A Personal Statement for Baylor College of Medicine

I wrote the following personal statement for my application for the PhD program at the Baylor College of Medicine. The deadline for the application was January 1, 2015 and the program starts in August 2015. I will update this post when I receive the results of my application (admissions offers are usually made in February to April).

Update 1.17.15: It got me an interview! Since I'm currently in Chile, we'll be doing the preliminary interviews via Skype sometime in February. Wish me luck!

Instructions

Please provide an approximately one page description of why you want to pursue a Ph.D. in the biomedical sciences including your motivation and both long and short term goals.

Personal Statement

I am terrified to write this personal statement. In these words I am supposed to convince you that I am the ideal candidate for your program, that I will be a successful student if you elect me. But I don’t know if I can assure you of that, because I am not yet convinced myself.

Why do I want to pursue a PhD in biomedical sciences? I’ll let Steve Jobs explain this one for me: “The biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.” I will be a key player in this new era; I’m already in the game. In the two and a half years since graduating with a BA in biology, I’ve helped launch 6 technology startups, two of which are now valued as multimillion dollar companies.

What else have I done in those two and a half years? I taught myself 7 computer languages and a second spoken language, consumed 44 books, lived in 5 major cities, traveled through 4 foreign countries, surfed an uncountable number of couches, and created 9 websites, 12 paintings, 3 blogs, and 21 articles. As Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” I've been moving. I've been honing my abilities in business and technology - now it’s time to focus on science.

Here’s my main short term focus: immerse myself in an academic environment rich with people who love biology and technology, a place where I can expand my knowledge of biomedical sciences, an environment where ideas flow like lightening and learning is achieved every day by experimenting with the elements of the world with the same sense of curiosity and wonder as a child contemplating the night sky. My dream is to one day create a modern day Menlo Park – a laboratory where the brightest minds in science and technology can gather to bring new and world-changing innovations into being every day. Baylor is the environment I am craving.

And my long term goals? Besides the Menlo Park dream, I would like to continue launching businesses, but now in the biomedical field. I want to create value with my life and my projects, and I feel one of the best ways to use my talents would be to find commercial applications for the discoveries we make in the laboratory. I want to use my life to continue exploring the world through a scientific lens and sow the seeds of innovation and grow new fruits of medical technology that make others healthier, happier, and more alive.

One day we will program biological life as simply as we write a computer program. I want to help make that one day into someday soon, because with it will come a tsunami of biotechnological advances, a universal fluidity to the meaning of “life”, and a new era that we may call the biological revolution.

I am young and foolish, yes, but I am also the future. I am the next Benjamin Franklin, full of curiosity and life, always running experiments and documenting better ways to live. I am the next Richard Feynman, pulling pranks on my peers while making Nobel Prize winning discoveries. I am the next Steve Jobs, nerdy and a bit socially awkward but working tirelessly to bring visionary new technology into the world.

And right now, you are God. You are the supreme deity of this moment in time with the power to forever change my future, the future of Baylor College, and even the future of the world. I am no longer afraid of the words on this page. Through reflection and contemplation, I have found the strength in me to know that I can achieve a PhD in biomedical science and go on to help create biomedical technologies of which we are now only just dreaming. Will that path include Baylor College?

You decide.

From a rooftop in Brooklyn

The giants loom in the distance, ashamed now that their mystery is vanquished. Discovered for what they truly are - overcrowded, overworked, underappreciated - they hang their heads to the sea. Tomorrow I will leave them. They will feel no regret at my departure. I will feel none at theirs. 

These giants, these towering steel monsters, I had thought carried the weight of the world. How wrong I was. They carry nothing more than the weight of their own sins. Sins of greed, over consumption, unnecessary haste. They've convinced the world that they are the epitome, the grand peak of creation. But when you can see through this thin veil, you see they are human just like the rest of us. Maybe even more human. 

Addicted Buddha

The following is a short story I wrote while sitting in the warm Minnesota sun on a couch that once served a much holier purpose. 

The story is dedicated to my Jackson friend who gave me the tools to understand time's varying forms and to my Minneapolis friend who gave me a space to experiment with those tools. 

The clock on the office wall has read 3:57 for the last half hour and the Hancock casts an ominous stare from across the milling city. Perhaps Tom Aarons is the only person who, at this very moment, is consciously aware of the black building's existence. The Hancock's leer through the office window anchors Tom to his seat. 

The daydream is interrupted by building urge to take the never-arriving break. He checks his wrist: 4:03. Time follows very loose rules here. 

