Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Its High Time We Killed The College Admissions Essay

It’s High Time We Killed The College Admissions Essay The essay is an opportunity to impress an admissions team that may be on the fence regarding your application. While much of the application review process is automated, the essay is an opportunity for students to be evaluated on their creativity and personal experiences. Mitch Warren, the director of admissions at Purdue University, drives this point home. Not only are some nuances potentially lost, but textbooks can take away the intellectual work of deciphering what the author is conveying. There is less exploration in thought on the materials. The Great Books being a part of the curriculum at St. John’s is quite critical to learners because there is no premise that students will be taught what to think and express, but rather how to think and articulate. Looking through a pamphlet that was sent to me, I notice that there are many philosophical texts in the curriculum throughout all four years. For instance, as part of the curriculum at my school, seniors are required to complete a senior project. The project can be on anything, but each student is charged with coming up with a question, in hopes that the senior project may be an answer of sorts. In my studies I have been reading about Einstein, and many people consider one of his greatest downfalls to be that this pioneering man rejected parts of the rising field of quantum mechanics. Einstein spent the later part of his life working on a unified field theory, looking for an underlying beauty and order to the universe. Although my 6th-grade self might have exaggerated the importance of finding a college, she knew the importance of choosing the right college. One that would support her talents, instincts, and dreams. I chose to study Special and General Relativity for my project. My question is what does relativity tell us about reality, and why it’s important at all. Even if you love to write, it can seem overwhelming to write the perfect essay when there are a million other loose ends to wrap up before graduation. Luckily, writing your essay isn’t as hard as it may seem. When I tell people about St. John’s College, I usually explain I learned about it from an Educational Broadcasting System documentary video called, “Why Do We Go to College”. My actual first time, however, to learn about the college was on an ex-St. Despite the fact that I found the blog for travel content, I was immediately fascinated by the college where the daughter (she announced herself as “Ms. Cho” in St. John’s College) of the family member went. I am drawn to this since most of the texts that college kids read are textbooks, which are interpretations and expansions on the original groundbreaking work. In my experience, many things are lost in translation from original work through the years into our modern textbooks. She had kept a journal about her time at St. John’s College since she was a freshman . Thanks to her, I could experience St. John’s College indirectly since the very first day through her eyes, from the first picture of Santa Fe airport to her fantastic St. John’s College life. Even though it was depicted from her perspective, St. John’s College filled me full of awe. Thinking, reading, searching and researching took up most of my free time during my student career. I thought clichés only existed in works of fiction, unfortunately, middle school was the exception. How all questions are open to discussion in class made my soul comfortable, even questions like “I don’t even know why we have to demonstrate this formula” as one of her classmates said according to her diary. It seemed to me asking was not a shameful or interruptive act. The first thing that captured my heart was, of course, the 100% discussion-based classes with students engaged with one another in the pure joy of learning. Especially, the math class she portrayed was exactly all I ever wanted.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.