Harvard University, Stanford University, MIT

My commitment to locating more efficient ways to perform tasks has been with me since fourth grade, when I frequently played Minecraft. My world was centered around rationally determining the methods to produce ideal outcomes – and on scraping out just a few more minutes to build Hogwarts out of blocks. Still, my dedication to efficiency emerged in many ways beyond Minecraft: I tried playing educational audiobooks while I slept at night, thinking my brain might find a way to retain the information. While that particular idea didn’t quite pan out, at other times, unconventional approaches…