Undergraduate / Brown-Stock Market Dillema [2]

C.What is the academic experience, project, class, or book that has influenced or inspired you?

So there I stood tracing the paper displaying the results of the stock market with my index finger, looking altogether dumbfounded.
XOM had gone down 20 points. I lost $50,000. As a rush of blood flushed my face and sweat lingered on my forehead, I helplessly panicked.
With all that said, a three month Economics Stock market school project has consumed my lifestyle, influencing my habits, interests, and emotions. Nonetheless, that was the closest I got to the Wall Street as a senior in high school.

November 1, 2008. That was the day Mr. Clement proposed an optional school project for his students to experience firsthand the risky stock market system. The rule of the game was simple. Beat the system by gaining as much profit as possible by buying and selling stocks with $100,000 in our bank accounts. The incentive to winning the project was just what every student wanted, a boost to our grades. So we began.

Accustomed to Ace-ing my projects, I was determined to win. This project freed me to explore all possible shares in a business, decide the value of a stock, and gamble-something usually frowned upon by my superiors. Learning the price was easy: all I had to do was just look it up in the newspaper or scrutinize finance.yahoo.com. Determining the value of the business was the hard part. In order to find the stock's profitability, I had to dig deeper into other factors-- demand for its product, its competition, unionization of workers, consumer loyalty, government regulation, taxes, and etc. For the next three months I found myself intellectually engaged in this daily routine, investigating and researching background information for a shot in the jackpot.

The unpredictability of the stock prices made this particular school project all the more challenging, but I relied on the theory of consistently rising oil prices in organizing my stock portfolio. To my horror, the OPEC had some surprises under its sleeves and oil prices dropped drastically. My theory based on background information and past stock patterns had crashed and burned, leaving me with half my savings and reality's cruel 'I told you so' .

Regrettably I placed almost dead last in the game. Academically ahead of the class, I was betrayed by mere chance. However, the stock market experience profoundly impacted me intellectually. Through this project, what I gained was an economist's perspective that background information, despite its importance, is only a guideline to how the economy functions. Through that conclusion, I validated how the coexistence of practical and theoretical elements is acceptable in the field of economics. More importantly, I independently conducted research on the building stones of our economy and even found thrill through a fake partake in the economic process. Thanks to the stock market project, I'm starting to think like an economist. I find myself ready to ride the economic pendulum, testing my theories in the real world

Undergraduate / Brown short answers (my interest, and why interested in Brown) [2]

A. Tell us about the academic areas that interest you most and your reasons for applying to Brown.

I'm a girl with the world's interest in hand. I am pursuing an education of social sciences to explore the global economic world and its international affairs. High school has given me the first look into liberal arts, sciences, and many other courses, but I've found my niche in the social sciences, particularly economics and international relations. I plan on studying the basics of what holds nations together financially as well as culturally. I found my passion first inside, then outside of the classroom and I want to nurture my understanding of social sciences at Brown University.

I plan to venture into economics because it's one field that remarkably combines both practical and theoretical schools of thought. I find myself drawn toward Brown's own dedication to mix the practical and theoretical elements through its 'collaborative university-college model' that revolves around tolerant course scheduling and grading system. I'm also determined to see what Brown's business programs has to offer and see firsthand how I can utilize my ideas to contribute to the Brown experience. An aspiring Brown Bear, I am a girl who'll make most of her experience by launching a Big Brothers/Sisters Academic Based Community service (ABC) to strengthen the already prominent community service Brown programs, debating on the perspectives of the summer reading, and browsing the halls of the Watson Institute of International studies looking for what life has to offer. Brown grants its students the power of choice, whether it is religion or the grading system, and I choose Brown to help me prepare making decisions for my future in the business world.

B. How did you become interested in Brown?

I first became familiar with Brown's name through the key chain my brother got for me after his 2003 summer program at Brown. I was in middle school and the stories and pictures of his encounter with the beautiful campus and its academic surroundings sparked my interest. Over the years, I requested brochures from Brown in an attempt to see if it was the place for me. Making my frequent trips to my mailbox, I fell in love with Brown, its academic environment, its opinionated students, and its passionate faculty. Brown's establishment of the Watson Institute of International Studies shows the university's attention and support for students with my similar interests. Brown knew how to market itself, and if I plan to go into the business field fully prepared, I will need to learn from the best.

Undergraduate / Commonapp-significant experience: My Failure to Launch [2]

What is a significant experience that has impacted you?

My Failure to Launch

A child like no other, I dreamed. I hungrily took Disney's words to heart as my wandering imagination found solace inside the world of fantasy. To my delight, the tales of princesses, wizards, and dwarfs opened up a world of possibilities and promised me the sky as my only limit. My imagination became a foundation upon which my life rested.

After my first glimpse into Peter Pan and Wendy's wingless flight, I grasped an opportunity to challenge the sky. Inquisitive and stubborn, I set out to prove what every seven-year-old held dear in heart as I ventured a flight powered by faith, trust, and a little pixie dust. To my surprise, it was that fateful autumn day when the chapter of my childhood fantasies came to an end. My flight intended toward Never-land instead landed me headfirst into reality.

Once again, I looked out the window. Once again, I saw the fluttering wings of birds near the horizon. But this time, I whispered to my sleeping parents, "I'm flying to Never-land today." I began frantically rummaging the house, looking for what I believed retained the power to make me fly. By the time I was through, the house was in shambles. Had my parents not been fast asleep, my wings of childhood fantasy would have been stripped from me at that moment.

