![]() Ellie’s essay tells us some of those desired outcomes without sacrificing self-reflection in the process. ![]() While that may tell us something about who they are, these types of essays often use that desired outcome as the thesis and not as a means for us to understand who the applicant truly is. Many students write about a future they hope to achieve, such as a major, career, impact, or lifestyle. Through it, we see reflections about who they are and who they aspire to be. Admissions Committee CommentsĮllie’s essay skillfully uses the topic of entropy as an extended metaphor. To feel out of control is not the end of the world, but the natural state of it. I can venture into uncharted territory and comfortably embrace the positive that lies in the unknown, sure that when that entropic feeling inexorably takes over and life gets messy, I’ll be ready. Now, when I am the only one in my class with a particular opinion on our book or am stressed about the caveats of a busy schedule, I take a deep breath and recognize the potential to thrive in it. I welcome both with open arms, though chaos and failure still scare me. Though I don’t expect it to be easy and may occasionally enlist the help of my planner and about a million colored pens, I take comfort in knowing that my intention to excel as a woman in STEM and a young adult dystopian novelist pleases the universe.Ī high entropy value increases the chance for both failure and success it is both the natural way of the world and the primary supplier of chaos. I want to defy predictions and make world-changing discoveries, increasing my entropy as my impact tends limitlessly towards infinity. Although I love my orderly desktop and preprepared Spotify playlists for any mood, I embrace copious entropy and all that it represents, because I, too, want to be the unexpected in a world that expects the status quo. The more unpredictable the outcome of a reaction, the higher its entropy value. My most memorable class periods were the ones that started with a lesson plan but followed the curiosity of the class, taking us anywhere from the taxonomy of mermaids to hiking horror stories.Įntropy is also a measure of the changes in the status quo of a system. My favorite chemistry labs were exponentially disastrous as they progressed, teaching me more about error analysis than acids and bases. The best stories I’ve written didn’t start with an outline, but with random phrases I’d jotted down in a notebook in a moment of epiphany. This applies just as much to life as it does to chemistry. ![]() In order to be stable, everything must be marginally out of control. When I am faced with a group discussion in which conflicting ideas create more questions than answers, or when I am rushing from track practice to a robotics meeting, worried about when to fit my homework in, I remind myself of the importance of entropy.įor a system to be considered at equilibrium, entropy must actually be at its maximum. However, life is often more unpredictable than might allow a color-coded spreadsheet to double as a crystal ball. I have fallen in love with the idea of becoming a surgeon to dedicate my career to putting back together what has been broken –ordering the disorderly– and every organizational habit I have developed has been a microcosm of that passion. I arrive dependably at school every morning half an hour early and have mastered the art of Marie Kondo’s file folding for each of my closet drawers. Admittedly, I worship the planner in my backpack, hate it when I have more than three unread emails, and am the designated pantry organizer of my household. I, unlike the universe, have never been a very big fan of disorder. While it may seem like a concept worth forgetting – especially with its conviction about an imminent “universal heat death” – entropy has taught me far more outside of the classroom than in it. Its explanation comes from the idea that the universe prefers to conserve energy because energy must be put into organization, everything around us is constantly descending into an increasingly complex state of chaos. Entropy is the property that provides the basis for the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe naturally gravitates toward disorder.
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