Undergraduate / 'Being the architect of my education' - Brown Short Question [3]

Prompt:Brown follows the philosophy of the student being the "architect of their education".Why does this appeal to you?

This is exactly 499 characters.

I consider college a period in one's life where one is free to explore,both on an intellectual and personal level.I seek a curriculum which accommodates my passions and abilities.Being the architect of my education would mean the opportunity to combine and harmonize a bunch of courses that nurture my intellectual curiosity while also supplying me with the necessary skills I will need after graduation.I am interested in knowing more about different subjects.Variety in my courses is also crucial.

Undergraduate / "An identity sculpted by language" - Harvard Supplement [5]

Harvard Supplement Essay.Topic of your choice.Feedback would be appreciated.This is exactly 702 words including the title.

"An identity sculpted by language, infused with words, and bathed in beauty."

People often speak of a cause, what Kierkegaard would call a "defining commitment". They recount stories of personal discovery and growth, stories filled with people or things, often even both, that have made them who they are. I am a firm believer in the existentialist concept of self creation, the power to build oneself as a human being, but also as an intellectual and professional capacity. Subsequently, I believe that passion and inspiration must be sought for, that they are not gifts bestowed upon one at birth.

I think I am confident to say that my process of creating myself began, albeit without at first my conscious awareness, when I picked up a book for the first time. As any child who attends school, to read was an obligation, necessary in a learning environment. Prior to first grade, I had learned to write and read elementary texts, but I had never been exposed to the delight and sheer vastness that I later discovered language to be.

Twain's "Tom Sawyer" was our first assigned reading at the beginning of third grade and I dove into its narrative without expectations or preconceptions. It was simply an assignment as any other. What I found inside this adventurer's story was, for I was still a child in all ways imaginable, an entirely new world. It was as if a window had opened that not only allowed me to explore the garden of literature, but whose uniqueness rested in the power it had to bring down walls in my mind thus connecting parts of my consciousness, of my self, many of which I never knew I had. Of course then, I was not capable of the elaborate analysis I am now. All I could say with utter conviction was that I wanted more. To know is to crave and that much has been clear since Eve dared eat the apple.

All through elementary and then secondary school I read every book I could get my hands on, juggling, after I acquired a certain proficiency in English, literature in both tongues. For a quiet child and later an introverted adolescent who preferred the intimacy of her own mind to the tempestuous dynamic of social life, words became my most trusted companions. I loved,and I still do, their capacity to express emotions I had experienced. I stood in a mixture of wonder and awe at the descriptions of sentiments unknown to me.I think I can safely say that language, in all its forms, has made me treasure life in that it has provided me with an incentive to keep on living. In it, I have found depicted a wide specter of all things human which has made me long to feel and to be.

"Words are a narcotic", Kafka says. This rings especially true for me, as I have never been particularly adventurous or rebellious. The only revolutions I have been able to conduct have been the ones inside my mind. Words,or as some philosophers would argue, thoughts and ideas themselves, have been my weapons, my leisure, a mode of escapism, bricks with which to create, yet simultaneously, tools with which to destroy. Language is essential to my emotional and intellectual sanity, and without constant exposure to it or without my personal output of words, I would not be able to recognize myself. I am addicted to words because the beauty they contain intoxicates me, and the power they possess to change, overthrow, and create worlds fascinates me on an entirely more conscious level.

This should explain, lastly, the commitment I have made to words, a personal vow to use, write, and analyze language. This is a promise to revel in all its glory and confusion, both in equal measure.In simple terms,this is the outline of my self-creation, the frame of my self realization. My future seems inconceivable without the practice of language in one form or other, because it is genuinely what I can do best. Amidst words I feel at home while constantly experiencing the thrill of discovery, which is as accurate a description of "the best of both worlds" as I can think of.

Undergraduate / "I choose to worship empathy." - Common App Essay [4]

This is my Common App Essay.It's around 500 words.Feedback would be appreciated.

"I choose to worship empathy."

Up until the moment I reached my 17th year of life, I've always had an attitude of distant hostility towards society and the world in general ; I have often felt disappointed and disillusioned by the world's falsity and indifference.For a bookish, introverted girl who prefers solitude to the company of others and who often expresses strong opinions with passionate conviction,I have felt shunned by society ,but have also done my fair share of shunning.When "they" deemed my insecurities, beliefs or passions as "odd" or to my fury, even "abnormal" ,I considered it betrayal of the highest order and refused to give explanations.

