Undergraduate /
'ABCs And 123s' - Common App Personal Statement [10]
I chose to write on a topic of my choice. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.
Here it is:
ABCs And 123sCan you really quantify quality? What is the logic behind logic? Who said an answer had to be the end of a question? Why can't I use the numbers in my problem set to form a picture of Ronald McDonald on a dragon?
Early on in my childhood, my father, an actuary, introduced me to the stubborn, unflinching opponent that is mathematics. "But why doesn't two plus two equal window?" I asked, foolishly trying to support an equation I'd seen in a cartoon. My father answered with a lengthy explanation about how math dealt with numbers, formulas, and variables rather than childish attempts to arrange four 1's into the shape of a window. "Oh," I responded with a blank look on my face.
It seemed like for every curious, hypothetical or even slightly unconventional thought I could form, there existed a logical or factual rebuttal to throw it into submission. It wasn't math that had me frustrated; it was the facts, the formulas, the "universally accepted truths", and even the rankings that I often refer to. It was the idea that there was a be-all and an end-all to everything. Every city had a quality of life rating, every baseball player had a stat sheet, and every student had a GPA and an SAT score and that was that. I couldn't understand how a combination of a few numbers was enough to explain something that deserved thousands upon thousands of words to even begin to comprehend.
Could it be that numbers carry more weight than words? Not for me. Numbers have often served to inform me but they have never brought me to tears or compelled me to laugh the way that words have. When I feel constrained by the limitations of facts and formulas, I have words to loose me of my binds. I have stories to take me on countless journeys to places once unaccessible, to whisk me away on all of their improbable adventures. For every situation my mind creates, I have words to breathe life into it. The clicking of my fingertips on lettered keys and the eager flipping of yellowing pages have shown me books and poems that paint pictures worth every one of their thousand words.
But really, aren't those poems and stories just a collection of words? And what are those words other than combinations of letters? What difference is there between a word and a collection of numbers? Numbers are often used to answer or to find answers whereas words form question and explanations. But maybe those numbers aren't answers as much as they are a basis for more explaining and more questioning. Maybe the picture we are meant to see is as much a complex numerical code as it is a collection of poetry and stories. And in the end, maybe it all adds up to make a window, inviting you to look through it and see the world like you've never seen it before.
