Undergraduate / Columbia Supplement Essays (Why Columbia and Why Biology) [5]

Please tell us what you find most appealing about Columbia and why.

Columbia appeals to me not only because of the multifaceted diversity of the school and surrounding city, but also the academic interests and backgrounds. When put together with the world-renowned faculty and the common aspiration to doing something incredible in the world, the chance to study at Columbia is, to me, a chance to start making a difference in the world. I currently attend a magnet school where people from Russia to Haiti and everywhere in between are drawn together by the common interest in improving the world, an experience that has helped me realize that a diverse and driven faculty and student body are essential to maximize what can be learned.

The diverse academic and extracurricular opportunities at Columbia are another major draw for me. In academic fields, biology and literature are my forte. My personal interests lie in many forms of music ranging from a cappella to drum corps. The incredible depth and breadth of the Core curriculum and the range of the musical opportunities at Columbia present a fantastic opportunity.

Columbia's location is another major draw for me. New York City is in many ways the pinnacle of the trend towards globalization and interdisciplinary integration. My internship at Georgia Tech this year has shown me how powerful collaborations can be. Columbia has faculty and alumni that have had a massive impact in every field, from politics to biology, and the chance to learn from them presents an opportunity unique to Columbia.

Please tell us what attracts you to your field of choice (Biology)

If you had told me as a magnet freshman that I would be listing biology as my primary academic interest on the application to my dream school, I probably would have laughed, as at the time I thought biology was just dry memorization. Skip ahead to the present and here I am, preparing to continue an internship in a planktology lab at Georgia Tech next semester and attempting to convey my passion for biology on college essays. Biology, I have come to realize, is one of the most alive sciences (no pun intended), a characteristic that draws me into the field more and more every day. My internship at Georgia Tech has shown me the challenges of extensive data analysis, surprisingly the tedium of hundreds of hours of data analysis failed to temper my enthusiasm. The minute and nearly infinite sub-fields within biology fascinate me as well, as every time a question is answered in a field as seemingly tiny as planktology, two new questions appear.

I have always loved problem solving and learning something completely new, and at the most basic level, biology is just than that. Some of the mechanisms found in nature are so inventive and brilliant that they defy explanation until somebody with the right tools examines them and discovers something amazing like how nerve cells transmit signals or how the body uses signal molecules. In biology, the innovative twists of thinking that lead to remarkable discoveries and the complex answers to seemingly simple questions fascinate me.

Thanks!

Undergraduate / 'Getting an artistic pattern' - CommonApp Elaborate on an Extracurricular [5]

Conducting is an astonishingly deceptive action. It looks like it should be so simple, just waving your hands around in a specific pattern, but once you start trying to conduct, it quickly becomes apparent how many minute details are involved in getting an artistic and readable pattern. It is an incredible blend of muscle tension and looseness that takes hours of practice time alone in front of a mirror or video recorder to master. It pays off in the end though, in those 8 minutes from the time you hear the traditional question , "Drum Majors Xander Miller and Daney Glover, is your band ready?" over the stadium loudspeaker to the last triumphant cutoff as the crowd behind you erupts in applause and cheers. It is the hours of practicing the details, the minutiae of finger position, the angle of the wrist, all the hard work that makes those moments so phenomenal and remind me that all the hard work pays off.

922/1000

Thanks!

Undergraduate / 'Split South Africa' - CommonApp (Diversity Encounter/Experience) [3]

"High school is supposed to be a change," counselors and parents always tell you. For me though, the shift into high school wasn't just a change in location and a minor shuffle of the people I had gone through middle school with, it was a seismic shift in perspective. Coming from a culturally and ethnically homogenous middle school, I had been accepted into the Wheeler Magnet Science, Math, and Technology program. Instead of going to my districted high school with the people I had grown up with, I elected to go to Wheeler. My first day at there was something I'll never forget. I was amazed at the range of people I saw within five minutes of stepping off the bus the first morning. Though I had some exposure to Wheeler before the year started through the two weeks of marching band camp over the summer, I was still unprepared for the sheer range of people I met or, literally in most cases, bumped into that morning. I must confess, it took a few days for me to get used to sitting in classes with people from such diverse backgrounds. Every day though, it always surprises me how much I've come to value it and how much I've grown as a result of it. At the close of my seventh semester at Wheeler, I have to say that I can't imagine high school in any other way now. Learning from teachers and students alike with remarkable and far reaching backgrounds has been a phenomenal experience that reminds me on a daily basis how crucial diversity is to learning.

The diversity that is inherent at Wheeler has provided numerous opportunities for me to learn, both inside the classroom and out. Serving the band as a drum major this year put in me an a position that made me learn how to best work with, lead, and, above all, unify a large, extremely diverse group with a single common passion. Working with this group has helped me learn more about myself as a person, and as a leader. Over the course of the season and the fall semester, I've realized that the diversity within the band is what makes it such a remarkable experience and such a successful organization as a whole.

My life has been split in some ways between two fundamentally different societies. Having spent many summers abroad with my mother's family in South Africa, I realize more and more every year how my unique background affects my views and hopes. Seeing the abject poverty in areas of South Africa and the relative wealth of my hometown of Marietta has given me a unique world view. It's this diversity in my life that has always made me want to do something to make the world a better place and has led to me becoming who I am today.

Thanks!

Undergraduate / 'Tone, Audience, and Purpose' - Favorite Class (Columbia Supplement) [7]

 
The stereotype is the same the world over: the seemingly draconian English teacher with a heart of gold and a passion for setting somewhat strange assignments on even stranger works of literature. For me however, this archetype came to life in the form of Ms. Wheatley and her infamous AP English Language & Composition class. As I had been hearing for years that this would be the most brutal English class I would take at Wheeler, I entered the classroom on the first day with an understandable sense of trepidation. Within days however, AP Language and I were becoming fast friends. The friendly jibes and challenges handed out daily by Ms. Wheatley, led to me soon realizing that I was starting to actually enjoy the nightly homework. During classroom time, formal lectures were rare as classes were typically structured around lively discussions of the book we were devouring at the time. To say that these discussions were lively would be quite an understatement. With a few prods from Ms. Wheatley, a lifeless discussion would rapidly evolve into a heated debate about the mental state of a character that brought the book to life.

Since taking AP Language, I find myself routinely TAPping whatever I am reading, that is to say, analyzing the Tone, Audience, and Purpose of the work. As we were constantly reminded in class to TAP whatever it was we were reading, I find that now I read everything more analytically, and as a result, get more out of literature.

Any critiques, major or minor, greatly appreciated. Thanks & Good luck!