Blake Schow

Personal Statement

Sitting on the cold and dusty floor, there six years old me sat watching with great awe as

my grandpa helped my dad on his newest project of finishing our basement. As I sat watching

them work on putting together the stud walls, my grandpa would occasionally call me over and

have me help him in whatever way I could. As I would help he would teach me what he was

doing and why, such as telling me that only the “treated wood” was allowed to sit on the

concrete floors in order to prevent the wood from rotting. These vast experiences as a small child

made me love to hear that something was broken or needed to be built because that always meant

one thing, “Papa fix it.” Throughout my childhood, I couldn’t see something broken without

uttering those three words and being excited, knowing that I would get to watch my grandpa try

to fix whatever the problem was. Whether it was repairing an appliance in the house, fixing a

problem with our car, or finishing our basement, I loved watching my grandpa build things. Not

only would I get to watch my grandpa build things, but I would also get to help him with these

projects. Through watching and helping him with these projects, it allowed me to learn about

how different things work and about how different things are built. It was through these

experiences as a child where I first expressed my love for engineering.

As I have gotten older and gone through lots of schooling, I have learned to enjoy and

show significant interests in many of the aspects of engineering, such as designing, building, and

mathematics. During the past few years, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to figure out

what I wanted to do as a career in my life. I took lots of different classes, I took personality tests

online, I looked up different types of jobs that I could see myself doing, and tried lots of other
methods to figure out what I wanted to do. Through this process, I was able to know that I had a

love for designing and building things. I also was able to see that math was something that I

always seemed to do and understand well, which made me want to use it in my life. Through

learning these things, it became apparent to me that engineering is what I wanted to go into and

spend my life doing.

As I look back, I am now able to see that throughout my life, I have always shown great

love and interest in engineering. This can be easily seen from my joy of watching my grandpa

build things. This is because the reason I liked helping my grandpa fix things, and the reason I

still like helping my grandpa fix stuff to this day is that I love learning how things work. All of

the above aspects of engineering that I love tie into why I like to know how things work. This is

because, through observation and mathematics, I am better able to understand how and why

something functions the way it does. When I understand how and why something functions, I am

then able to design and build it in the same or better way, which I love to do.

As I once again get to help and watch my grandpa finish the basement in my new house, I

can see that I am still that little boy, with that love of engineering in his heart, watching in awe as

his grandpa helps fix his house.