This is from the first Brown prompt- explain what field of study you would like to pursue at Brown, as well as how you discovered it, and any post-graduation career paths you might have considered.
"It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine." -jonathan safran foer
When I was 9 I found a rabbit in my backyard that had been attacked by my neighbor's cat. It was small and shaking, with vomit dripping from its mouth. My mom carefully placed it in a cardboard and drove it down to our neighborhood animal hospital, but by then they couldn't do anything to save it. By morning, as best as we tried to save it, it was dead. Since that morning, I have been fascinated and terrified by death. Not necessarily death, but the end of life. This curiosity drove me to pursue biology at University College London after I graduated from high school last spring. I sought to understand what being alive meant, how it worked. What made 2 cells uniting after a drunken soiree more alive than androids built after hours of work constructed under laboratory conditions; what was the spark? However, my investigations were always conducted under one assumption, not so much an assumption as an oversight. To me, life had always existed, or at least the elements that had made life possible had. However, this fall, I sat down in a lecture hall on Gower Street and listened to Professor Max Telford explain the physics behind the origin of our universe and my miscue became painfully aware to me. Life is not a permanent fixture in our universe.
Since that 9 am morning lecture, that small dip into the ocean of astrophysics, I began to examine life with an entirely new perspective. One that stretched beyond the immediate presence of life, to the billion year gap before life began on Earth. Biology was just a piece of the puzzle, Life, which at one time seemed to me to have certain fixed parameters, certain rules that it operated within, became foreign and exciting yet again. Astrophysics has since become the study that I am the most curious about, and the one that I wish to pursue at Brown University.
I do not intend to further my studies in this field towards any monetary goal, but whether this knowledge lends itself in a research field or a medical profession, I simply wish to understand more deeply what life on Earth really is.
"My mom carefully placed it in a cardboard box and drove it down to our neighborhood animal hospital, but by then they (instead of they, use "the doctors" or whoever is relevant here) couldn't do anything to save it"
I would suggest spelling out numbers!
"By morning, as best as we tried to save it, it was dead." I feel like some rephrasing would help, also refer to the "It" as the rabbit. Maybe something like: "We tried to save the rabbit as best as we could, but by the time morning came around it was too late."
Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do?
Am I such a selfish person for dreaming of a world that ends when I wish so?Since that morning, I have been fascinated and terrified by death.
Since that morning, I have been both fascinated and terrified by death.Not necessarily death, but the end of life.
I like if you leave this line out... There is too much repetition of the same idea :(
