Undergraduate / "Influenced/Insipired by Zola" - Brown supp essay [4]

Hey! Need some help with editing/proof reading this essay!! Thanks a lot!!

Tell us about an intellectual experience, project, class, or book that has influenced or inspired you. (Max. 500 words)

I read Emile Zola's novel L'Assomoir in my French literature class two years ago, but it was only recently that I understood its nurturing influence when considering my project to combine the understanding of people with art.

Zola wrote his novels from life, using what he called "carnets d'enquètes" or "inquiries notebooks," in which he recorded his observations and researches concerning the different social environments of the Second Empire French society. He creatively condensed his work in a series of twenty volumes about the Rougon-Macquart family, and their flaws and weaknesses. When Zola describes Gervaise, Coupeau, or the street of l'Assomoir, the density of visual, auditory and olfactory details allows us to do more than to visualize the scene, but also to sense all its overtones.

I admire his ability to represent life not like we would like it to be, but how it is, with all its imperfections. This hyper-realist approach is similar to the one adopted by painters such as Courbet at the beginning of his oeuvre or Millet, in their representation of life. It is also the manner in which I chose to artistically work when depicting the human body anatomy using clay or paint, or in my still-life paintings. As an artist, I feel close from his words, which reveal the unpalatable truth about human nature, which is not the one of a social-scientist, but of a writer who has the profound desire to explicate truth by disserting it as no one has ever done.

The choice of this style, allows Zola to give life to the bottom of the Parisian society and its vices in L'Assomoir. He replicates the bustle and misery he observes from the streets' activity, and the despair, resignation and hatred he learns from the people who frequent them. I feel inspired by the relationship he has with the real framework of his novels while he writes them, and I share his desire to understand every pleasant or unpleasant aspect of a single, and often modest, area, and particularly of the behavior of the people who occupy it.

I am personally interested in understanding the world around me with its beauties and its darkness. To live in India, and to be confronted to the inconsistency of the growth environment with the traditionalism of its people made me realize the importance of such approach in the understanding of our world. I believe that Zola was not only a visionary in his writing style, but that he considered his composition the way we should consider anything that surround us in order to create new perspectives.

Undergraduate / "From France to India, or switching from Croissants to Masala" Common App' Essay [4]

Hi!! There is my big piece of meat/common app' essay!!!
If someone could proof read/edit it please... I would really appreciate it!!
Also, do you think it is too long? Schould I take things out? Tell me everything!!
Thanks for helping!

A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. (250 words minimum)

I was in the East suburb of Berlin, Germany for the summer when my parents told me on the phone that we would be moving to India one year later. They had always heard me saying that, driven by curiosity and hunger for experience, I would be living in a trailer, traveling the world, or that when I would turn eighteen, I would take the first train for anywhere with only a backpack. But I had never imagined that I would be moving to another continent before this date, or even that it would be with my whole family. Four kids still in school, two parents with full-time jobs, and a whole life living in the same city of Lyon, France seemed to me pretty much like a steady life.

I turned eighteen and got my French high school diploma seven months ago, but my backpack is voluntarily still under my bed. The reason? I have been living in Chennai, India for almost one year and a half now, and this life gave me a new perspective on myself and my future.

To accept to follow my family in this exciting adventure was certainly the most daring decision I ever took, and it was not without any difficulty, that we chose to shift our lives from a secure and predicable world to a challenging one, full of uncertainties. Added to what I had learn in my geography classes and what I had seen on the internet, my only believes about India were clichés of colorful cows in the streets, of arranged marriages, and of crazy traffic.

In addition to the cultural and conceptual gaps we would face, was the challenge of the English language and of the American school system my siblings and I would integrate into. I left France at the end of my 11th grade year, and in order to have more time to discover the Indian culture and to graduate from the American school with a proper level of English, I chose to do another 11th grade year in this English school, delaying the date of my graduation. I somehow traded a part of my independence, for the chance to discover and profoundly understand such a different culture and for the opportunity to experience the diversity offered by the American school of Chennai, and no one will ever catch me saying that I regret it.

I was sixteen when we moved in and at this age, you do not soak whatever is in you environment anymore. Instead, it was fascination for the cultural density and the social explosion of the old traditional city of Chennai. What I could observe, learn, and understand of my new surrounding constructively met my French cultural roots, my Judeo-Christian education, and my progressive European convictions, to create new believes concerning subjects ranging from direct human relationships to overpopulation. I became able to, --without consenting to them-- , find understandable and defendable concepts such as the arranged marriage or the cast system, that seem revolting when glimpsed from our developed nations.

Meanwhile, such a gap emphasized my individuality and consolidated the links within my family. We had always been very close with each other, and the mutual support became more and more important in the process of appreciating this experience. Being surrounded by expatriates from all over the world and by different Indian communities requires a constant attention and effort of adaptation. These challenges were often the cause of such a maturing affection. I came to understand better the influence of my own culture and education, and to be proud of it differently, because I realized they were primordial ingredients of my identity.

