Thoughts About Visions Of My Future Based On The Past Three Years Of My Life

I decided in 10th grade that I would be going to the United States for my higher education, but I didn’t receive proper guidance on how to pursue the painful ”College application process.” But before I get into that, few reasons why I wanted to attend a college in the United States are because of the practical and real-world experience offered by the universities there. Universities back in my home country don’t possess these traits; they still instill the method of rote learning and don’t really prepare you for the real world. I want to build myself up as a person and I know that the universities in the States will help me do that. So, I embarked on this journey of travelling 7000 miles away from home to gain knowledge, experience and mold myself up.

My interest in Mechanical engineering started in 7th grade when I participated in my first science fair. The feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction after winning a science fair competition is irreplaceable at that age. I individually worked on my research paper and hydraulic arm and strived for perfection. The whole experience of researching on mechanics and hydraulics, although I understood zero to nothing, pushed me to my limits. I was praised by my teachers and classmates and my project was show cased during an annual day. After that, I began my blog on the Fermi Paradox in 9th grade. I just opened an account on blogspot and started writing.

I gained few views but I guess most of them were mine cause I was so excited to view my blog on the internet. My family members and relatives gave me useful feedback but one day, I tried to log in and I couldn’t. For some reason I lost access to my account and my blog was just left idle on the internet. I was disheartened but I moved on quickly because exam pressure was building up. But the topic I wrote on is worth sharing because this triggered my interest in aerospace engineering. So a scientist named Enrico Fermi was busy hhaving lunch when he came up with this theory. He said that the universe has been existence since a really really long time, a number which is beyond our imaginiation.

And with the number of digits in its time is the space that it occupies. But are we the only living beings in the entire universe? To be honest, the question itself gives me the creeps. In the observable universe, there are around 100 billion galaxies which again consist of 100 trillion stars. And when we view the planets in these galaxies, one can imagine a whole new world. The amount of stars present in a galaxy is ample enough to carry a planet in the habitual zone or in simple words, an Earth-type planet. Based on Kepler space mission data, there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized-planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs in the Milky Way.

So even if there is any alien civilization in this universe, we will not be able to reach them as it will take billions of years to reach another planet or galaxy even with our fastest space shuttles. And, on the other hand, why hasn’t the alien civilization reached us till now? We have no answer to the Fermi Paradox. If you ask this question to 5 different scientists, you’ll get 5 different answers. You know when you hear about the humans of the past debating whether the Earth was round or if lightening happened because of Zeus, and they seem so primitive and in the dark? That’s about where we are in this topic. Weird right?

I became an avid follower of Elon Musk and his companies, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. His biography showed me the drive you need to have to be this successful and his ongoing projects never failed to surprise me. His achievements have shown the world that nothing is impossible. Elon Musk plays a really important role in my life. I feel like he is the reason why our generation is pushed to think out of the box and believe that nothing is impossible. He has achieved crazy feats for such a young influencer and techy. At the age of 12, he taught himself how to program and sold his codes to buy a Game Blaster for himself(They can go upto 500$!). By the age of 24, he received a Bsc degree in physics and economics from UPenn and did his undergraduate at Queens(He chose Queens over university of waterloo because the girls were better looking).

He later moved to California to begin his phd but left the program he was in 2 days later to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations. Musk is now one of the biggest CEOs and influencers in the world currently. He has been the CEO of Paypal but was overthrown by his employees briefly. He remained a board member and when the company got sold he earned a share of the price. With this money, he began companies like tesla, space x, hyperloop and solar city. He goes all in or nothing. He has stated that the goals of his companies revolve around his vision to change the world. His goals include reducing global warming, using renewable energy, being more efficient, and ofcourse setting up a colony on Mars. Who wouldn’t be inspired by this guy!

