Wellesley: 100 Reasons Why ~

Prompt: When choosing a college community, you are choosing an intellectual community and a place where you believe that you can live, learn, and flourish. We know that there are more than 100 reasons to choose Wellesley, but it’s a good place to start. Visit the Wellesley 100 and select one or two items that attract, inspire, or energize you. Have fun with this and use this opportunity to reflect personally on what items appeal to you most and why. Please limit your response to the Wellesley College essay to two well-developed paragraphs (minimum 250 words, maximum 400 words).

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The strength and independence my mother embody and the support she has given me motivate me to keep challenging myself inside and outside of school. The experience of being around female role models like my mother is what inspires me to pursue a woman’s college education. Being a young woman interested in engineering and physics, I have always believed in the importance of having a supportive network and seeing females holding leadership positions in male-dominated fields. I am attracted to Wellesley’s science programs because they offer the type of support and excellence that I seek in a college education. I am especially interested in Wellesley’s Science Center (#70). With professional features like the observatory telescope, greenhouse, and lab spaces, the Science Center would provide me with the resources needed to further develop my interest in STEM. In addition to the physical resources at the Science Center, events like the Brachman Hoffman Symposium and Staley lecture would allow me to gain insights on research studies done by faculty members in the forefront of their expertise. At the same time, the Summer Research Poster Session and the Ruhlman Conference would provide opportunities for students who are interested in research like me to present research results and collaborate with Wellesley faculty members.

In tandem with science education, I am also attracted to Wellesley’s excellence in liberal arts (#7). I have always believed in the value of a liberal arts education, as it would provide me with the knowledge necessary for understanding the application of STEM in solving real-life problems. Although sometimes overlooked in STEM education, I wish to further develop my communication skills, as it is an essential component of collaborating learning, and leadership skills, which is vital in teamwork, through my college education. This is why I especially value the two sets of skills at the heart of Wellesley’s liberal arts education—communication and management of human systems (leadership)—as they will benefit me as I segue into the professional world after college. With the foundational knowledge of a liberal arts education, I will be able to truly understand what engineering for humanity means and how to use my humanity in engineering as I further my studies.