Undergraduate / "Ideas through knowledge" - Chicago- How does the school satisfy your wishes. [3]

How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to Chicago. (1/2 paragraphs)

Some time between afternoons researching colleges in the library, reading through countless mailed pamphlets claiming my "high priority" student status, and late nights arguing with friends over the advantages of studying in various parts of the country, I came to love the University of Chicago. It's historical focus on the "life of the mind" is something I couldn't love more. I've always been told (and only occasionally believed) that I "over-think" things. The almost strictly pragmatic stance of my peers to education and knowledge has always starkly contrasted with my insatiably inquisitive spirit. I love to know and I love to learn. At the University of Chicago I know that spirit is fostered. With its renowned body of scholars and educators I am confident that my dream of a top education will be fulfilled. Its passionate student body "arranged" in house systems, excites me with the prospects of meeting lifetime friends who I'll team up with for the "Scav Hunt". And how could I not love the university's location? Set in beautiful Hyde Park, yet in close proximity to one of the largest and most thriving cities in the United States, the university appeals to me not only as a wonderful place to study but as an area around which I could build my future. The flow of ideas around me coupled with the knowledge that I won't simply be a passive listener to the pontification of an erudite professor is what draws me to the University of Chicago.

Undergraduate / Person with significant influence on you - my father and Paulo Freire [3]

Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

From a very young age, I've always been highly resistant to the notion of dutifully accepting the knowledge authority figures have tried to pass on to me. It's an idea that has always simply been too hard for me to swallow. My first report cards had comments like "Leader in the classroom" but almost always also had remarks about how disruptive I could be. Sometimes I felt like a kid who couldn't sit still, except it wasn't my body that was restless, but my mind. I couldn't accept anything as it was; my perennial question was "Why?". As mildly irritating as this must have been for my early teachers, it's a trait that has sustained my very active and constant pursuit of knowledge.

I grew out of the pesky phase of my intellectual development before I left elementary school, but the questions never stopped. I simply learned to internalize them. By the time I reached junior high, I'd realized that while the questions wouldn't stop, my pursuit of their answers had to really start. This posed a dilemma for me because I wasn't really too interested in factual questions, I was interested in the underlying ideas of things. The earliest question I have written evidence of asking myself is, "What makes one thing/action/idea good and what makes one bad?" Retrospectively, I see how wordy and unfocused that question was, but distilled my question had to do with what defined morality. In my pursuit of an answer, I couldn't rely on dictionaries, encyclopedias, or other common sources of knowledge. And so I took my first tentative steps into reason and logic to satisfy my thirst for a solution.

I soon stumbled onto the idea of relativism. I came to realize how fluid words could be in meaning and the impossibility of reducing things like morality to one all-encompassing definition. As I continued to delve deeper and deeper into various realms of philosophic thought, I hit a wall- if nothing could ever be reduced to some essentially absolute thing, then what was the aim of education? My creative and naturally inquisitive spirit was discouraged by what I saw as an inherent flaw in my reality. From there, it was a short trip to lackluster performance and low motivation in school.

As a former university professor and a political prisoner, my father wrestled with the same sorts of questions I had. His advice for me came in the form of something he'd once read by Paulo Freire. "Education functions either as an instrument to facilitate integration of the younger generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

This idea has become the bridge for me between the essentially intangible body of facts, knowledge, and philosophically pursued ideals and the world of the living and breathing. For me, knowledge has ceased to be merely an end in itself, but the powerful instrument through which I can improve the lives of the less fortunate, enrich the lives of the average, and engage the more fortunate in social change. To that end, my life has been focused on civic engagement and tackling the apathy in my voting-age peers towards the political process.

I have retained a passion for knowledge and learning, but my father's lesson now molds and tempers it. Life boils down to our interactions with one another. I can collect facts and explore profound realms of philosophy for all eternity, but I must never forget the enormous power applied knowledge has. I slowly had to learn that I must apply an amount of pragmatism to my rational understanding of life, if I ever wanted to enjoy it and use it in the service of others. I came to realize the immense power of ideas. And for that, I have my father to thank. And one Paulo Freire.