Considering your lifetime goals, discuss how your current and future academic and extra-curricular activities might help you achieve your goals.
Despite my fear of heights, I have always been fascinated by mankind’s greatest invention, flight. Since the tender age of 8, I have always been fixated on choosing a career path that had anything to do with airplanes. Throughout the years I have participated in many activities that have provided me with experiences and insight into the world of aeronautical engineering, valuable lesson that simply cannot be simulated or learned about in a book. My father’s diagnosis with brain cancer had a devastating effect on my family. Being impossible for my mother alone to keep up with all the medical bills and doctor appointments, we were forced to move back to India for support from our family and friends. Unfortunately, the education system in India gives no importance to extra-curricular activities and thus finding an activity was rare, especially activities that involve something as unique as aeronautical engineering. During my three-year stay in India, many factors such as my family’s financial situation have barred me from participating in many activities. Nevertheless, I have made every effort within my reach to keep myself busy.
After two years of many struggles and hardships, my father passed away, and we continued to live in India for another year until we got back on our feet. Following much discussion, it was decided that during the summer of 2013, we would be moving back to the U.S. to pursue higher studies. Following our arrival back to the U.S., I knew that there were a wide variety of activities that would prepare me for the future. Luckily, I found an organization that would provide me with all of the three activities that I have been looking for, and this organization was the Civil Air Patrol. The Civil Air Patrol is a federally supported non-profit volunteer organization that serves as the official civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Having always been an active member in many