Undergraduate / 'Academic discussions and social interactions' - BROWN-Why are you going to college? [4]

"Directions: The Matrix in Computer Science"
"Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt"
"Weird Sisters and Fairy Queens: Women in Shakespearean Drama"

These are the reasons I want to go to college. College is a way to get a broader perspective on the issues surrounding me, within me, and issues to come to me. Being educated is a way to express yourself; this is the appeal of college. I want to be able to have discussions about anything, from sociology to microbiology to pop culture. It is not the title of a degree that makes me yearn to go to college, but rather the knowledge and understanding of things which right now seem so far past what I can understand. College teaches you that you don't know everything, and that there are certain things you aren't ever going to understand. This is very important for being able to be a true academic. Knowing the limits of knowledge, is in many ways more important than the knowledge itself because it gives guidelines. This is not to be confused with academic apathy, the goal is to continue to broaden the realm of things you understand- however working within a frame of reference is important to understand how to continue. College offers an opportunity to hear from the minds who actually came up with many of the theories, wrote the books, performed the piece; which is invaluable to understand their process and will inspire me to adapt my academic or artistic processes.

To transition so fluidly from academic discussions to social interactions is something which is invaluable. This is the true appeal of college. Living among people who are both your academic peers and your friends is something that is unique to the college experience. The line between academic and social situations blurs, so that the two can be interchanged, which allows for a new kind of dialogue to open- the dialogue of intellectualism.

Undergraduate / <I'm still afraid> - Common App-Journal as topic [2]

Fear is the reason I began keeping a journal. I was afraid of losing the "best days of my life," otherwise known as my high school life. I didn't want to lose these memories in a jumble of stressed out days, long sunny weekends, college, middle age and my elderly years. My mom keeps everything: Tupperware, bags, old tee shirts. So in a sense, I get it from my mom, except instead of being a pack-rat of tangible items. I am a pack-rat of memories. I save it all.

I got my journal in the weeks leading up to high school. The first entries reveal a boy who doesn't quite know where he stands going into the big world of high school. Will it be just like in the movies? Nerds being picked on by the football jocks, a social structure that was set in stone from the first day? He certainly was not ready for that. I talk of my first kiss. The way it didn't meet up to the sparks that were supposed to fly, and the romance that was supposed to ensue. The disappointment it had for me. I had been robbed of the single most important thing that to ever happen in my life, at least that's what I wrote. The book that houses all these early high school memories is tattered now, not quite as pristine as the small leather-bound book I bought in Barnes and Noble. That was part of it too. Appearance was key, and the fancy leather journal was all a part of it, I thought it made me look sophisticated. "Maybe if they think I know what I'm doing, then I will know what to do," I wrote. Everything was uncertain; I was afraid. Afraid that people wouldn't like me. Afraid that I wouldn't be smart enough or good enough for everyone else, who seemed to have it all put together. But buried in these entries is the hope that everything would get sorted out. That maybe somehow, in the end everything happened for some reason and that the world would keep spinning no matter what.

Now four years later, the themes are the same. I'm still afraid. Afraid that these high school days will be behind me. Afraid of what lies ahead: moving out, being on my own, the perceived isolation that will begin again at the start of college. But something I see in these entries, is that the hope outlives the fear. I wrote recently about how I "wish that I never wished to become a part of the background of my life." The hopes I write of, need to lead to action, and in high school it did. I did make friends. I was good enough. The thing that I see most in these entries is that life is cyclical. I wrote, not knowing of what comes next, but hopeful for the future. And now again, these same ideas endure.

May 24, 2012
"I'm not sure what it is I see for today, but that's why it will be a good day."