attached to most modern computing devices (through a USB port, for instance).  The success of Java has proven that more cross-platform technologies are necessary and can be adopted by the technology industry, so I believe that this is an area where there are still a tremendous number of gains to be made.  On a loosely related note, methods of digital sound compression and aural representation are also fascinating to me.

Over the last year I have been preparing to start my own business which will focus on cross-platform technologies and development tools for video game consoles, cell phones and personal computers.  As I earlier alluded, video gaming is greatly significant to me, being not just a lingering hobby from my childhood but a field where I see countless opportunities for important work to be done that could potentially affect the entire technology industry as a whole.  While breaking from my studies I intend to continue my work on the projects that are related to this endeavor.

As you have noticed, beginning in the Fall 2012 semester I enrolled in Butte College located in Chico, CA for a Computer Science course while taking the bulk of my classes at Shasta College in Redding, CA.  This was necessary so that I could complete as much of my lower division coursework as possible before transferring to a University in the Fall of 2013.   Shasta College offers little in the way of programming courses and driving out to Butte College two days a week was the only solution to this problem.  Also, I am anticipating that I will spend the Spring 2013 semester entirely at Butte College before transferring because, in addition to its Computer Science courses, there is a Materials Science course I would like to take that is not available in the Spring at Shasta College.  I have noted these intentions in the “Academic History” section of this application, but the possibility remains that I will stay at Shasta College for my final semester and continue to commute to Butte College two days a week.  If this occurs then the only change in my completed coursework will be the loss of the aforementioned Engineering course.