RECOMMENDATION LETTER QUESTIONS

Cataln, Edgar
Global Seminar
September 6, 2016

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW WITH HONESTY, THROROUGHLY, AND

DIRECT:

1) FULL NAME
Edgar Jair Cataln

2) DATE OF BIRTH
November 23, 1999

3) WHAT COLLEGES WILL YOU BE APPLYING TO AND WHY?

Currently, clinging to a selection of the campuses or
educational institutes of LATTC or UCLA, I have to say
that a reason for which aforesaid colleges were
inputted into my future list are due to me having
visited them. Though, I will confess that the location
of the LATTC is the institute for which I have more
recently and more frequently have visited.

LATTC, is in my words, a campus that I have explored

and studied in during the past summer vacations. Since
the summer of 2013 to the one of this year, excluding
the one in 2015, I as student have taken initiative to
course various classes within the campus, many of
which are of my interest (e.g. arts, material
sciences, foreign languages); however, for the 3
summers that I spent in LATTC, I was offered a limited
 list of natures to be exposed of, thus I was taught
from the following subjects in my past vacations: art,
engineering, and personal development, which despite
its title were more of college workshops.

As for UCLA, I remember having been organized into a

three-day fieldtrip for to attend meetings whose
discussions were mainly to soothe a person emotionally
and increase confidence. Such college having a touch
with nature and to see that it is recognized as having
installed some of the best engineering classes, in
specific mechanical engineering, stimulates more my
decision to write UCLA in my list of college election

Though, as mentioned in the first words of my answer

to this question, UCLA and LATTC are colleges that I
have in mind to apply to CURRENTLY. An shift of my
decision is something that I am claiming to happen by
probability.

4) WHAT DO YOU WANT TO MAJOR IN?

Mechanical Engineering, standing and being revealed as
a branch of the invention tree,
is a broad major that of which up to this date, has me
choose to work in the future regarding the cores of
machines. Sticking with the rules of a mechanic, it
becomes obvious to me that a practitioner of
mechanical engineering can spawn his or her duties in
a variety of mechanisms such as that of airplanes,
cars, robotics, chemical devices, or even ones that
appear in the manufacturing industry.
5) WHAT CAREER DO YOU WANT TO PURSUE AND WHY?
As aforementioned, the art of engineering is a nature
for which up to this date, has my
curiosity and interest aroused. Last summer vacation,
having been exposed to an intro to engineering class,
I have to say that the use of creativity and logic are
reasons for me to engage in the terrain of
engineering. Such types of learners combine the rules
of science and art to then bend them at their
convenience and consequently breed a novelty, a
project or work whose sole purpose was to advance the
world.

6) PLEASE LIST YOUR TOP FIVE QUALITIES; WITH EXPLICATIONS

AND EXAMPLES.
The practice of drawing is a hobby that has in
occasions cause me to unleash my spatial reasoning. I
can recall a physiology project from the previous,
junior year of high school, a group commission whose
task was to formulate a model of a respiratory system
theme park. Serving my part, I took initiative to
design the theme park and to provide how each feature
represented the systems organs. From other
circumstances of my life, I have also under my own
proposal have put time to draw a few sketches, for
instance a nose, eye, ear, mouth, and at times, the
scenery of a landscape. At the moment being in a
drawing class at ASGL, there seems to erect more
chances to put such habit into training.
Physical activity is another quality for which I
consider to be essential. Since the thirteenth age, I
begun to develop into the art of gymnastics,
acrobatics, and parkour, an art that I introduced to
my life from personal initiative. If I were to name
any, the fundamentals of said activity are of
flexibility, agility, and stamina. However, I have to
point out that despite being in training since the age
of 13, I claim myself to still be a practitioner of
the gymnastics art.

Adaptation to essences, be them derived from school,

home, community service, or sports, the skill to adapt
to situations has been one for which I have noticed to
be kept in my life. Challenges presenting to my life
at constancy, I have to say that adaptation is a skill
that by own proposal, have to have. As some
individuals say, If you put your mind into it, you
can accomplish anything. Therefore, I at times value
not having a favorite, rather amplify my boundary of
favorites. Being able to adapt to distinct situations,
be it from school or not, is essential to my life, up
to this date.

My curiosity to discover may sometimes take me to the

nature of science and mathematics; wherefore, I am
stating my like towards these two natures. However,
the more liked of the two essences has to be
mathematics. Having learned multiplication and roman
numerals since the age of 3, my interest of
mathematics has maintained, even causing me to enroll
in an enrichment program during the summer of 2015,
modifying my skills from geometry to pre-calculus, and
to consequently be presented to the real road of
calculus. Although exposing my crush to mathematics,
 it is not to say that I have mastered it. Just like
other working students, I am at training to improve
myself.

