Submission Number: 356
Submission ID: 1196
Submission UUID: c9599627-e068-4a11-933f-1b1f80cd7bb7

Created: Sun, 04/23/2023 - 20:22
Completed: Sun, 04/23/2023 - 20:22
Changed: Tue, 09/03/2024 - 20:06

Remote IP address: 75.166.184.75
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No
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Gen
Rothberg
He/Him
Denver
CO
USA
80238
Environmental Engineering
English (5), Japanese (5), Mandarin (1), Spanish (1)
In March of 2022, I boarded a plane headed to Kyoto, Japan. There, I would spend the next 10 months at a Japanese high school. This was no ordinary study-abroad program. I was completely on my own, living with a local family that I didn’t meet until the day I walked in their front door. I rarely used English to communicate, as I was the only international student at an otherwise normal Japanese high school. This experience threw me into an unknown environment, and I was able to thrive. I had no immediate support system and had to navigate a foreign country using only the education I had received while in America. While I have traveled, this experience was nothing like a spring vacation. It helped me prepare for events out of my comfort zone and is the experience I believe will help me in the global engineering program.
Having shared interests with somebody is important as it gives a reason to connect and provides similar experiences. Participating in the same sports, or having the same hobby with someone down the hall would make it easy to get along and bond. This RAP will place me with like-minded people who share academic interests, but this isn’t quite enough. Throughout high school, I have found value in befriending people with different backgrounds and those who I never would have imagined meeting. I have been in some of the most diverse clubs and have made friends with individuals with many identities and learned much from them. I would want to live down the hall from someone who I could have only met by chance if not for belonging to the RAP. I would want to learn about a completely different background while being able to bond over similar interests, academic or not. I want the global engineering program to introduce me to people who are social and those who will teach me many valuable lessons.
I was told that an individual with an engineering degree can go out into the world and enter just about any profession. Rather than becoming an architectural engineer or joining a large American corporation after graduating, I would rather use my problem-solving skills to solve issues on a larger global scale. I became interested in being involved in international affairs after I studied abroad in Japan for an entire high school year, and would like to look internationally for my college education. Global engineering would be the perfect fit for me, helping me expand beyond the local or national level. I applied to CU for environmental engineering because I was taught the value of the environment by those around me. I thought my parents were crazy when they brought chickens home and built a small pen in our backyard. But then I figured, that’s just par for the course at our house - our family has always been environmentally conscious in everything we do. My parents don’t just talk about it - we live it. I was always taught to be responsible with my pollution and take care of the environment, especially as a resident of Colorado. It’s such a big deal that we stay away from plastic/paper silverware and even use environmentally friendly soap. We compost in our backyard and also own chickens who will occasionally eat those worms. These are the things that excited my interest in the environment and made me care about my impact on the Earth. This is also paired with an environmental systems and societies class that I took in my Junior year, which only deepened my curiosity about the subject. Looking at the environment as a global system is my goal during higher education, and helping tackle environmental issues on a global scale would be my goal as a member of the global engineering RAP.
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