Jeremy Rodriguez
125 Stagg Walk Apt 1D
Brooklyn, New York 11206
(347) 771-0304
Michael Coppola
9/30/19
City College of New York
160 Convent Ave
New York, NY 10031
(212) 650-7000
Dear Professor Coppola,
The start is harder than the end. In general, I’d like to communicate to you my who I am as a person, what I enjoy, and my relationship with science. I’ll do that by sharing what kind of circumstances I had growing up, what kind of things I’ve done both personally and academically and where I’m likely heading.
I was born in Brooklyn to a Hispanic family in the Williamsburg Projects. Growing up I had encounters with the realities of drugs, feeling poor, obesity, and things more fortunate people do not need to deal with so young. I was raised by my loving and human grandparents. My grandfather was constantly struggling with addiction with drugs and my grandmother was addicted to pills and had bipolar depression. Some of the more radical moments included glass shatter on the floor, finding baggies of heroin, knives out with the intention of suicide and even the occasional group hug.
These years were formative as I became very averse to drugs. I learned a lot about perspective as I grew up reflecting on these moments. What may seem hectic to you was normal for me and something I was grateful for. I had food and people who cared, that was more than good enough.
My parents were around. My mom struggled to support me. She came from Puerto Rico with no ability to speak English, pregnant, and no job at the age of 17. She worked two jobs and got an associate’s degree all to support me and eventually became a police officer. She serves as motivation as well as someone to outdo and surpass. My dad was in jail for a few years when I was young. To this day I have no idea what he did. He is always reliable in his presence and came across as a great role model. His time reformed him because he chose to change.
Growing up I was very active I’m told. From being called a drama king from my elementary school principal and being uber-competitive since kindergarten. I was raised in the house. My grandparents wanted to keep me away from the bad crowd that leads both my dad and uncle to leaving school. I got involved with the chess club, kickball, and baseball back then.
In middle school, I tried theater. I started by turning down a lead role because I was scared to be center stage. By the end of high school, I had the most memorable show in the school, tied for the most performances in the school’s history, and went to the National Shakespeare Competition twice. Theater gave me a lot of confidence to be on stage and to handle the chaos of mistakes.
I joined the wrestling team near the end of high school. From the first day at 198 pounds, I became the rookie of the year and cut almost 40 pounds in the process. Even further I became my coach’s right hand setting up the gym equipment, helping train students and planning the work outs for the week. I learn a lot about the consistency required to be competent at something. While at a tournament, I realized that all of us would practice over 100 hours for only 6 minutes of actual combat.
One major habit I picked up was writing after winning a contest in my class for a short story. I was awarded a journal from which I began writing every day. Journaling helps me plan and ease my mind when I’m upset or stressed and I have written over 1000 pages in less than a year’s time.
I did well academically, but never really tried pursuing my potential. I had decided that 20% of my effort for an A was good enough. I spent most of the class periods talking to friends since I’d finish the work quickly.
I learned to befriend teachers in order to get more lenient punishments for talking but primarily because I’d be taught too rather than taught at. I’d describe my time as very careless and unintentional. For example, I studied for about 3 hours for the SAT the night before gave me an 1130 superscore, the highest seat in my class to the Valedictorians dismay. Choices like that were rewarding because I was still at the top but hurt me in the future. Where could I have been if I decided to get extra lessons from my teachers. Where could I have been if I choose and practiced wrestling and acting earlier?
A major event was the passing of my grandmother. It was strange to lose someone at 18 years old. I’m glad she was in my life. She fought cancer and survived. Growing up it was common for her to go to the hospital and come back completely normal. After a certain point, it was normal. Since then NYCHA has been trying to evict me and my grandfather. Over the almost 2 years she’s been gone I’ve had to come to terms with all the actions I regretted when she was alive. In a way, she is a guiding force, an idealized version of herself in my mind.
In college, I began in Economics. Before college started all I did was research ways to earn money. In orientation I meet the EBFS, a club on campus who taught financial literacy and I joined instantly. In that time I become an officer for the club and even worked in a professor’s lab.
I fell out of love with economics because it was too easy for me. The club also becomes less fulfilling as I gained more power. After becoming VP I stayed hoping to become more diligent and organized but hoping I’d fall back in love with it all. The president resigned and I took the mantle. I thought I’d finally be able to make my mark but I was already in a play which took up a lot of time. I ended up getting fired and after the production was over I had nothing. I learned valuable things from that failure about leadership and how to treat those who volunteer their time.
I switched to Psychology, which was the only major I saw myself in. I always read about people and was interested in understanding how we are wired. Strangely enough, I began having strange anxiety. I would imagine dying constantly. I couldn’t fight it off. It pulled me out of great moments with those I loved. I decided that I wanted to make a contribution to the world before I died. I always thought of making history and being remembered. I decided to cure aging so people wouldn’t have to die. There seemed to be evidence to support the idea that humans could have an infinite life if the cells keep dividing and reducing the chance of error. Maybe others would not have to see their family die. In that warped mindset riddled with fear, I choose Biochemistry.
Growing up I honestly didn’t think I’d pursue science in any meaningful way. At best it was cool to see animals, how their bodies were adapted to the world around them and at worst it was hating the high school experiments. Since I wanted to make a major contribution I assumed science was the best way to go.
I have taken science classes. I thought if I was going to grab a psychology degree I should choose the more difficult of the two, a bachelor’s in science, to be more competitive. Looking at my track record It didn’t make sense to take more science. Chemistry was a slog and I remained as I was stuck at the class average of 50 till the end. Going into Biology, I recognized the vast world of cells and how they functioned so intelligently. I keep trying in class because I wanted to prove to myself I was smart and I didn’t want to kill my 3.7 GPA. In both, I got a B with the help of a curve.
That being said since college began I have been particularly interested in one-upping myself and trying to become better. For some reason I wanted to try my hand at Physics, finish the Calculus trilogy and do all the introductory Science courses.
I thought that taking the classes would get me to unlock more of myself. I’ve never put in this much effort before and have never felt so competent. At my current state life is pretty transitional, I’m going onto a new semester and I actually feel like I’m creating the outcomes. One distinction, I’ve been working a lot harder to get where I wanted to be.
Recently I’ve started a great many things relating to my interests. I created a fan page of one of my favorite games and have learned how to grow an audience of over 2,200 people and worked with over 95 artists to make the page. I got to learn a lot about consistency and the ecosystem of growth. I’ve been synthesizing most of the information I’ve been able to gather from my courses to have more vivid ideas.
We’ve reached the end of this paper. A few of my goals academically are to get a B in all my STEM classes so I can keep my GPA up, and also use the skills I learned in those classes to come up with more unique ideas in my psychological and personal pursuits like running experiments on myself. In my own life, I would like to earn money from the audience I’ve grown and continue to lead people since those have been rewarding experiences for me.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Rodriguez
