Undergraduate / "We buy your sh#t and sell it back to your for a profit"; St. Olaf - Interim Course [10]

Hey guys!
Below is my response to St. Olaf's prompt: During Interim, St. Olaf students pursue a single course, often of an interdisciplinary nature. If you could design your own Interim course today, what would it be? (500 word limit, I use 488)

I think I have some good ideas, but my two points of concern are:
1) It looks like I am preaching a sermon.
2) I have a very weak ending
Could you please read it and let me know what you think? I promise to read your essays in return :)

"We buy your shit and sell it back to your for a profit", said the scrawny short man to the elderly tourist from England. Blunt as he was, Babu Bhai - the outspoken middle-aged aluminum trader from Dharavi - wasn't very far from the truth. Located in the heart of Mumbai, this sprawling slum is home to about 15,000 factories, many of which buy scrap metals and plastic from the UK by the container load, reprocess them into new products, and export them back to the US, the UK and Australia for huge profits.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to join a group of English tourists for a guided tour of Dharavi. Walking through unpaved passageways and crossing sewage-lined alleys, I met the most incredible and feisty people I have ever known. Meera-bai, the bangle seller from Uttar Pradesh who after years of abuse, threw out her drunkard husband and decided to take care of her two young daughters by herself. Over time she expanded her business, which secured her a profit of about Rs.15,000 every month. Veeru Appa, the owner of a plastic recycling plant, who learnt the ropes of the business from his father. He employed about 20 men at his factory, where they recycled plastic to pellets and wires which were then sold to bigger industrial users.

Whether Dharavi in Mumbai, Bhalswa in New Delhi, or Basanti in Kolkata, slums are the dirty secret of this country. My interim course at St. Olaf would be titled 'From ---- to ----: the Power of Entrepreneurship in Hidden India', and cover subjects as diverse as waste management and urban development, economics and entrepreneurship, women empowerment and diversity. What better way of learning about waste disposal, than from those for whom recycling isn't a choice, but a necessity of life? What faster route to acquaint yourself with real life economics than watching the many NGO's working in tandem with the local mafia, banks and the government to provide affordable loans to those in need? What shorter path to mastering various aspects of urban planning, than by finding the innovative designs in ramshackle constructions? It would also be a telling lesson in diversity. In my short trip, I learnt that diversity is not only the color of your skin or your sexual orientation, but a mindset that informs how you communication and actualize community.

Where many of us get upset over broken air conditioners, these determined souls work day and night in violent and overcrowded surroundings to provide better lives to their families. There is much to be said about the entrepreneurial spirit of Hamid - a 17 year-old orphan boy from Dharavi, who fishes out gold particles from the run off sewage from local gold recycling plants. I am confident that a few weeks spent with people like him would teach my classmates and me a thing or two about bottom of the pyramid innovation and local governance.

Undergraduate / Technology Clinic and passion - Why Lafayette? My attempt to be a little different. [11]

Hey guys! Below is my response to the prompt: Why Lafayette? (20-200 words). Please critique it as harshly as you feel appropriate.

For a host of reasons!
The energy.
The authentic relationships.
The nachos at Gilbert's.
The Alternative School Break Club.
The SIT Environmental Sciences semester abroad program.
Midnight Breakfast, 1000 Nights and other endearing traditions.
The vibrant Skillman Library, buzzing with constant intellectual activity.
The intimate classroom setting and the authentic student-teacher relationships.
L.E.A.P. and its myriad endeavors to empower the local community.
The chance to participate in the Campus Rainworks Challenge with Dr. Brandes.
The ability to DO things rather than just read about them in textbooks.
The passion at Technology Clinic of using classroom knowledge to tackle real world problems.
The liberty to continue playing basketball, while maintaining a healthy balance with my academic passions.
The brilliant Interim program, with its freedom to completely soak oneself in one's subject of choice.
The chance to get my hands dirty with the School for Field Studies' summer abroad programs.
The space to combine my passion for the environment with my love for computer science and psychology.
Gentle guidance of the Gateway program, preparing me for life after college while never restricting one's freedom to explore.
But most of all, for the knowledge that at the end of four years I wouldn't just be a great environmentalist; I would be a better person.

