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Admission Essays Page #2
Here is the second page of the Admission Essay Section. Under each person's essay or short statement is a link back to thier profile. If you would liek to comment on thier work e-mail us. You can also E-mail us at uchicago2006@hotmail.com to add your own essay.
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Question 1
It's Monday Oct. 14, 2002. I wake up at 7 a.m. after studying all night for an exam on modern political thinkers. I have two hours before my exam so I squeeze in a little more study time. After my exam, I have a twelve o'clock meeting with the Organization of Black Students. I won't be able to stay for the whole meeting because my roommate is insisting that I go to the University of Chicago Democrats meeting. After the meeting and my Statistics class, I have a two-hour break before my English class starts. That gives me plenty of time to grab some southern food from Dixie Kitchen and pick up a book I have wanted to read from a great bookstore on 57th Street. After English, I head over to Hutch Commons for a study session with a few people from my Statistics class. On the way to the meeting, I pick up a flyer about an Internship in the European Parliament for a top student. I know the internship will help me hone my political skills for my future in the Senate. I stuff the flyer into my back pocket so I can hang it on my wall when I get back to my dorm room. This is how I see myself at The University of Chicago. The internship and study abroad opportunities at the University will enable me to learn and grow both academically and personally. The culturally rich community will allow me to become more involved and aware. And the challenging curriculum and competitive student body will prepare me for a demanding political career.
By: Robert Hubbard
Comments On Robert Hubbard's Question 1
Comments can be sent to uchicago2006@hotmail.com
Question 2
At a very young age, I came to love what W.E.B. Dubois called the "sorrow songs." Although African American spirituals are mostly the songs of an oppressed and unhappy people, they also represent a hope for the future. "One of these mornings bright and fair, I'm gonna lay down my heavy load. Gonna kick my wings and cleave the air, I'm gonna lay down my heavy load," the slave sang to his daughter, the sharecropper sang to her sons, and the Freedmen sang to the world. Now, in an effort to become part of this legacy, I listen' so that one day I can impart the history of my people to my own grandsons and granddaughters, so that this tale of tragedy and triumph echoes within our souls and within our songs for generations to come.
Spirituals record the history of a people struggling to survive and, at the same time, searching for a cultural identity. Bernice Johnson Reagon, a composer and historian, wrote, "Our singing tradition announces the presence of our community. It is a way in which we nurture and heal ourselves. It is an offering to the celebration of life and the lifting of the spirit."
More than anything, listening to the songs of my people has challenged and enlivened my spirituality. Sometimes when I'm listening to these songs, "I feel like a feather in the air" ("Motherless Child"). In the songs of the slaves, I hear my own spiritual voice; I recognize the lowly calls for mercy and the powerful exclamations of faith, and I am free to know myself, to appreciate my culture, and to love my God.
By: Robert Hubbard
Comments On Robert Hubbard's Question 2
Comments can be sent to uchicago2006@hotmail.com
Question: Describe an aspect of life that contrast perception and reality.
Perceptual Reality
I have become keenly aware of time... the way it sneaks up behind you and whispers in your ear... the way it feels in your hands and tastes on your lips... how fearlessly it jumps out from nowhere and stops you from moving ahead... how cautiously it moves through space. I have become intimately acquainted with the hours and minutes that occupy our days, looking on in wonder as seconds turn into hours or hours turn into days. However, getting to know time does not allow you to manipulate, manage, or control it.
We attempt to manage our time by scheduling and planning ahead. Students use academic planners, mothers create routines, children plan play dates, and supervisors assign schedules. However, forecasting our futures does not increase the amount of time we have; it simply outlines our obligations. At no point in the process of planning ahead does time stop, speed up, or slow down. In spite of this, most of us have experienced a moment when time seemed to literally stop, clung to days that seemed to rush by, or marveled at hours lingering in the air. Even now, glancing at the clock, I come to the stark realization that time has escaped me. While writing, time seemed to be moving slowly, progressing with my thoughts, and stopping for moments of revelation. It seems impossible that I have been sitting here for an hour, from 8:10 to 9:10. It is apparent that perception and reality are completely independent of each other, existing alone. Our perception of time, which is relative to our own awareness, stands in stark contrast to the reality of time, which cannot change, shift, or stop.
