What academic areas are you interested in exploring in college?* 200 limit

Some of my fondest childhood memories include exploring miniature worlds in shrubbery or catching spiders in jars. For years I’ve shared this devotion with others by helping friends with arachnophobia, uploading content to YouTube, and creating an online insect identification service. In my makeshift entomology lab, my findings include feeding patterns of tarantulas and social interactions between darkling beetles and their larvae. Obviously, I am leaning towards a biology major. 

Additionally, at _____ I have the opportunity to further my entomological interests in undergraduate research. One subject that comes to mind immediately is the Lycorma delicatula–the spotted lanternfly. 

L. delicatula, is an extremely destructive invasive species in multiple continents. Recently it has been discovered by USDA researchers that spotted lanternflies use vibrations to communicate behaviors. This information can be used to monitor the insects’ patterns as well as introducing potential pest control alternatives to harmful chemical pesticides. 

At _____, I would have access to a budget and a research lab–a major upgrade from glass jars and plastic boxes. With these resources and the school’s emphasis on undergraduate research, I could create significant strides towards a healthier planet, no longer limited to researching insect behavior in the corner of my room.

Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at _____? 300 words

Cardboard: the end-all, be-all of building materials. Durable, cheap, and malleable, this stuff has been the building block of my greatest creations. My hall of fame includes motorized sweepers for shaving seconds off chores and swords for satisfying my brothers’ insatiable desire for entertainment. As refined as these builds are, they were designed through hours of trial and error. However, cardboard’s limits began to show. Jet turbines and rocket engines are not made of cardboard. 

I began to explore other options. Kerbal Space Program immediately came to mind: a physics-based simulator focused on creating rockets and planes to send little “Kerbals” to the outer reaches of their Solar System. With an endless array of wings and engines, I quickly began building and testing, albeit with little regard for the pilots’ safety. It was a blast (literally) to design and launch rockets to planets and moons. After becoming fluent in single-body orbital mechanics, space travel became a breeze. Nonetheless, this simulator had begun to show its limits as well. Although it runs on real physics, it is still a simplified rendition. N-body calculations are absent, and engines are absurdly simple to use. Also, unlike Kerbals, humans are not expendable.

Building a jet or rocket, let alone designing one, is no easy feat. It requires years of knowledge and experience. And what better place to earn it than _____. With one of the best aerospace programs in the world, my passion will not go to waste. Perhaps I will find a way to build a jet turbine out of cardboard, or maybe even send little “astronauts” across our Solar System. As the next stepping stone, I am ecstatic to learn the nooks and crannies of the real deal.  

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? 650 words

I was skeptical when my older brother urged me to take AP physics junior year. I had already signed up for multiple AP STEM courses and believed yet another would surely overwhelm me. I never had the same aptitude for mathematics that my peers did. This meant I had to push myself to work twice as hard to understand and apply concepts. Over the summer I found myself dreading my first class, maintaining the premonition that I was going to struggle.

As it turned out, I was right. The class moved too quickly, the lessons were deceptively complicated, and math–my worst enemy–was everywhere. One day, seeing me with my head in my hands, my brother asked if I needed help. Perhaps it was repentance. Nevertheless, he became my mentor. 

Academically, my brother was the complete opposite of me. He was always able to grasp the bigger picture without much effort, never needing more than a first glance to break down a problem. Of course, this style of analysis is perfectly suited to a course in physics: one he had already passed with flying colors.

Because of our contrasting learning styles, he found it difficult to teach me; we were speaking two different languages. I couldn’t visualize concepts as a whole, meaning we had to break each problem into manageable chunks. Not only was this inefficient, it only confused me more. I just couldn’t see the connections between each chunk. 

Then my brother had an idea. He grabbed a water bottle and started slowly pushing the top with his finger. He then asked me, “At what point does the bottle commit to tipping over?” After my initial confusion, he guided me to the conclusion that its tipping point is when the center of mass (center of the bottle) is directly above the pivot point (the bottle’s bottom edge). Not only did this example use what I had learned in class, it was hands-on and easy-to-follow. We decided this approach was best, and every week my brother would have me solving physics riddles–“phriddles”. Instead of learning by staring at numbers and arrows on a paper, I could more intuitively break down real-world examples.

As I solved more and more phriddles, I began to see physics in everyday life. I’d ponder the forces acting on a falling leaf or visualize the friction between a car’s speeding tire and the ground. With each new observation, I gathered my own phriddles we could solve together. Does a rocket experience more g-forces when accelerating towards or away from earth? Why does a plane have wings in the back? Why do its engine’s propellers twist towards the edges? Armed with nothing but a pen, paper, and our minds, my brother and I would spend late weekend nights unpacking these questions.

With my ceaseless curiosity and his acute knowledge, we were an unstoppable duo: the academic equivalent of Cus D’Amato and Mike Tyson. With the concepts fresher in my mind, I would offer ideas or potential answers. My brother, with his greater experience, would either implement my suggestion or offer a counterpoint. With each answer, a knot in my mind unraveled itself, revealing just a glimmer in the vast expanse of physics. 

Even after completing the course, I have a sincere appreciation for the subject and regularly mentor peers, guiding them to what I know to be a beautiful path. The course expanded on my ability to apply classroom concepts to the real world, whether it be through water bottles or planes. Any student can benefit from such an experience: one that changes their perception of education. Not only did AP physics teach me inertia and angular momentum, but it also taught me to learn.