Rising from his desk, he walks past the window and the now-forgotten building beyond. Outside his office, a woman passes him in the hallway. The eye contact lasts for a second. 

"Hey Tom."

"Hey Debra. "

At the elevator, Tom stands alone as the button's yellow glow promises deliverance from above. Ding. The doors slide open and Tom steps into the empty space. 

The doors slide. People enter. The doors slide. People exit. The doors slide. 

23 floors down, Tom is swept into the current. The glass at the far end of the hall, the dam holding all this stale air, promises a speedy escape through the spinning turbines at its base. 

Before reaching the doors, Tom's hand finds a little box in his blazer locates one of a dozen identical paper cylinders. As he enters the rotating glass, his lighter sparks on the first shhhhk, and the dark smoke enters his lungs as he plunges into the hazy freshness of the air outside. 

The sun is bright and Tom's usual nook stands empty and inviting. Walking to it's far end, he circles a bit, pulls out his phone, and assumes a position facing the sun. 

Another drag, another exhale. His ex-college roommates' Instagram feeds depict lives ten fold more exciting than his own. 

Chhhk. The screen goes black and his phone disappears into his trouser pocket. 

Another drag, another exhale. Opposite Tom's nook, a bus exhales in a large black woman's face, causing her wide hat to ripple in the dense warmth of the bus's belly. 

A passing cellphone listens to its owner's dismay. "If he's going to treat you like that, I can't figure out why you're still with him." 

Another drag, another exhale. The clouds above move just enough to suggest that time is still passing. The blue sky beyond swallows Tom's worldly thoughts. His mind enters a realm that may not exist. A realm from which it may seem that our world does not exist. 

Nothing happens for a while. There is a lot of white. Plenty of light. No thoughts followed to this other-world, and few thoughts can be generated in its sea of nothingness. It's pretty quiet. Maybe some distant wind can be heard, but it isn't concerning. Time definitely holds no power over this reality. 

The Chicago street fades back into view and people instantly populate the scene. Tom's cigarette is gone. He snuffs the remainder in an ash tray and tosses the butt in the can. 

Tom inhales, then exhales, and turns to go.  

The Internet: Freeing or Dangerous?

My good friend Wade commented on our thread The Science of Beliefs with some skepticism toward my pro-internet viewpoint. In response, I explored some avenues of where I have seen the internet free people. I also briefly discuss the "dangers" of the internet's knowledge. Enjoy!

Excerpt from The Science of Beliefs:

How is the internet "freeing society"? Excellent question.

When I was in Puerto Vallarta last, I was hosted by a generous Couchsurfer named Anahi. She took me to the Malecon where we got gelato and watched the sunset. We took a bus out of the tourist district and into her neighborhood. As the bus jostled through potholes on the unpaved streets toward her house, I could see piles of garbage left in the middle of intersections. Despite these infrastructural limitations, I pulled out my iPhone to find that the entire area was wired with free public wifi. Free internet and gravel roads! It didn't make sense. 

And yet, I would never have met Anahi or seen the local side of Vallarta without this free internet. She would not have a Couchsurfing account where she can interact with visitors from all over the world. She could not supplement her income by working on her friends' websites. She wouldn't have all the world's knowledge right at her fingertips like we do, a fact I take for granted every day.

This is just one story of how the internet is freeing society. One story of a billion. Entire nations are using the internet to free themselves from dictatorial rule in the Middle East, to unite their people under a common cause and break free from oppression.

My own story with the internet, though far less transformational, is one of freedom. With the internet, I have taught myself nearly as much in 2 years outside of college as I learned in college. I learned to program in web languages, in-turn creating a way to make a living from anywhere in the world. Anywhere! I'll be in Chile on an 8 month unpaid internship. Am I worried about finances? Not for a minute. I have developed a skill that can be monetized in any hemisphere. 

Have I lost the ability to think critically due to the amount I rely on my "digital brain"? Perhaps when I first discovered Wikipedia, I copy and pasted willy-nilly just to shortcut homework assignments. But now that I am out in the world studying what genuinely interests me, I am no longer satisfied with regurgitating other people's thoughts. When I read Wikipedia, I read it with a slight edge of skepticism. I know that the information comes from humans, and humans are human (subject to error). Furthermore, my digital enlightenment has led me to not only question what I read on pages like Wikipedia, but it has led me to want to add my own knowledge to these wonderfully free sources of information.

Is there dangerous forms of knowledge on the internet? Yes. We can learn to make a pipe bomb, calculate the blast radius, and place it in the most destructive location possible. We can figure out how to synthesize illegal and dangerous substances like methamphetamine and crack cocaine. Do a majority of us spend our time wandering these dangerous avenues? Or do we rather research ways to improve our community, to increase energy efficiency in our homes, or how to expand our minds with safer substances like LSD and mescalin. 

