Alexie Walker

College English

College Application Essay

11 September 2020

Planting the Seed

Imagine a lackadaisical sophomore just coasting through high school, not truly passionate

about anything significant but not uninterested in success. She was just idling somewhere in the

middle of the spectrum. She had stellar grades but often questioned the purpose of working so

hard; she genuinely had no clue what she could contribute to the world besides an exceptional

ability to memorize information. That girl who often felt lost and stressed about the future was

me up until a couple of weeks into my sophomore year. All it took was a required biology class

and a topic that completely took me by surprise to change how I saw my entire future.

The story of when I realized my whole world was going to change was, unfortunately,

not extraordinary. Sitting in the back corner by the eyewash station and a collection of succulents

in mismatched pots, I was absorbing the day’s lesson. The lesson in question was the first time I

had ever heard of someone named Gregor Mendel and a diagram called a Punnett square. I was

instantly fascinated. As the course continued, my interest grew with it; we covered more

complex genetic composition and mutations, and I couldn’t get enough. I remember being

genuinely excited to come to class for what seemed like the very first time in my high school

career. It was an extremely refreshing feeling, and as the year progressed, my excitement did not

waver.
 Fast forward to the conclusion of my sophomore year: I passed biology with flying

colors. Little did I know, there would be another key moment that would further spike my

interest in plant genetics. I found myself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram one day when I

stumbled upon a story about a group of college students running an interesting experiment. They

had uprooted a fully grown tree and replanted it so the leaves and branches were in the ground,

and the roots were facing the sky. The story claimed that the tree prospered in this seemingly

unnatural scenario. Completely mesmerized at that moment, I remember becoming quite eager to

learn everything I could about the complex plant genome and how it was able to accomplish such

an outlandish thing. Not only did this event help encourage my interest, but it also spurred me to

start talking about my newfound passion to anyone in my family who would listen. As a

normally quiet and reserved person, I shocked even myself by showing so much excitement for

something completely new to me. During a long car ride with my mom, I remember absolutely

talking her ear off about everything genetics and how I could incorporate that into a future

career. She patiently listened as I struggled to get all of my ideas out quickly enough. The

excitement I felt for genetics was actually quite abnormal; I am always thinking and cultivating

theories, but as people close to me know, only on rare occasions are my thoughts spoken so

freely.

Not only is the study of genetics wildly interesting, but I have always had a goal to

contribute something useful to the world; I see a career in plant sciences and genetics as a way to

achieve that. As I continued to visualize my future self making legitimate change in this field, I

was hopeful that my heroesque goal might not be as far off as I once believed. I also started

thinking about ways plants could be studied and improved to better suit our rapidly changing
environment; in the future, I hope to realistically make beneficial changes to the agricultural

world. As an added perk, fulfilling this goal through work that captivates me would hardly feel

like work at all.

Having a passion always seemed like something imaginary to me. I associated it with

dedicating one’s life to a service project or having exceptional talent in the arts. Considering my

attempts at art are usually sore ones, being extremely passionate about something just felt like it

would never come to me. Little did I know that an awakened love for science would

unexpectedly change my entire life’s goals. From being a directionless sophomore to a hopeful

senior my views on the future have definitely changed, and I cannot wait to work towards living

my dream.