Undergraduate / Priceton Supp Essay ("Some questions cannot be answered") [7]

Using the quotation below as a jumping off point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world.

"Some questions cannot be answered./ They become familiar weights in the hand,/ Round stones pulled from the pocket, unyielding and cool."
Jane Hirshfield, poet, Princeton Class of 1973

I hate proofs, I concluded.

The words were neat and tiny, and took up about half of the chalkboard. There were no familiar plus/minus signs, fractions, exponents, or even a hint of an equal sign anywhere. The structure of symbols and numbers that I was used to seeing was no longer there. It was replaced with convoluted words, therefore signs, and Q.E.D's. The writing on the board made absolutely no sense to my naive, ninth-grader mind, and all I could do was helplessly copy it down, word for word as I drown into more confusion as my math teacher began to explain it.

Worst of all, it was a proof on about how two points can make a line.

By the end of middle school, I was riding on a 98 average in math, bogged down only by careless mistakes that occurred because I didn't bother going over my tests after I finished them. I understood the concept of bases and powers, had the quadratic equation down to a T, and knew how to multiply binomials in my head.

I thought I was ready. I thought high school math was going to be the same plug-and-chug deal they handed out in middle school. Stick the numbers into the appropriate equation, get your numbers, and circle the correct answer choice. I thought the most difficult part of math was going to be memorizing extra-complicated equations and performing multi-step problems.

Then, math honors happened.

I had to prove things existed. I had to prove the facts that I once thought were common sense and were kindly given to me in math workbooks. Every fact and equation, every line, polynomial, and shape came from somewhere. They were all derived from something, and those somethings were derived from something else, and everything was derived from Postulates.

Postulates are the Ten Commandments of math. It is the set of inescapable truths that is universally observed and lays the foundation of mathematics. Some of them are painfully obvious, but from simple axioms come forth copious amounts of theorems waiting to be proved in this way or maybe that way, like trying to find eight different creative paths to go from point A to point B.

I left math class, dazed. Everything that I once believed was math was destroyed in the short span of 42 minutes. All that I knew before was nothing more than the skeleton of math - the basic operations, simple algebra - and that day I began to see its flesh, its organs, and the blood that makes the system run.

Frankly, I rejected the notion of a proof at first. The concept of a proof still eluded me. It was common sense. Of course two points made a line. You can clearly draw two points and connect them, just like a three-year-old can on a connect-the-dot picture. Why did anyone need to prove something that was just so fundamentally obvious?

Eventually, I stopped questioning that. Forget the greater benefits of applied geometry and calculus. Proving theorems and equations was fun. To start from the very beginning and reconstruct the world in math is art. It is the pursuit of knowledge simply for the sake of knowing the proof of an existence.

As second term freshman year began, I found myself launching into circle geometry. There were more theorems to prove than ever, but the esoteric terminology and signs were no longer strangers. I found myself using therefore signs and Q.E.D's. My thoughts were no longer constrained to the rigid structure of basic arithmetic symbols, but found freedom in prose and the Greek alphabet. I poured hours struggling to figure out how sin (a - b) = sinacosb - cosasinb, or why Ptolemy's theorem worked.

If some questions cannot be answered, I'll prove it.

I feel like that this essay is sort of all over the place. I think it's strong at certain points, but is weak at other times. Should anything be expanded/ cut out? Is the ending too abrupt? Do I sound incredibly pompous for including a number grade? Did I even address the prompt correctly?! I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to make a reference to the poem or something. Also, if there are any grammatical errors, please let me know. Thank you. (:

Undergraduate / Common App Essay - Does this tell enough about me? [4]

This essay is more or less a story -- I was wondering if something like this can be used for the common app essay. Does it tell enough about me as a person? Should I explain or add anything? And if there are any grammatical errors, it'll be great if you point them out. Thank you. (:

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Beads of sweat trickle down from my forehead, tracing the outline of my jaw before finally being liberated from my skin. It's kind of like those Gatorade commercials, except my sweat isn't some neon version of the colors of the rainbow. The field was vast, but we remain adamant about staying on the sideline, refusing to capitalize the space. I linger in the stack, stagnant for a few seconds.

Cut! Cut cut cut! The handler screams, or I scream in my head - the line between thought and speech becomes incoherent. She grips the disc, and fakes to the right, left, scanning the field for options.

I dig my cleats into the grass and cut for the disc. I pump my arms side to side and accelerate. The handler locks her eyes onto me for a quarter of a second; they shift to my defender, and take note of the close proximity between the said defender and me. Side by side, neck to neck. She moves onto her next option.

This is Ultimate Frisbee.

Ultimate Frisbee, as my friend fondly defines it, is the baby of soccer and football. Very generally, the sport requires two teams of seven players, each with its own end zone. The teams must throw the disc person to person toward the end zone before finally scoring in it. There is also the ridiculous amount of running and required endurance characteristic of soccer. From the name itself, it sounds like something easy peasy, but when you join, it's like, oops! Guess what? There's actually an athletic component to this sport!

And I wonder why I deal with it. I wonder why I suck it up and throw my body into physical agony as I condition in practice. I wonder why I force my abdomen, shins, calves, ankles, biceps, triceps, quadriceps, poly-whatever-ceps into overdrive 8 hours a week. I wonder how everyone else on the team still goes above and beyond under these conditions and why I can't do the same. I wonder how I manage to drag myself to the end zone line after each point. And for every disc I fumble and drop, I wonder how I deal with the handler's disappointment with me and the disappointment I have in myself and everyone's half-hearted encouragements saying that it's alright even though it isn't really alright.

I jog back to the stack, my breath coming out in large puffs air as I try to restore the proper oxygen to carbon dioxide ratio in my body. My defender relaxes as well, waiting for the stack to shift and my time to cut.

I bolt.

Never mind the sharp, 45° cut that I'm suppose to make and use my cleats for. I run one clean diagonal line into the space. The defender? I don't see her because she's behind me.

Out in the open, the path between the handler and the cutter becomes unobstructed, in the same cheesy manner when the ocean splits when Aladdin's father utters, "Open sesame!"

There is no slo-mo. The disc departs from the handler.

The piece of plastic hits my hand. As the vibrations from the impact quietly resounds through my palm to the tips of my finger, I forget about the disappointment, the fatigue, and the cries of my teammates.

I only feel the 175-gram disc in my hand, and it feels good.