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Submission Number: 409
Submission ID: 1355
Submission UUID: 2e4e2366-7b0f-48fb-b99d-ca445f28643d
Created: Sun, 04/07/2024 - 21:58
Completed: Sun, 04/07/2024 - 21:58
Changed: Wed, 05/07/2025 - 06:42
Remote IP address: 184.96.168.27
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English
Is draft: No
Locked: Yes
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Brandon
Lee
he/him
Denver
CO
United States
80230
Aerospace or Biomedical
English
I lead an entirely student-driven CubeSat team. Last year was our first year in development, and this year, as a senior mentor, I’m building upon last year’s successful launch. In last year’s team, my senior mentor, Henock, came from a world completely different from mine: he’s Ethiopian. He brought a unique exigence and motivated perspective to all of our meetings. Despite our contrasting pasts, we connected under our shared vision: creating equal educational opportunities through aerospace.
Hour after each meeting, Henock and I would discuss our aspirations while cleaning. In addition to our late-night collaborative ingenuity on unsoldering terminal blocks or deciphering polarity issues, we exchanged values to add depth to our perspectives on the impact we can create. We talked about our ideas around leadership from every lens we could imagine.
He would emphasize how the nature of our team’s community mirrors our broader purpose. I would emphasize the importance of the human exigence behind each technical task. We would consider our potential and the power of passion coupled with unmatched hard work.
Our deep critical thought taught me the value of intentional, diverse collaboration. From collectively analyzing circuitry to understand our CubeSat’s capabilities, to introducing radio telemetry, our differences interacted to create the possibilities of our mission.
As a leader this year, I now know how to consider our team dynamics as they relate to our objectives and develop our community-oriented purpose through interpersonal mentorship. I constantly consider the best ways to support the next generation: I hone my ability to explain our potential, emphasize our impact, and invite diversity. I’ve taken on the majority of day-to-day leadership responsibilities of our senior mentorship group: creating agendas, organizing timelines, connecting with students and professionals, and researching our challenges in a variety of engineering disciplines. Accordingly, I’m improving my ability to ask for help and communicate clearly with our senior leadership team.
The lessons from CubeSat also translate into the McAuliffe mentorship program, where I pair up with a struggling student. I mentored a boy named Angel. Despite our different families and backgrounds, we became true friends. We built rapport by sharing personal struggles along with triumphs. Every day, I thought about how I could discuss my story in a way where each lesson allows Angel to learn from my world. Through our time together, all of his grades improved, and he now pursues a passion for space. From Henock to Angel, the best interactions are among varied peers, and I embrace the importance of diversity everywhere.
The lessons on leadership and interpersonal connection from collaboration with students across any demographic translate into how I enrich my community and, by extension, the way I will interact with people in RAP. I’m ready to meet the most diverse, intelligent, and authentic people at Boulder. I’ll go out of my way to follow up on every available connection, and truly listen to everyone. I’ll consider their words and ideas from an open-minded awareness of our complex backgrounds.
Hour after each meeting, Henock and I would discuss our aspirations while cleaning. In addition to our late-night collaborative ingenuity on unsoldering terminal blocks or deciphering polarity issues, we exchanged values to add depth to our perspectives on the impact we can create. We talked about our ideas around leadership from every lens we could imagine.
He would emphasize how the nature of our team’s community mirrors our broader purpose. I would emphasize the importance of the human exigence behind each technical task. We would consider our potential and the power of passion coupled with unmatched hard work.
Our deep critical thought taught me the value of intentional, diverse collaboration. From collectively analyzing circuitry to understand our CubeSat’s capabilities, to introducing radio telemetry, our differences interacted to create the possibilities of our mission.
As a leader this year, I now know how to consider our team dynamics as they relate to our objectives and develop our community-oriented purpose through interpersonal mentorship. I constantly consider the best ways to support the next generation: I hone my ability to explain our potential, emphasize our impact, and invite diversity. I’ve taken on the majority of day-to-day leadership responsibilities of our senior mentorship group: creating agendas, organizing timelines, connecting with students and professionals, and researching our challenges in a variety of engineering disciplines. Accordingly, I’m improving my ability to ask for help and communicate clearly with our senior leadership team.
The lessons from CubeSat also translate into the McAuliffe mentorship program, where I pair up with a struggling student. I mentored a boy named Angel. Despite our different families and backgrounds, we became true friends. We built rapport by sharing personal struggles along with triumphs. Every day, I thought about how I could discuss my story in a way where each lesson allows Angel to learn from my world. Through our time together, all of his grades improved, and he now pursues a passion for space. From Henock to Angel, the best interactions are among varied peers, and I embrace the importance of diversity everywhere.
