Dear Sir or Madam:
I came across your recruiting website on Duke's career service and saw that you were seeking to hire quality candidates for compiler research. My experience as a software engineer has given me the technical knowledge and interpersonal skills I need to excel in this area upon completion of my Computer Science degree from Duke.
I plan to reside in the Durham area until my graduation in May 2004. Please contact me by email or phone so we can further discuss my background in relation to your needs.
Yours,
Richard Berg
100 Glengary Ct #102
Durham, NC 27707 USA
+1 (919) 225-5883
jobs@richardberg.net
SAT: 780 verbal, 760 math
AP tests listed on transcript; all were 5's except 4's in American History, Spanish Language, and Latin Literature
Writing sample - I doubt any of my philosophy papers would bring insight into my character, so I present a short essay from high school:
Beef-barley soup! I?m spending good money to be repaid in freeze-dried cuisine? So what if everyone from my parents to my fellow Boy Scouts to my health book predicts that exercise will be both good for me and enjoyable? So what if Philmont Scout Ranch is more popular than Disneyworld among my peers?
Well, based on such incontrovertible evidence, I succumbed to a reasonable, logical course of action; when the opportunity first came for this intellectual musician to toil across 52 mountainous miles that summer, I tried to flee for my life! Each practice hike and workout - not to mention payment deposit - gave me another unfortunate reason to reexamine the foreboding obstacle that loomed in front of me. But eventually I had no choice but to oblige myself to the upcoming expedition.
Finally, two months of worry about the two-week trek converged into two days of driving. As we pulled into the gate - if that old piece of rust could be called a gate - all my premonitions of doomsday seemed to have been realized. Before I knew it the expedition was underway. I suppose my imagination was coping for me - was I carrying my backpack through the convoluted dirt paths of austere countryside, or through the familiar hallways of Alamo Heights High? That couldn?t be, of course, but how else to explain the unexpected rightness of lugging 60 pounds yet being 60 miles from a Coke machine?
Obviously the New Mexican Rocky Mountains had at least transfixed my sarcastic senses. The other nine Scouts in my crew may also have been relishing in the incredible natural scenery offered by Philmont. But at that moment, all anyone could think about was stopping the deafening din - which meant seizing the sticks from my primal grasp.
Yes, the sticks. I don?t know whether they were summoning my most primitive spirit or recalling the most familiar aspect of urban life, but somehow I found myself beating rhythms with the sticks - drum cadences, in fact - on a dead tree. By squatting crudely on a nearby stump, I could just reach the tree?s branches, whose varying states of decay proved useful in providing a plethora of unique pitches when struck. At last! I got a familiar pattern going, to which the band members in our crew could chant as if we were marching around the high school track. "1, 2, 3, Jam!" We dissolved into individually inspired dance, undulating to the rhythms coming from my tree, having forgotten our location thousands of miles from the school?s practice field.
And so, in one mystical moment my primal instincts and my everyday band life coexisted. I grew satisfied, even appreciative of the deep-seated roots underlying my musical expression. And I would eat soup that night with a wide grin across my face.
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