College Essay
...ent of Urology I helped root out the causes of a disorder called Stress Urinary Incontinence. For a year and half, I was apprenticed to postdoctoral fellows, learning theories and practical skills. I spent many exhausting hours in the medical library researching urological disorders in books, published journals and the Internet. After several arduous weeks, the postdoctoral fellows felt I was ready. I was given a lab station and I got to work. Just like my more experienced peers, I was performing experiments and analyzing data. I was making genuine contributions to science and I was loving it. The tremendous amount of work I did culminated in a research paper, which involved details of my experiments, my statistical analysis, and a discussion of studies done in other laboratories. The completion of a 17-page report was my greatest academic achievement. At least that's what I thought until my paper was submitted to the New York Science and Technological Exposition. Like every other participant, I had to prepare a project board explaining my research as well as an oral presentation for the judges. Given my profound hearing loss, I had to work twice as hard in preparing for my oral presentation. I had to learn how to correctly pronounce scientific words, learn phrasing, intonation patterns, apply correct nasality, and employ appropriate loudness levels for my oral presentation. When it came to the day of judging for the competition, I was very nervous and it showed. My hands were shaking, my heart was racing and my stomach was doing jumping jacks. I was so worried not only about whether the judges would like my research project, but more importantly whether they would be able to understand my speech or if I would be able to hear their questions and be able to respond correctly. To relieve some of my anxiety, I asked my family, friends, and even strangers to listen to my project presentation as practice. It was a disaster. I often stopped in the middle of my presentation, forgot some important details, and could not hear some of the listeners' questions. My parents tried to comfort me and tell me that all I needed to do was relax, but I could not. At that point, I was ready to pack up my project board and go home, but then I saw three adults with clipboards held in their arms walking in my direction. I saw they had nametags with the word, "JUDGE" written clearly. As they approached me, for some strange reason, my nervousness faded away. I had come to the realization that I could not just walk away. I had to stay and prove that all the hard work I did since I was eight months old meant something....