The lessons on leadership and interpersonal connection from collaboration with students across any demographic translate into how I enrich my community and, by extension, the way I will interact with people in RAP. I’m ready to meet the most diverse, intelligent, and authentic people at Boulder. I’ll go out of my way to follow up on every available connection, and truly listen to everyone. I’ll consider their words and ideas from an open-minded awareness of our complex backgrounds.
I love losing track of time in the fun of good friends, and I value discussions about our broader relation to the world. To restore my social energy, I read into the night by the soft glow of my duck lamp. I tirelessly analyze Chess and Go. I uncover all the secrets of a random puzzle. I find beauty in new and old piano pieces.
Coupled with my activities, the outdoors play a vital role in my work-life balance. I’m a lifelong runner, hiker, soccer player, and recent basketball player. I love the peace and harmony physical challenges introduce into my intellectually demanding routine.
Lastly, I wholeheartedly believe in the way community service fills an entirely unique kind of contribution. Impactful community projects through the NHS, and basketball with my mentee while we talk about academics, social life, and familial challenges allowed me to internalize the meaning behind well-intentioned service.
The beauty of connection to the person living down the hall: none of our activities or extracurriculars have to be shared since the central value behind how we spend our time unifies us.
The student down the hall enjoys their own hobbies as I do, and shares their interests, introducing new creative curiosities.
The friend down the hall enjoys the environment of Boulder, so we share the peace of outdoor activities or fun clubs.
The faculty down the hall cares about enriching each student, offering a unique view on a job dedicated to service for each aspiring engineer.
With a collection of brilliant mines and shared positive intent, the person down the hall pushes me just as much as I push them. Each of us builds a greater community of engineers who support one another through central ideals of creativity, dedication, and a willingness to explore our complex unknowns.
I hope to hear about the everyday fun of my peers as often as we share our triumphs (or difficult math classes). An enjoyable, passionate community where every person's a unique contribution.
Coupled with my activities, the outdoors play a vital role in my work-life balance. I’m a lifelong runner, hiker, soccer player, and recent basketball player. I love the peace and harmony physical challenges introduce into my intellectually demanding routine.
Lastly, I wholeheartedly believe in the way community service fills an entirely unique kind of contribution. Impactful community projects through the NHS, and basketball with my mentee while we talk about academics, social life, and familial challenges allowed me to internalize the meaning behind well-intentioned service.
The beauty of connection to the person living down the hall: none of our activities or extracurriculars have to be shared since the central value behind how we spend our time unifies us.
The student down the hall enjoys their own hobbies as I do, and shares their interests, introducing new creative curiosities.
The friend down the hall enjoys the environment of Boulder, so we share the peace of outdoor activities or fun clubs.
The faculty down the hall cares about enriching each student, offering a unique view on a job dedicated to service for each aspiring engineer.
With a collection of brilliant mines and shared positive intent, the person down the hall pushes me just as much as I push them. Each of us builds a greater community of engineers who support one another through central ideals of creativity, dedication, and a willingness to explore our complex unknowns.
I hope to hear about the everyday fun of my peers as often as we share our triumphs (or difficult math classes). An enjoyable, passionate community where every person's a unique contribution.
To understand why I hope to become a part of the Global Engineering RAP, I'll explain my hopes as an engineer and medical professional. To understand my professional dreams, I'll start with my family which drives my perspective:
My grandfather grew up impoverished in Korea. He tells me stories of studying until two a.m. in elementary school with flickering candle light. I love his stories, and even when the same scenes arise multiple times, I enjoy his tone. He’s transparent when describing his life, and his honesty creates a sense of pride in his path. He earned a spot at Seoul National University (four of 800 classmates), studied for three specialties, supported four children, and worked multiple jobs at 80+ hours a week. He retired very recently at 86. In his chaotic life, he remains wise, focused, and steadfast. He always preaches unity through what he calls “the triple combo”: attitude of gratitude, relationships, and family.
I dedicate my studies to building upon the legacy he leaves. He went from poverty to supporting a successful family. In stride, with disciplined hard work, I’ll continue upwards. My commitment to the change I envision motivated by my family legacy will never waver.
Coupled with the overarching legacy of unmatched hard work, my mother’s story, while similar in theme, includes more nuance.
In Detroit, the number blocks away from central Detroit, which harbors greater struggles in poverty and crime, are called miles. Eminem grew up on 8 Mile, my mom grew up on 10 Mile. She lived with a single mother who dropped out of college to help pay for medical school. Her stories of military barracks converted to homes set the scene for her journey to success.
