O h i o W e s l e y a n U n i v e r s i t y W r i t i n g C e n t e r © 2 0 1 1
for me because I knew my efforts would help open new opportunities for people who, like my
parents and grandparents, immigrated to the United States.
I have also participated in the caring element of the medical profession, providing
companionship to patients in the hospital setting. Throughout high school, I volunteered in the
Coronary Care Unit and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center at Mercer Medical Center, a hospital
located in downtown Trenton, New Jersey. In the Coronary Care Unit, when patients needed
help, I would assist them in tasks such as eating and moving about the hospital. In the Cardiac
Rehabilitation Center, I helped nurses take and record the blood pressure and heart rate of
patients. Much of the time, however, was spent conversing with the patients and getting to know
them better. I realized through my close contact with patients, physicians, and nurses that I
would enjoy working in the health care setting, reaching out to those who were sick, and making
the lifetime commitment to "be there" for those in need. I continued to volunteer in the hospital
setting when I came to Harvard, this time addressing the important, but sometimes forgotten,
needs of the families visiting patients. Spending my Saturday afternoons working in the family
waiting area of the Coronary Care Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, I served as a non-
medical liaison to expedite communication between the busy CCU staff and the visitors,
provided non-medical information to the families on the nature and location of hospital services,
and offered peer support to the often anxious family members. Volunteering in the CCU waiting
area helped me realize that the suffering caused by sickness afflicts, not only the patients, but
their family members as well, and provided me a unique opportunity to gain experience in caring
for their needs.
It would be simplistic for me to say that I have chosen to devote my life to the medical
profession only because I have a strong desire to help people. All jobs, in their own way,
contribute to society, and quite a few involve the establishment of personal relationships,
including teaching. But to me, only one profession also has the dynamism of continuous
intellectual exploration—medicine. In an era in which rapid technological progress and health
care reform continuously transform the study, practice, and ethics of medicine, working to cure
requires a passion for learning and discovery, and I have found that I thrive on this intellectual
exploration. For me, it is a wonderful feeling to make an intellectual leap and manage to land
feet first upon a convincing conclusion, or to be able to weave once disparate pieces of
information into a coherent synthesis, and, after stepping back to observe the big picture, to be
able to trace the pivotal themes running throughout. The moment of realization that, through time
and effort, an enigma has been solved and my vision has been deepened and expanded, is a great
thrill which never fails to leave me thirsting for the next challenge.
The excitement of intellectual discovery has encouraged me to explore a number of fields.
While my major is biochemistry, my academic interests also encompass Asian studies,
languages, music, computer science, health care, and environmental policy; as a result,
prioritizing my academic goals while at Harvard has proven a challenge in itself. Because of the
ongoing trade disputes between the United States and Japan, the recent dynamism of the Four
Little Dragons (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea), and my Asian heritage, when I
came to Harvard I decided to delve deeper into the field of Asian culture. I have taken advantage
of the strong Asian studies department at Harvard, studying Japanese and the industrialization of
East Asia, researching the role of the Japanese primary school system in socialization, and