His personal Statement from his resume, from the AP link, one of the longest things I've seen written in his own words:
Thank you for posting.
JH realized that he had mental illness, and he was hoping to gain insight into his own personal problems, and cure himself.
The first paragraph:
Rational people act based on incentives for self-fulfillment, including fulfilling needs of self-development and needs of feeling useful and helpful to others. I look forward to fulfilling my quest to advance my knowledge and I plan to use my critical thinking skills by studying the subject I am passionate about, neuroscience.
JH doubts his own rationality. He juxtaposes his view of what motivates “rational people” with his own aim, which is merely to study neuroscience.
Paragraph #2:
I desire to attend graduate study at the University of Illinois, a leader and innovator in scientific research, because the university will provide opportunities to pursue my foremost passions, the science of learning, cognition and memory. I have always been fascinated by the complexities of a long lost thought seemingly arising out of nowhere into a stream of awareness. These fascinations likely stemmed from my interest in puzzles and paradoxes as an adolescent and continued through my curiosity in academic research.
Please note the second sentence: Certainly, the human thought process is very interesting. But it seems odd that he goes from a broad generalization about the university to just one tiny and obscure aspect of thought. Perhaps he was plagued by troublesome thoughts seeming to pop into his head “out of nowhere.” Then, he quickly adds the alternative explanation that his fascination stemmed from his interest in puzzles and paradoxes as a young man.
He continues:
Making new discoveries in neuroscience is intrinsically rewarding in its own right. I have an unquenchable curiosity, a strong desire to know and explore the unknown, and a need to persist against the odds. Graduate study at the University of Illinois will provide a focus for me to perform and achieve through neuroscience research.
Seems defensive.
To prepare myself for graduate study at the University of Illinois, I sought involvement in a general array of academic research. My first summer internship, at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies, was done while I was still in high school. Working in Terrence Sejnowsky's computational neurobiology lab, I had little experience in computer programming and the work was challenging to say the least. Nonetheless, I taught myself how to program in Flash and then constructed a cross-temporal calibration model. The purpose of this model was to show an illusion between cause and effect
relationships. In this illusion, the mind is actually tricked into believing an action precedes the event that caused it. Completing the project and presenting my model at the end of the internship was exhilarating and I believe graduate study at the University of Illinois will provide commensurate opportunities for a satisfying neuroscience research experience.
Hopefully, a Ph.D. program would provide opportunities more than commensurate with a high school internship program. He must have some special interest in that particular illusion.
Another laboratory I worked in was within the department of chemistry at the University of California, Riverside. Having previously been exposed to a computational approach, I wanted to explore the facets of chemical analysis. Beginning by making buffer solutions, I soon advanced into more complicated techniques. These included performing high performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and ultra violet spectroscopy on a modified twelve mer dna sequence. With the end product we bombarded the dna with ultra violet rays to observe cancerous effects. Although I don't plan on curing cancer in graduate school I believe this research experience is worthwhile and relevant to my goals of contributing to neuroscience. Only with a multidisciplinary
perspective to the specialized field of neuroscience can we hope to fully understand the brain.
“Although I don’t plan on curing cancer in graduate school …” JH seems arrogant and sarcastic in tone. He implies that the UV analysis was an annoying digression from his true field of interest. Why bring that issue up on an admissions department essay? Generally people are counseled to emphasize their interests and goals; not to discuss what doesn’t interest them, and what they don’t want to do. His statement could indicate lack of commitment. Does he really believe that a multidisciplinary approach is useful, or does he believe that some specific chemical remedy can be found for his own particular mental problem?
Researching learning and memory interests me because these are the very cognitive processes which enable us to acquire information and retain it. They are at the core of what distinguishes us as people. Due to the seemingly infinite vastness of indefinite knowledge we must be selective in our pursuits of knowledge. This is why I have chosen to study the primary source of all things, our own minds.
JH states that learning and memory are at the core of what distinguishes us as people. Higher level learning depends on memory; therefore, he is really saying (over-simplistically) that our memories determine our identity. Perhaps he suffers from “lost memory;” such as sometimes occurs when someone is subjected intense fear or trauma. This condition is known as disassociation and often occurs when a child experiences a threatening situation. Memories become disorganized, and later seem to pop up “out of nowhere.” Although not confirmed, JH has been reported to be an adopted child. Maybe he witnessed some horrifying event in his early years which may have even led to the death of a parent, and he was struggling to recall and make sense of what may have occurred.