This really pushed me to attend college and build myself up for this journey. Firstly, I got to prepare for every journey beforehand to make it worthwhile so it all started in 11th grade(the worst year of my school life, great way to start preparation!). 11th grade a.k.a junior year, the jump from 10th to 11th grade in my school is like Cristiano Ronaldo switching his sport from soccer to horseback riding in flash. I was all over the place and the only advice I received from my seniors was, ”It’s junior year, it doesn’t real matter for college.” So, like an idiot, I took the advice and took the whole year leniently. Obviously, that was going to bite me later on and it did; but not that badly. It was fall 2016; everyone was prepping for the standardized tests and stacking up on their extracurricular activities because application season was a year away.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to score a decent percentage. Regardless, I stacked up on really good extracurricular activities too. I won 3rd place in a show jumping competition which was one of my greatest achievements in my school life, I was also one of the few to attend a talk show with my mentors and teachers and collected useful information about my intended major. I participated in two inter-school soccer competitions after practicing rigorously for months. Junior year ended quickly, but the memories I formed with my friends were long lasting and the activites I participated in left me satisfied.

Senior year started out with a bang; my SAT test date was booked alongside my midterms. Balancing both these tests was truly an obstacle and I couldn’t afford to mess them up. Finally, it was time; college application season had begun, everyone was hustling to their counsellors. Everyone was on their toes; no one wanted to go to a third-tier university and neither did they want to stay back home. But then, amongst this chaos, I asked myself, “Why do I want to go to college?” I could just stay at home and spend my dad’s hard-earned money, or I could just pick up a job at my local grocery store and earn enough to sustain a family. But then, in the back of my head, there was this voice asking me, “Do you really want to do this, do you just want to sit idle at home and pursue a mediocre life?” Even though I had these deep conversations with myself, I was clear that I wanted to pursue engineering and having “brown parents” have a say for you is like driving on a road with no exit. It’s going to lead you somewhere, somewhere good or somewhere bad, that’s for your parents to decide, that’s your destiny, well that’s a bit exaggerated but I hope you get the point.

Now let me get into the reasons why I want to go to college; one of the reasons is to further my education. It’s a tradition, part of our culture to complete higher education and apart from that I hate the feeling of not knowing anything, I like being the person everyone comes to for information. Also, I want to be the best in my major; I want to be better than the next person with the job credentials. As an engineer, I want to help build the community around me and cater to every individual’s need in the society. The job of an engineer is not an easy task and you can’t just wake up one day and decide that you want to be an engineer. Engineering is a job of discipline, critical thinking, and practicality. College helps to build on those traits and pushes you out of your nutshell by providing opportunities like joining clubs and attending engineering expos.

Similarly, why I want to attend college is cause of the exposure in academics. Clubs, expos, upperclassmen, seminars, and countless other things make one’s time in the university worthwhile; the amount of useful information you gain out of these events is beyond par. Lastly, college experiences people to truly find themselves through personal growth. Higher education will expose you to new people, ideas and topics that one would never encounter in high school. Virginia Tech was my top choice and I was flabbergasted when I got my acceptance letter; but why am I attending Virginia Tech and not any other university? Obviously, it was my top choice and it’s a renowned engineering school but apart from that, the first and most important thing I hope to gain from my college experience is independence. The best matter to never have to worry about, is depending on other people. Especially when you are miles away from your parents, you achieve a sense of accomplishment when you perform the tasks your parents used to do for you.

Also, I hope to learn about my course, Mechanical Engineering. Since child hood, I have been very creative, practical and curious; I have been dreaming about becoming an engineer since freshman year of high school. Being able to pursue my dream and expand my knowledge in that realm is a dream come true for me. Virginia Tech will help me build my profile and it will supply me with the feeling to be more comfortable with future situations and gives me the knowledge and confidence to work under demanding pressures of everyday life. Subsequently, by building a solid foundation for my career, I can enhance my financial support for my children to achieve a solid foundation for their careers. Also, by establishing a new and exciting career I will be able to earn and receive the benefits of a good job; to provide my family with the security that I feel my family needs and deserves.

