Undergraduate / 'a band geek' - Tufts Short Response #3 [3]

Please help proofread my response!
Thanks!

3. For the second short response, we asked you to consider the world around you. Now, consider the world within. Taste in music, food, and clothing can make a statement while politics, sports, religion, and ethnicity are often defining attributes. Are you a vegetarian? A poet? Do you prefer YouTube or test tubes, Mac or PC? Are you the drummer in an all-girl rock band? Do you tinker? Use the richness of your identity to frame your personal outlook. (200-250 words)

Back in my old school, everyone in band was known as a band geek. Usually, the term geek has a very negative connotation, but in my school, being a band geek was something to be proud of. We were the ones who played at all the football games and went to Disneyland. While other people spent their Friday nights partying or studying, I was with the rest of the band playing pep band music at the school football games. It wasn't required, but everyone just loved to play music. Where football has "hell week", my band had "band week". We spent every day of "band week" in our sectionals playing music and if we messed up, we had to do pushups and run laps. It was intense, but I loved it. One of my favorite activities that we did as a band was the field show. Every Thursday during the summer, the band would meet up to practice for the field show. I didn't see the results of my hard work then, but after our first field show, that's where I really saw the fruits of my labor. We performed at competitions and only achieved our high scores through everyone working as one unit. Being in band has really helped to shape my personal outlook on life. I have learned that even though I may not see the results of my work right away, it will be there in the future, and that is why no matter what it is - music, sports, or academics; I try my best.

Undergraduate / 'no boyfriend or a relationship until college' - Tufts #5 [7]

So the topic was
5. Why did you do it?

250-500 word limit.

Why did I do it? Maybe it was because I felt that it was the best opportunity I would ever get. Maybe it was because I thought that I had found the perfect way to ask someone out. Maybe it was the atmosphere. I don't know. I had only really gotten to know her in the past week, and I decided out of the spur of the moment that I was going to ask her out. I knew that she didn't want a boyfriend or a relationship until college, but I did it anyways. So why did I do it? The chance of her saying yes was so small, and I'm a pretty shy guy so asking someone out like this was unthinkable for me. I asked myself this question constantly after she rejected me. But now, I don't regret it, and honestly, if I had to go through it again, I would go through it the same way. Believe it or not, because I asked her out, we got closer, and now she is one of my closest friends. I had to take the risk because I couldn't live with the doubt in my mind of what would happen if I didn't ask her.

As I was reflecting on this question while writing this essay, I think applying to colleges really helped me to understand. Why do people apply to Ivy League Colleges? Their chances of getting in are miniscule, yet why do they do it? The answer is simple: because it is their dream to attend that school, and at the time, she was my dream. Fast forward to senior year, and I'm thinking about asking her to go to prom with me as a friend. Will she say yes? Who knows? But one thing I know for sure is this - it is better to try and fail than to not try at all.

Undergraduate / 'Going The Extra Mile' - Sophie Davis Essay #1 [2]

This is the prompt:

1. Referring back to Section B or C of this application, choose one of your extracurricular activities, employment or community experiences and describe why it has been especially meaningful to you (e.g., because of personal growth, ability to assume or share responsibility).

Going The Extra Mile

"Whenever someone asks you for help with something, you always go the extra mile."
The missions team was going around telling one another encouragements on the last night of missions, and this was what my youth pastor told me. As I reflected on myself, I realized that I had only started acting this way recently.

When my pastor had announced that the signups for Mexico missions was open, I immediately decided that I wanted to go. I had never gone on a missions trip before and was curious to experience Mexico missions. Because I am the worship leader for my church's youth group congregation, my pastor asked me to lead the worship on the missions trip. I agreed, not knowing the amount of work it would take. I usually lead with guitar and sing every Friday and Sunday, and I come two hours earlier to practice with the worship band. I thought that was a lot of work, but by the end of the missions trip in Mexico, I was dead tired.

One of the problems with me going to missions was the question of who would lead the worship back at my church. We would be gone for ten days, so there would be three services that I would miss. However, the only problem was who would lead because most of the worship team would still be there. That was where my other difficulty arose. I needed to form a worship band with people who did not play an instrument regularly. Almost all of the other people on the youth worship team had conflicts and could not go on the missions trip. I had no idea how I was going to pull this together. The only worship band members who were also going to missions were the backup bass player and the keyboard player. I could play all of the instruments in a band so I decided that I would teach the other instruments to people who were willing to do it.