This dense experience brought me more than I could imagine. I felt much better surrounded by people defined by different background and experiences. I forgot what being bored meant. I even looked for places where I could magnify this diversity to prolong and intensify this experience. I did not forget about my project of travel, and I decided to start it by a couple of years of a liberal education in a US College where the experience of diversity is the philosophy.

Today, I still wonder if it is the change toward diversity or diversity itself that is the most important, but I believe that diversity is necessary to envisage any sort of visionary progress. It offers the opportunity to learn from the challenge of difference about what is around, but also about what is inside.

Please, answer my questions!!

Thanks a lot!!

Undergraduate / School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston Essay: "Why us?" [3]

Hi! There is my essay for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. I know that it can seem a little heavy but the essay is supposed to be between 1 and 3 pages, so...

Please tell me about grammar and/or content, or if you see any weak area on which I could expand!! Thanks a lot!!!!!

As a student seeking a visual arts education, you have many options. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a unique institution. What specifically attracted you to the Museum School?

I want to learn from the SMFA creative spirit and innovative aura of artists because I believe that it will grant me the progressive perspective I want in my art. While profoundly inspired by past points of view of French classical writers and of ancient religious art, I am exploring new ways of expression through visual arts, and I wish to envisage my production as progressive and innovative. I choose the SMFA's philosophy because I want to be encouraged to think out of the box, and to be push to the edge of conventions. I want to learn this from contemporary artists who have strong personal perspectives on the evolution of art, and who consider the artistic potential as infinite.

I am choosing the SMFA for my education because I want to define my artistic voice further, through the free exploration of different ways of expression. I find the generous consideration of every student as a unique artist very appealing, and I would like my education to be drawn on this line of understanding of each student's ability to mature a self voice. This is the reason why I think the SMFA is the perfect place to pursue an art education, because I will be allowed and encouraged to combine it with the passion I have for the human species.

In fact, I want to enter the combined degree program proposed by Tufts and the SMFA in order to build an education that would correspond to my self. Indeed, my art is principally nourished by this fascination I have for the human species. Artistically, I have considered this passion from cultural and temporal perspective, and I would like to reinforce such project by the study in parallel of fine arts at the SMFA, and anthropology at Tufts. By applying to the SMFA/Tufts combined degree program, I believe that the eccentric combination of Anthropology and Art will be fully understood and appreciated.

In addition, I would like to use my other miscellaneous inspirations to research new media of visual expression. I am really interested in trying to use vegetation as part of sculptural projects or performances. I believe that the exploration of nature as an interesting and powerful potential that I know I would be able to explore creatively while studying at the SMFA.

The SMFA considers studio art from an enriching global perspective that, I think, is the essence of evolution in any artistic field of expression. Part of the reason why I am choosing to apply to the SMFA education program, is the context in which creation occurs. Everything happens in a setting of dense diversity where creativity comes from a heterogeneous mix of cultures, artistic identities, life experiences, spiritual and social believes, and above all, human natures. I think that SMFA is the ideal environment to pursue an artistic education because of the enlightening interaction and the mutual cultural stimulation possible in such an eclectically populated place. I believe that in the SMFA, I will have incredible occasions to artistically share and learn from people who have other atypical inspirations.

Concretely, at the SMFA, I know that Art is considered as a life trend. Fine arts, and particularly studio arts, are a primordial aspect of my individuality and by choosing to study at the SMFA, I will have, not only the possibility, but also the responsibility to make this passion for creation and communication a concrete career project. I want to benefit from the SMFA's broad internship programs to find how I can change my passions into a concrete professional project that will take into account every aspect of my work. I am choosing the SMFA for my college education because I believe that it is the place where I will be able to artistically evolve towards fertile entrepreneurial perspectives that will answer my visual artistic investigation of our human species and its environment.

Undergraduate / "Theater Experience of a French Girl", Common App Short Answer [6]

Hey! There is my short answer to the common app' short essay question. Could you proof read/edit it please??
Thanks a lot!!

"Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences" (150 words or fewer)

I discovered Molière and Marivaux in grade 9. My French classes and the plays we were reading persuaded me to get closer to the world of stage. In grade 10, with a troupe of adult amateur actors, I played a homeless man, a rebellious adolescent, a simple-minded child, and a caring grand-daughter. Interpreting the words of these characters and stuffing them with a psychology and a behavior, was more than socially instructive and self-revealing. It encouraged me to a better observational understanding of people that increased my complacency toward others, and awoke a curiosity for human psychology. It was my first time acting in front of an audience made up of strangers, and I tasted my first stage-addictive rush. Since then, I tried to share this experience of first-time-acting feeling, but regrettably, dealing inexperienced with self-expression is more difficult than I imagined, and I am still working on this project.