Undergraduate /
UPenn Supplementary Essay: Benjamin and the Community [4]
Can anyone please edit this and leave some feedback to this essay?
The ending is always my weakest point. And should I add more about my extracurriculars?
Thank you!
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Answer the essay question: (do not exceed one page.)
3. Benjamin Franklin established the Union Fire Company, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society, Pennsylvania Hospital, and, of course, the charity school that evolved into the University of Pennsylvania. As they served the larger community of Philadelphia, each institution in turn formed its own community.
Which of the academic communities and social communities that now comprise the University of Pennsylvania are most interesting to you and how will you contribute to them and to the larger Penn community?
Each community has the potential to create its own small community within that benefits one another. In my case, the Penn Health System, Library Co. and the school itself that Ben Franklin created gave me an opportunity to act within the community. As I first glanced at the two pillars inscribed with Italian phrases in front of the school of medicine, the gates welcomed me as a student that belonged in its community. Almost an unlimited amount of information flow within the library system gives me a sense of unity and cooperation.
Until this summer, the University of Pennsylvania brought me into another part of the city I never knew existed-geographically and symbolically-- when I attended its Summer Mentorship Program for medicine. As a diverse community as Penn, new faces quickly became a group of people with many common interests in the sciences and medicine. One memory I recalled was when the SMP-MED students were grouped into smaller groups pertaining to their neurological disease. The final day to our projects was due in a summarized tri-fold board. Everyone was shuffling through their paper gluing their final touches except one classmate. I came up to this distressed classmate in finishing her project when her partner did not come that day. After many attempts to motivate her, other classmates came in to help her cut out printed text and glue on backgrounds. At the time, we all can be related to different communities in the university that do their part to support one another if a group tilts. As a program funded from the university, the university takes in a group of students to teach aspiring medical students and help do research. The students in return receive connections with the school and learn both neurological facts and communication/bonding skills. Especially in medicine school, I recognized that despite the competition within medical students, all of them benefit the community in their medical discoveries.
Within the School of Applied Sciences, the study of Cognitive Sciences brought up an interest from my past childhood. When summertime came along, I often went alone to the library to satisfy my curiosity. In the library, I would be seen in the Philosophical and Intelligences section stroking each book spine of the titles. My obsession in finding the meaning of living in a world brought me to the edge of sciences with psychometry. At home I was exposed to traditional values and medical herbs that each has its own potent properties in the yin-yang. I would copy what I read on that book into my small collection of notebooks, copying this treasure-of-knowledge just to revisit it. Like a published book, I shared my collection of knowledge to whoever may need it.
(?Not only outside the university, I am interested in recreational activities and long distance running inside the university.?)My aspirations and cooperation skills along with my thirst for knowledge in the medical sciences helped create a "me" to contribute to people around me in smaller ways, such as a group of communities under the rooftop of the University of Pennsylvania.