Since I’ve visited Detroit so many times, her life feels so direct. Her story allowed me to internalize the incredible value of education, and inspired my devotion to empowering students with the same agency my mom changed her life with. Her intellectual curiosity born from intense studies inspires my own interests. While I tell her about quantum computing or engineering on long car rides, she encourages me to work toward the forefront of the fields I care about. She teaches me how to study, and how to explore my curiosity. I know how to take responsibility for my own learning, and transform my opportunities through personal agency. I forge my own path with my own character while diving into the fields I care about.
When coupled with my dedications, the development of identity with the best lessons from my family creates my distinctive, individual perspective guiding my engagement in the world.
Both sides of my family, built through hard work in medicine, culminate into me. I’ll continue my family legacy as an engineer, doctor, or both. I’ll invite diversity to build innovation in every community. As an engineer, I hope to address educational inequity through collaborative invention serving both the forefront of innovation, and student learning.
I thoroughly believe everyone deserves the opportunity to transform their lives through education. I hope to work with different disciplines and professionals across the world to empower our future one student at a time.
In engineering, I’m developing my aspirations through CubeSat. My parents gave me confidence in leading a morning meeting with our entire campus of 550+ students to invite artists, scientists, and women in STEM to the CubeSat team. Henock and I presented to the faculty leaders of every DSST school about the ways our team pioneers a new structure for education. The importance I place on unity motivates the leadership calls and in-person collaboration I structure with new student leaders.
In medicine, I research and innovate. I joined Cancer Day at CU Anschutz medical campus to explore my concern for seemingly incurable diseases. My inquisitiveness led to my research on Alzheimer’s connection to music, and I signed up for Anschutz’s virtual Cancer Center Student Symposium. My internship with Dr. Askenazi developed my perspective on humanitarian medical service and my awareness of human problems. On the other hand, my time at the surgical innovation lab created my adaptability to fast paced, collaborative, cutting-edge invention.
Each club or team I’m a part of offers the same opportunity to extend the meaning of my work to the world through connection. Regardless of the scope of a project, I choose my community involvement based on where my leadership and purpose creates valuable, shared discovery with substantial impact. I embrace open exchanges like my time with Askenazi’s patients to internalize novel lessons that grow into my heart, and extend to my identity.
With my family values, I hope to invite passionate engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, and teachers to help develop, amplify, and spread hands-on STEM projects. I’ll connect with professionals and students from every background to design the best projects for different levels of education. I’ll discuss with teacher’s to understand the potential barriers toward wide-spread STEM projects, and plausible solutions. I’ll network with a team of business and project management academics ready to create the infrastructure for STEM opportunities in every school. Through interdisciplinary studies, and collaborative diversity, we’ll innovate to create opportunities for kindergarteners, graduates, and everyone in between.
On a more intimate level, I hope to lead community engagement with people of all interests. I’ll mentor students through positive communication, and a quality of awareness for poverty or lack of educational opportunity. With a team of engineers or doctors, we’ll share our work with students as they learn to invent and create.
My world is full of possibilities within important ideals, complex roles, and unique contributions. At the center of my action thrives the way my family values enable my character. I’ll draw upon each of my family's lessons to empower my peers, and spread opportunity in every aspect of my collaborative engagements.
Lastly, I've recently had a spike in my interest for biomedical engineering because of my time working at the International Children's Spine Symposium. I recorded different spinal surgeries and noted the way each doctor's unique "flavor" of surgical approach affected results. I thought about the applications of all the fields I love in implants, designs, and solutions to extreme kyphosis in kids with scoliosis. My interest in medicine grew, and I hope to find the right connection between medicine and engineering throughout my career. In large part, I think I have a very unique opportunity in medicine. Not everyone has the opportunity to be a doctor and a good doctor. I believe I do. I believe I can fix extreme scoliosis which socially ostracizes kids when they don't receive proper care. I believe I can invent novel solutions to diseases like cancer such as the tiny particle accelerator being developed which could target, and kill cancer cells. I believe I can combine the incredible pool of medical knowledge with creative, practical engineering innovation. Through each big idea, the common thread of spreading my impact across the world runs through every goal I strive for. I hope RAP will be the program to help me build my innovation, spread my creativity, and learn alongside my Global Engineering RAP peers.
My grandfather grew up impoverished in Korea. He tells me stories of studying until two a.m. in elementary school with flickering candle light. I love his stories, and even when the same scenes arise multiple times, I enjoy his tone. He’s transparent when describing his life, and his honesty creates a sense of pride in his path. He earned a spot at Seoul National University (four of 800 classmates), studied for three specialties, supported four children, and worked multiple jobs at 80+ hours a week. He retired very recently at 86. In his chaotic life, he remains wise, focused, and steadfast. He always preaches unity through what he calls “the triple combo”: attitude of gratitude, relationships, and family.
I dedicate my studies to building upon the legacy he leaves. He went from poverty to supporting a successful family. In stride, with disciplined hard work, I’ll continue upwards. My commitment to the change I envision motivated by my family legacy will never waver.
