#dreamawake by Noah

#dreamawake by Noah - April 2018 Scholarship Essay

If extraterrestrial life is looking down on our planet, they would likely call us Ocean rather than Terra. It is also far more likely that these extraterrestrials would resemble a creature of our own deep ocean than some humanoid from Hollywood. Yet for all the importance the ocean plays for life on our planet, we know more about the surface of Mars than our own seafloor. I have heard that we live in a grey age; too late to explore our own planet, but too early to explore the universe. While some may argue the validity of this statement, I believe that now is the perfect time to explore our oceans. Technology is where it has never been before and Ocean Engineers have the ability to develop instrumentation that could reveal the secrets of the last unexplored frontier of Earth.

Education is what allows any of these advances in technology to occur. We could not even communicate our finding to others without this education. To me education has allowed me to seek answers to questions I didn’t even know existed: what drives the Earth’s weather? What will global warming do to us? It allows us to synthesize our dreams in reality. My childhood dreams were of deep sea creatures and the hidden secrets they possess, and now I can study just that. Dreaming while you are awake means listening to the questions that keep you up at night and doing something about them. For me, my questions could only be answered through science and a higher degree of education.

I am currently a M.S. student of mechanical engineering with a focus on fluid dynamics at North Carolina State University. My goal here is to develop more specialized knowledge of the instrumentation and techniques that allows scientists to map the ocean floor. The ocean floor is constantly changing due to fluid currents and tectonic movement and poses a large issue to scientists interested in mapping it. I am planning on taking several geographic information system classes to learn the ins and outs of this field. In addition to the programming and software skills I am learning in my GIS classes, I plan to couple this knowledge with mechanical engineering courses in acoustics and fluid properties so that I can gain complete knowledge of the subject from both a practical and theoretical standpoint.

My long term goal is to work with the scientists at the forefront of the oceanographic industry like those at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I have a strong passion for research as well as personal love of the ocean that I have decided to follow on a professional level. I know that with a career of ocean engineering I will enjoy working each day and I will be able to further mankind’s knowledge of our planet’s largest resource.