Undergraduate / "I live in Beijing" + to focus on "class knowledge" - Brown Supplement [5]

Prompt: Why are you drawn to the academic fields you indicated in the Anticipated Degree and Interests field? (Enviromental Study)

I live in Beijing, or you can also call it the city of dust. Because every times I look out of the window, all I see is a dusky sky along with the dreariness and frigidness in this freezing winter. Blue, perhaps, is not a word to be related to sky, at least not in Beijing. It is sad to think about one would risk being a "live vacuum cleaner", just by doing some running exercise in the morning.

It reminds me of the words in the book silent spring, "It is an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged." I feel that here in Beijing, the gloss and glitter of the metropolitan city have already outmatched the brightness and gleam of the sky. This is why I want to major in environmental study at Brown. I hope one day due to my efforts, the people in my hometown would get a real healthy environment to live in, breathing the fresh air, and enjoying the magnificence of the sky. After all, that's what we all deserve.

Prompt: Please tell us more about your interest in Brown: Why does Brown appeal to you as a college option? Who or what has influenced your decision to apply?

Right from Elementary school, I was told to focus on "class knowledge", which mainly included Math, Chinese, and English. There was even a term to describe books, films, and activities outside of class requirement: "ke wai". And it was not praise.

I never believed it. In junior high I saw the power of words reading my first English novel the catcher in the rye; and in senior high I came through the hardship joining the grade's basketball contest. All these experiences were "ke wai", but they were sources of learning to me.

This is why I choose Brown. Ever since primary school, I have been told what to learn or what not to learn, and yet been blamed for disobedience. But here in Brown, with the open curriculum, it would be me deciding for myself. I can almost see myself deepening the research in my areas of interest, while exploring disciplines that aren't familiar to me. It should be a brand new experience of study that I cherish.

Thx a lot guys!

Undergraduate / Karen Blixen's Out Of Africa, Cornell Supplement [2]

Prompt:Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. Tell us how you will utilize the academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences to further explore your interests, intended major, or field of study. (college of Arts and Sciences)

Three weeks ago I co-founded Roots&Shoots Organization with my colleague Sam. Due to the colorful and gigantic poster hung on the lobby wall of our school building, and our tireless propagation maneuver, we were able to recruit more than 20 "new bloods" into the group. And now it was the fourth week and I was seeking desperately for something original and inspiring.

The idea popped out of my head one day when I was at home on bed doing my pre-sleep reading. It was Karen Blixen's Out Of Africa. And though I was lying on bed, I read the words as if I can really hear the wind breezing, feel the wildness of the rambling creatures, and see the beauty of the Ngong Hills and Rift Valley. I knew then what I shall do: read.

I decided to make every fourth Friday of a month the special day for our organization. Every special day when class is over, all club members shall go to the mini central park in our school reading a book relevant to nature or environment concerning. And it went really well.

I brought Karen Blixen's Out of Africa, while others brought Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope, or Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The best part is that we could share our books, and discuss our feeling about the story while surrounded by blooming trees and inhaling the smell of plants and dirt. As if, by communicating to each other while exposing in nature and absorbing the sunlight, we were communicating to nature itself as well. Born and since then lived in a metropolitan city like Beijing, nature never seemed so closed, so real to me until that time. It made me feel that preserving and protecting it was a well-established fact that needed no more propagation but should had already been ingrained in every single human being's mind and blood.

I suddenly remember Kafka's word, "A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul." I never thought words can be such a power to melt one's heart until that engaging moment we all felt while reading. My passion grows each day as my exploration on the magic of words proceeded from Out of Africa to On the Road, from the Catcher in the Rye, to the Great Gatsby.

It was this passion that appeals me to the study in the department of comparative literature at Cornell University. For so many times I have felt my love toward reading while staring at awe the revealing of a completely diverse world and culture through mere rhetoric words and language. And now here in Cornell, I want to study European literature comparative with Asian's, I want to explore the mystery of Literature, comparative to other art forms, as well as media; most importantly, I want to pursue the essence of literature, cross-disciplinarily, comparative to history, philosophy, or even sociology.

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