Thanks a lot, any help is appreciative! I'm late to the party, but hoping to get a good/reasonable personal statement out there ASAP.
(i.e. is there any way to mention the italicized paragraph without sounding stupid?)>>>>>>>>>>>
Growing up, I always knew I would aspire to achieve higher education at all levels, but I can’t say I was always completely sure what that would exactly entail. Majoring in Marketing, Business Administration, Video Production, Engineering – my mind was anything but made up as I went through high school. My parents have always instilled an appreciation of education in my mind, beginning at a young age. My father attended X University when I was much younger, and even at that time I knew how important it was to him when he successfully graduated with an MBA. I still remember a 1998 trip to the local engraving shop, proud of my father and dead-set on purchasing a statuesque ‘Business Man’ trophy for his desk to commemorate the achievement; with my mother’s help of course. These types of small, yet important events, helped mold me to value and desire an education at a higher level.
Computers, LCD monitors, circuit kits, and a television – these were the big items that filled my room as I applied for colleges during my senior year of high school. I’ve always held a strong passion for all things technology and electronics – to the point that it essentially mandated my course of study as I transitioned to a college student. “Electrical Engineering” I placed on my applications for every university in which I had applied. I was excited to learn the ins and outs of the engineering world, and how modern day technology operated at a technical level. Throughout my days at college, I began to discover the immense importance of also intense human interaction and relationships, and how they can help foster further growth in almost any field. My senior design project, in which we were placed in groups of four students and given an open-ended project, most clearly defined why these relationships were so important. Many students were not able to quickly mold their group together to form a social bond, whereas our group members were extremely close from the beginning. This aspect helped us achieve success by the end of our project, being able to assign tasks, define our individual roles, and know our commitments to the group. We ended the year completing a working Thermoelectric Generator (TEG), using a DC-DC Boost system to successfully charge a pocket device with the wasted heat from a laptop computer. The engineering aspect was required, but the human aspect was just as important.
I was able to join the Electric Power Industry work force immediately after my college graduation, partly due to holding a cooperative education position since my sophomore year at that same company. Soon after beginning my full-time position I began to realize that my career detailed much more than simple one-line circuit diagrams, logic tables, and voltage graphs. I began to notice that engineered power facilities, discussions with outside parties, and regulatory actions all dealt with legal consequences. Aside from the engineering aspects, I was also starting to get heavily involved with the federal regulations and reliability standards with which power companies must comply. These reliability standards were mandated by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which went into effect in 2007, so the legal consequences were actually fairly new to everyone. Along with these new regulations, my company added “Compliance” to my engineering title, officially confirming that my position detailed much more than just engineering work. My direct supervisor, who is the Director of Engineering and Regulatory Commissions, came to our company with a background that focused more on the regulatory side of the utility industry, a side in which I wasn’t familiar with from school. He has since fundamentally changed the way I looked at the industry, how I approach agreements, discussions, and the new reliability standards. I now realize that being able to articulate and discuss these power system projects and compliance with a legal mind is of the utmost importance to our company, our end-use consumers, and our system reliability.
I’ve always had a love for discussion, formulating debates, and reasoning. Many of my friends in life have detailed this passion in a slightly negative light, while still noting that I was usually successful. This success is usually because I find great joy in looking at discussions as a logical puzzle – almost a formulation of the English language, tinkering with the words to form a thought which will be successful. While there is obviously no exact answer, there are surely more correct ways to state something, and with this new realization I took greater understanding in how society formulates its written rules. I was made even aware of many of these formulations while helping my company sift through Engineering Studies and Agreements of various concerns, many of being submitted to federal agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The past few years I’ve broadened my scope quite a bit, and along with this I’ve broadened what I hope to achieve in my career. Realizing the extremely relevant importance of legal counsel in the Electric Utility Industry, I began to pursue the idea of a continuing my education, but this time with a focus on Law. I wanted to be more involved with the day-to-day, rather than only planning and individual projects. The notion to attend law school became of even more essence when my direct supervisor, having spent 30 years in the industry, recommended that I pursue a Law Degree. Since that recommendation, especially, I’ve been determined to fulfill my desire to attend X University Law School this coming fall.
