Undergraduate / Common Application Extracurricular activity-Environmental Issues [3]

Common Application Extracurricular activity(1000 characters):

Pollution. Deforestation. Global Warming. Hundred species of plants and animals have become extinct. Others are critically endangered, their future bleak and dismal. But can we step in to prevent this impending crisis? Can we make a difference?

I believe we can. And I have acted on this belief ever since I was six when I, with the help of my sister, started a local environmental club. From giving out hand-made pamphlets warning of the perils of global warming, I became a leader of my school's "Go Green" program and sold decorative articles composed of trash to raise funds for saving the Indian tiger. I'm also associated with wildlife organizations, like the World Wildlife Federation. However, these experiences have repeatedly revealed to me the enormity of the task at hand. I plan to hold a photo-exhibit on endangered Indian wildlife and to launch a campaign to protect the Himalayas. Through this, I hope to create awareness about our immense ethical obligation to our fellow creatures.

Is it okay?

Undergraduate / 'The Lost World' - Johns Hopkins Supplemental Essay [5]

Here's the first supplemental essay from Johns Hopkins.
The essay prompt is:

Johns Hopkins offers 50 majors across the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering. On this application, we ask you to identify one or two that you might like to pursue here. Why did you choose the way you did? If you are undecided, why didn't you choose? (If any past courses or academic experiences influenced your decision, you may include them in your essay.)

Feel free to comment. Thanks!

A Lost World - or is it?

Picture this: a vast plain over which hundreds of gigantic gray and green four-footed behemoths lumber. Sunbeams illuminate their serpentine necks, their stout legs, and their whip-like tails. Peace reigns. But disaster soon strikes. Forty-feet long, sharp-toothed scaly-skinned monsters launch an attack on them, leaving many injured or dead.

A typical scene from the late Jurassic, dated 155 mya.
Fast forward to the present. The plain still persists, but it is now in Montana in the US. Many people are digging it up. Using picks and chisels they carefully uncover the bones of those long-deceased animals.

Now that's the kind of work I want to do.
Dinosaurs have fascinated me ever since I can remember by their majestic build and their aura of power and might. I am curious about their anatomy and physiology. I am intrigued by the myriad possible behaviors these animals could have exhibited. I want to know about the environment they lied in, so completely different from our own. I think that I can learn more about these magnificent creatures by studying a combination of biology and geology - biology so that I can learn about their morphology and ethology, and geology so that I can surmise about the Earth they inhabited. Courses like 020.379 (Evolution), and 027.311 (Geo-biology) that are offered at Johns Hopkins tickle my imagination about the wealth of knowledge waiting to be uncovered. And with this education, I hope to uncover more about these enigmatic beasts.

Undergraduate / 'Neurophily' - Johns Hopkins Supplemental Essay [6]

This is one of the supplemental essays for Johns Hopkins.The prompt is:

Tell us something about yourself or your interests that we wouldn't learn by looking at the rest of your application materials.

Please tell any alterations you feel are necessary. Thanks in advance!

Neurophily

It is housed in its own little niche, well protected from untoward elements. With a gently sloping surface, it is criss-crossed by meandering furrows and ridges. Its mottled gray color shines through like a block of silver. Most people think it is as light as cork. But hold it in one hand and you'll realize just how heavy three pounds is. It has stymied me like nothing else ever had.

It's big. It's beautiful. It is the mighty human brain.
This notion of the brain, in all its power and sublime glory, dawned on me one cold night in eighth grade when I sat up to watch a National Geographic Program- "My Brilliant Brain". It's a notion that still captures my mind today. It's a notion that induced me to participate in the Brain Bee competition, organized by the University of Maryland, all the way till the international stage. It's a notion that sparked off my passion for the overall realm of biology.

My mother often asks- why are you so obsessed with the brain? Why not the liver? And to her I simply reply: because the brain rules.

And when I tire of its gray wrinkled surface, I look at colorful stained slides of its sections - the Golgi stained-cerebellum, the Cajal-stained cerebrum-and I fall in love with it all over again. .

The brain: the most secluded yet the omniscient, omnipotent part of the body.
It is big. It is beautiful. It is indeed the brilliant brain.