Please explain why you want to be a member of the Global Engineering RAP at CU Boulder. Please include how you think this community will contribute to your training as an engineer and as a person and how you plan to contribute personally to the residential community: As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by different cultures. The first time I flew in an airplane, I was only a few months old being taken by my family to see my elderly grandfather on my father’s childhood farm. As I grew, I traveled more and more, often eagerly pressing my face to the cold window to get a glance at new foreign lands from high above the clouds. Perhaps this is where I first built my dreams of being an aerospace engineer, dreaming of going higher and higher into the sky to see more and more of the distant lands that I found so fascinating. While flying was always an exciting experience, the core memories I made from each trip were always surrounding the life of the individual in the country I was visiting. Whenever I was visiting family in Turkey, I relished the ability to live a life culturally different from my own at home, often biking from our family summer house to the beach on the Mediterranean, eating mussels bought from local vendors with the neighborhood boys, and learning how to buy ice cream in Turkish for my grandfather from the neighborhood market.
The older I got, however, the more details I picked up on when I visited different countries. I began to contemplate how life in a different country may not just be different but lacking in many opportunities I took for granted in my everyday life. I came to this realization during a trip to Turkey many years after my initial trips as a young boy. I remember walking through the streets of Selcuk, a nearby town to Izmir, and noticing a child, around eight years old, running here and there in the market. He was desperately trying to sell a small trinket, and I began to wonder where his parents were or why was he not in school. I realized that he must not have a school to go to, having to work at such a young age just to make ends meet. To me, this place had been a paradise till then, filled with days of swimming, eating, and traveling to nearby towns and historic ruins. I came to realize I had not been thinking about the life of a shepherd, metal worker, or fisherman and the poverty they may live in. While Turkey is a rapidly growing country, there are many regions in the country that are still drastically underdeveloped. I finally began to see the world for what it was: beautiful and awe-inspiring, but also imperfect and punishing.
Now, as I enter college following my childhood aspiration for planes and great heights with aerospace engineering, I also know that I want to make the world a better place with the skills I will acquire. I still carry my fascination for different cultures and the unique perspectives of others, and I want to have my college education encompass more than just engineering. I have always pursued a well-rounded education, taking IB/AP level courses that pertained to a variety of subjects, such as history, foreign language, music, science, mathematics, and literature. I want to learn more about who the people of the world are, what problems they face, and how we can work together to solve global poverty, inequity, malnutrition, and global warming.
By being a member of the Global Engineering RAP, I would get firsthand experience interacting with engineers who have similar aspirations and valuable perspectives, and I would also be able to add to the community of Global Engineering by bringing my unique perspective from my tri-cultural upbringing and travel experiences. This community would allow me to pursue a well-rounded education that pertains to my life dreams, enabling me to follow them to make our world a place for all to thrive.