First, I had to find a drummer. One of my friends who was also going on the missions trip had a drumset that he played once in a while. I asked him if he was willing to play drums, and he said yes. For the next couple of weeks, I gave him the songs for him to try and learn, and the Saturday before we went to Mexico, we met up and practiced. For ten hours, I taught him drums while battling a fever. Luckily for me, one of my friends was pretty good at electric guitar and he happened to be going on the missions trip also so all I had to do was give him the songs to learn and make sure he knew them.

When people write about missions, for them, the hard stuff is usually things like the construction work, and I'm not saying those things are not hard. But for me, having to lead the worship was definitely the hardest part. There was just so much preparation and work that I had to put in. Every morning and night, the missions team would have meetings, and I would have to play three to four songs. Then there was the evangelizing. We went out every day for about an hour in the local community. I would play the guitar and the other members of the missions team sang the songs. During the evangelizing, I had some bad luck. I forgot to bring an extra set of strings and the B string on the acoustic guitar broke around the third day. For the rest of the time, I had to play with a missing string, and my fingers were dead. Because I had to play so much guitar, my calluses were getting re-callused each day. My fingers felt like it felt when I had just started playing guitar, but with one difference - I could not take breaks when they hurt!

This may not be the typical thing to write about going to the missions field, but this is how it was meaningful to me. I could've put a lot less preparation into the worship, with a much worse result, or I could've even declined to do it. I didn't have to spend countless hours teaching other people instruments and could've just opted to lead worship on just the acoustic guitar. But once I accepted it, no matter how grueling and tiresome it was, I put in 100 percent. Although it wasn't a picture perfect memory, in the end, I managed to finish it all with some success. All of the preparation and hard work that I had to do, allowed me to grow as a person. On this missions trip, I had to overcome so many obstacles and there were some things I could not change, and I realized that's how life is. There will be times when things don't go my way and I will have to adapt. No matter how much preparation I go through, nothing goes according to plan. Yet, if I go the extra mile and try my best, I know that I will still feel a sense of accomplishment.

I feel like it's kind of boring, and I think my conclusion doesn't really match my introduction.
PLEASE HELP!!
THANKS!!!

Undergraduate / 'Creating a Social Economy' - Sophie Davis Essay #2 [NEW]

Please help!
The prompt is:
2.
Briefly describe what you believe is a major domestic problem confronting the United States - socially, economically or in health care. Indicate how you think this problem should be resolved.

THANKS!

Creating a Social Economy
The United States runs on a very consumerist economy. Three years ago, the nation's finance and credit, which drives our economy, froze. Since then, governments have injected enormous sums of money to try and keep this consumerist system afloat. Why does the government put so much money into this kind of economy? This consumerist system creates unemployment in youth, and thousands of people who come out of college hit brick walls and become unemployed. These people have wit, brains, and energy, but because they are unemployed, lose hope. They think that they are useless. It's really astonishing how capitalism can be so efficient at some things, but so inefficient at others.

Around twenty years ago, the United States was going through the longest boom ever in the history of this country. But this growth did not always deliver what people needed. There were unprecedented levels of wealth and prosperity, but rates of depression continued to grow. Contrary to popular belief, economic growth does not automatically translate to social growth. This year, there will be a million unemployed young people, and thousands of people lose their jobs every day in America. This is really a crisis in the United States. However, I believe that we can use this crisis to jump forward to a different kind of economy that is more balanced with society. After all, the deepest crises can be moments of opportunity for acceleration and much needed reform. If you look at the 1930s, the Great Depression paved the way for policies like Bretton Woods and welfare states.

There is an enormous amount of money going into fixing the past instead of preparing us for the future. We spend money on bailing out the banks and well-known companies like car companies, instead of solving the really profound problems that we have to solve. And that is the problem with the United States. Instead of spending unprecedented sums on boosting consumption, we should be using this money with a longer-term vision: to accelerate the shift to a green economy, and to deal with some of the inequalities, rather than just giving the money to incumbents. We should be giving the money to entrepreneurs, to civil society, for people able to create the new. Not to the big, well-connected companies or big clunky government programs.

What will be the biggest sectors of the economy in the future? If it is the ones lining up for handouts, like cars and aerospace, then the economy is doomed. But if the biggest sectors are things like health, elder care, child care, education, environmental services, energy services, and the myriad of green jobs, then the economy will be much more successful because it will be a different kind of economy. It won't just be about products, but will be about using distributed networks, and it will be founded on care, on relationships, and on what people do to other people, rather than simply selling them a product.

