Free Admissions Essay - Healing Old Wounds :: Medicine College Admissions Essays

Admissions Essay -Healing Old Wounds Modest one-room houses lay scattered across the resign landscape. Their rooftops a seemingly helpless shield against the intense heat generated by the mid-July sun. The steel security bars that guarded the windows and doors of every house seemed to belie the wide welcome sign at the entrance to the ABC Indian Reservation. As a young civil engineer employed by the U.S. Army corps of Engineers, I was far removed from my cubical in downtown Los Angeles. However, I felt I was well-prepared to conduct my first project proposal. The project involved a $500,000 repair of an earthen levee surrounding an active Native American burial site. A fairly inexpensive and straightforward job by federal standards, exactly nonetheless I could hardly contain my excitement. Strict federal construction guidelines laden with a generous portion of technical jargon danced through my base on balls as I stepped up to the podium to greet the twelve tribal council membe rs. My premature confidence quickly disappeared as they confronted me with a troubled ancient gaze. Their faces revealed centuries of suspiciousness and broken government promises. Suddenly, from a design based solely upon abstract engineering principles an additional kind dimension emerged - one for which I had not prepared. The calculations I had crunched over the past several months and the abstract engineering principles simply no longer applied. Their potential impact on this community was clearly evident in the faces before me. With perspiration forming on my brow, I decided I would need to take a new approach to salvage this meeting. So I put away my rehearsed speech, stepped out from behind the safety of the podium, and began to solicit the council members questions and concerns. By the end of the afternoon, our efforts to establish a cooperative working relationship had resulted in a distinct respite in the mood of the meeting. Although I am not saying we erased centuri es of mistrust in a single day, I feel certain our steps towards change relations and trust produced a successful project. I found this opportunity to humanize my engineering project both personally and professionally rewarding. Unfortunately, experiences like it were not common. I realized early in my career that I needed a profession where I can more frequently incorporate human interaction and my interests in science. After two years of working as a civil engineer, I enrolled in night school to explore a medical career and test my aptitude for pre-medical classes.