Just a few hours before the deadline, I've completed my Princeton main essay. Please help me proofread it, correct any mistakes and feel free to make suggestions !
Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay.
- Princeton University
Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.
~ Alvin Toffler in Future Shock.
Used in a much different context by futuristic author Mr. Toffler, this quote highlights an experience that has grown to define the person that I am today. Through a voluntary change of surroundings, I have effected a transformation of my outlook on life itself. The vicissitudes of the past two years have made me realize that the greater world outside my haven is much bigger, tougher and more diverse than I had ever imagined before.
My first footsteps into a school, carrying a small bag and clad in a white-and-green uniform, had been to SFX Greenherald International School. Having spent twelve amazing years there, my education started with ABC's and 123's and ended with cathode-ray oscilloscopes and calculus. Almost all the friends that I had ever made in my life were students at Greenherald. All the faculty and staff loved me as much as I respected them. This overwhelming sense of familiarity and closeness had convinced me that the world ended outside the capacious boundaries of my alma mater. Yet, as I sat for my GCE O level examinations, the worldwide competition that I was facing elucidated me. I suddenly realized that resting in my comfort zone would never really present a challenge that would bring me up to the global standards that I had aspired to achieve since joining high school. With such a mindset, I headed to my summer break of 2010.
The pursuit for a greater challenge led me inside the bounds of Mastermind School. I spent my summer break agonizing over the choice of a new high school and dreading the huge overturn my life would undergo. At last, I chose Mastermind for its reputation of having its alumni in some of the best universities in the world. As I first stepped inside the white gate of Mastermind School, I felt like Neil Armstrong, planting mankind's first footsteps in an alien world. That air of familiarity that protected me was long gone: I was thrust into a block building and spurred to redeem a prominence that I had been presented with in my old school.
Gradually, the unknown faces that surrounded me in classes gained names and traits, and some even became close friends. Teachers smiled whenever "Mushfiq" raised his hand with one extra question in class. Competition with topmost students from some of the best schools in the country who had joined Mastermind with similar aspirations made me struggle to prove my worth. Mastermind simply set the bar higher than I had ever faced and my drive to adapt helped me rise up to the challenge. However, the urge to prove myself won in the end. At the end of the year, I passed my AS exams with flying colors. The beaming faces of my friends and faculty welcomed me to the concrete steps of my new second-home, one that was not just a block building anymore.
A leap of faith was all it took to open my mind's eye to a world that requires adaptation to changes to be able to find a niche in it. From Alvin Toffler's words, we can gather that life is all about variation in circumstances. We can never expect our lives to follow a straight, comfortable line. More importantly, those spiraling curves that do come by are highly necessary for us to grow as better individuals. This extra-ordinary voyage has taught me to challenge the sense of security by venturing into an unknown place and forcing myself to achieve higher standards. As I am on the precipice of embracing university life, I am again faced with a great overturn of my life ahead of me. The great challenge of expanding my horizons lies ahead of me. Yet, Toffler's words inspire me : the changes are not only necessary for my life - they will be my life.
The pursuit of a greater challenge led me inside the bounds of Mastermind School.
As I first stepped inside the white gate of Mastermind School, I felt like Neil Armstrong, planting mankind's first footsteps in an alien world.---This is great writing!
Mastermind simply set the bar higher than I had ever faced, and my drive to adapt helped me rise up to the challenge.
From Alvin Toffler's words, we can gather what life is all about variation in circumstances.
They'll be lucky to have you as a student!
:)
