I've just submitted this essay as my common app essay for the University of Rochester and my three SUNY safety schools: Binghamton, Stony Brook, and University at Buffalo. Considering that I've only worked two days on this essay, I'm a little worried about its quality, and I'd like to make it as good as possible before I submit to my other common app schools due next week. If there's any grammatical errors or issues with my choice in topic in general, which I feel is a little risky...lease let me know.
Who says that 17-years-old is too old for a little "story-time" before bed? While I can proudly say that I've matured past the point where a warm glass of milk and loving "kiss-goodnight" are essential, I've never been able to close my eyes and sleep easily without first embarking on an odyssey through the perpetual, virtual expanse that is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Almost every night, when I'm tucked into the back corner of my bedroom with my old Macbook Pro laptop whirring and beeping away, I can hear my parents' passing remarks from the hallway, "From one screen to the next, huh?" To my family, the fluorescent, apple-shaped logo centered on the front of my laptop has already become the official, house-wide-accepted signal that signifies my passage past the "point of no return." From their perspective, I'm sitting as motionless as a statue, typing and tapping hours away in the boring confines of my bedroom. From my own perspective, I'm witnessing scientific history in the making at a world-renowned research center among the some of the greatest scientists in the world, or the legendary strategy of Hannibal Barca at the Battle of Cannae, or perhaps even exploring the rich, imaginative world that is J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth. As soon as that first blue hyperlink catches my eye, my curiosity gets the better of me and I'm off on a never-ending cycle in which I could hardly answer the questions fuming inside my head before another blue piece of text seduces me and whisk me away to another world.
I've never placed much credibility in the predictions of astrological prognostication, but some qualities that have been ascribed to those born in the late summer are strikingly familiar. Leos, like myself, are known to be unrivaled in their ambition and their passion for exploration of the new and extraordinary. Being the eldest child of two working parents, I haven't had many travel or exploratory opportunities throughout my life so far. I, personally, have had a great deal of difficulty pursuing the extraordinary from my suburban home in the largest city in the world, where artificial lights sever my bond with the celestial lamps in the night sky, and enormous monoliths of steel and concrete disrupt my connection with what lies beyond the horizon, as if they were prison bars. It is then that I turn to my trusty cell-mate, Wikipedia, which allows me to exert my unsatisfied passion for exploration in not only one world, but within as many as I'd like to be. Being a student of multiple interests and passions, I couldn't possibly be perfectly content in any environment associated with only one academic field of interest. This virtual encyclopedia gives me the opportunity and freedom to pursue my own queries, rather than the review questions we are force-fed by textbooks. In other words, Wikipedia is my single escape from the strict restrictions from the conformity of a strict academic curriculum where my areas of study are chosen for me. I long for the chance to be able to choose the variety of foci in my studies at college.
Whether it's within the legendary realm of empires that was Ancient Europe, or the virtual library that catalogs the most recent scientific findings that are correspondent with my own in the field of cancer research, or even the debate examining the symbolic similarity between crucial themes in Christianity's account of the world's creation and Tolkien's of Arda's, Wikipedia is my own secret, magical escape from a world of conformity and uniformity. Perhaps storytime isn't the only thing I haven't outgrown.
Who says that 17-years-old is too old for a little "story-time" before bed? While I can proudly say that I've matured past the point where a warm glass of milk and loving "kiss-goodnight" are essential, I've never been able to close my eyes and sleep easily without first embarking on an odyssey through the perpetual, virtual expanse that is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Almost every night, when I'm tucked into the back corner of my bedroom with my old Macbook Pro laptop whirring and beeping away, I can hear my parents' passing remarks from the hallway, "From one screen to the next, huh?" To my family, the fluorescent, apple-shaped logo centered on the front of my laptop has already become the official, house-wide-accepted signal that signifies my passage past the "point of no return." From their perspective, I'm sitting as motionless as a statue, typing and tapping hours away in the boring confines of my bedroom. From my own perspective, I'm witnessing scientific history in the making at a world-renowned research center among the some of the greatest scientists in the world, or the legendary strategy of Hannibal Barca at the Battle of Cannae, or perhaps even exploring the rich, imaginative world that is J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth. As soon as that first blue hyperlink catches my eye, my curiosity gets the better of me and I'm off on a never-ending cycle in which I could hardly answer the questions fuming inside my head before another blue piece of text seduces me and whisk me away to another world.
I've never placed much credibility in the predictions of astrological prognostication, but some qualities that have been ascribed to those born in the late summer are strikingly familiar. Leos, like myself, are known to be unrivaled in their ambition and their passion for exploration of the new and extraordinary. Being the eldest child of two working parents, I haven't had many travel or exploratory opportunities throughout my life so far. I, personally, have had a great deal of difficulty pursuing the extraordinary from my suburban home in the largest city in the world, where artificial lights sever my bond with the celestial lamps in the night sky, and enormous monoliths of steel and concrete disrupt my connection with what lies beyond the horizon, as if they were prison bars. It is then that I turn to my trusty cell-mate, Wikipedia, which allows me to exert my unsatisfied passion for exploration in not only one world, but within as many as I'd like to be. Being a student of multiple interests and passions, I couldn't possibly be perfectly content in any environment associated with only one academic field of interest. This virtual encyclopedia gives me the opportunity and freedom to pursue my own queries, rather than the review questions we are force-fed by textbooks. In other words, Wikipedia is my single escape from the strict restrictions from the conformity of a strict academic curriculum where my areas of study are chosen for me. I long for the chance to be able to choose the variety of foci in my studies at college.
Whether it's within the legendary realm of empires that was Ancient Europe, or the virtual library that catalogs the most recent scientific findings that are correspondent with my own in the field of cancer research, or even the debate examining the symbolic similarity between crucial themes in Christianity's account of the world's creation and Tolkien's of Arda's, Wikipedia is my own secret, magical escape from a world of conformity and uniformity. Perhaps storytime isn't the only thing I haven't outgrown.
