Undergraduate / "Finding the Truth" - Georgetown Supplement help? [3]

Hey, I was wondering if I could get any sort of feedback on this essay. Is it too personal? Does it divulge too much about my friend? Does it fit the prompt well enough, even though it's not mostly about me but more about my thoughts? (Grammar and flow advice is of course welcome too!!) Thanks in advance!

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(A) Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.

In my muddling through life, I always look for the truth. I want to find what truth is, what it means, and how it can be so subjective and so illusive. In my writing, I attempt to express truth. Heck, in this very essay I'm attempting to convey my true personality as clearly and brightly as possible to whomever may be reading. It's difficult. Being completely and totally honest is not something that comes naturally to humans, I think. We wade through hundred and hundreds of other people every day, but how often do we truthfully interact with another human being? I believe that finding the honest truths in my own life might help me to realize how great my life can be.

A few months ago, I met a friend in the hall that I'd only seen in passing for a few weeks. I asked her to lunch and merrily walked off with her, anxious to catch up. By the end on the lunch period, I had learned that she had been kicked out of her parents house, she had moved in with her boyfriend, and she was concerned about her health due to the resurgence of an eating disorder. Before lunch, seeing her laughing and smiling, I would never have ventured to guess that my friend had gone through such hardships. But before lunch that day, had I really known the truth? Yes, I'd been friends with her for years and spent countless hours chatting and laughing and smiling with her. But without the honesty of face to face interactions, I'd lost her. I'd lost the truth in her life, and even I, a close friend, was fooled by her facade of contentment.

When we lose the truth, we lose what makes us human. It doesn't take much to lie to the world; when someone asks "How's your day?" and you reply, "Just fine, thanks!" you don't really mean it. You mean, "It started out great, but then I fell and spilled my coffee all over myself, and I was late to class, so I was lectured about punctuality, and now I'm in a terrible mood." But we never say that. The risk of exposing ourselves to the truth is something that people just aren't that good at anymore, and that's one of the reasons I love theatre so much. It gives people the opportunity to experience life condensed; theatre takes real life and somehow makes it even more real, more truthful. According to my drama teacher, the actor's job is to "live truthfully under the given circumstances of a play." Maybe we should all live more truthfully under the given circumstances of our lives. I know I try to, each and every day.

Undergraduate / "Get to Know Other Worlds" - Northwestern Supplement [8]

Hey! Northwestern is my favorite school, but their prompt is stressing me out. I'm not sure if I'm coming off as sincere, if my essay is too long, if I'm not specific enough? Blegh. Any input would be SUPER helpful!

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What are the unique qualities of Northwestern - and of the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying - that make you want to attend the University? In what ways do you hope to take advantage of the qualities you have identified?

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In my World Literature class last September, I was handed a packet containing assorted poems written by a poet I had never heard of before: Wislawa Szymborska. Upon turning the first page, I was presented with one of her most famous quotes: "Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison." By the end of class that day, I had decided that Szymborska was my new idol; her desire for perspective, her passion for exploring foreign ideas, and her reluctance to judge were all things that I admired. Ultimately, my goal in life would probably be summed up by her words. I want to explore everything I can, dive into a plethora of subjects and never limit myself to one perspective. Northwestern University seems like the perfect place to pursue my exploration.

Northwestern first drew my attention as one of the best universities in the nation, but the more I looked into the school, the more the program seemed perfect for me. I was concerned that I would never be able to balance my theatre education with any other interests I would want to pursue, but I have learned that double or even triple majoring at Northwestern is not unrealistic. Whether I choose to explore the field of psychology or dive into business studies, I know at Northwestern I'll always be able to make sure I still have room for my first love: acting.

In researching Northwestern, I also discovered that The School of Communication offers an amazingly unique theatre program. According to the website, they encourage students to have a "broad knowledge upon which to draw" for their acting, which describes exactly what I'm looking for in a drama program. During high school, I was surprised to find that my classes in physics, history, and even calculus ended up sparking passions in me that I never knew I had. Even more surprisingly, I found I was able to apply the things I learned to my acting. When I played the inventor Walter in "UP," my knowledge in physics helped me realize that the engines he designed could never really achieve flight. As Malcolm in "Macbeth," my understanding of the history of the British isles and my knowledge about the historical information available in Shakespeare's time allowed me to piece together a historically accurate, yet realistic character. I realize now that could never join a conservatory: I'd be focusing on only the technicalities of performance and ignoring the vibrant variety of life, which to me is the heart of theatre. I hope that the broad, world-class liberal arts education I could receive at Northwestern would help me become a both a better actor and a more informed human being.

