Proud to share that I have been accepted into Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University C’25 (intended major: Computer Science). Yay!!

Hello! My name is Arjun Bhatia, and I am a senior in high school. When I was five, I was hospitalized, and while there, some people were walking around with toys, so I picked up a K’NEX building set. That set of rods, connectors, and blocks is where I started to love building things, and ever since then, I loved everything with my hands. From roller coasters and bridge sets to soldering a circuit, I enjoyed all of it. In addition to my passion for building structures, I played CYA house basketball for two years in middle school, and it was incredibly fun and helped me keep healthy and fit. This taught me how to be a team player. I also played football for one year in high school, and it was fun, but my grades were dropping, so I didn’t continue playing football. This taught me discipline, how to be decisive, and prioritizing different things that I need to do. I got my interest in computer science after my dad bought me an Xbox One in sixth grade. When I played games, I always wondered how developers create such an immersive experience in a video game and the thought process behind it. Then in the freshman year of high school, I took AP Computer Science Principles, and I enjoyed it, so I went on to AP Computer Science in my sophomore year to develop my computer science skills further by learning in java. I also took my first technical drawing class in the tenth grade, where I learned the basics of technical design, and we first made 2D objects and then 3D objects. The next year I took Engineering drawing and Architectural drawing and found I liked Engineering drawing better because I love making different parts and assembling them to see how they work. After seeing the final product, I feel satisfied that all the parts of my project fit together, and I designed them to do. Then, in junior year, I took Advanced Computer Science AB, where I learned about different data structures and recursion. For example, we learned how to make our own Graph data structure using object-oriented programming. I enjoyed all of this, so that is why I also want to learn more about Computer Science. Learning how to use and code sensors on my Raspberry Pi were no different since learning such complex technology requires collaboration. Through all of this, I learned that I like working with my hands to build something.

Being Indian has influenced me in many ways. In fact my name is from an Indian story about a god named Krishna and Arjuna. My parents chose my name Arjun from that story. It has also given me many beliefs. For example, it is said that everyone has a certain amount of breaths given to them by god and that there will not be any more or any less then the amount that they give you. This has taught me not to fear death and to help people as much as I can because we all have a choice to do nothing and wait for your time or do something productive to help future generations. It also gave many holidays like Holi, bhai dooj, rakhi, and many more. Holi is a big gathering of all your family and friends, and you put color on each other, and it is really fun. Bhai dooj and rakhi is a small gathering in which you are only in company of your cousins. They both celebrate a bond between brother and sister in saying that the brother will always protect his sister and cousins. This made me become a nice, caring person.