Tips and Eight Examples for New Short Answer "Please share how you believe your experience at UT-Austin will prepare you to “Change the World” after you graduate."
Sailing in the outer Great Barrier Reef on The Condor
Not an admissions cycle goes by that UT doesn’t kick the ball into its own net. The application hasn’t even opened as of writing July 10, and they’re already off to a poor start. Let me tell you how I really feel because somebodies got to do it, and I know thousands of people and educators will share my frustrations.
In 2021 alone, they canceled many international applications without explanation, they were late releasing applications for transfers, and they always fail to adequately communicate to the public when decisions will be released. Starting in 2013, the Office of Admissions has shifted their priorities from informing the public to persuading students to apply and enroll. It’s a glorified sales position masquerading as “access” and “inclusion.”
Their appeals process is a black box that amounts to a lottery than anything specific to individual students. They randomly admitted previously rejected students over the summer of 2020 without explanation. In 2019, they added a fourth short answer in early August and then removed it after a week without explanation, and after hundreds of students had already applied.
When I worked for UT-Austin, they released PACE decisions without informing counselors like me that it was a new program. Much of my job as a counselor was answering for screw-ups and haphazard policy changes orchestrated by senior staff and enrollment managers who seem to love kicking own goals.
If this is your first time dealing with UT-Austin admissions, buckle up. It’s never a smooth ride.
One of the many ways that college admissions is rife with uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety is a direct result of inconsistent admissions policies and arbitrary changes. UT-Austin is unreliable, and elite universities everywhere are not interested in being transparent or accountable to the tax-paying public. It saddens me that my alma mater is so out of touch with society. They can get away with their excesses because they know the public is too timid to push back. There are no alternatives in the way that UC Berkeley competes with UC Los Angeles or the other research campuses.
UT without explanation and past their July 1 promise to release the topics has unveiled four new required short answers without emailing either high school counselors or prospective applicants on their mailing list. These late changes are typical for UT Admissions’s long tradition of breaking what doesn’t need to be fixed.
I share my initial frustrations in this video.
I have no doubt many thousands of students had already started and perhaps completed their essays. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the previous essay topics, and I see no upside in changing them. Changing topics is like when a restaurant changes their menus. New topics require retraining staff on a new topic where they won’t have any examples.
Each time a university changes their policies, hundreds of high school college advisors and counselors must adjust themselves. Inevitably, the lowest-income or most poorly resourced schools suffer the most during policy changes. Changing essay requirements directly harms diversity recruitment and creating a more inclusive campus. If UT and other elite universities were sincere about diversity recruitment, they would simplify their essay requirements.
Admissions reviewers were already behind with reading and scoring applications last year, and it’s almost certain that this new change will disrupt their bureaucracy and add even more inconsistency to the review process. UT-Austin admissions outcomes are bound to be even more unfair and inexplicable than usual.
In my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness, I argue that elite universities do not care about you. And UT-Austin is no exception.
In this post, I share some initial thoughts on the new topics, I provide tips for the Change the World essay, and I offer eight examples that could work for this new prompt.
Check out my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness and Youtube Channel
Fall 2022 UT-Austin Required Short Answer Questions
Major: Why are you interested in the major you indicated as your first-choice major?
Leadership/Diversity: Describe how your experiences, perspectives, talents, and/or your involvement in leadership activities (at your school, job, community, or within your family) will help you to make an impact both in and out of the classroom while enrolled at UT.
Change the World: The core purpose of The University of Texas at Austin is, "To Transform Lives for the Benefit of Society." Please share how you believe your experience at UT-Austin will prepare you to “Change the World” after you graduate.
Special Circumstances: Please share background on events or special circumstances that you feel may have impacted your high school academic performance, including the possible effects of COVID-19.
Initial Thoughts and Criticisms of the Fall 2022 UT-Austin Short Answer Question
Two of them are essentially the same. One asks why you’re choosing your Major (examples), and the other is a hybrid essay on the previous Leadership (examples) and Diversity (examples) Short Answers. I like the Leadership/Diversity essay because some students in previous years struggled to discuss both. Now, you only have to share about either one.
