	Although I never got the VCR back together properly, and I did not know the term “engineering,” I knew that I had a passion. Whenever I got the chance to take apart an old piece of equipment, now with my parents’ permission so I would not face punishment again, I would sit in intense concentration for hours unscrewing pieces and keeping meticulous order of where everything came from. I started to get to a point where not only could I put the devices back together, but sometimes I could actually fix them back to working order. I was overjoyed when I could find something that my dad had thrown away and be able to bring it back to him fixed. He supported and encouraged me immensely, helping me to continue to explore this “engineering.”
	my grandfather would explain as I sat on his lap for hours. After telling my grandfather of the great inspiration I received from his engineering stories from NASA, he advised me that I must always do my best in school and earn good grades in order to find an exemplary engineering job.  He always made sure to tell me that I did not have to follow in his footsteps of aeronautical engineering, but that I should pursue whatever career that interested me the most.
	I intend to go into a career in mechanical engineering. I hope to improve automotive safety through my advances in safety research. I know that I would like to pursue a career in automotive safety because last year I followed a researcher as he developed new seat belts. I was very fascinated by the processes that the researcher employed to create new designs. As his pencil first touched the blueprint and he began the design process, I drew in a breath as I saw the innovations transpiring on the page. He furiously drew out his ingenious new seat belt design that mimics the full safety benefits of a five-point safety harness, while maintaining the comfort and ease-of-use of a traditional three-point seat belt found in most consumer automobiles. While doing some of the "basic" number crunching on paper, he entered the data from his blueprints into the computer that rendered a full computer model in mere minutes. The design was not completed until after I left, but if put into mainstream production, I will be able to see the carbon fiber enhanced substrate restraint system that I helped develop, in whatever small ways, make millions of cars safer worldwide.

	When I saw how many lives I could save and how many families I could keep intact, I knew that I had to become an automotive safety designer. A college student is heading home from his shift at the local pizza parlor, and his car is suddenly and violently struck from the side as he attempts to cross an intersection. The young boy was just hit by a drunk driver, and both cars are crushed into unrecognizable heaps. 