Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

I spent my childhood summer nights looking up from my balcony to admire the cosmos. The stars, suspended in a canvas of darkness, seemed to defy the laws of the physical world. These flickering titans of existence were older than anything I knew and would live long after I died: a deeply humbling and perplexing proposition. Staring into the boundless fabric of space, I tried envisioning the countless planets, solar systems, and galaxies that inhabited our night sky. I began to wrestle with the idea of infinity – a futile endeavor. These ideas were a desecration of tangible logic. Time and space seemed to have no authority in this realm. Why were such fundamental qualities of our universe not so simply understood? Standing at the boundary between the known and the unknown, I was terrified by what I saw: our world was permeated with uncertainty and unfamiliarity. For much of my life, I allowed my fear of failure and anxiety of the unknown to dictate my experiences. My pregame soccer ritual consisted of imagining every misplaced pass, every offtarget shot, and each possible way I could embarrass myself on the field. I prayed before my plane took off, not in superstition, but because I had no other avenue by which to confess my irrational fears. Sunday was my least favorite day; instead of enjoying the weekend, I spent the day anxiously contemplating the rest of the week. These innumerable fear-inducing situations flooded my conscience with constant uneasiness and doubt. My escape from this unwavering fear of the unknown came through programming. I have always been fascinated by my ability to use computers to create. My first memory with a computer was building a black and white pong game on Scratch – a simple drag and drop programming language. As I got older, I learned more complex languages that allowed me to develop more functional programs. The abstract nature of coding inspires not feelings of anxiety, but rather the beautiful emotions of mystery and possibility. As my program embarks on its journey, I ponder the infinite directions it may take to solve the problem at hand. I comb over my computer screen, each line of code representing the seamless tailoring of abstraction and mathematics. Developing elegant code is an art. Whereas disciplines such as physics and mathematics aim to describe the world, computer science attempts to create it. The artistic process is full of uncertainty; I cannot assure that my program perfectly fulfills my expectations. This uncertainty grows at every keystroke, as it closes the door on various paths my program could have taken and sets it on a new one. I am compelled to accept these inherent risks of creation, forcing me to act on my visions rather than cower in fear. Years of experience have made it apparent to me that there is never a clear, optimal form of a program. Instead, I must employ ingenuity to approximate it. This elusive chase of programming is endless: there always seems to be a more efficient implementation of code. In this repetitive process, I welcome failure. I am exhilarated at the notion of being stuck. Failure causes me to take a step back and consider my problem with a different approach. In search of the unknown solution, my mind is lit on a creative fire. This is when I make the greatest progress. I still find myself gazing at the night sky, asking the same questions about our universe. However, my lack of understanding of the cosmos no longer inspires fear. Instead, it ignites the part of my brain eager to figure out for itself the universe’s truths. It is my sincere hope that many of my curiosities remain a mystery, for it is this which propels me in my intellectual and creative pursuits.