"a yearning for knowledge and education" - Brown: What Don't I Know?

editing help would be much appreciated :)

Prompt: French novelist Anatole France wrote: "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." What don't you know?

First and foremost, I will just start off by saying that this is too broad of a question for me because there are so many things that I do not know. To truly do this essay justice and answer it authentically I would have to exceed the common app word limit of 500 by a monumental amount of words. But nonetheless, I do not know many things. I do not know how a planet turns on its axis and I definitely do not know how the world as we know it, in reality, looks flat, but is in, actuality, round. Why is that the Earth needs the moon to exist? And how is it that ironically, people shiver and feel cold when having a fever? How do pills like tylenol and advil work to help people feel better? What are the exact causes of global warming? Are there such things as ghosts, ghouls, and three-legged creepies? How do we know for sure that this is the real world and we aren't all in a cryogenic chamber dreaming?

These are just a few questions that pervade my everyday thoughts. Speaking candidly, I believe life would be much more boring if I knew all things. The unknown is fascinating and makes life interesting in that it creates excitement, curiosity, and a yearning for knowledge. To me, the most gratifying and pleasurable experiences stem from researching about new concepts and commodities that I previously did not know about. Just as if the unknown compels me to obtain new information, to make foreign concepts familiar, I believe the obscure parts of life are crucial to the perpetual progress of the world.

Oftentimes than not, curiosity is the catalyst that motivates people to acquire knowledge. Individuals love to be enlightened and informed about all aspects of life and this is what ultimately brings new breakthroughs and concepts. Undoubtedly, Albert Einstein's curiosity about Newtonian mechanics and quantum physics led to knowledge that relativity can be extended to gravitational fields, ala theory of relativity. Galileo's inquistiveness about the widely-held belief of a geo-centric universe led to his own theory of a helio-centric universe, a universe revolving around the sun, which has, since been proven accurate. And Gregor Mendel discovered that genes are located on chromosomes because of his curiosity for fruit flies and their tendencies to exhibit different traits. Collectively, these individuals demonstrate the importance of asking "why," and it is just as important of knowing "how"; They show that proper questions have to be asked in order to obtain sound answers. Assuredly, the world moves forward because of what we don't know; it ultimately incites us to make the unknown, known, and the hazy, clear. And as long as there are things I do not know, I will always have a yearning for knowledge and education.

This is a decent essay, but there's a few things I'd change.

I don't like your intro really, while I understand the desire to acknowledge the space limit and express the pressure it puts you under its nothing people want ot read. It skips from being endearing or enlightening and just seeming kind of whiny. I'd drop that. Additionally the part of your essay where you speak about what you don't know drags on too long. I would change it to 3 broad examples in succession, this would shorten ti while still expressing the volume of what you don't know.

Also in your third paragraph "Oftentimes" is not the word, "More-times than not" is the correct idiom, although I think that it still flows a little awkwardly. Also, its just a little thing but Galileo did not create the theory of a helio-centric universe, he was just the most well-known and powerful supporter. It was some earlier guy who actually came up with the theory. Not a big thing, but it'd suck if your admissions officer called you on it.

Other then that, good essay, best of luck!

I appreciate your comment and yeah I wanted to actually try to spice up my intro a bit but I realized it does sound a little whiny :/ but I wrote a new intro what do you think ? is it any better? Thanks for helping!

There are many things I do not know. Such things like why is the Earth in our point of view flat, but in actuality, round? What is the precise circumference of the Earth? Also,why does the Earth need the moon to exist and vice-versa? If given a chance I can list a long account of questions on any commodity, concept, or circumstance. On my part, this quite simply demonstrates my lack of profundity of the world. Although the things I do not know eclipses the things I do know by ten-fold, my ineptness and curiosities are invaluable to me because they convey that there is always a need for education and also compel me to endeavor after new and uncharted waters for enlightenment.

There is a copious amount of questions that pervade my everyday thoughts. Speaking candidly, I believe life would be much more boring if I knew all things. The unknown is fascinating and makes life interesting in that it creates excitement, curiosity, and a yearning for knowledge. To me, the most gratifying and pleasurable experiences stem from staying up late and surfing the web and wiki-ing new concepts and commodities that I previously did not know about. Just as if the unknown compels me to obtain new information, to make foreign concepts familiar, I believe the obscure parts of life are crucial to the perpetual progress of the world.

Oftentimes than not, curiosity is the catalyst that motivates people to acquire knowledge. Individuals love to be enlightened and informed about all aspects of life and this is what ultimately brings new breakthroughs and concepts. Undoubtedly, Albert Einstein's curiosity about Newtonian mechanics and quantum physics led to knowledge that relativity can be extended to gravitational fields, ala theory of relativity. Galileo's inquistiveness about the widely-held belief of a geo-centric universe led to his own theory of a helio-centric universe, a universe revolving around the sun, which has, since been proven accurate. And Gregor Mendel discovered that genes are located on chromosomes because of his curiosity for fruit flies and their tendencies to exhibit different traits. Collectively, these individuals demonstrate the importance of asking "why," and it is just as important of knowing "how"; They show that proper questions have to be asked in order to obtain sound answers. Assuredly, the world moves forward because of what we don't know; it ultimately incites us to make the unknown, known, and the hazy, clear. And as long as there are things I do not know, I will always have a yearning for knowledge and education.

I like it more. The only thing I would change is that stylistically our a bit of a "thesaurus-writer" in that portion of the essay (intro). While its good to show that you have a large vocabulary, complicated words don't make good writing. I'd simplify your diction a little bit and your essay will read easier and more conversationally.