Our perception of time allows us to believe time can be saved, collected, and conserved. Most of us spend hours and even days trying to save time, as if we can put it into an account and take it out when we need it. But we already know by experience and common sense that this is not true. If I iron all of my clothes for a month and organize all of my outfits so that everyday I save time, I will still end up spending the same amount of time in each day because something else will come up like my car will break down or I.ll break a leg or I.ll be assigned more homework. This is how time works. There will always be 24 hours in a day and all of those hours will be used up everyday. No matter how hard I try, I cannot take an hour from today, combine it with a minute from yesterday, and create more time for tomorrow. Time is stubborn; it cannot be manipulated or misused because it does not have a mind that would allow it to have biases or prejudices.
We have all heard of "having time on your side," but the reality of time, unlike the perception of time, does not have human characteristics or tendencies. Time does not trick some people, favor others, and ignore the lucky. Time is not going to reach out and strike me to smoldering pieces of ash because I ridiculed its merit nor is time going to pause so that I can catch up on everything I need to do. If this were true, I would have finished this paper long ago. It is 10:10 now and I have become increasingly aware of how quickly time is moving, how carelessly it trudges along like a racehorse or train, moving straight and fast. Then I remember those moments when time was like a ferryboat, slowly floating across the water, or when it was like a spring, circling and winding down.
Our perception of time takes different forms; it changes as situations change and depends largely on our awareness. On rainy days, time seems to progress slowly whereas on windy days time moves quickly and stubbornly. Still, this is merely my perception of time. Therefore, it only applies to my experience. Since individual observations vary, it is difficult to say what truly makes time relative, what about or within this great wonder makes it appear so differently, so uniquely every time we look at it. Could it be that time, in its infinite meaning, has become such an important part of our lives that we have over-defined, over-explained, and over-evaluated its characteristics? After all, the English language has hundreds, if not thousands, of words that refer to time. Words such as "before," "after," "later," "now," and "always" have become part of our everyday conversations. We try to "use our time wisely," "save time," and "manage time." Sometimes we make it to an event "just in the nick of time" and sometimes "time escapes us." All of these references create an abstract concept of time that is extremely complex. It is 10:30, and I have spent nearly three hours writing about hours, minutes, and days. But time encompasses much more than the immediate.
Our perception of time is a reflection of how we perceive and understand the world we live in. Acute awareness becomes observation, varied and differing observations go on to become perception. How do we get from perception to reality? Is there a common road on which the two can travel? If we use time as the ultimate example, we find that perception and reality have no common characteristics. Our perception of time is constantly changing; it is relative to circumstance, weather, awareness, expectations, and limits. But the reality of time is constant; it does not stop, slow down, or speed up. Socrates defined reality as that which is eternal and unchanging. Yet our perceptions are constantly changing. Does this mean our perceptions are false representations of reality? If so, then why do we commit our lives to them? Is it possible that our illusions become our greatest truths? Each of us, in our own way, has become "keenly aware of time". However, it is obvious that our personified definition of time does not equal the reality of time.
The time that we talk about and refer to on an everyday basis is not the same time that moves through space. Yet this illusion, created and controlled by our intellect, is essential to our lives and very real in our minds. Even now I cock my head sideways and glance at the clock. The numbers are my friends. I know them like the sound of my voice. They have transformed my life. It is 10:55. I am reminded that I want to go to bed by 11:00, which means I have five minutes to bring an end to an idea that hasn?t even started to develop in my mind. So, I am going to end this essay now, not because I am at a loss for ideas for I have many, and not because I have exhausted my writing ability for the wheels have only begun to turn. And I am certainly not ending because I have developed and explained my ideas to their fullest extent. I am ending simply for the sake of time.
By: Robert Hubbard
Comments On Perceptual Reality
Comments can be sent to uchicago2006@hotmail.com
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 Admission Essays |
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