Thanks for clicking! I am mainly looking to see that this essay conveys who I am (in a positive light), makes sense, and is well written (or at least stylistically acceptable).
Prompt:In addition to the essay you're asked to write as part of the Common Application, Amherst requires a second essay of no more than 300 words. We do not offer interviews as part of the application process at Amherst. However, your essays provide you with an opportunity to speak to us. Please keep this in mind when responding to one of the following quotations. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.
1) "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight-insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evi-dence from observation and experiments."
Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
Insight is overrated. That's not to say it isn't important, but frankly it isn't as prevalent as AP Literature would have you believe. Still, a world without meaning is a world without motives, depth, and double entendre. When cigars are always just cigars, Freud is without a job. Boring. When I play chess, every move of mine has a plan, and every step my opponent takes tells me a part of theirs. Early pawn to g3 is King's Indian. Black to f5 is the Classical Dutch. Complexity has its merits.
Writers still give meaning too much credit. When I wake up at 4 a.m. to feed and pet my cat she still meows incessantly. Reasons don't necessarily make things better. Everyday ironies and quirks don't need Cliff's Notes to have zing: PETA has gone to the dogs, and sometimes restaurants give Native Americans reservations. Simple can be beautiful. Is Earth more awesome because a poetic god sculpted it and all her inhabitants, or because out of the billions of spheres in the billions of constellations ours had a balance that would allow the seas to carve mountains, and life to form from a struggle against itself, with endless mutations competing to make us the even now imperfect species that we are?
Maybe I'm a cynic. Maybe I'm tired of analyzing Emily Dickinson. Maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, sometimes the best reason is none at all.
Prompt:In addition to the essay you're asked to write as part of the Common Application, Amherst requires a second essay of no more than 300 words. We do not offer interviews as part of the application process at Amherst. However, your essays provide you with an opportunity to speak to us. Please keep this in mind when responding to one of the following quotations. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.
1) "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight-insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evi-dence from observation and experiments."
Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
Insight is overrated. That's not to say it isn't important, but frankly it isn't as prevalent as AP Literature would have you believe. Still, a world without meaning is a world without motives, depth, and double entendre. When cigars are always just cigars, Freud is without a job. Boring. When I play chess, every move of mine has a plan, and every step my opponent takes tells me a part of theirs. Early pawn to g3 is King's Indian. Black to f5 is the Classical Dutch. Complexity has its merits.
Writers still give meaning too much credit. When I wake up at 4 a.m. to feed and pet my cat she still meows incessantly. Reasons don't necessarily make things better. Everyday ironies and quirks don't need Cliff's Notes to have zing: PETA has gone to the dogs, and sometimes restaurants give Native Americans reservations. Simple can be beautiful. Is Earth more awesome because a poetic god sculpted it and all her inhabitants, or because out of the billions of spheres in the billions of constellations ours had a balance that would allow the seas to carve mountains, and life to form from a struggle against itself, with endless mutations competing to make us the even now imperfect species that we are?
Maybe I'm a cynic. Maybe I'm tired of analyzing Emily Dickinson. Maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, sometimes the best reason is none at all.
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