Undergraduate / 'about coffee addiction' - Stanford - Roommate Essay [4]

I know this can be better. I could really use your guys' help with this one. The prompt is: Virtually all of Stanford's undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate - and us - know you better.

Hi, my name is Drew and I'm an addict. Let me tell you my story.

It all began innocuously enough, with the occasional caramel macchiato to keep me warm on those cold winter nights. But soon, I became more adventurous, branching out to lattes, mochas, cappuccinos. And as I drifted further and further from those cloyingly sweet drinks, my curiosity led me to the one thing that could keep me company during my late-night study sessions: a good, old-fashioned cup of regular coffee.

I became a fiend. Its caffeine was perfect for those moments where I had lost productivity-with a few cups of coffee I could spend hours reading Pride & Prejudice for English or making flashcards for an upcoming history test.

But I quickly realized the toll my coffee habit was taking on me. Whereas I used to get up in the morning full of energy and liveliness, without a cup of coffee I was slow and sluggish. I needed a cup to break myself out of that 2 p.m. slump, to keep myself from falling asleep for the whole afternoon.

Just a couple weeks ago, I hit rock bottom. It was a dark, jittery night, a caffeine-fueled rush to finish an essay about Hamlet before the next morning's deadline. I must have had five cups of coffee that night, finally dragging myself to bed at 4 in the morning for three hours of unsatisfying rest.

Right upon waking up, haggard and bleary-eyed, I knew I needed help. My dependence on caffeine was hurting me-I needed to return to a state of natural vitality.

So that's where you'll have to come in, roommate. Next year, I'm looking to break the habit once and for all. Finally wean myself off of coffee, that black beast. But I'm going to need your support in my moments of weakness. When I'm desperate for my morning jolt of caffeine, it'll have to be you that keeps me in check.

Thanks in advance, roommate. I'm not going to be able to do this without your help.

Undergraduate / Stanford - "Intellectual Vitality." Writing about childhood experience with a globe. [4]

Thank you to whoever reads / comments on this. The prompt is as follows: "Stanford students possess an intellectual vitality. Reflect on an idea or experience that has been important to your intellectual development."

While looking through some old family photos, my mother recently found a picture of me at age five, sleeping with a globe, tucked in next to me under the covers. She asked me if I remembered that globe. Of course I did. In fact, I never wanted to leave its side-it was just too valuable to me, a wealth of knowledge and information. I would spend hours tracing my finger over its bumpy surface as I studied its shapes and memorized its names; by the time I was six, I could rattle off every country and capital on Earth.

I found an inexplicable joy in memorization, but what I liked most about "Globey" was that he offered me the chance to discover. With every new country I learned about, I felt like some 19th century explorer mapping out uncharted wilderness. The world was such an expansive place; each turn of the globe brought something I'd never noticed before. I could start to make sense of the world, fit all its pieces together.

That love of memorization has stuck with me throughout my life; learning the phases of the French Revolution, the mechanics of photosynthesis, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus all came easily. But just like the names on that globe, I was more excited about how these individual facts came together to form a complete picture. So it's only natural that I've recently started thinking about how memory actually works. I want to know how the brain can store and recall information, how it sorts and analyzes the millions of things that have happened to us over our lifetime.

Questions like these have led me to the world of cognitive science. I'm fascinated by its developments in using technology to delve into the brain's enigmatic functions and ultimately improve our ability to remember, focus, and learn.

To me, the brain is just like that old globe, a new, complex world to explore and understand. The possibility of studying its intricate mysteries rekindles that childhood feeling of discovery, the fantasy of unearthing some kind of hidden secret.