STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The celebrated scientist, humanitarian, and Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling once said: “Do unto others 25% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.” In his quote, Dr.Pauling suggests that our capacity to place ourselves in another’s shoes falls short due to a built-in cognitive bias. But he also suggests that we have the ability to adjust for this bias through a twenty five percent increase in empathy towards others. Dr. Pauling’s amendment to The Golden Rule intellectually excites and inspires me because it quantifies empathy, reminds us of our agency over it and thus our ability to foster it, and elegantly places it at the center of the ethic of reciprocity. With its dual emphasis on empathy and scientific thinking, I find that the quote reflects two core aspects of who I am. …show more content…
This basic interest led me to take up Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry as my major subjects in high school. As a part of my Physics project, I had constructed logic gates and simple latches using basic circuit elements. I was so astounded by the Power of Electronics. This interest made me to take Electronics as a major in my undergrad. I find engineering exciting and have spent the last six years after high school building the necessary foundation with an aim to become a pioneer within the engineering community. This journey began early on when I was introduced to one of the many skills that goes into innovative thinking required for engineering. At the age of six, I was taking apart every mechanical toy that I could get my hands on, trying to find out what makes the toy tick. One day my dad, fed up with the broken toys around the house, challenged me to build something out of these broken