My memory is not a steel fortress. I tend to not mind when my room begins to look cluttered. From this short description, I wouldn't say that someone considers me to be the most organized person. Despite these traits, there are still parts of my life that I like to keep organized. Pens were always fascinating to me. For hours, I'd click a pen in rapid succession wondering how it operated. Once I figured out how to break apart the pens, you'd find springs and piece strewn across the floor. Upon reassembly, I'd make sure that the pen worked just the same as it had before, give or take the pieces lost to the carpeted wasteland. Though I tend to disassemble pens less and less, I still have the desire to understand how things work. What causes them to operate, the systems that are in place that produce millions of similar products worldwide, how their operation could be improved in order to reach more customers or be more innovative. The point I'm making is that breaking pens and putting them back together again fuels my desire to study operations research. I want to be able to understand how companies are able to function and how they are able to maintain their influence in a competitive market. What factors make them stand out from other companies? Is there anything that a company could do to increase their profit? Could this be done by altering the management of their finances, marketing strategies, etc? I want to learn how to answer these questions and I feel that pursuing operations research in college will help me learn how to answer these questions.