Submission Number: 224
Submission ID: 927
Submission UUID: 62b979ed-eb8b-47b7-9329-5ed94900c5d8

Created: Wed, 04/13/2022 - 23:36
Completed: Wed, 04/13/2022 - 23:36
Changed: Fri, 05/09/2025 - 22:05

Remote IP address: 128.138.129.163
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No

Flagged: Yes
Locked: Yes
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Miriam
Nieberg
she/her
Centennial
Colorado
United States
80111
General Engineering
English (5), Spanish (2)
While I haven't specifically studied abroad at all, I have had the luck and the privilege to both travel around the world and gain an appreciation for the global community. I've visited the UK, Italy, France, Canada, and Israel and seen major cultural artifacts from each. However, vastly more important than any amount of surface level travel, what has prepared me for the Global Engineering RAP is the good fortune of having liberal, worldly parents that always tried to expand my horizons. That, in turn, helped guide me toward educational resources online that have taught me more about the beauty and accomplishments of other cultures than all of my public school education combined. Furthermore, my parents never sugarcoated history for me. Their knowledge of history is vast and complex and wise in a way my view still lacks and they imparted much of it to me largely unfiltered, like sunlight through a sukkah. I then expanded on this wealth of knowledge through my own research. I know enough to know how little of all history and culture I comprehend, but my upbringing has fostered a drive inside me to learn more.
The most important aspect of a person to me, in any setting, is unbridled authenticity and honesty. I am of the belief that everyone has something good about them and that everyone has something in common with everyone else. I've found that its easiest to find both when a person is being sincere, especially when they're "nerding out" about what excites them. Since 6th grade, every person I've met in an educational environment either masked their interests or were mocked for caring about things and I think that's a genuine detriment to us both personally and globally because it makes people afraid to talk up about things they care about or want to pursue. I want the people I'm around to be weird and enthusiastic and open about their feelings because that's how you build community and how you maintain it. As long as people are honest about their feelings, nearly nothing else matters because the vast majority of problems can be solved through conversation founded on mutual understanding and goodwill.
I have always cared deeply about making actual change to the world with my life. The reason I love engineering and STEM as a whole is because I see it as a sort of magic-- the ability to bend the laws of nature to our will as a species. Engineering is what creates light from invisible particles, allows instant worldwide communication, and feeds billions of people. It's also what extracts millions of barrels of planet-destroying oil from the ground each year, allows for the deforestation of massive swathes of land, and creates the most destructive objects in millions of years to perpetuate war and conquest. I want to revolutionize the world for the better no matter the personal cost and I want to be around people who want to do the same. I believe the Global Engineering RAP will give me that chance. Furthermore, I think to have any chance of doing so, its a necessity to have a global perspective and to understand the complex webs of structural inequality, corporate greed, and government infighting that can turn even the most mundane of inventions into malignant creations. I think this community will broaden my view of the world and recontextualize what I've taken for granted given my particular upbringing. A broader worldview isn't just critical for engineering with minimal harm, it's also the most powerful tool of an engineer. Our job, at its core, is to solve problems. The more ways we can approach a problem, the greater the chance we have at overcoming it. I hope to do the same for my peers as I hope they will do for me. As a trans woman, as a Jewish person, as a politically active person, and as a storyteller among other things, I hope to bring a unique perspective to the table that can perhaps shift even one person's world view, so that we all can live in a better world.
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