Undergraduate / "Rhetorical Analysis of YouTube Comments"-CommonApp Essay [8]

This is the first draft of my CommonApp essay (Create your own topic), I still haven't written a beginning and end but this i what I have so far.

A few days ago someone referenced an obscure YouTube video and my girlfriend said, "Ask Shaun about that, he knows all about YouTube." This caused me to immediately question my reputation. Why am I known as a YouTube connoisseur and how did this inexplicable bond between me and YouTube form? Maybe in order to find out more about myself I must look at the members of the YouTube community, hopefully looking into their inner thoughts would help me find out more about myself. So I turned to the comment section and listened to my brethren to hear what they had to say.

InvisibleRen- "Pssh. I kick doors open. Not only do I evade germs but I also look badass." InvisibleRen's desire to maintain the illusion of badassery in front of his peers supersedes his verminophobia. Ren sees himself as invisible because he is too afraid to stand out from the crowd; this is why he must make a name for himself as "the guy who kicks down doors". I am unlike Ren in this way. I would much prefer to open doors gently and hold them open for the person behind me. I strategically blend in and have only those who I want to know me, know me. When someone who is normally quiet finally does say something, everyone listens. I like to take advantage of this and I only stand out when I need to, but sometimes I do feel like InvisibleShaun. Unlike Ren who sees invisibility as a curse, I treat it like a super power and would prefer it over standing out for the wrong reasons any day. To kick a door open to hide your verminophobia may seem extreme but clearly for InvisibleShaun, being an invisible outsider just isn't an option.

TheyCallMePinkerton- "If you don't like the videos, quit raging and don't watch them, and no one will even notice you have gone." TheyCallMePinkterton is defending the video at hand by using a logical fallacy, begging the question; how could a viewer know a video is bad before watching it? To jump to this fallacy instead of arguing in favor of the video's quality shows Pinkerton is weak and lacks self-confidence. Unlike Pinkerton, I never shy away from debate. I have spent countless nights debating a friend of mine on everything from moral relativism to argumentative approach. Yes, arguments about arguments. And while normally my body would shuts down by 11 p.m., on rare occasions I found myself in deep discussion about numerous philosophical questions until well into the morning. For some people, backing down from an argument is instinctive, but debates help us grow as people and are a major part of what makes me who I am.

emotionful- "I hated the word quiche..then I didn't know how to say it I said "qweesh" then I heard someone say it and he said "keesh"." Sometimes our expectations for things are not what they may seem. Some people expect a word to be pronounced the way it's spelled, is that so hard to ask? But emotionful isn't the only one guilty of setting her expectations far higher than her realities. Ever since my first crush in sixth grade, I thought of the perfect first kiss over and over. As my eyes would close I would dream of me, sweeping my fair maiden off her feet as I wipe the remnants of her evil captor off my own feet. We would then ride my Griffon past several rainbows into the sunset as I slowly held her waist, angels would surround us. As they began singing their melodies I would quietly serenade her with a song I previously wrote, one which expresses my undying love for her. A light would beam down from the heavens as God gave me the OK. Slowly, smoothly I would lean in and give her the most passionate kiss that ever was kissed! Losing control of my motor functions was not part of the plan. Sometimes our realties are not as high as our expectations, whether they are kisses or quiches. *Need better finishing sentence

LJonesy2- "Money can't by(sic) you happiness, but it can buy you marshmallows, which are kind of the same thing." LJonesy2 has clearly lived a very difficult life. When he states money can't buy you happiness he begins to ponder, what does? This is a question which plagues many of us. What can bring us happiness? Can Money? Friendship? Love? I'm a simple man with simple needs. While I occasionally love things like snowboarding and water skiing I can enjoy a quiet night watching a movie with my friends. Some of the best nights I've had were playing cards with a few of my buddies or going bowling with a group of friends. For me, nothing beats friendship and true friends can have fun no matter what they're doing, or how many marshmallows they have.

So is my title as "The YouTube guy" an accurate one? InvisibleRen and I seem to be opposites; the philosophies on life which Pinkerton has are the inverse of my own, emotionful, along with me and everyone else struggles with misunderstandings, and LJonesy struggles to find happiness, something which has plagued us all. We have our similarities and our differences but this is because YouTube is a community similar to our community, often times they even mirror each other.

I know it's a bit long but thanks for any advice you have!

Undergraduate / Johns Hopkins Supplement-Chemical Engineering [4]

Johns Hopkins offers 50 majors across the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering. On this application, we ask you to identify one or two that you might like to pursue here. Why did you choose the way you did? If you are undecided, why didn't you choose? (If any past courses or academic experience influenced your decision, you may include them in your essay.)

Since the day I could walk I loved to create. I started with Lincoln Logs, which evolved into Legos and worked my way up to Mega Bloks; I always loved making something from nothing. As I got older I fell in love with the show MythBusters. While I found the concept of "proving urban legends false" entertaining, what I really liked was mapping out blue prints, coming up with a planned experiment and testing the circumstances presented in each myth. Engineering at its core is what I'm truly interested in, I like making plans and creating experiments, I find it interesting to learn new things by doing instead of being taught. Along with this I really enjoyed math. Math was something I knew, even in adolescence, that I would want to pursue in some way in the future.

From a young age I decided to be either an engineer or a math teacher. But during the past two years of high school I found a new love, Chemistry. I became increasingly interested in nanotechnology and took a college chemistry course. Then I stumbled upon Chemical Engineering. This sounded like a major that was specifically molded to my interests. I read about a fabric which "strongly repels water thanks to nanoscale filaments with a spiky structure" and knew this career was for me. The perfect combination of Math, Chemistry, and the best parts of my childhood, I can't see myself majoring in anything but Chemical Engineering.