Coupled with the overarching legacy of unmatched hard work, my mother’s story, while similar in theme, includes more nuance.
In Detroit, the number blocks away from central Detroit, which harbors greater struggles in poverty and crime, are called miles. Eminem grew up on 8 Mile, my mom grew up on 10 Mile. She lived with a single mother who dropped out of college to help pay for medical school. Her stories of military barracks converted to homes set the scene for her journey to success.
Since I’ve visited Detroit so many times, her life feels so direct. Her story allowed me to internalize the incredible value of education, and inspired my devotion to empowering students with the same agency my mom changed her life with. Her intellectual curiosity born from intense studies inspires my own interests. While I tell her about quantum computing or engineering on long car rides, she encourages me to work toward the forefront of the fields I care about. She teaches me how to study, and how to explore my curiosity. I know how to take responsibility for my own learning, and transform my opportunities through personal agency. I forge my own path with my own character while diving into the fields I care about.
When coupled with my dedications, the development of identity with the best lessons from my family creates my distinctive, individual perspective guiding my engagement in the world.
Both sides of my family, built through hard work in medicine, culminate into me. I’ll continue my family legacy as an engineer, doctor, or both. I’ll invite diversity to build innovation in every community. As an engineer, I hope to address educational inequity through collaborative invention serving both the forefront of innovation, and student learning.
I thoroughly believe everyone deserves the opportunity to transform their lives through education. I hope to work with different disciplines and professionals across the world to empower our future one student at a time.
In engineering, I’m developing my aspirations through CubeSat. My parents gave me confidence in leading a morning meeting with our entire campus of 550+ students to invite artists, scientists, and women in STEM to the CubeSat team. Henock and I presented to the faculty leaders of every DSST school about the ways our team pioneers a new structure for education. The importance I place on unity motivates the leadership calls and in-person collaboration I structure with new student leaders.
In medicine, I research and innovate. I joined Cancer Day at CU Anschutz medical campus to explore my concern for seemingly incurable diseases. My inquisitiveness led to my research on Alzheimer’s connection to music, and I signed up for Anschutz’s virtual Cancer Center Student Symposium. My internship with Dr. Askenazi developed my perspective on humanitarian medical service and my awareness of human problems. On the other hand, my time at the surgical innovation lab created my adaptability to fast paced, collaborative, cutting-edge invention.
Each club or team I’m a part of offers the same opportunity to extend the meaning of my work to the world through connection. Regardless of the scope of a project, I choose my community involvement based on where my leadership and purpose creates valuable, shared discovery with substantial impact. I embrace open exchanges like my time with Askenazi’s patients to internalize novel lessons that grow into my heart, and extend to my identity.
With my family values, I hope to invite passionate engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, and teachers to help develop, amplify, and spread hands-on STEM projects. I’ll connect with professionals and students from every background to design the best projects for different levels of education. I’ll discuss with teacher’s to understand the potential barriers toward wide-spread STEM projects, and plausible solutions. I’ll network with a team of business and project management academics ready to create the infrastructure for STEM opportunities in every school. Through interdisciplinary studies, and collaborative diversity, we’ll innovate to create opportunities for kindergarteners, graduates, and everyone in between.
On a more intimate level, I hope to lead community engagement with people of all interests. I’ll mentor students through positive communication, and a quality of awareness for poverty or lack of educational opportunity. With a team of engineers or doctors, we’ll share our work with students as they learn to invent and create.
My world is full of possibilities within important ideals, complex roles, and unique contributions. At the center of my action thrives the way my family values enable my character. I’ll draw upon each of my family's lessons to empower my peers, and spread opportunity in every aspect of my collaborative engagements.
Lastly, I've recently had a spike in my interest for biomedical engineering because of my time working at the International Children's Spine Symposium. I recorded different spinal surgeries and noted the way each doctor's unique "flavor" of surgical approach affected results. I thought about the applications of all the fields I love in implants, designs, and solutions to extreme kyphosis in kids with scoliosis. My interest in medicine grew, and I hope to find the right connection between medicine and engineering throughout my career. In large part, I think I have a very unique opportunity in medicine. Not everyone has the opportunity to be a doctor and a good doctor. I believe I do. I believe I can fix extreme scoliosis which socially ostracizes kids when they don't receive proper care. I believe I can invent novel solutions to diseases like cancer such as the tiny particle accelerator being developed which could target, and kill cancer cells. I believe I can combine the incredible pool of medical knowledge with creative, practical engineering innovation. Through each big idea, the common thread of spreading my impact across the world runs through every goal I strive for. I hope RAP will be the program to help me build my innovation, spread my creativity, and learn alongside my Global Engineering RAP peers.
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