Theories of Everything: College Admission Essay Sample

My world has been exciting and supportive for all my pursuits in life, but I’m most thankful for how it has exposed me to science and welcomed me into research. Ever since my first encounter with science, I’ve been developing a grand theory in my mind to explain the nature and purpose of it. Since its conception years ago, the theory has evolved with me, collecting disparate observations to become something I put all my hopes in.

In 3rd grade, I studied Isaac Newton’s three laws and recounted to my class the story of his discovery. As a result, I entered the field of research with an intriguing observation: Science happens when an apple clocks you on the head. What could cause a scientist to have an “apple to head” epiphany? In 5th grade, I found an explanation while researching for a report on black holes. My father gave me Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. I attacked it and loved every page I understood. Armed with new information about the development and confirmation of scientific theory, I proposed and satisfactorily supported a new hypothesis: Scientists put together observations and think a lot to create new ideas.

In 8th grade, I took “Honors Physical Science,” my first real science course. The challenging, occasionally maddening conceptual physics opened my eyes, and I found confidence helping my classmates learn. By the end of the school year, I had concluded: Science explains how things work. However, I then wondered, “What is science good for?” My professors and peers in COSMOS that summer helped me answer that. That summer, I built things, fixed things, and learned about Feynman, Einstein, and Fermi. Together, we made a promising, vibrant conclusion based on our observations: Science is a tool that helps us figure out how to solve problems.

During high school, I had to stop thinking about my grand theory for a while. I was too busy absorbing as much as I could. I took and excelled at the hardest math and science courses available in school, and outside of class, I engineered model bridges and planes for competitions. Also for different competitions, I crammed introductory texts of many fields, some common (physics, chemistry, biology) and some exotic (oceanography, astronomy, remote sensing, geology, paleontology, and more). By the end of my sophomore year, I’d felt my theory was just about perfect. My most recent conclusion was all encompassing: Science is order, life, time, space, and everything there is.

However, no theory is carved in stone. Near the start of my junior year, I attended a debate concerning America’s energy future. Our moderator, Mr. Steven Chu, the incumbent U.S. Secretary of Energy, impressed upon his audience the importance of carbon emission reduction. I walked out of that seminar, confident that science should be used to change the world, and the summer following, I learned how it could be done. I got my first paid job as an intern in Sandia National Laboratories. My work and other ongoing applications-based research were geared towards solving materials science problems. My final revision to my theory is perhaps the most meaningful of all: Science exists as an outlet for people like me to better the world through design and innovation.

My relationship with science has shaped who I am. Every step of the way, I searched for more, because science isn’t just a set of skills to me. It is a system of thought that brings dimension to my world and pushes me to explore its mechanism and motivation. With the support of my family, friends, and school, I’ve analyzed and modified what I believe is the truth. Now, I aim to turn the tables: I live to shape my world.