Mechanical Engineering Masters, Asia, Nepal

I wish to enroll in the mechanical engineering program at XXU, because it will provide the most excellent, inclusive and diverse program for me to achieve the highest level of competence as well as training in logic and creative thinking.  It is inclusive because it includes the top professors in the field and the latest cutting edge advances in engineering.  It is diverse, because the program encompasses so broad a variety of the aspects of this field.

 I was born and raised in Kathmandu (“Cat” – mandu) Nepal, which is located north of India. The city stands high up at an elevation of approximately 4,600 ft in the bowl-shaped valley in central Nepal surrounded by four major mountains.  The famous Mount Everest lies on our border with communist China.

 Nepal, which is mostly Hindu, is a very poor country, where many people struggle for existence. I grew up in a neighborhood very different from where I now live in Houston.  Many times the women still have to draw water from a water pump on the street. Everybody knew every one and looked out for each other. I can still remember the crowing of roosters waking me up at five a.m. and coming home from school to the delightful aroma of my mother’s special vegetarian curry dish. My parents were loving people who always encouraged my brothers and me to do something great with our lives.  They were poor by American standards, but middle class by Nepal standards.

 At an early age, I became fascinated with the technology of computers. Computers were not common in Nepal at that period of time and my family could not afford one because they were so expensive. Thus, whenever I got time, I used to go to the computer library at my school and try to learn how to use them.  My teachers helped me a lot with that and I got the chance to take some computer courses.

 Later on, I used go to a nearby pawn shop and bring home some damaged computer hardware parts and try to fix them and learn how they worked. My father worked with book suppliers, so he used to bring me lots of books regarding technologies and computers. They were really interesting and helped me a lot to understand how things worked.  After finishing high school, I planned to study computer science in Nepal.  I went to visit many universities and colleges but to my sore disappointment, I could not find a single university or college which offered the type of courses I needed to study or the technologies for it.

 I had run out of options when my teacher suggested I try to study abroad. I went for vocational counseling at several institutes in Nepal and they suggested that the best place to learn engineering and computer technology would be United States. My dear parents scraped together everything they could and I arrived in the US at the age of 17.   I have attended different universities here, but have come to realize that in the mechanical engineering program at XXU, I have found the tremendous educational resources for which I was searching. 

 I know that the course of study in your program is academically very demanding. I am prepared to meet those challenges. I was quite a good student back home. I was the first student in the class and always ahead. The first university I attended here in the United States was Grambling State University in Louisiana where I had a 4.0 G.P.A. Now I am attending San Jacinto College and I have maintained a normal G.P.A of 3.53. I have completed physics (1 and 2), chemistry (1 and 2), calculus (1, 2 and 3), biology 1, computer science fundamentals of programming (1 and 2) Auto CAD, and basic liberal arts courses. I am determined to strive for excellence in the program at XXU.

 There is a line in popular book which says, "A person should always seek knowledge even if they have to travel more than one million miles to receive it and after the knowledge is acquired it should be used to serve humanity." This is one of the reasons why I decided to remain here in this long journey all the way from Nepal to the USA to learn more about computer science.

 You see, my dream is to someday return to my native country and use the knowledge I have obtained at Texas A&M to open a center in which to train young people in computer science and aspects of engineering. This will help to raise the standard of living by empowering them with the training necessary to enter and work in this challenging field.