4.

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or

worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

Engineering, in all of its cold calculations and uncompromising demand for truth, always held my
interest more than books filled with fantastical creatures or movies with flying superheroes. This interest
grew to a passion once I joined the the Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement program (MESA),
during middle school. The members of this program were intellectuals interested in advancing their
understanding of engineering and were willing to let me partake in their journey. My time at MESA was
short but through it I took a three-day engineering course at USC's Wrigley Marine Science Center where
I helped my team construct a RC controlled boat. MESA in joint with USCs program solidified my
ideologies and career pathway plus it helped keep me on a positive route from which I almost fell astray.

To further my passion, I joined the High School Summer Research Program (HSSRP) during my
junior year, which gathered sixty young adults from across the nation. We worked under the supervision
of professors and graduate students from UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering for two months.
I was placed in Professors Dante Simonettis chemical engineering laboratory under graduate student Sara
Azzam. My research was an investigation in the application of different copper oxide morphologies in
catalytic adsorption desulfurization of hydrocarbon streams or in simpler terms the desulfurization of oil
using copper oxide in different forms. This program was time-consuming and rigorous because our
research required graduate level understanding with only a high school background and because of that I
spent the majority of the programs first week grinding through a vast array of scientific journals
deciphering their jargon to have a basic understanding. Once I understood the foundation of my research I
conduct my own experiment which required me to synthesise material, set up a test reactor, and to analyze
results. Two months later I presented my research at a symposium and in no way was I near a completed
thesis but what I did finish was an opportunity of a lifetime which gave me an insight on an engineering
field that few high school or undergraduate students ever have.