How is my College Apllication essay for UTD
Here is my college application essay for UTD. I dont feel very confident in it. What do you guys suggest I change.
I have never been able to leave a problem alone without trying to solve it. By the age of eighteen I had already refinished hardwood floors, installed kitchen backsplash tiles, fixed minor plumbing problems, and even replaced toilets. I had built chicken cages from scratch with only some wood and meshed wire. Nobody ever taught me how to do these things; all I had was a drive in me that was hungry to learn and to solve whatever stood in my way. Growing up with a father who is a doctor and a mother who is a nutritionist, I was raised by people who dedicated their lives to solving problems and helping others. I always admired that, but I was interested in finding solutions to the physical world rather than the human body.
Nothing I ever did left as deep a mark on who I wanted to become as building the shed. Over the brutal Texas summer and the frigid winters our outdoor cats were struggling with the intense climate, and it seemed like there would be no relief from their suffering. They needed an insulated, sturdy shelter that provided them refuge from the extremes of the weather. After some thoughts and some pleading from my sister I decided to take on the challenge.
I did not expect the project to drain me both mentally and physically as much as it did. The roof was the first real test I had to overcome. I had to calculate the slope of the roof for proper structural integrity, then cut every rafter to the exact angle, then fit the gussets so the entire frame would bear its own weight without shifting. There was no instruction manual; all I had to help me was the Pythagorean theorem. I became very frustrated with the roof, but I worked it out piece by piece, adjusting, recalculating and assembling. This was the hardest thing I have ever built in my life, but I never gave up until I completed it. I then tracked down every nook and cranny to make sure that the structure was tightly insulated and provided a barrier between the cats and the outside world.
When I finished, I stood back and looked at what I had built from nothing but my own hands and determination. At that moment something clicked in my mind, and I discovered what I wanted to do withthe rest of my life. If I could design and build something that solved a problem, then I wanted to spend my life doing that but at a bigger scale. That project taught me something I will carry with me into any problem I face; that every problem has a solution if you analyze it and take it step by step. Engineering is simply that mindset applied to the world's biggest problems. Since completing the shed, I have taught myself how to make websites, further developing my ability to find a problem, and figure out how to overcome it. My dream in engineering goes far beyond building sheds and websites. The world is running on energy that is damaging the atmosphere, and I believe that is one of the biggest unsolved problems of our time. While there are other energy sources such as solar and hydropower,they still cannot match the reliability of fossil fuels. My goal is to be part of the generation that finds a cleaner and more reliable alternative to fossil fuels. While I may be dreaming big and this problem may seem vast, my mindset will always be the same: stand in front of the problem, think it through, get frustrated and never give up until the problem is resolved.