Does this essay demonstrate flow, clarity, and passion?

I am applying to school and, after 3-4 weeks of thinking and writing essay iterations, I ended up with the essay below.

What are your professional objectives? (300 words)

I have one professional objective: Push forward the personal robotics market.

Over the last few decades, robotics research has made considerable strides towards solving hard robotics problems such as navigating unknown environments, recognizing and manipulating objects, and using natural language to interact. These advances have resulted in some interesting robotic applications, ranging from autonomous vacuum cleaners and self-parking cars to personal software assistants. Yet, I believe these applications are just the tip of the iceberg in a whole new wave of personal robotics applications to hit the marketplace.

My belief is that this new wave of applications promises to transform society in extreme new ways. Among this new wave, self-driving cars promise to permit a much faster, cheaper and safer transportation infrastructure, robotic nursing assistants promise to bring quality of life to a raising number of elder people, and user-friendly flexible robots promise to liberate us from the chores in the house. In a nutshell, personal robotics promise to automize slavish and repetitive tasks and usher in a new age in our society, an age with less dependency on manual tasks and more on creative and stimulating ones.

This vision is what really excites me about personal robotics. It is the opportunity to combine my fascination for robotics with real impact in people’s lives, it is the opportunity to push forward such a transformative change.

I would greatly appreciate if you could help me put the final approval seal by helping me with the points below.

1) Flow - I tried to divided my essay in four sections. First line, clearly frame the essay. Second paragraph, give some background and set some direction. Third, the vision I see. And forth, why is this important to me. If you feel that in some point the essay is not flowing naturally or is jumping too much, please let me know why you feel that way, and what would you change.

2) Clarity - It is kind of a vision of the future, so some things are left in the air. Are you actually picturing things or are just void sentences? This is important because the board that is going to evaluate the essay is not a science or engineering board, it is just a general admission board. So, I really need to make sure that they are following up with my ideas.

3) Passion - This one is simple. Do you actually feel that I love the topic I am talking about? Did you feel excited in any point?

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LATEST ITERATION

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I realized that due to the nature of the question and the length of the essay it will be hard to have one single answer that comprises all the changes. Also, I thought it would be helpful for the forum to see how was the final state of the essay.

I am including my latest iteration. I am planning to update it as more feedback is given, and check the answer that contributes the most.

I have one professional objective: To bring personal robotics to every household.

Robotics research has made considerable strides toward solving hard robotics problems such as navigating unknown environments, recognizing and manipulating objects, and using natural language to interact. These advances have resulted in some interesting innovations, ranging from autonomous vacuum cleaners and self-parking cars to personal software assistants. Yet, these innovations are just the leading edge in a whole new wave of personal robotics applications to hit the marketplace.

This new wave of applications will reinvent society in extreme new ways. In my vision, self-driving cars will enable a faster, cheaper and safer transportation infrastructure; robotic nursing assistants will bring better health care to a rising number of elder people; and user-friendly flexible robots will liberate us from household chores. In principle, personal robotics will automate slavish and repetitive tasks and usher in a new age in our society, an age with less dependency on menial tasks and more on creative and stimulating ones.

Nevertheless, this vision of a world free of menial tasks has always created a personal conflict. Born and raised in Mexico, I have realized the importance that menial jobs play in low-income families. Yet, menial jobs such as taxi drivers, nurses and housemaids will be the first to be substituted by automated systems, which will leave a sizable void in the economy and in people’s welfare.

This personal conflict has drawn me to reconsider if personal robotics is the right professional objective. In the process, I have learned that unemployment is not an isolated consequence to personal robotics, but a common one to every technological revolution. Through history, people who lose their jobs due to a technological revolution have a hard time recovering from the change, being the following generation the one that adapts to the new economic dynamics and benefits from the technological advances.

Although personal robotic will improve people’s quality of life, my professional objective is deeply intertwined with my concern for low-income families, and pursuing the former without considering the later would be deceiving to myself. Consequently, no matter the role I play in the robotics industry, my professional objective will be strengthened if I complement it with a personal objective, the objective of retraining people to adjust and join into a new economic reality.

posted almost 13 years ago

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Peretz‭

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