Entry 56: Big Apple

Our university is "In and of the City" and "In and of the World." What does the concept of a global network university mean to you? How do you think studying in New York City, Abu Dhabi, or one of our global sites would change you as a person and equip you to build cross-cultural relationships at our university and beyond?
--NYU

• A global network university is a very appealing concept to me. Why? Because it means that I will have many advantages compared to people who do not attend a global network university. I will be able to experience many new cultures around me. I would have to adapt to a new environment first, since I would be studying abroad from my country. Then, I will be able to interact with a variety of different types of people from different cultures all over the world. What a global network provides is diversity. I will be able to meet new people, and I will learn how to cooperate with them in order to complete a superordinate goal, despite our ethnic, or any other, differences. The other advantage of being in a global network university is that I will be able to work with other universities around the world/globe because many of them would be connected to the global network university. Finally, the best advantage in my opinion would be that I would be able to acquire and attain the newest information and ideas from all over the globe, because a global network center means very, very advanced technology. I believe that in present day, one of the most important things to success would be information and technology, all of which a global network university would provide me.

Entry 55: Public Interest

Respond to the quotation below. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

“It seems to me incumbent upon this and other schools’ graduates to recognize their responsibility to the public interest...unless the graduates of this college...are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion...then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible.”
--John F. Kennedy, at the ground breaking for the Amherst College Frost Library, October 26, 1963

• I believe that graduates of any college must put back and return their talents to society, for the public interest. The people who go to school and receive an education must at least return sometime back to the society and neighborhood that allowed them to grow and succeed, as well as prosper. As the quote mentioned, the people within a group are the most important part of democracy, and without the people, the democracy will fall. Another situation where the democracy might fall may be when the people constituting the democracy do not contribute and sustain the democracy. Therefore, as the quote mentions above, the talents of these educated people must to placed back into society for the wider, public interest; they have to contribute to society.
• The main way that people can contribute to society would be to enter the work force and get a job that will be able to put their talents to good use. I would most likely get a job that has to do with mass communication and psychology, since these two fields are the ones that I am most interested in. To be more specific, I would most likely be concentrating on consumer marketing and advertising, since these two are most closely related with psychology (so I can out my psychology to good use).

Entry 54: Literature and Death

Respond to the quotation below. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.
“Literature is the best way to overcome death. My father, as I said, is an actor. He’s the happiest man on earth when he’s performing, but when the show is over, he’s sad and troubled. I wish he could live in the eternal present, because in the theater everything remains in memories and photographs. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to live in the present and to remain in the pantheon of the future. Literature is a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived. This is my signature, this is my name.”
--Ilán Stavans, Professor of Spanish, Amherst College

• I would agree with the quote above. Literature is indeed a way to say, I was here, this is what I thought, this is what I perceived, this is my signature, and this is my name. It is something that will keep us in the present and help us remain in the pantheon of the future. There is, however, one thing that I disagree with concerning this quote. This quote gives me the feeling that the only way to overcome death is literature. I believe that there are other ways to overcome death. Examples may be in any form of media. A few examples of media include television, drama, music, and other forms of entertainment. People leave legacies after they become famous through these media. Though the message conveyed by the people differs from media to media, all of the following above does overcome death because a part of the person is left behind even when the physical body dies. In television and drama, a person's visual images, acting, speech, and other physical aspects or characteristics are kept. In music, a person's music melody and rhythm, lyrics, and a person's voice are kept. Since we have digital files now, music can be shared and kept for a very, very long time. Basically, any media that involved video or audio recording can be similar to and perform similar functions to literature - it helps overcome death.

Entry 53: Reasoning and Insight

Respond to the quotation below. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.
“Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight—insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments.”
--Kannan Jagannathan, Professor of Physics, Amherst College

• I agree with the quote above, that both rigor and insight are important roles in mathematics, and that insight is actually more important than rigor despite the fact that rigor is very important. Why is insight more important than rigor? This is because when people need insight in order to look into the workings of the world. And this can best be seen in one of the most important and fundamental processes of science: the scientific method. This method asks a person to first think of a question that he or she is curious about and wants to know about. This is insight, because it helps us find the questions that we want to solve. Without the questions, there will be no scientific process. Only after the question is voiced can the rigorous reasoning take place when the person is trying to create a reasonable experiment to test their his or her hypothesis.
• I believe that that insight is also important to solve problems. A sudden insight may help a person solve problems that he or she has been working on for a long time, such as a puzzle.
• Generally, to get the empirical evidence from observation and experiments (which is also known as the "rigorous reasoning", one must have insight. Insight provides the basis of science because it is the first step of the scientific process.

Entry 52: Life of Service

Tell us how the integration of faith and learning can prepare you for a life of service, and discuss the impact service-learning can have on the renewing of your mind, spirit, and community.
--Pepperdine

• Faith and learning can help prepare me for a life of service because it provides me with an incentive to do things that I am supposed to do, or things that are right and should be done. Having faith in myself, my friends, my family, and other people I interact with helps me in many situations. One of these situations may be when I am in a dilemma during the process of learning and I need somebody to give me a hand so that I can continue to learn without giving up or letting go of my academics. Having faith in others provides me a strong pillar by providing me with a social life and confidence. Service learning can renew my mind by changing how I think. In other words, service learning can change my attitude towards many different things. Service learning might also increase my spirits because I know that I have the ability to do many good and right things as well as the ability to help other people. Finally, service learning may change the community that I reside in because I will learn to actually do things to help my community, and the people within my community who need my help. One example of this is community service such as recycling and helping elders.

Entry 51: The Best Laid Plans

Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?
--MIT

• One of the most significant challenges that I faced is actually something that happened just today. It is the taking of my AP Human Geography test. The test was really difficult and I had a hard time completing the exam. For the multiple choice question, I managed the situation by going through the questions slowly and thoroughly, and I separated my time into three sections. The first time period, I went over the test as a whole and did any and all questions that I am confident I know the answer to. Then, during the second round, I go over only the questions that I left blank in the first round. I do the question that I need to pick on answer of out two, and I try to use the process of elimination for the other questions that I didn't eliminate until I only have two answer choices left to pick from. Finally, during the third round, I pick answers from the remaining questions. This method helps me increase the probability of picking the right choice to a multiple choice question. As for the essays, I can only try to answer the question that I know the answer to first and try to buy some extra time so I can think of a more appropriate response to the other essay questions that I initially don't know the answer to.

Entry 50: My World

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations?
--MIT

• The world that I come from is actually very small. For example, my social circle consists of basically only my family and people from my school, and coincidentally, these are the two things that influence my aspirations the most. Notice I didn't say dreams, because my dream is influenced from something that is completely different. School is my life, seeing as I am a student, and school has guided me and given me a direction to life (of course, it's mostly academics, but there are also some social aspects such as clubs and other school activities). School is also the place where I will be applying for colleges, and it is an important turning point in my life seeing as it is helping me start a new stage in my life. My family plays the more important part. My parents provide me with education (which is my school) as well as shelter, amongst many other different things (for example, food and other basic needs). My brother had a prominent influence because I have to follow his path (that's basically means that what he does, I have to do). I would also like to go to the college my brother is at, and one reason is because my mother would be more relieved to know that there will be someone in America to take care of me (sometimes she thinks I'm retarded; maybe...).