Prompt: Johns Hopkins offers 50 majors across the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering. On this application, we ask you to identify one or two that you might like to pursue here. Why did you choose the way you did? If you are undecided, why didn't you choose? (If any past courses or academic experiences influenced your decision, you may include them in your essay.)
What is the right thing to do? A simple question, yet one needs to think very hard to find an answer; that is, if an answer even exists. Moral philosophy invokes people to think and discern between two dichotomies, right and wrong. I was first introduced to this normative ethic, the study of differentiating right from wrong, in my junior year of high school when I took a semester on Biomedical Ethics.
In this class, I was asked to consider situations in which the right choice could, in fact, be wrong. One of my peers asked the question "Is it wrong for someone to kill an ailing person only to use that person's organs to save another?" I personally believe that in human dignity we are not allowed to use a person as a mean for another end. When I asked my teacher "what is the right thing to do?" I did not receive an answer because there wasn't one. My teacher told me to think about the situation, understand it, question any variables that might may contribute for the person to obtain the organs and finally reason why killing the ailing person is justifiable or wrong. This is why I enjoy philosophy. The simple task of finding right and from wrong turns into a an argument of why one outcome overrules another. When learning philosophy I keep an open mind to all the possibilities, there are to make a decision and not subject myself to simply saying that killing the ailing person is right or wrong but to ask why it is right or wrong.
Philosophy is abstract. One cannot subject themselves in to rigid thinking .Philosophy asks one to question, understand critically think, and reason. Through philosophy I hope I can better understand the ethical situations with which we as human beings are faced with and find reason as to why our decisions are right and or wrong.
How do I condense the supplement from 320 words to 250
I just submitted my supplement for JHU. I think your essay is quite good and has some touch of originality because of the ethical question posed to your friend. But i think you need a better transition from paragraph one to two.
...my junior year of high school when I took a semester on Biomedical Ethics. In this line, you talked about the fact that you took a semester on BE. This is ok but beginning the new paragraph with....In this class...creates a barrier between the two paragraphs. Come out with a more creative way to link the two.
overall,this is a good essay.