While it might not be of a great thing to mention,

since the age of 15 I have carried a spontaneous
thought of doing things left and right handed. From
out of nowhere, such role of ambidexterity came to my
mind and since that age have fused said ability to
habits of writing, throwing, the art of gymnastics,
etc.

7) WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER

STUDENT?
Currently, my inclination of working independently is
what I perceive to make me contrastive from the rest
of my classmates. For one thing, the constancy of
working independently is what brought me some of my
skills. Juggling, typing, gymnastics, and getting
ahead in subjects, in specific the one of mathematics,
are results or products that have emerged into my life
derived from the custom of independence. However, as I
have explained before, I am a learner that continues
to update himself and thereupon would not like to
classify myself as perfectly independent.

8) DISCUSS ANY STRUGGLES THAT YOUVE OVERCOME, INCLUDE

PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC.
In a case where I would combine both academic and
personal, it would be my forehead
injury that occurred during seventh grade, while in
school. The injury of which was close to cracking my
 skull, made me suspend school for a week, until my
severe cut was stitched back. The struggle that
erected from the injury were the missed work that I
had to recover through my classmates, and the physical
stamina that I had to recover as well, as throughout
my years of 11 and 12, I had the routine of swimming
and running.

9) WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE WORLD?

One could classify ones self as being better off
independent or working in social teams. One could also
claim to be more comfortable in one nature better than
the other, say for instance, a person siding towards
math rather than history. However, from experience
that has appeared from constant student works, a
conclusion has spawned to my life and has signified me
to use the essence of change or adaptation. Different
parts of the world rely on different methods for to
live their lives, study for to civilize more humanity,
etc. Given consideration to these situations, I
believe it is of value that citizens of the planet
propose themselves the ability to learn and acquire
information diversely. The act of adapting to many
styles and in turn make interconnections with them is
what I believe to be the key for the human to open his
full cerebral power. A personal example regarding the
nature of adaptation and interconnectedness is using
some translated Spanish words in order to better
construct an English redaction, or vice versa.

10) WHAT IS YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE SO FAR?

 As Leonardo Da Vinci once said, Art is never
finished, only abandoned. There is never
a perfection for anything. Sure, one may turn in a
commission and then have it graded
as it being the best; though, it does mean that that
work or project is of perfection.
Why does technology keep advancing? Why do people
endure the essence of successful continuation? Will it
ever end? No, humanity exists to not be a perfection,
but rather be close to it. Much like a line of
infinity, there will just never be a final number;
however, there do exist colossal numbers. Likewise,
one can also strive to be of colossal value.
Therefore, by considering such ideology, one can
conclude that learning will never exhaust the mind
(Leonardo). To enrich and update the mind in constancy
will therefore, if applied to reality, assist the race
of humanity to perfection.

11) WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Due to putting at the top of my list the tasks of
homework, I tend to occasionally
get to my hobbies. However, when I do have time, I
practice in the arts of drawing, gymnastics, and self-
investigation; by self-investigation, it is meant that
I am currently an individual whose wished expertise is
to be extended from various terrains of study,
including sciences and arts. Music, has also been one
feature of my life for which I enjoy, granting me, up
to this date, training in function my imagination.
12) LIST YOUR EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES, SPORTS, COMMUNITY
SERVICE, AND VOLUNTEER SERVICE; ALSO, PLEASE STATE IF YOU
HAVE HELD A LEADERSHIP ROLE.
Volunteering has been, in opinion, one thing that I
have had difficulty with but finally managed to get
to. From the beginning, I had to search locations of
which I could complete service hours. From community,
street cleanups to helping sell pumpkins at a pumpkin
patch to shelving books at a local library, such act
of volunteering within my community has been a very
versatile habit. Currently, I have done around 40
hours of library, teen volunteering, with another 23
hours of cleanups and pumpkin patch selling.

13) WHAT IS YOUR OVERALL GPA?

Around 3.3

14) WHAT ARE YOUR SAT SCORES?

910

15) WHAT IS A LIFE WELL-LIVED? HOW DO YOU DEFINE

SUCCESS/JOY/HAPPINESS?
I currently like to say that I what I believe or have
in practice, are things that up to this
date remain that way. I am aware of change, that some
features of my life that dislike
today may be one I enjoy in the future. Therefore, it
is my duty to do the best I can for
to change my life into a stabilized one. For me, up to
this date, I view a well-lived iife as
being conscious that I will never hold perfection; I
am human, just like any other, I am
 at the possibility to make mistakes; however, there is
a reason for such errors to
happen. Much like getting to a treasure, there are a
multitude of paths that exist, some
to help the searchers approach the treasure closer and
other to detour them. The errors,
I perceive them to be a sign that the road I am taking
to find the treasure, in this case
my full potential or success, is a wrong one.
Maintaining a consciousness to my
behaviors and to correct what I am doing wrong or
absorbing skills to improve
my life, are what I consider to be a component for
success.