Submission Number: 515
Submission ID: 1661
Submission UUID: 607b3c85-8e5b-471c-bfec-d54df06c079b

Created: Wed, 04/02/2025 - 00:37
Completed: Wed, 04/02/2025 - 00:46
Changed: Sun, 04/20/2025 - 15:16

Remote IP address: 2601:600:9200:e810:483a:fec7:64f6:3f8
Submitted by:Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No

Flagged: Yes
Locked: Yes
Yes
Shrimayi
Sinkar babu Bharathy
she/her
Issaquah
Washington
United States
98029
Computer Science
English (5), Tamil (4), Hindi (2), French (3)
When I immigrated to the US from India, at 11 years old, I was fascinated by a new world full of people who spoke various languages, ate diverse foods, and lived differently. I had just started a tradition in my lunch group to swap parts of our meals as a fun way to immerse myself into the culture, often ending up with a lunch box of a diverse mix of Indian, Korean, Swedish and American foods. In 10 months however, in March 2020, the pandemic had started and hindered this tradition. But it offered a new lens through which to immerse myself into the culture: the internet. During this time, social media helped me learn more about the differences in American and Indian values, social norms and much more. The most noticeable difference was the emphasis on freedom of expression and how it manifested through the lack of a school uniform. I learned how this method of expression was vital for a community to foster individuality and celebrate diversity. Years later in high school, when I joined ASB, I gave students an opportunity to express their voice by inviting them to speak about their culture and languages during morning announcements. This initiative not only highlighted the diverse backgrounds of my peers but also encouraged mutual respect within our school community. I aspire to use my experiences as an immigrant to further help me broaden my worldview in Global Engineering RAP.
Learning about the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in the US, helped me understand the impact that one’s environment can make on achieving their full potential. Living in a country, where even booming tech cities had power outages every few months, I understood how detrimental the lack of such resources could be for under-resourced communities. These varied experiences I had living in the US and India underscored the importance of engineering solutions to secure an equitable, global future that will help people reach the top of the Maslow’s Hierarchy, to achieve “self-actualization” or full potential. I believe understanding various cultures will help engineers craft solutions tailored to help unique challenges faced by various communities, and be open-minded to problem-solve in different angles.
I wish to contribute in fields related to optimizing energy use such as in research programs like Infrastructure and Disaster Recovery and Heating Energy for Navajo Nation. I am excited to learn how computer science principles can be applied in this context and work closely with not just computer science professors, but also other diverse faculty who can help me solve world-wide problems. This community can help me grow my problem solving abilities and branch out beyond the traditional applications of computer science. I hope to expand my knowledge and collaborate with other like-minded individuals in Williams Village North to broaden my cultural awareness and engage in projects that combine computer science and other forms of engineering to solve real-world problems.
Resume1.docx(68.21 KB)