If it were up to me, UT-Austin would have simplified requirements - an Essay A Tell Us Your Story, and the Major short answer only.
Will reviewers learn anything of critical importance from most of the other essays? I’m skeptical.
The COVID/Special Circumstances essay is perhaps the most bizarre inclusion, but for different reasons than Change the World. I have never, ever seen a university require students to discuss special circumstances. It is ALWAYS an option and NEVER a requirement, as was the case for UT-Austin last year. Three or four of my clients wrote the optional special circumstances essay last year, and none of my clients this year were intending to write it. So far and fortunately, none of my clients have written about COVID traumas or tragedies.
Many students will feel compelled to make mountains out of molehills, and those who experienced significant trauma or hardship may either be reluctant to share their experiences or lack the language and writing ability to do so. The special circumstances topic is similar to an old “academics” short answer question that they replaced because it was a bad topic. I’m hoping that them requiring a special circumstances essay was a mistake and they are not requiring students to discuss COVID or other disruptions.
The Change the World Short Answer Question is easily the most absurd and poorly worded prompt I’ve seen in my decade working in and around college admissions, and that includes the Essay B topic I wrote in 2007 discussing a hypothetical roommate (relevant This American Life episode). They’ve taken the most common student essay cliche of “what starts here changes the world” and made an entire topic out of it. The only situation where this prompt may be appropriate is as a Forty Acres Scholarship question.
The essay also presents a challenge to forecast far into the future but in vague ways that are non-specific to your career or academic goals. They could have asked any number of related, more direct questions like why are you applying to UT, discuss a time you’ve made a difference in your home or community, or reflect on how you hope to grow in college. I’m not entirely sure what UT wants from this prompt, and I don’t think they do either.
At age 18, I never imagined that I might be “changing the world” by criticizing a stupid essay question asking students how they will change the world, but here we are. I didn’t know what an Office of Admissions was until I interviewed for the position.
I wonder…
Who cooked up this non-sense? We’ll never know. I’m 100% certain nobody working in UT admissions imagined in high school that they’d be “transforming lives” by becoming a middling bureaucrat. What Starts Here Changes The World seems not to apply to the entity responsible for admitting and enrolling their future students.
Tens of thousands of students will be forced to eat this half-baked essay pie. Implied in the prompt is a special kind of arrogance and exceptionalism that out-of-state or international students will give a damn about UT’s motto. To them, UT is just one university among many, and they may rightly wonder - “Who cares? Every university on my list probably hopes their graduates will change the world and transform lives.”
An insidious, speculative interpretation of the “change the world” prompt is that UT’s marketing and recruitment team are planting subtle seeds for students to imagine themselves on campus. Like a car dealer who wants you to imagine yourself taking home a new Mercedes and surprising the husband and kids - just come on in for a test drive - this new prompt is a subtle way for students to envision themselves as UT. That softens them up for aggressive recruitment and marketing techniques that UT and universities everywhere utilize. After all, who wouldn’t want to buy a service that offers the tantalizing possibility of changing the world and cementing your legacy?
I have no doubt that UT will directly tie their admissions sales pitch into this new “change the world” prompt. UT’s Office of Enrollment Management and Student Success has an incentive to increase their yield rate, or the number of admitted students who enroll. Like almost everything else in our highly consumerist society, marketing seeps deeply and almost undetectably into the fabric of our collective consciousness.
I also have no doubt the average essay will be even more poorly written than usual, and I pity the admissions counselors that are going to have to sift through what will be mostly terrible essays. What that means for you as an applicant is that if you do even a little bit better than mediocre, your essay may stand out from the pack.
The painful reality implicit in the prompt is that most people go on to live normal, unremarkable lives. And that’s okay. Not everyone needs to sit at the front of the bus or stand in front of a tank. Especially with Gen Z graduating in a pandemic, many young people are simply trying to stay afloat, pay the bills, and maintain their wellbeing and sanity. Finding a job that pays a living wage rather than your “dream job” is the most realistic possibility for many.