Undergraduate / My love of puns: Middlebury optional supplement [10]

Hey guys! Below is my essay for the Middlebury optional supplement. I am honestly not sure whether it is stupid or funny. Take a gander:

Please feel free to briefly share with us anything you would like us to know that is not otherwise covered in the Common Application (250 word max) -- my word count=213

How do you wake up Lady Gaga?
Don't know? Poker Face.
Here's another one: What is an existentialist's favorite type of music?
Heavy meta.
They say puns are the lowest form of humor. Which is true - indeed, they're the very foundation of humor, and one of the few that don't necessarily have to be at someone's expense. Not only are puns amusing, but their usage displays a fine mastery of language and a quick wit.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am an expert punster. Most weekends, you would find me furiously browsing online forums and guest blogs, analyzing the results of past editions of the World Punoff Championships, watching recorded episodes of 'The Simpsons' in slow motion, or re-reading the collected works of Shakespeare and James Joyce, trying to find every pun I can, glean every insight into the minds of master punsters. I have always sought to draw inspiration from wherever I can, and selflessly kiss my creations out into the world to benefit all mankind. And I must be succeeding. Why else would my best puns be met by ridicule, painful groans, and threats of physical violence? Could there be starker signs of unappreciated genius?

Thus, I must persevere. After all, not everyone can have my level of fauxpertise.

Undergraduate / Eco-Protectors; Vanderbilt supp - Extra curricular activities. [7]

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences (Recommended length: 250 words)

In the ninth grade, my best friend and I formed Eco-Protectors - our attempt to address the environmental travails facing our home-town. We decided to tackle the problem of rising air pollution by planting more trees, and over the next two weeks gave two presentations to the xyz Municipality and were promised one hundred saplings of abc. On the following Sunday, about 30 students from our school gathered at my apartment building. Along with some municipality workers - who had graciously agreed to help us on a holiday - we went to two nearby housing societies and had the most wonderful time getting our hands dirty, and getting the local residents - both children and the elderly- involved. This is one of the fondest memories I have and it showed me that if you share your hopes and dreams with those around you, if they trust your capabilities and conviction, people will do their best to see you through.

This is about 150 words long. Can you guys please suggest what else I should add to increase the word count?

Undergraduate / Learning about courage and compassion: Princeton's supplementary essay [4]

Hey guys! Below is my response to princeton's prompt :Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. word limit - 500. (I have used 533 words)

Please let me know how you like it; I have little writing experience and am looking for helpful feedback. Thanks!

"She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." - Contact, by Carl Sagan.

On 26th of July, 2005, my father and I had gone to visit an old college friend of his in Worli, Mumbai. It was only when we started to leave that we noticed the sheets of rain, which had been relentlessly pelting the sides of the building, had caused mayhem on the streets outside. In spite of his friend's warning, Papa decided to catch the bus to Mahim, pointing out that torrential rains hit Mumbai every monsoon.

It was becoming clearer by the second that this was no ordinary downpour. By the time we realized it, virtually the entire city had been flooded and it was too late to get out of the bus - there was no way we could have covered the remaining distance on foot. Papa coaxed me to sleep for a little while, with the assurance that things would get better soon. By 9 pm, pangs of hunger had woken me up and I was praying feverishly for a miracle. And the miracle did happen! Within few minutes, some people started boarding our bus with steel crates on their heads. As if by divine providence, these unexpected Samaritans had turned up with bottles of water, packets of biscuits, and the Mumbai staple of 'wada-pav'. From their clothing it was apparent that they were lower to lower-middle class folks - most likely from Dharavi, the nearby slum settlement. Dharavi is in a low lying area and consequently the effects of this deluge would have been most acute there. Yet these selfless souls had taken time out of helping their own families to help strangers, putting their own welfare at stake. Later that night they even provided us with transport on a makeshift raft and helped us reach our relatives' place, who were overjoyed to see our faces. We got into warm and dry beds that night, thanking our stars at just being alive.

It has been eight years now since that night which took the lives of over a hundred Mumbaikars. What happened there was neither televised nor broadcast, but it meant the world to 56 despondent passengers. Until then, I was convinced that the world was not run on fancy theories of selfless service but rather on the Darwinian notion of each man for himself. The sweat-drenched faces of those men proved me wrong. I now know that the change we all hanker for, the change that we all visualize through costly seminars and vision documents, will neither be mandated nor photographed; instead, it will come in miniscule selfless acts, quietly done and cloaked in humility. Being saved by a group of strangers whose conviction to serving others became an inspiration for me since that night, I became a different person. Now, whenever there is a moment where I can help and change things for the better, those unnamed selfless friends, our saviours, remind me repeatedly how apathy is unacceptable, and that we all have the strength to change what is broken in our lives, and in the world.