The United States has to radically change. It can't go back to where it was before the crisis. But this change can only be achieved through experiment. We'll have to learn things like how to run a low carbon city, how to care for a much older population, and how to deal with drug addiction. The only way that this can happen is through experience. The United States now spends about three to four percent of the Gross Domestic Product to invest in science and technology, and to fuel the pipeline of brilliant invention. It's not that scientists are smarter now; they just get more funding and backing.

In society, there's almost nothing comparable: no comparable investment, no systematic experiment, in the things capitalism isn't very good at, like compassion, empathy, relationships, or care. If we put just one percent of public spending into social innovation, such as elder care, new kinds of education, and new ways of helping the disabled, then perhaps we'll be able to achieve similar productivity gains in society to those we've had in the economy and in technology. A generation ago, the big challenge was getting a man on the moon. Now, the big challenge should be advancing social innovation.

Undergraduate / 'The Pursuit of Medicine' - Sophie Davis Essay #3 [2]

The prompt is:
3.
To aid the Admissions Committee in learning more about you, please share your current influences and interest for pursuing a career in Medicine/Dentistry.

THANKS!
I WILL RETURN THE FAVOR!

The Pursuit of Medicine
I do not have many influences in pursuing a career in medicine. There are really only two people who have deeply influenced me to pursue becoming a doctor - my uncle and my dad. Too many doctors nowadays only care about curing the patients, but do not actually care for the well-being of the patient. Television shows like House portray how the main doctor can be one who does not care about the patient, but almost always manages to cure the patient in the end. In my opinion, one of the most important characteristics that you need in order to be a successful doctor is genuine concern for the patients. Honestly, that's all there is to it. I do not have many relatives in the medical field, but ever since I was young, I have always strongly believed that a doctor should care for his or her patients.

This view was only reinforced when I visited my uncle in Korea. During my stay in Korea, I visited his workplace and when I saw what he did, I was just attracted more to becoming a doctor. We had a long discussion about my future, and I really admired my uncle and thought of him as an ideal physician. He said that being a doctor was good if you wanted to see the personal impact that you had in people's lives, but he also warned me of the failure and sorrow that I would have to face. When he talked about his profession, I could hear a genuine passion in his voice, and he was the one who first introduced me to a career in medicine.

The second experience that influenced my decision to become a doctor was when my dad had a heart attack. When he had a heart attack, I had this feeling of helplessness and all I could do was stand and watch. I hated that feeling and didn't want to go through that same feeling ever again. Then, two years later, he went through another cardiac arrest, and I was scared to death. By pursuing a medical career, I would be able to help people and maybe advance the technology behind cardiothoracic operations. I wanted to be able to save people's lives.

I made my final decision in the summer before junior year to pursue medicine. Before this, I was still unsure about my profession (although I was leaning towards a career in medicine). That summer, I went to Mexico to do missions work and my life was deeply impacted. We were out evangelizing, and we stopped by a random house because some Mexicans were motioning us over. We walked into the house, and saw a frail, old lady, who couldn't even get out of bed. I wanted to help her so much, and that's when I knew that I had to become a doctor. This was the only way that I would be able to help people like this. Even though I knew that I would not save everyone if I became a doctor, I still needed to have a hand in the person's life. I could not just stand by and watch.

After being inspired to pursue medicine, I joined science research so that I could get a taste of the medical world. I am researching myocardial infractions and am analyzing the procedures performed on patients with these cardiac problems. I can say that I am far more knowledgeable on the subject than I was before and I would definitely be interested in pursuing my research at Sophie Davis. While researching, I happened to stumble upon Dr. Trevisan's research on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. I really admire his advancements and research in cardiovascular diseases, and would love to meet him one day.

I am also very involved in my church so I wanted to start a medical fair. I had heard about medical fairs in my friends' churches, where they asked doctors to come to their churches and give out free shots and vaccines to the church members. I contacted some doctors who attended my church, and helped to start up a medical fair. Now, there is a medical room where there is almost always a doctor giving out shots and vaccines.

The five year BS/MD program is helpful for me because I want to become a cardiothoracic surgeon as quickly as possible. My family has a lot of health issues and I want to be able to be there for them, and possibly relieve the stress in my family. I also think that a BS/MD program gives a better education because you are learning directly amongside fellow peers who are also striving to be doctors. This will help me academically and with making connections later on in life. Sophie Davis is well-known for it's BS/MD program which is why I want to go there.