I'm 13 years old, Grade 8 Student from Indonesia, applying for Stanford Online High School. This is one of the required essay, 500-750 words for following instruction : "If you had one year to learn more about a topic of your choice, what would it be and why? Describe your topic and the methods you would use to investigate it (e.g. interviews, reading, making a model, performing experiments)"
Your opinion, critique and comment would be highly appreciated
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The Path to My Future
Lately, I often ask myself "What will I be when I grow up? Which major should I take? What university is the best for my major"? My mom and I did a lot of research, and I even did a lot of quizzes only to find out what I really want to be when I grow up.
After searching through different kinds of majors, I found these interesting: Business, Psychology, and Arts & Literature. However, "Cinematography" interested me the most. I am aware that there is an uncertain future in film industry, especially in my country, which is more into the Bollywood style rather than Hollywood. But instead of getting unmotivated, I found it very challenging to change the future of Indonesia's film industry.
My interest in cinematography started since last summer when I spent my holiday with my mother as she worked on her business project to make a training video for her franchise business. She would ask me to check on her script and I did some editing in the grammar, then she taught me how to make a script according to the goal of the project. I was involved in all brainstorming sessions, planning, preparing, and, the most exciting part, execution.
The filmmaking took about 3 days to finish, with lots of scene settings, lighting arrangements, actors, bunch of film crews, and brainstorming sessions with the director and producer. After restless hours and seven revisions, the training video was finally done successfully and has been used by all the store managers of my mom's company across the countries.
Recently, I have made up my mind; I want to be a businesswoman like my mother, and also a producer who creates movies according to the books that I will write. Thus, I decided to take a double major when I grow up, Business and Cinematography. I know this is a challenge and that is why I have to prepare from now.
So, if I have one year to learn more about a topic of my choice, I will choose to study about how to make short movies. I will enhance my knowledge through reading bunch of books about writing, film industry, and psychology. I will also watch a lot of Indonesian movies and try to compare it with Hollywood, Bollywood, and Korean drama series. I will be taking an SAT English class not only to have a good score in SAT, but also to learn more about writing techniques.
In fact, for this year's winter holiday, my mom had made arrangements with a major television network company in Indonesia to have me as a young "intern" to help out in the studio. I might end up as an "errand girl" but I don't mind since I can gain experience and have a rough imagination of how my future company will look like.
For this summer, I'm planning to attend a filmmaking camp by New York Film Academy, which is collaborating with Harvard University. For four weeks, I will be taught how to direct, write, and edit. According to my research, the students will make one short movie per week. Fun, isn't it?
In the end of the year, my goal is to write a good short story about humanity that can touch people's hearts and participate in "National Film Festival Talented Youth (NFFTY)" by next April 2015.
Sometimes, great movies would make me end up crying a river or dance around when it's a "happily ever after" ending. I know that they are only fiction stories, but they would make me feel like I am part of the story. That's how I want my audience to feel. I want them to be awestruck; I want them to feel like they're involved in the story.
My name on the cover of a book or on the rolling credits at the end of a movie would no longer matter. I don't want people to recognize me; I want them to recognize my movies and books. That's how my future will be-to have my creations be respected, noticed, and inspirational.
This is my dream, my plan, my journey. The path to my future has already begun.
Your opinion, critique and comment would be highly appreciated
----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------
The Path to My Future
Lately, I often ask myself "What will I be when I grow up? Which major should I take? What university is the best for my major"? My mom and I did a lot of research, and I even did a lot of quizzes only to find out what I really want to be when I grow up.
After searching through different kinds of majors, I found these interesting: Business, Psychology, and Arts & Literature. However, "Cinematography" interested me the most. I am aware that there is an uncertain future in film industry, especially in my country, which is more into the Bollywood style rather than Hollywood. But instead of getting unmotivated, I found it very challenging to change the future of Indonesia's film industry.
My interest in cinematography started since last summer when I spent my holiday with my mother as she worked on her business project to make a training video for her franchise business. She would ask me to check on her script and I did some editing in the grammar, then she taught me how to make a script according to the goal of the project. I was involved in all brainstorming sessions, planning, preparing, and, the most exciting part, execution.
The filmmaking took about 3 days to finish, with lots of scene settings, lighting arrangements, actors, bunch of film crews, and brainstorming sessions with the director and producer. After restless hours and seven revisions, the training video was finally done successfully and has been used by all the store managers of my mom's company across the countries.
Recently, I have made up my mind; I want to be a businesswoman like my mother, and also a producer who creates movies according to the books that I will write. Thus, I decided to take a double major when I grow up, Business and Cinematography. I know this is a challenge and that is why I have to prepare from now.
So, if I have one year to learn more about a topic of my choice, I will choose to study about how to make short movies. I will enhance my knowledge through reading bunch of books about writing, film industry, and psychology. I will also watch a lot of Indonesian movies and try to compare it with Hollywood, Bollywood, and Korean drama series. I will be taking an SAT English class not only to have a good score in SAT, but also to learn more about writing techniques.
In fact, for this year's winter holiday, my mom had made arrangements with a major television network company in Indonesia to have me as a young "intern" to help out in the studio. I might end up as an "errand girl" but I don't mind since I can gain experience and have a rough imagination of how my future company will look like.
For this summer, I'm planning to attend a filmmaking camp by New York Film Academy, which is collaborating with Harvard University. For four weeks, I will be taught how to direct, write, and edit. According to my research, the students will make one short movie per week. Fun, isn't it?
In the end of the year, my goal is to write a good short story about humanity that can touch people's hearts and participate in "National Film Festival Talented Youth (NFFTY)" by next April 2015.
Sometimes, great movies would make me end up crying a river or dance around when it's a "happily ever after" ending. I know that they are only fiction stories, but they would make me feel like I am part of the story. That's how I want my audience to feel. I want them to be awestruck; I want them to feel like they're involved in the story.
My name on the cover of a book or on the rolling credits at the end of a movie would no longer matter. I don't want people to recognize me; I want them to recognize my movies and books. That's how my future will be-to have my creations be respected, noticed, and inspirational.
This is my dream, my plan, my journey. The path to my future has already begun.