University of Washington - B.S. in Computer Science

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Sonder

Leaning my weight on the cold metal rod, I felt it sink into the damp earth of my backyard. I had always wanted a pet, but following my parents’ resistance, the closest I ever got was the cast-iron bird feeder I bought at Home Depot.

After filling and hanging it on the curved hook of the rod, I took a seat on my porch, ready for my desires for rich entertainment in the form of jays and cardinals to be met.

The evening crept into the night without a single visitor.

For the next few days, the vacancy of the feeder challenged me to think: maybe they had food sources elsewhere. Was it possible they thought it was a trap?

On the third day, however, overwhelmed with excitement, I saw a sparrow land on the feeder, survey the tube, and begin eating. With each day, I stayed a little longer, until taking my chair each evening became routine. The finch kept watch on a feeding cardinal, then slid into place when the coast was clear. A cardinal spent its entire evening going back and forth between the feeder and its nest.

I started thinking about the birds’ lives beyond the feeder. I wondered what they did the rest of the day: if they had kids or eggs to take care of, if they had partners, or if they were worried about predators.

Watching the birds nudged me from entertainment to empathy, and that shift began to shape my daily interactions. When buying groceries, I struck up a brief conversation with the cashier, asking about her day and joking about how busy the line was. In that moment, I realized I had been thinking of her role as the only part of her identity, when in reality, she had a full life beyond the store. The small exchange revealed that it was all too common of an impulse to go about our lives without taking others’ perspectives.

That night, thinking back to an interview with an artist named Brent Faiyaz, I remembered him defining what his band name “Sonder” meant. He defined it as “the realization that every person we encounter is living a life as full and complex as our own.” This feeling perfectly captured my thinking at that time. Sonder challenged the instinctive assumption that others had lives that could not relate to my own.

The more I put myself into other people’s shoes, the more I gained awareness about the ways in which people just like me were in need. I began searching for opportunities to bridge the gap. When tutoring, I thought about how my students might appreciate coding as much as I did long-term. When packing food at the shelter, I imagined how much it would mean for someone to deliver food to me if I were hungry.

When tasked with coding an agriculture app for the TSA competition last summer with the topic of sustainability, I realized that sonder could be my guide. I understood that many farmers might not have had access to user-friendly technology and could unintentionally waste resources. Sympathizing with farmers’ financial struggles and helping them manage their resources tackled both environmental and financial problems.

Sonder meant that I might not have known everything about a person, but I realized that the only thing that differed between my life and another’s was how our circumstances had been determined by chance. As the sun dipped below the tree line, the cardinal came to a halt, swooping to its home to carry bits of pine straw and twigs to fit them into its nest. Simultaneously, I finished up my homework for the day. What separated or bridged our realities was a matter of where I placed my mind.