I have learned that life may have its downs, but through sacrifice and one’s sheer will, anyone can create their own ups; my challenge is supporting my family while paying for college. After immigrating to the U.S. with my mother, we learned that my father had liver cancer back in Vietnam. My mom was so shocked that she fainted and fell down the stairs. Afterwards, we faced a terrible financial hardship because my mother was laid off due to her resulting injury...
During my summer research internship at MIT in 2014, I worked on a project to create a more versatile steel bar by covering its surfaces with boron nitride (BN) and graphene oxide (GO), using nanocoating techniques. My supervisor was on vacation, so I invested myself in my task to find an innovative solution to a baffling problem with the project..
In Vietnam, herbal remedies are all too often practiced in place of proper medicine; the consequence of treating my father’s Hepatitis C this way proved disastrous. What I have learned since has not only determined my future direction, but also confirmed for me that MIT is the only institution where I seek my calling in life...
At first, I was attracted to University of Michigan because of its high ranking in biological sciences. I had no reason other than that until I went there with my family to go to the museum of natural history and the museum of anthropology during the spring of my sophomore year. I was exposed to the vibrant college town, the diverse campus, and the commitment to the university show by many of the students I saw walking around clad in blue and maize...
This past summer, I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Northwestern as a National Student Leadership Council representative for my school. I had heard so many amazing things about Northwestern from my family members who had attended the school before, my great-grandfather, C.P. Rogers, one of the first African-Americans to graduate from Northwestern and who desegregated the pool, would often speak about the great Northwestern to my grandfather who would then tell me, but I didn’t have a chance to experience the school for myself...
The Jewish community I grew up in is a small, close-knit group of people with similar ideals and usually similar opinions about issues inside and outside of the community. Everyone works together to make sure that everyone is having a proper Orthodox life, following the Torah correctly and appropriately, and giving back to the community when they achieve the Orthodox standard of living...
For the play in my junior year, I had to play the bard, Balthasar, from "Much Ado about Nothing." His biggest moment in the play was his song, one that was shared by Balthasar and several other supporting roles in the scene; we were supposed to copy the tune and lyrics from the movie version. I was fine singing with my friends and other actors, but I had never sang on stage before, and I had enough stagefright just speaking my lines...
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