The last thing any student would ever want is their parent’s hard-earned money that is invested in them to go down the drain; it will be there in the back of your mind that someone has taken out their time, energy and money which will keep you motivated throughout college. You muster up the motivation to study because you know your GPA depends on you and no one else. Through such experiences, you’ll learn that life consists of a lot of things you are going to have to do, even though you don’t want to, like attending boring meetings, paying bills, etc. Furthermore, I hope to learn how to prioritize my tasks in my day to day life. I made a lot of mistakes in high school and one of them was neglecting the important tasks. I took my schedule for granted and whenever my tasks weren’t complete, negative repercussions always occurred.

Now let’s talk about Virginia Tech’s facilities: 6 huge dining halls, a multi-story gym, Olympic size swimming pool, and world class dorms. Oof! Am I going to a haven or a university? Well, they do have classes and professors all around campus, so unfortunately, it’s a university. However, facilities play a partial role in deciding the appropriate college for oneself, so this element is looked at after shortlisting universities based on their academics, research, job opportunities and credibility. Virginia Tech surpassed a lot of schools especially in the facilities category which made it my first choice. Oh, and how could I forget about the Hogwarts’s vibe VT gives off; it’s mesmerizing! I attended two talk shows held my professors from the engineering department. One of the sessions I attended was on Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. Dr. Robert A. Canfield was the speaker; he is a professor and assistant department head for Academic Affairs.

The other speaker was Dr. Xiao who spoke about Ocean Engineering and works in Virginia Tech as an assistant professor. I was really fascinated by the knowledge these professors carried collected a lot of beneficial information. The session was very informative. The speakers spoke about three parts which were astronautics, aeronautics and hydrostatics. Astronautics is a very upcoming field of study which mainly focuses on the science and technology of space flight. Astronautics caters to space vehicles and navigation through space. Aeronautics is a field of study which is very similar to astronautics but focuses mainly on travel through the medium air. It’s the science or practice of travel through air. Hydrostatics is a part of Ocean Engineering which focuses on the mechanics of fluids. In the end, I realized how similar Aerospace and Ocean Engineering are as they share major portions of the syllabus. The other information session I attended was in Mechanical engineering.

I intend to pursue Mechanical Engineering in Sophomore year, so I attended the session to get more information on classes, job opportunities, clubs, etc. The speaker’s name was Sarah Deisher who is an Undergraduate Academic Advisor in the College of Engineering-Mechanical Engineering. She talked about the role Mechanical Engineers play in the society and what do you have to do to become one. She mentions that MEs use their knowledge in science, math, principle of mechanics and natural resources to design and manufacture machines, devices and meet the society’s needs. There are number of areas of specialization in ME- Energy, engineering and science, Nuclear engineering. She also added on by sharing the class size of few classes and the statistics of people who obtained jobs and the median salary. After attending these sessions I knew I came to the right place for my major.

My goals vary from making fuel efficient rockets to making solar power a widely used source of power. I also want to make good use of the upcoming drone technology as it has so much potential to save lives. Drones can be used to locate flood victims, people trapped in or under buildings, locate struggling individuals or animals during a wild fire. As of late, we have seen the improvement of unmanned devices utilized in numerous kinds of uses, running from home bundle conveyance rambles, to underwater exploration and rescue drones, to automatic land vehicles and even little smaller scale drones. A lot of this innovation can give untold life changing advantages to humanity. Unfortunately, a trek to the nearby Target or pastime shop can likewise arm a terrorist with enough innovation to really incur critical losses with a negligible range of abilities. I hope to continue my research on this technology in university have offer help in improvement.

Having the legacy of various renowned engineers and scientists, college education system would shape my interests and allow me to follow my passion. The learning system which combines theory with practice will provide me with in-depth knowledge of the subject. Hands-on experience combined with the option of selecting specialized modules will make learning an exciting and engaging experience. I want to leverage my comfort with math and sciences, my enthusiasm for discovery and my creative instincts to thrive in university. The past three years of my life have given me greater visions of my future. I am grateful for the opportunities my parents, teachers, mentors and the people around me have brought up. Life is the most exciting opportunity we have. But we have one shot. You graduate from school once, and that’s it. You’re going out of that nest. And you must find that courage that’s deep, deep, deep in there. Every step of the way.