Implicit in the prompt is a tone-deaf assumption that everyone has the privilege to realize their dreams. Having the courage to change the world often requires the privilege of wealth and/or graduating debt-free. One reason I could take so many big risks in my life, despite growing up in a non-college-going community with parents who are not professionals nor college-educated, is that I had the utter good fortune that my grandma paid for the education of the grandkids and me. I also could live at home for the two and a half years I worked for UT admissions and save money.
I hope that somebody writes an honest answer: “I can change the world if you don’t saddle me with a lifetime of crippling student loan debt. Could I have a full ride, please?”
I will likely have more ideas as students begin engaging with the prompt and produce drafts. Consider these tips to help answer this absurd, awful, terrible, and vague prompt.
Check out my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness and Youtube Channel
Reframe or expand the question
One key phrase in the prompt reads: “To transform lives for the benefit of society.” This is a kind of “vision or value statement” that is problematic in its own way, which I discuss in this Admissions Madness blog post.
UT’s “core purpose” has a subset of “core values.” You can answer the prompt by referencing or reflecting on one of these values:
Learning — A caring community, all of us students, helping one another grow.
Discovery — Expanding knowledge and human understanding.
Freedom — To seek the truth and express it.
Leadership — The will to excel with integrity and the spirit that nothing is impossible.
Individual Opportunity — Many options, diverse people and ideas, one university.
Responsibility — To serve as a catalyst for positive change in Texas and beyond.
Other ways to reframe the question are to consider similar kinds of essay prompts. consider Carnegie Mellon’s college experience prompt: “As you think ahead to the process of learning during your college years, how will you define a successful college experience?”
You could answer it in a straightforward “Why UT?” or “what is a meaningful volunteering or extracurricular experience you hope to continue in college?”
The takeaway is not to get too caught up on the clunky, vague, awkward wording of the prompt. College essay questions are merely an invitation to write and not a box meant to constrain you.
Do not repeat content written in the other essays
Another reason why this prompt is tricky is that it will be a challenge to not overlap too much with your other essays. A common mistake students make is writing about, for example, robotics in Essay A, and then writing about the same aspect of robotics in your Major short answer. Essay topics and your words are like finite, scarce resources that you need to deploy strategically. You don’t want to waste space with redundant content.
Relate previous experiences to future goals
The most straightforward way I see to answer this prompt is to reference concrete experiences from your recent past or continuing into the present that you hope to continue at UT. Reframe the vague prompt by making it concrete.
Generally speaking, effective college essays reference specific experiences in your life. Share about a time you solved a problem, collaborated with a group on a project, or created something that helped simplify the lives of you or others.
You can argue through simile that “this experience in the past is like this problem I hope to solve in the future.” Showing how you are already solving problems now can help you connect why UT could help you solve problems in the future.
Answer the prompt directly
UT trademarked the “ what starts here changes the world” brand in 2005. You can read more about their branding scheme here. Investigating the origins and usage of this mantra could help.
But I’m already cringing at the thought of myriad essay responses leading with “What Starts Here Changes the World! I was inspired by William McRaven/Brene Brown/a UT football game, and I’ve been a lifelong Longhorn fan!” Or something banal and cliche. So my first piece of advice - don’t do this. With my clients, I will strike it from their submission.
If you still want to go down this road, it will help to actually read and comment on McRaven’s commencement speech (video and text) rather than referencing empty platitudes.
Narrow the scope of “changing the world” to changing your community, neighborhood, or family and discuss an issue of importance
This tip is a variation of the “think global, act local” mantra. Narrowing the scope of the prompt might help make it feel less overwhelming about solving world hunger or climate change. It will also help avoid vagueness or generalities about helping the planet.
When you can point to specific issues or problems in your community, you can make your essay concrete by suggesting how you have already helped solve those problems or how you might want to address them in the future. A UT or college education can help you understand broader structural or global contexts, which is often essential for addressing issues in your community or neighborhood.