While I clumsily held my wand in one hand and my trusty can of baking powder-scribbled pixie dust-in the other, I climbed valiantly to the top of my tallest tower; in reality, that tower was merely a cabinet with a height not far above the floor. Afraid that a pinch of pixie dust would have no effect, I dabbed myself with several handfuls of baking powder. I was going to fly. Looking down at the floor triumphantly, I jumped. For a moment while I hovered in the air, I was ecstatic. But it only took seconds before I fell into the hands of gravity. CRACK! I had landed with a pair of wings and a heart broken beyond repair.

It took over eleven stitches before my fantasizing came to an end. Fairy tales that had nurtured my wandering imagination as well as my creativity ceased to engross me to the degree they had in days before. As one fairy tale after another revealed its true nature, I found myself lost in my sense of direction. Although my physical scars from the fall soon disappeared, the inward scar of bitter disappointment remained. That fall stripped the wings of identity that I had fashioned for myself and left me barriers and obstacles that I had never recognized.

Fortunately, my fall became a stepping-stone rather than a setback. After that day, real challenges began to interest me more. After the imaginary victories brought about by the fairy godmother lost their power of enchantment, I became absorbed in the stories of real people, real success, and real accomplishment. The fascination of Peter Pan gave way to the keen interest in Magellan's sea explorations, Helen Keller's biography, the undaunted adventures of mountain climbers, and the Martin Luther King Jr.'s fight for racial equality.

Nearly a decade later my intellectual epiphany, I've grown to regard my young attempt at idealism with awe, rather than contempt and ridicule. "A Man's imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he or she has observed in reality" (Rand, "The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made", Philosophy: Who Needs It, pg. 25). And as a facet of reality, my young imagination was not a foolish faculty for just escaping reality, but a faculty for rearranging the elements of reality to seek what I wanted out of life. After my own discovery as the victim and a benefactor of idealism, I believe I am now better equipped to utilize my imagination to rearrange and challenge traditionally set values in our society.

My childhood fantasies made time pass. Accordingly, time made my childhood fantasies pass. Ironically, my failure to launch into the world of Peter Pan triggered my intellectual and physical growth. Although I have shut the window to only glimpse into the world of Peter Pan, I will dare to fly again. Leaving the stage of blind faith and folly behind, I will fly now with reason and talent as the wind beneath my wings. Some say one of the first great advances in the process of intellectual maturation is taking a step towards harsh reality. With the taste of

baking powder on my lips, my experience was quite different.
I jumped into that face of reality instead.

Undergraduate / "Oh" - UVA (your fav word) [4]

B. What is your favorite word? And why?

Oh is a word that single handedly expresses acknowledgement, surprise, excitement, or fears in one outburst. For me, I see it to be a medium that adapts to any situation and retorts back with an opinion of its own. Opinionated in nature inside and outside the classroom, I always seem to find myself voicing my ideas to respond to any situation, let it be a question relating to the choice of my breakfast cereal or the sanity of Shakespeare. OH!?. I seek to respond to the challenges that life offers me with a voice of my own, whether it trails behind periods, exclamation or question marks.

In addition, Oh's flexibility to change its tone about any subject is one trait I seek to hone to become a person accredited with tolerance. The big endless O seems to represent numerous opportunities of surprise and fears I must face to connect with others and grow intellectually. Oh is my reaction to whatever life throws at me and I plan to reply with the voice of curiosity and enthusiasm of Eun Ju Kim.

Undergraduate / Cornell (CAS// BOOKS) [3]

Describe your intellectual interests, their evolution, and what makes them exciting to you. Tell us how you will utilize the academic programs in the CAS to further explore your interests, intended major, or field of study.

Ever since I was little, my parents had the sheer necessity to surround me with books. It was as almost as if my parents believed that the scent of history bound literature could accelerate the process of my childhood. And if that didn't work, the smell of Starbuck's coffee surely would.

The countless hours confined in that institution of books rather gave me the first taste of independence and formed the foundation for which I plan to pursue for the rest of my life. Little did I know then as I roamed from one aisle to another, exploring what my surroundings had to offer, that Barnes & Nobles' aisle division of fiction and nonfiction represented the microcosm of the world in its possibilities and facts. Not surprisingly, my early observations of the divided world of literature sparked my interests in theory and practicality and fortified my interests in economics and international affairs. I found my niche and passion for the economic world inside a classroom first, outside a classroom second.

My economically- illiterate eyes overlooked the economic section that dealt with GDP, unemployment until my senior year in high school. The blurs and numbers became meaningful, and I could come up with conclusions of how the world economy stands today. Through the eyes of a reader, I regarded the ideas of Adam Smith, Keynes, and Ben Benarke with enthusiasm. And now through the eyes of an aspiring economist, I see myself responding back to those same ideas by building a stronger global economy through my understanding of managing social services, capital, or budget.

What I find most appealing about Cornell students is their accessibility to learn practically as well as theoretically in the College of Arts and Sciences. Due to the array of liberal arts education that CAS provides, I can expand on Cornell's theory of "any person...any study" by practically minoring in International relations and double majoring in history. As I venture a possible double major of economics and history, I'm particularly eager to interact with the experienced researcher and professor of history ChenJian to learn his insight into US-China and Asia Pacific relations and further develop my understandings of US international relations. I'm also aware of the availability of many other esteemed professors who are actively involved in outreach programs and I plan on taking full advantage of this opportunity.

In addition, I view College of Arts and Sciences' generous research opportunities and prospect of studying abroad as a plus to better understanding and expanding my study of the global economy. After being accustomed to the institution of books, I believe nothing cries out 'opportunity' better than being surrounded by it. Aspiring to dream, I see myself passing by steps of Goldwin Smith Hall heading toward the aisles of the Cornell University Library to browse over what life has to offer. If I happen to have a Starbucks coffee in one hand, it is by no means, a coincidence.