Undergraduate / Extracurricular Activity jiu-jitsu- essay [5]

For the past few years, I have been practicing jiu-jitsu. Although it sounds foreign, it's what you'd expect from a martial art- pushups, grunting, and practice. However, jiu-jitsu isn't like other martial arts. It's not about pure strength, or enduring pain. It's about art, knowledge, and steadfastness. My mentor said that jiu-jitsu was about picking a goal, and then doing all you could to achieve it. In essence, jiu-jitsu mirrors the struggles of life. You start on the bottom with a goal, and you try to achieve it. Just as you struggle in multiple ways in life, so too do you try to pass the guard in different ways in jiu-jitsu. But in both, if you lose sight of your original goal, and just focus on the first step, you lose sight of the goal. Focus on the goal, and the steps will come. Don't focus only on the steps, otherwise you risk losing sight of your goal. In other words, if you get lost in the intricacies of the "how's", you lose sight of the "why".

This is my short answer for my CommonApp.
If you could comment on it with helpful suggestions I would be much obliged.

Undergraduate / "Trek TRUST" A reporter is writing an article about you after Olin College-Supplement [2]

Question-
In the year 2042 a reporter for The Boston Globe is going to write a feature article about you to appear on the front page! The article will chronicle your profound professional accomplishments, including how you became one of your generation's leading innovators and used your Olin College education to help others and change the world. Help us learn more about you by sharing this story with us.

Write the front page headline (limit 35 characters) and the opening paragraphs of the article that will appear on the front page (no more than 300 words).

Trust in the TREK

Joshua Eisdorfer, now a household name, struck the world with thunder after graduating from Olin College - a college with a knack for producing engineers who know the solutions to global problems - when, working together with scientists from NASA, the DoD, and Israel, he designed what we now know as the StarShield space defense system. In 2027, during the unveiling of the defense system, and said that, "This system protects every single country from ballistic missiles- every single person. This isn't an offensive play- StarShield is going to protect the innocent from the bad guys out there." However, the CEO of Trek Industries had more than defense on his mind. In 2026, he made a statement about his college years, saying that, "What I learned at Olin was the need to solve real problems, and that means that you must be able to reinvent yourself, to think in different ways. Engineering isn't just about science, but about helping people on a real, personal level. So, I'm switching gears in Trek Industries, and it's going to be gigantic." There was speculation in the media about this, but there was only silence from the CEO. In 2039, Joshua Eisdorfer released his plans, and they were literally Earth-shaking. He announced that his company would begin plans for the terraforming of Northern Africa and the Middle East, explaining that, "I learned how to help. I've always wanted to help. That's why, when I formed Trek Industries, I said that 7% of profits would always go to charity. This is just an extension of that." As of now factories are being set up in Northern Africa, getting ready. It seems as if the world is seeing real, tangible change for good, but Eisdorfer says the the best is yet to come.

Undergraduate / UMD Supp - Citizen Journalism Question Philip Defranco [NEW]

Q1:
Discuss a time when you witnessed the impact of citizen journalism in your community. What did this event teach you about the potential for an individual to influence public opinion?

Philip Franchina, known as "Philip DeFranco", is a 26 year-old YouTube star. An online citizen journalist, he takes news stories off of the Internet and presents them is a funny and political format to his viewers. According to him, "it's just me talking about the stuff in the news that matters to me." He reports on domestic and international stories- not only world-shaking news, but gaming and blogging news, international scandals, and anything else that he takes an interest in. From meager beginnings, he has become one of the most watched YouTubers in the world. On a videotaped tour of Europe, he held a meet and greet with thousands of his fans. Although I had realized the effect he had on the opinions of teens in America, I was not prepared for the extent of his influence on the views that foreigners held in respect to our country. This one man, simply by creating a mode of communication that could internationally, had become one of the main sources of information on news in America for thousands of teens in Europe. Doing what powerful, multinational news corporations couldn't, he was able to his opinion out there and make it matter. What's important to note is the lesson that this teaches us- that, as Sonia Johnson said, "one determined person can make a significant difference." This especially rings true at the University of Maryland, where people from all over to influence and to in turn be influenced by the words of their professors and their friends. One only has to look at graduates of a college to determine its caliber- and with alumni such as Jim Henson and Charles Bennett, both individuals with massive accomplishments, I know that Maryland is a place where I, as an individual, can change the world.