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'There is no point in going to college.' Why UChicago - Purpose of education


angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Dec 26, 2016   #1
How does the University of Chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future? Please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to UChicago. (The "suggested" word limit is 250, and I'm around 520, but I have seen accepted applications with essays way over the limit.)

There is no point in going to college.


Okay, that may have been too cavalier a translation of UChicago professor Andrew Abbott's 2002 "Aims of Education" address. Rather, he says that "there are no aims of education. The aim is education." Being educated is not a means to a future end; it will not guarantee a happier, wealthier life. It is for nothing but the present.

At first, I wanted to rebel against this wishy-washy wordplay; of course we must use our education for the future! Then I thought of the hours I spent browsing UChicago's website for Neuroscience research abstracts and UCIHP's pre-health opportunities--hurtling towards medical school before even being admitted to college, just as I've immersed myself in college preparation all throughout high school. Instead of "using" my education, I was hurrying to get through it to reach whatever came next.

Professor Abbott acknowledges that some people can and will go through school "mechanically" and will perhaps become doctors, whose day-to-day work is mostly routine and requires no groundbreaking revelations. So if I can still reach my goal, why even bother with education's mysterious true purpose? I have already woven together my intended path here. The versatile quarter system allows me to double major in Comparative Human Development and Neuroscience, fields that supplement each other in studying human behavior at the molecular and societal levels. I will be constantly drawing upon and fine-tuning knowledge from those courses with year-round treks shadowing Chicagoland physicians and the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division's summer research programs. I will familiarize myself with humanistic aspects of medicine through the Katen Scholars Program's community health outreach and ameliorate the real-world consequences of healthcare inequality with the Urban Health Initiative.

These experiences will be thought-provoking and fulfilling and will bestow upon me critical skills for the future, but I will be doing myself a disservice by seeking them only for the fixed entity of becoming a doctor. The aim of education is indeed not for the future or a career, but for refining myself in each passing moment. I have to rise above the idea of undertaking endeavors only for the sake of deriving some form of tangible advantage from them. Career plans deviate and skills needed in a profession change from what we learn in school; what endures is the flexibility of mind that earns no outside recognition but is invaluable in making me a more well-versed and intellectually dexterous person. Some would call this elevated view enlightenment; at UChicago, I will call it education.

I am still digesting the erudition of this address, but that I must fight to understand it validates Professor Abbott's point. The problem sets, the curriculum, the Core are simply tools. Education cannot be given, it must be discovered. Beyond simply providing the tools, UChicago strives to constantly improve its most intrinsic ethos and inquires deeper to reshape education itself. It lays bare the truth as a challenge to its students: Will you puzzle over why enlightenment slipped by in your complacency, or will you cultivate our resources to command your own revolutions?

And truly, I thought you would never ask.
ngokhoa99 11 / 58 14  
Dec 26, 2016   #2
Nice essay! The hook at the beginning is well executed. You showed your research of the school throughout the essay.
But, I feel that between there should be some explanation of your "enlightenment", particularly between the third and fourth paragraph.
I assume you're not applying through Common App, but the website does limit your word count. Just a reminder if you're applying through CA for other schools.
chizy7 6 / 52 14  
Dec 26, 2016   #3
Hi Angela, I have not read your essay because you are way over the word limit (instead of 250 you indicated that you are at 520). I advice you to be as succinct as you can, going over the word limit indicates that you don't listen to instructions and that's the impressions the admissions board will get.

Why they give word limits is because they want to see how creative and constructive you can be with your response. So my advice is that you stay below the word limit.

If you have problem eliminating unwanted details, we are here to help you with that. If that's what you want do let us know.
OP angeli6778 11 / 36 16  
Dec 26, 2016   #4
@chizy7
From UChicago's website: "There are no strict word limits ... but we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you'd hoped it would." The 250 count is "suggested" and UChicago's own admissions office have published admitted essays longer than that. So if you could read my essay regardless of word count and tell me if it held your attention, and if not, how I could encompass what I'm trying to express in 250 words, that would be much appreciated.

@ngokhoa99
UChicago lets you upload a document to the CA website as long as it's under 500KB, and this essay is only like 14KB haha, but thanks for the tips :)
Holt  Educational Consultant - / 14,766 4768  
Dec 26, 2016   #5
Angela, the essay is too wordy, deviates from the prompt because you want to discuss points of quotation instead of directly addressing the prompt requirements, and has the reader losing focus and interest because you did not get to the point of why you chose UChicago until you got to halfway within the 3rd paragraph. By this point, the real reviewer will have decided that your essay is not worth it to go through the whole essay. You have him searching for the response to the prompt rather than delivering it to him by telling or showing him an immediate answer.

Keep in mind that the essay prompt is double bladed and is testing your resolve as a student when it comes to analyzing instructions. Note the warning:... but we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you'd hoped it would. Do you really want to risk that? Let me put it this way, the warning says Keep it short or I'll move on to the next applicant. Don't waste my time. Reviewers always tend to favor the short and highly informative essays. The essays that come from students who would rather get to the point quickly then prove their vocabulary prowess through the essay when it is not warranted.

I am not going to convince you that you should shorten the essay if you do not want to do that. All I can do is remind you that these prompts are also meant to test your ability to say what you have to say in the quickest and shortest way possible. That is aside from testing your ability to analyze instructions and follow them. Even when you receive 2 seemingly contradicting instructions as in this case.

As a college student, you will not have all the time in the world to write your papers. You will have both word and time constraints to battle and that when you are not in the classroom. The reviewer knows the demands of the academic work on the students. The fact that you dare to not take note of the warning shows that you are a risk taker who will probably struggle to follow the rules of the university. The whole application prompt is an additional test for you. If it were up to me, I would stick to either being below, slightly above, or exactly at the "suggested" word count. Of course, that is just me.


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