When I was little, I loved airplanes, from the smallest single engine Cessna to the hulking 747. I read countless books about airplanes; I played every flight simulator. I filled sketchbooks with drawings of real planes, imaginary planes, planes that rivaled the biggest jumbo jets, and planes that were small enough to fit inside the other planes that I drew. I quickly came to the conclusion that I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer when I grew up. I studied websites;...

In the realm of politics, I despise hypocrisy. It deeply bothers me when a political figure stands up to talk about “the sanctity of marriage” when he has a sordid history of affairs and ex-wives behind him, or when these same figures talk about the “hallowed ground” of Ground Zero and why there should not be a mosque three blocks away, but refuse to provide aid to the rescue workers who waded into the rubble to save lives. I tended...

During the darkest days of the Cold War, President Kennedy saw that the United States would need to push ahead of the Soviet Union not just militarily but intellectually. As he vowed that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, he launched not only the space program, but also a generation of students who would grow up with a profound understanding and excitement for science and technology. However, in the past 50...

Every high school student should build a robot before he or she graduates. It’s not hard. If you played with Lego bricks when you were little, you’re set. You don’t really need any technical knowledge; you just need to be able to put the bricks together in the right order. The programming part, which most students expect will be the hardest, is surprisingly easy with the Lego system. National Instruments, which makes all sorts of interesting things,...

Of all of the academic possibilities available at Hampshire, I am most intrigued by the ability to not only design one’s major, but also to mix courses from diverse and often unrelated interests. In my case, I envision a mix of applied and adaptive design from the Lemelson Center, traditional graphic design, and international relations. At most other schools, I would likely have to choose one of these fields at the expense of the others. However, at Hampshire I...

My most memorable learning experiences in high school have been class discussions on everything from censorship to the literary merits of trashy vampire novels. Wheaton’s small learning environment and the accessibility of faculty members make it an ideal choice for my college experience. I also plan to explore the Connections program and even make my own Connection between my disparate interests in International Relations and Studio Art. I learned about the Connections program during my visit to the campus...

UC Essay - Transfer My path of education so far has been a long, arduous trek. It has led me from the suburbs of Los Angeles to the woods of Western Massachusetts, then back again. It has featured characters as varied as blacksmiths, mad inventors, and media culture professors. In the hallowed halls of academia, in gritty machine shops and beyond, I have learned a great deal about the world and myself. This journey might properly begin with my high...

A private counselor is a great resource for choosing schools and editing your essays. My admissions...

My first college (Hampshire) had blacksmithing as an extracurricular. It's hard to go wrong with an extracurricular that involves hitting 1000-degree metal with hammers. I also mentored...

I'd say that this is a toss-up between a class on the ethics, legality, and implications of sampling and remixing that I took at Hampshire and a class on philosophy...

I interviewed at most of the small liberal arts schools that I applied to as a freshman. One, however, stands out. At Hampshire,...

I probably would have shot higher. My grades weren't all that spectacular, but I had crazy test scores and a decent studio art portfolio. I was only declined from one school I applied to, and I've always wondered how I...

Transferring out of a small liberal arts school sucks. When you have classes with names like "Sample! Remix! Mash!" and "Tinkering for Fun and Profit", admissions officers and transfer counselors tend to give you strange looks. It took quite a lot of...