Personally, I have encountered a handful of the latter instances in Jackson. Yet to see any of the more dangerous alternatives outside of freak incidents on the news, incidents that are becoming less frequent as knowledge continues to triumph over ignorance.

The internet is not the end-all answer to our problems; then again, no one source of goodness ever will be. But the internet is freeing people every day. People like Anahi. People like me. And, even if you are skeptical, the internet is freeing you as well.

Perhaps One Argument for Experimenting with Hallucinogens

Experimenting with intense psychological drugs like LSD or mescalin can be intimidating. However, if taken in the right circumstances and the right frame of mind, their effects can be enlightening. 

My biggest word of advice prior to your first experiment is to research the substance you are about to ingest and try to understand what is about to happen. This way, as your experience plays out, you will be far more comfortable exploring the depths of the rabbit hole and spend less time unnecessarily worrying. 

Huxley ends his wonderful essay The Doors of Perception, his transcendental experience with mescalin (derived from peyote), with the following:

"But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend."

Controlling ADD without Medication

One doesn't simply control the ADD mind. One can only steer it in the right direction.

My mother sent me the following email:

Noah – I work with a woman whose son is 12 and struggles with concentration/focusing.  She would like to try to deal with this in a way other than medication at this point and I thought you would have some suggestions for her.  -mom

Here's my response:

Mom,

Master To-Do: I have had a lot of success keeping a single master list of "to-do" items. I prioritize them and rearrange them based on what I want to get done first. Anything that makes the list gets done at some point (sometimes it takes over a month, haha, but it always gets done).

Gaming Out: "Gamifying" tasks (turning them into a game) is a great way to incentivize the easily distracted mind to focus. The more instant the feedback we can receive for a task, the more we will want to do it again.

Perfectly Challenging: Sometimes it's hard for me to focus on a task if it is too easy (probably why I slept through a lot of classes except for science in high school). Crank up the difficulty! Add a real challenge. I will also say that if a task appears (or actually is) too difficult for me, it will make focusing on it much harder too. There's certainly a sweet spot, no doubt about that. 

Creative Outlets: When I am especially having trouble focusing, I will switch to a creative task (e.g. watercolor painting). A task like this requires me to focus in, I can enjoy it, and it helps me relax. When I need a break from high-logic computer tasks, I'll throw on some music and do some right brain activity to recharge. This can even just be doodling in a notebook. :)

I hope this helps. Medication can really kill creativity, and a kid that can learn to control his wandering mind wields a powerful tool for creating the future. It may not be terrible to experiment with medication for a while to develop some good habits and to give the kid a taste of a more focused mind. However, I strongly support never getting to a point where one relies on a substance to function. 

Stimulant Withdrawals in Mexico: A personal anecdote of helplessness

I've been off and on prescription stimulants for about two years now. In reality, I've been using stimulants since I was 3 years old. It all started with Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo. It's not a terrible thing that my brain loves stimulation - it's helped me excel in school and given me the ability to learn new skills with ease. I taught myself computer programming after graduating college and have since been involved in numerous startups and am now supplementing my income with web development consulting.

This morning, I find myself in a little Papelería in Guadalajara, Mexico working on my laptop. Right now, I'm in a phase of wanting to phase out of stimulant use. So after reducing dosage for a few days, I thought I'd try and go without any this morning. Maybe just a cup of coffee. But I got in this morning, and the coffee wasn't ready. Then I find out a seller on Ebay hasn't issued me a full refund. Digging through Ebay to figure out how to message the seller ends up taking 30 frustrating minutes. And with my mind and body withdrawing from their usual stimulant dosage, those 30 minutes felt like this:

Spinning circles. What am I doing? Why isn't there an easy way to just message the goddamn seller? What the hell Ebay? Oh, here's a link: "Was this section helpful?" ....No! Wait, that was only feedback for Ebay? I am still stuck! And I am in the middle of Mexico, with a bunch of people around me speaking Spanish and asking me questions and I can't even figure out what's going on in written English on this website! And I am nauseous due to the super rich diet I've switched to since coming to Mexico three days ago. And dehydrated due to the crazy amount of salt I've been consuming. Where's my backpack? I don't care, I'm taking a dextrostat this morning. F it!

And 30 minutes later, I am as calm as a Buddhist monk. No longer helpless, but completely capable of speaking Spanish while resolving my digital issues. Just like that. One little peach pill down the hatch and I am back on my game.