Undergraduate / things that even tenaciousness and dedication can't solve, Harvard Supplementary [4]

Here's my tentative essay for the Harvard supplement - they don't quite have a prompt, per say, but basically invite you to tell them a little more about yourself.

Critiques would be greatly appreciated, criticism even more so. ^^ Thanks for checking this out.

I've always approached projects with a tenacity that often crosses the fine line into sheer stubbornness; it's a trait that has served me well, although it may have caused its fair share of headaches, too. Once I set my mind on a task - be it solving a math problem, writing a program, or learning to use my hands as a flute - then there are few forces on this earth that have the power to shake that will.

One of the clearest instances of this is my most recent sewing project, a particularly finicky piece that suffered from the handicap of not actually being real: the original dress I was attempting to replicate exists solely in the digital world of a video game. Creating it in cloth and thread, therefore, posed its own peculiar problems.

It wasn't exactly a point in my favor, either, that I'd never actually designed a pattern from scratch before.

But, I reasoned, there do in fact exist people who have the ability to draft patterns - people who undoubtedly had to learn this skill, at one point in their lives, through dedication and hard work. Therefore, there must be a learning curve. And therefore, I could do it too.

With that resolution, I set my will of iron to the task and commenced work. Headaches abounded as I sorted through the multitude of problems and contradictions, trying to tease out their solutions largely through the power of logic alone. My heap of discarded drafts and scrap cloth grew larger, but slowly, if not steadily, I came closer to the three-dimensional form of a dress originally envisioned by a CG designer.

All told, that dress consumed at least four months of very frustrating, but immeasurably gratifying time.

But by the end of those four months, something wonderful, something almost miraculous had happened: I had gained experience. It was true that I'd earned a dress with my efforts, but that was practically a by-product of the real reward. In less than half a year, I had foraged into the mystifying wilderness of darts, interfacing, lining, and bias - and I had come out victorious. Undoubtedly, if I'd had a little more knowledge of draftsmanship going into the project, the journey would have been far less convoluted, but ultimately, I had made my way through. And now, because of the very challenges that nearly reduced me to despair, I had an invaluable base of experience to draw upon.

The next time - and there would be a next time, I was sure of it - would have its own complications. But now, maybe, I would be a little more prepared to face them; my knowledge, won in the face of headaches and tears, would be my sword.

And I'd gained one more thing, too - faith. My perseverance had been put to the test, and it had passed gloriously; even in the face of overwhelming odds, my dedication and industriousness hadn't wavered. The dress, therefore, became the physical representation of my faith in my own abilities: the belief that I do possess the capability to conquer these obstacles, that I ultimately can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

Thinking about it logically, I suppose there must be some things that even tenaciousness and dedication can't solve. But if there are, I've yet to find them - and I welcome the challenge.

Undergraduate / UC App, Prompt 1 - my world and its effects on my aspirations [6]

Hey, thanks so much for helping me out. I'd be glad to hear any comments you guys have, and I'd especially appreciate critiques. For those who don't know, the first UC prompt is: Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Here's my draft...

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In some ways, my world can be far more easily described by what it lacks than by what it encompasses. I was never told to say my prayers, or lectured about the dangers of hellfire and brimstone; I was never beseeched or chastised into following the family rules, simply because of their virtue as such; and I never heard those infamous words that so many frustrated parents inevitably resort to: "Because I told you so."

In my family, information was the key.

My parents took caution from the start to avoid the role that so many others fall into out of expedience - the adults, those almost mystical sources of power, wisdom, and authority. My brother and I, as much as we respected and loved them, never deferred to them; their will, although generally reasonable and worth following, was never propped up as infallible and incontrovertible. Instead of issuing blanket directives, they actually took the crucial time to explain things to us rationally, clearly, so that we could understand and evaluate the logic behind their wishes. In short, they treated us like individuals - and so that's what we became.

This refrained attitude allowed them to leave us to our own conclusions in an area that so many parents, apparently, find so difficult to let alone: religion. Both my mother and father, as victims of painful, at times even persecuted withdrawals from their childhood faiths, are quite intimately acquainted with the subject. But for me, the various beliefs were never anything more than so many stories - stories of power to other people, perhaps, but stories to be believed or not as I saw fit. What I learned of religion, I picked up mainly through cultural osmosis, or through the vague but persistent hopes of more pious relatives that I would be converted.

And so in the eyes of some, I suppose my upbringing was critically flawed. In order to have a moral compass, many have argued, one has to have some kind of guiding force: preferably religion, but at the very least the firm hand of one's parents directing one towards the "right" way to think, the "good" way to act. Otherwise, what could hold a child accountable for such an abstract thing as a conscience?

But if I didn't have the autocratic hand of either a parent or a God directing me towards what they claimed to be righteousness, I had so much more. I had the dilemma itself to guide me - a dilemma that no one attempted to reduce for me to the starkly black-and-white terms of Heaven and Hell, a dilemma that my parents made no pretense of knowing the answer to. And I had the priceless records of so many others who had labored to find their personal solutions to the same eternal questions with which I had to wrestle. For in my books - books that always have been and always will be an inseparable part of my life - I could see the struggles of both characters and authors as they wrestled with what was right. A young boy who bears the guilt of a genocide. A woman torn between her duties to the past and the present. Morals versus necessity. Necessity versus denial. All of these conflicts, I knew, were only part of a story that has lasted through the ages; and my own struggles and doubts, too, continue to fill a tiny chapter of their own.

My parents' wisdom, and the world's experiences: these are my foundations. These are what bring me comfort and confusion, doubt and hope as I weigh the morality of all that I do and see. But above all, they give me the faith that I, too, can create my own "right," can determine my own meaning and purpose.

It's not a goal that I take lightly.

But that's not enough, either. I also have to live by it - whatever that ultimately means. And that, too, is a struggle that may take a lifetime. But for now, it begins with an education.

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I'm just not terribly happy with it, but I can't pinpoint why; any help would be greatly appreciated...