Along with the fact that Northwestern offers a wide breadth of education, I was excited to find that it offered a challenging one as well. Throughout high school, I've sometimes grown complacent with simple core classes, but I've been delighted to find that another class challenged me in a new way. Novel and difficult content is a catalyst for me: when I first began taking an advanced physics class, I found myself passing hours on wikipedia learning about scientific concepts after having completed homework which introduced a new and fascinating idea. I know that at Northwestern, every class will be like that physics class. The content will be held to a standard of quality and difficulty that I'm really excited to experience.

The Northwestern culture also is a huge draw for me. Evanston seems like the perfect home away from home for me. Having grown up in Eugene, Oregon, I'll be able to relate to the somewhat small-town feel that I have heard Evanston provides. I'm sure that I'd fit right in to a what my friend Cassie, a current Northwestern student, calls "the perfect college town." At the same time, I'll have access to one of the biggest cities in the US and all of the cultural variety that it offers. The student body sounds as great as the location; Northwestern attracts diverse students of the highest quality, but the student body still manages to maintain that homey Midwestern family feeling. Being surrounded by peers as excited as I am is an exciting prospect. At Northwestern I know I'll be immersed in the best, brightest, and most unique students that can be found.

Essentially, Northwestern is my perfect school. Between the student body, the amazing location, the quality academics and the unique drama department, there's nowhere I'd rather go. I want to get to the world of Northwestern, although I'm not sure if anything else will be able to compare.

Undergraduate / Bard Supplement - Barbarians Erupt from Civilization [4]

Hey! I was hoping to get some feedback on a few of my supplemental essays, since I have had trouble finding anyone I know personally to help me out. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

One hundred years ago, in 1912, the Austrian writer and social critic Karl Kraus, famous for his provocative aphorisms, wrote "Civilization ends, since barbarians erupt from it." Write a short commentary on what you think this might mean from your perspective 100 years later, and whether it makes any sense.

The notion that our current American culture raises barbarians is, unfortunately, a common perception. Many speculate that the decline in appreciation for the arts and sciences, coupled with a sense of entitlement and a lack of worldly perspective is causing an 'eruption of barbarianism' among Americans. All over the media, we see news anchors and pundits ranting about the laziness and arrogance of the youngest generation and the dead-end direction our nation is taking. But is our current culture really heading towards self-destruction, and for that matter has any civilization really collapsed under the pressure of its own negative cultural developments? I would venture to say that really, civilization has never ended as a result of its own "barbarians," and ours is no exception.

Karl Kraus may have been sensing the turmoil about to erupt in Europe in the years precluding World War One when he wrote "civilization ends, since barbarians erupt from it." The dysfunction of the current European cultural system had been evident for years, and it took the largest war in history to finally bring about change. The barbaric practices of oppressing nationalist minorities and of failing monarchical governments may have arisen from 19th century European civilization, but they did not cause civilization to end; civilization simply changed, albeit in a cataclysmic way.

Even in the ancient times of the Western Roman Empire, cultural devolution was not as bad as it may have seemed. The empire lasted hundreds of years, passing through multiple periods of great decline and great power. Even the most definite collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 BCE was ultimately caused by an outside invasion of Germanic peoples, not just the weaknesses inherent to the empire due to disintegrating cultural integrity.

For a far more recent look at supposed declining culture, we can look back a mere fifty years. In the 1960s, when radical change was bursting through all facets of American culture, the adults mourned the loss of civilization as they knew it. Minorities were gaining ground towards equality and the sexual revolution was up-heaving societal norms left and right. Nowadays, we take for granted the equality of all people or the right for someone to their own body, but less than half a century ago such things were unheard of. The revolutionary heroes of today were the barbarians of the 60s.

In our modern culture, we teach our children about these civilizations of the past and expect them to synthesize their information, to critically think about the history they learn. The mere fact that so many high school students enter the battlefield that is the college application process stands testament to the fact that the people of the youngest generation aren't turning into barbarians: our teenagers work tirelessly in order to pursue a higher learning environment where they can grow to be as knowledgeable and skilled as possible. Colleges are becoming more and more difficult to get into and more and more expensive, yet the college attendance rate is steadily rising.

So, it appears that civilization never ends due to the barbarity it creates. In fact, maybe civilization never really ends at all: perhaps it just takes short breaks. People have a defined propensity for predicting the worst to come - it's in our nature. But when you really look at the way culture has developed over the course of human history, it's clear to see that the trend has been towards liberal social mores and equality for large amounts of people. I'd like to think that human nature ultimately leads us as a species towards a more civil civilization each day. What may be barbarism today could be the social and cultural step forward of tomorrow.