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Essay Prompt:
What so odd about odd numbers ?
Walk into a high-school during lunch and chances are, you'll find several cliques. In my school alone, you'll find them. While it's not hard-and-fast as the movies might portray - you do have the cool kids, the athletes, the 'IT' guys - likeminded people who choose to sit with each other. You might stumble upon the occasional lone diner. It is highly likely that you'll think this particular diner is a loner. Quite simply put, odd.
Homo-sapiens are a social species. We seek acceptance from those around us - Maslow's hierarchy puts a sense of belonging in at the third tier which is crucial to our sense of security. People who seem to leap over this need for belonging and acceptance seem odd to our eyes.
Odd numbers are indivisible to society's evenness. It is mathematically impossible to divide an odd number by two to receive a whole number - you will have the remaining one. Since the remaining one does not belong - they do not conform. The fact that we find a number not belonging to a group is odd to us.
I like to think of odd numbers as those 'higher persons' unconcerned with what people might think of them. Despite being indivisible to society's norms, all of us admire odd numbers for some weird reason. Ask a person to pick a number between 1 to 10, by empirical testing, I can safely say that person would have likely picked '7'.
The question is why? We admire the courage that odd numbers have in being apart, in flowing against the tide. Odd numbers are important propellers of social change. In our pursuit for acceptance, we say only what society would accept sometimes ignoring what we know is wrong. If it weren't for those people who chose to step outside of the ordinary, society today would be radically different - universal suffrage a foreign concept, women equality not seen, colored people still segregated from whites. Had it not been for Lincoln, could we still have had a major power still entrenched in the shackles of slavery? Had it not been for Oskar Schindler who chose to step outside of the ordinary in being indifferent of the Jews suffering, would we have those thousand or so people who have him to thank? Had it not been for Ibsen's 'Doll's House', would women still be considered less than men in Norwegian society?
Paradigm shifts pushes society to higher levels. The propeller behind a shift is often considered odd by the majority because the propeller does not conform to popular thought or opinion. Acting against popular opinion in the face of possible rejection by society is what makes an odd number, odd - no even number, in the comfort of a group, would dare speak out.
Keeping the significance of such odd numbers in the forefront of my mind is what gave me the boldness to voice my opinion as a new student in a class of thirty students when a teacher criticized people who held religious beliefs, this thought propelled me to re-start the debate club when I could have instead comfortably gone on with the routines of high-school, this thought gave me determination to work as the head of communications for a charity.
Consider the popular #YOLO. Shouldn't this be all the more reason to step out of comfortable groups, embracing our beliefs, truly being 'odd.'
Odd numbers are representative of what our life should be. Why are odd numbers so odd? They aren't. Momentarily maybe but in the long-run, odd numbers are what drive society forward.
I feel like the essay really shows that you are a creative, well-read student. By incorporating concepts such as Maslow's hierachy in the essay, you make your opinion concrete. But I am not too sure if your essay does a good job in depictin WHO YOU ARE
Keeping the significance of such odd numbers in the forefront of my mind is what gave me the boldness to voice my opinion as a new student in a class of thirty students when a teacher criticized people who held religious beliefs, this thought propelled me to re-start the debate club when I could have instead comfortably gone on with the routines of high-school, this thought gave me determination to work as the head of communications for a charity This is the only point of the essay when I feel like I know who you are. Maybe you can expand on this more. How "odd" are you in your class? How did people percieve you for voicing your opinion and for being so outgoing? And does being head of communications for a charity necessarily make you different?
Please check out my essay when you have time!
Thank you, leiya0920. I asked an admissions officer and she said it was fine if essays for UChicago were impersonal. They want to see how I think ...
I'll probably remove the bit about speaking out in the class room. I'd rather not superficially touch on it ...
@Vangiespen would really appreciate it if you could review this.
