Public

INCOME: $109,000
FATHER'S OCCUPATION: Director of Molecular Biology
MOTHER'S OCCUPATION: Registered Nurse
FATHER'S EDUCATIONAL LEVEL: Post-Graduate Study
MOTHER'S EDUCATIONAL LEVEL: Two-Year College Graduate

Ethnic Literature	B	B
Geometry (Hon)	B	B
Biology	A	A
Latin 3&4	B	B
Advanced Band	A	A

US/Comp. Gov't (AP)	A	A
US History	A	A
Expository Writing	A
Lit. as Psych.	A
Trig/Adv. Algebra (Hon)	B	A
Chemistry (AP)	A	A
Latin 5&6	B	A
Psychology (AP)	A	A

Private flute lessons 9th-11th

volleyball team 11th&12th

CSF tutoring 10th-12th

Shield and Scroll Lowell Honor Society (volunteer at school)

Paralegal Duties at DA's office

High Honors in Golden State Exam for Geometry, Biology, & Chemistry

National Merit Semi-finalist

Verbal	780
Math	770
Combined	1550

Throughout my life, I have had a zest for learning, but in Science, this zeal has been nothing less than an inextinguishable passion. My first foray into science remains vivid in my mind. I was very young, around 5 or 6, when my dad brought home many vials filled with liquid. He emptied one bottle filled with blue "stuff" in a glass see-through container and told me to stand back. Then, he poured a container filled with what seemed to be water into the little cup and the mixture turned a vibrant yellow. This wasn't a murky yellow, or some other dim mixture of colors. To me, this yellow rivaled the intensity of the Sun. That little demonstration fascinated me, and that fascination for science has not waned since that day. My love for science and math makes picking electrical engineering a logical (or you could say scientific) choice.

Because of my passion for science, I have been immersed in a world of science since that first, fateful day. I still remember one time when I was in 4th grade, having just moved to San Francisco from Albany (California, not New York). I came across a little pamphlet outlining the many diverse courses that the Academy of Sciences was offering during the summer, and instead of wanting to play with my friends or go to camp, I longed to take those classes. So I begged fervently. The problem wasn't whether I could take classes or not, but how many. In the end, my parents relented, and that summer, as well as the following two summers, I essentially lived at the Academy of Sciences, learning about different life forms or about galaxies far, far away. And when I wasn't in class engorging myself with knowledge, I was wandering the vast halls, reading about rare gems, or touching a meteorite. I have always loved science and I truly believe that this love will translate in dedication and hard work in college, as it has in high school.

Math has not taken the same path in my life. Although I did extremely well in middle school, honors math at Lowell has consistently been one of the most challenging courses for me, semester after semester. No matter what I did, I would always get a B, and I began to doubt my competency in math. Last year however, I vowed to get an A. I pulled out all the stops-I started taking notes in class, asking the teacher for help when I didn't understand a concept, and spending extra time on math homework, just to figure out that one last problem. In the end, all the hard work paid off and I got an A. That A, coupled with my high performance on various standardized math tests, boosted my confidence in math and the result is a continuation of good grades in math, as well as a renewed sense of satisfaction after math class.

Contrary to sounding like the typical math/science stereotype, I have also excelled in the social sciences and have always found economics and political science interesting. Even though the social sciences might seem very removed from math and science, they are in fact an excellent complement to the sciences. In many ways, the social sciences are approached in the same way as laboratory sciences, only with a touch of humanity added. The humanities enrich the education, as well as understanding, of engineering, and my interest in the social sciences will serve me well, even in EECS.

Having always professed a love for science, and a newly found one for math, an engineering major is no surprise, but electrical engineering has always been the specialty that has captivated my attention. The pervasiveness of computers in every facet of everyday life intrigued me. Computers, despite the trepidation of many, are here to stay, and by choosing EECS, I will have an advantage over others in what will be the future adhesive of future living.

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