WHY DO YOU WANT TO MAJOR IN

COMPUTER SCIENCE?
A College Application Essay I wrote for Carnegie Mellon University.
December 19, 2014

'When I was a kid, I remember other kids telling their aims. One kid would
say, 'I'd become a pilot', another would say, 'I'd become a doctor' and so on. At
that time I saw somebody typing long codes that turned into an amazing game;
I found those codes so amazing that I decided that I'll be a programmer one
day.' I wish I could say something like that; I wish I had a perfect story right
from my childhood that would complement my selection of Computer Science
as a major. However, the reality is that it was not until the twelfth grade in
High School that I decided to get into CS.
Earlier, I was confused between CS and ACCA. But my brother turned out
to be an inspiration for me. He was majoring in CS and it was really fascinating,
and envying at the same time, seeing him get several big opportunities to make
projects, remain occupied with work, work on codes and see them transforming
into something he could call his own - something he could call 'his invention',
'his creation'. That was enough to induce an ardent love for CS within me, and
the plant gradually took root.
I made my decision and, therefore, here I'm doing my Bachelor's in CS from
FAST NUCES. Now when I am into this, I'm literally enjoying the eld, and I
would like to pursue the same eld as a freshman at Carnegie Mellon. Why I love
CS is because of the delights of programming. It is just wonderful to sit back
on your chair, type some mere piece of code in a language unknown to common
people, and see it turn into something concrete. It is such a liberating feeling
to see your few lines of text turn into a computer program - it's like inventing
something out of nothing. When I am given a programming assignment or a
set of questions in a speed programming competition, I sit back like a thinker,
tackle each question like a scientist, develop logics like a mathematician, design
the code like an architect, develop the code like a builder and when I am done I
check whether it compiles or not. Does it do what I want it to? If it does not, I
correct it. The most magical moment is when after spending hours for that 'Oh
I get it' moment, my little piece of art works the way I want it to work. The
sheer joy of looking at my program come into life is the same as that of a child
when he makes something out of the scattered pieces of Lego. I remember how
wonderful did it feel to see my code of simple loops printing a mere triangle on
console.
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Moreover, in programming there are many ways to solve a single problem;

every programmer has a dierent approach and there is always a cleverer way,
a better solution. This makes it a challenging journey where at every point you
nd ways to improve yourself. You keep on questioning yourself, 'Can I make it
better?', until you make it the best. You keep on learning and growing in this
never ending endeavor.
One of my hobbies, cross stitching, shares so much in common with programming. At the end of your work, you've something you could look at sometime in
the future and be proud of. Moreover, if you are a programmer, you develop a
desire within yourself to make something so remarkable that it should be useful
to others - a piece of art that you can show to other people, and hear them
praise it. This is no dierent than the moment of pleasure when a kid, after
building something out of pieces of Lego, exclaims with pride, 'Hey mom look
what I've made!'
I remember when me and my brother were in school, I was not into programming as much as I am now, but I had an earnest desire to participate in
computer exhibitions that took place every year. So he used to help me make
projects. When I was in the fth grade, he helped me make a chatting software
for LAN that had several unique features, like a browser, the option to video
chat, FTP, and multiplayer mini-games. The very next year, we improved it
further and named it 'Free Style'. It was more of a social networking tool - a
kind of Orkut for LAN. When I reached the ninth grade, we together built the
most fascinating project of my life so far: 'Face Recognizing Robot'. It was a
software-hardware project. As the camera detected the motion of any object,
the face of the robot rotated towards the direction of motion.Also, with the face
recognizing software developed in Visual Basic, whenever the camera detected
a face, it saved that picture in the computer and anytime it saw the same face
again, it would recognize it.
I'm just in my rst year of CS and at the moment I can just imagine the
possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead of me. I have a great liking for
'Game Development'. Would not it be wonderful to develop a character of a
game, make arm and leg movements, create animations and amuse the audiences
with the magic of mere texts? Would not it be incredible to make castles in the
air, dream of something that never existed, build your own projects like a leader
and create a whole universe in shape of a program or a game? Of course it would
be! Some six months ago, my brother was participating in game development
in the Imagine Cup. He had to develop 3 levels for it and he was done with one
when he asked me to help him create the design for the other levels and I still
remember the feeling of contentment that I had when I designed them and saw
them convert into concreteness.
At the end, I believe I and any other programmer, who does it for the love of
the eld, feels no dierent from a young child, who tirelessly tries to make the
pieces of lego, t them into each other, jostles, and gets frustrated sometimes,
but the curiosity and the desire to complete the lego castle, or the program,
in my case, brings unmatchable euphoria, the incomparable feeling of joy. We
are all young at heart, and I want to make the most of my scientic curiosity,
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and play lego, metaphorically, at the Carnegie Mellon University, for it is the
uncontestable leader in producing the tidiest of programmers.