Part of that mindset is still part of my character now, the one that prizes individuality above all else and who strongly believes in personal revelation.Yet,there was another darker part to that particular take on the world and that involves its extreme arrogance.The idea that the world should be doing your bidding, that your passions, likes and dislikes ought to somehow inform how the others act, and that your sorrows are yours alone in a world which, you think, refuses to or simply cannot understand, is fundamentally a recipe for depression.

I came to realize this liberating truth when I first read David Foster Wallace's commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005.In it,he speaks articulately about the difficulty most human beings have to acknowledge the world around them,to escape their own immediate reality and observe the world.He explains how hard it is for all of us,to consider others' perspectives,their lives and their realities as we go through everyday life.We're hard-wired,he argues,to think of everything that happens around us to be about us.Thus,we become slaves of our respective minds,choosing to worship our own personal realities.The goal of a true liberal arts education,Wallace says,is to teach its students not simply how to think,but what to think.In a world populated by millions,in communities made up of thousands ,it's easy to lose sense of what cold,hard,true realities surround your own cold,hard and very true reality.The key to living a fulfilling life is,as I think Wallace is arguing, to imagine the hardships,joys ,and trivialities of other human beings you encounter, to accept their existence at all, and to understand how they matter just as much as yours. This is the only way you won't fall into a pit of terrible self-involvement where the world and its inhabitants will naturally feel alien,horrible or even disgusting and thus not worthy of your care or attention.

"You decide what to worship" , Wallace says.The ability to imagine how the other is feeling,to try to understand the sheer complexity of his/her reality is called empathy. .I realized that if I wanted to have any semblance of happiness or contentment in my life or if I wished to lead any sort of ethical, sincere lifestyle I would first have to let the world in.The space the other occupies in the world is not to be abhorred or thought of,as I often tended to do,as an obstacle.They are not an abstract concept,as I initially designed them to be when I put them between inverted commas;on the contrary, they are the reality I should be paying attention to,but also,and this was a revelation to me,a reality which deserves my attention.They constitute the solid truth of my world and seeking to understand this world,I choose to worship the beautiful but laborious gift of empathy.

Undergraduate / 'overshadowing my yearly summer vacation' - Princeton Supplement [4]

This is my Supplement essay.Prompt:Describe how you spent the last two summers.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The EYP is not, if one considers it in its entirety, just an extracurricular activity or simply "the way I spent my last two summers". The main reason why that is the case is that EYP with the games, seriousness and everything in between, is an experience which leaves ones to reflect afterwards, reflection which soon brings to acquiring lessons that stay with you forever and that shape who you are as a citizen of the world, debater, and human being.

It brings together, youngsters ages 16-20 from all over a country. It then proceeds to distribute them in topic-specific committees, only to bring them together again in a General Assembly where some of the most pressing issues of today are discussed with the aim of finding proper solutions and all is wrapped up with a vote which approves or rejects each respective committee's resolution.

I think that one can value an experience only by assessing its memories. So, where to start? I will always remember 200 exhausted delegates in a huge circle at midnight being given directions for all sorts of games by an even more exhausted Organizational team, the laughter, hugs, screams and rhyme songs rippling through that circle. One cannot possibly forget how 200 teens, after hours of waiting, flocked around a baffled organizer carrying the resolutions fresh off the press as if he were handing out free iPhones. I don't think I've seen such excitement for paperwork in my life.

I'll always carry with me the seemingly silly games played during Team Building, games the purpose of which always managed to elude us and most importantly, teach us something valuable about ourselves. I recall now, how after five hours of endless discussion and dozens of ideas thrown around, our committee finally reached a common solution for our topic. I will cherish the applause after one my speeches during the assembly, how I blushed and looked down, but was secretly pleased by the approval of my peers. I will always have the friends, made through the shared excitement for ideas, with many of which I still have intense, dynamic, and productive discussions in which we are free to explore the limits of our imaginations, cultivating the seed that EYP planted.

Most of my other memories of these last two summers have blended with each other. The majority of my time was spent reading, burning quickly through my summer reading list while simultaneously adding new titles to it and writing a few short stories and poems when inspiration hit. EYP dominates the landscape with the greatest amount of fun I've ever had, overshadowing my yearly summer vacation. I can only assume the reason that is, is that it combines one of my biggest passions, debating, with sheer entertainment thus creating an irresistible formula.