ID# 333460
4B 10/1/15
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5 Short Prompts (100-250 words each)
Prompt #1: “We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you.
Tell us about something you do simply for the pleasure of it.”
I sit in front of my computer, typing and typing away, working on programming one of
my current projects. Sometimes this project may be for a friend or peer, sometimes for a grade.
Usually, it’s just for the fun of it. The clock continues ticking onward: one hour passes, now two,
now five. Before I know it, I’ve spent over five hours staring at my computer screen, writing
code. Most of the time I take a break every so often, other times I just get so “in the zone” that I
simply forget to eat or use the bathroom. More often than not, I have no specific goal to achieve,
no point in my work to stop at. I’ll just work and work and work until I run out of time. These
programming sessions are usually a great way for me to practice consistent code habits and to
learn how to accomplish new things in my code.
Prompt #2: “Although you may not yet know what you want to major in, which department or
program at MIT appeals to you and why?”
When I got my first laptop as a kid, I was hooked: I immediately knew that Computer
Science (CS) was my “thing.” I never had trouble learning something new on a computer and
ended up being the “go-to guy” in my family for computer assistance. To this day, I am still
unable to explain why CS appeals to me as much as it does. It probably has something to do with
how well I understand it and how I am able to help people through it. Or maybe it’s because of
how new of a field it is when compared to something like vehicle mechanics. Whatever the
reason is, I love to learn, study, and practice Computer Science.
Prompt #3: What attribute of your personality are you most proud of, and how has it impacted
your life so far? This could be your creativity, effective leadership, sense of humor, integrity, or
anything else you’d like to tell us about.
I take pride in being an individual dedicated to accomplishing what is required as well as
an extremely dependable friend and group member. Throughout high school, this dependability
has both improved how I work with a group as well as how I relate with my friends, leading to a
drastic improvement in my social skills, and has given me more opportunities to take a position
of leadership when needed, resulting in a noticeable improvement in my leadership skills.
This improvement in both social skills and leadership skills, which took place throughout
my high school career, has legitimately changed my life for good. As an extremely shy and
reserved individual, I have always struggled with socializing with friends or communicating my
ideas with group members. Faced with the new challenges of high school and the increasingly-
important schoolwork, I began to improve. And as someone who normally prefers to avoid being
the center of attention, taking a leadership position was also difficult. But with improvement in
social skills came improvement in leadership skills, so that improved too. By now, my senior
year in high school, I have overcome a crippling shyness and greatly improved both my ability to
work in a group and my socialization skills.