It can also help to identify an issue of importance related to your major like social inequality, mental health, energy extraction and storage, medical ethics, civil conflict, women in STEM, etc.
Highlight how UT courses, certificates, study abroad, research opportunities, etc. can help you address local or global problems
One benefit of a UT education is that it provides a world-class education regardless of your major or department. Taking advantage of interdisciplinary certificates or courses outside of your major will help equip you with a variety of perspectives and tools necessary for addressing complex issues. Most essays should try and find some way that UT can specifically help them in the future. This topic most clearly to me seems like a “Why UT” essay even if that overlaps with the second prompt on diversity/leadership.
I share in-depth thoughts in this post about incorporating Why UT statements in your essays.
Visualize your dream life
I have used the language “dream life” rather than “dream job” here. For many, a dream job is a luxury and something that will never be attainable for economic or family reasons. Instead, consider sharing about what your dream life might look like. For example, what changes would need to happen at a societal level to ensure fairness or access to basic necessities? What might a world look like where everyone can receive a high-quality education, and what steps might be needed to get there?
Imagining your dream life can help situate your place in solving those problems. Visualizing carbon sequestration, efficient water desalination processes, advances in hydrogen power or fusion, distributing funds through a Universal Basic Income scheme, solving autonomous driving problems, eliminating infant mortality, curing tropical diseases, ensuring justice in the legal system, protecting online privacy, or your role in addressing any other ambitious social or technological problem. That may or may not be a job. You could frame it as finding your calling, which opens the possibility of service, art or music, or becoming a social entrepreneur.
In a way, this prompt could elicit responses similar to the old Apply Texas Essay C “you have a ticket in your hand. Where will you go?”
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Write another essay about Major, Leadership, or Diversity
If all else fails and you’re feeling stumped, just write another essay about your area of study, a leadership experience, or a unique perspective or talent you will bring to campus. I think a lot of applicants will worry whether they are “answering the prompt,” but again, essay questions are invitations to write and not constraints on what you can share. This essay could be your opportunity to share content you feel is essential about you but that doesn’t fit well into the other prompts. Basically, write whatever you want, and don’t worry about the actual topic.
It isn’t your fault UT is making you write a stupid prompt. If you’re feeling ballsy, maybe write about how you hope to change the world by speaking truth to power for unresponsive bureaucracies who submit you to their whims and inconsistent policies.
Eight Change the World Short Answer Question Example Essays
I’ve provided eight examples that could work for the new Change The World prompt. I’ve adapted them from other essay topics. You can see a wide variety of approaches, and not all students are certain of their future career. One reason I despise this prompt is it reinforces the unfair expectation that teenagers need to have their lives figured out and somehow envision how they will change the world.
Another problem is the social desirability bias that lingers in almost every topic whereby students feel compelled to share how their academic or professional interests will somehow benefit society. Prompts like this pressure students feel to link everything they’re writing into their major or connect their major into pro-social values such as service or philanthropy. These pressures produce a sea of Computer Science or Finance majors writing difficult-to-believe essays about how search engine optimization or credit default swaps will save the world.
Still, most of the examples speak broadly about underlying characteristics, assumptions to challenge, or possible issues to confront. Some, but not all, reference specific UT opportunities or resources that will help them “change the world.” I haven’t provided commentary under each one because I have already provided general tips above.
Architecture and Advocacy
I was always that student who tried a little bit of this and that to explore and be adventurous. After completing dozens of 3D models, one architecture-related honors thesis, two summer programs, and work experience, I realized that architecture brings me unparalleled fulfillment.
I love architecture for its creativity and intrinsic relationship with other fields of my interests. It is a subject that minges together science, art, humanity, and history to create a shelter for the world. I might forget the solution to a calculus question, but I will always remember the visualizations of my Columbia summer program's professor. He conveyed theories by showing a picture of a ramp and stairs and asking us which we would choose to enter the building. One critical interpretation he offered is that ramps symbolize slaughterhouses and that stairs distinguish humans from domesticated animals.
My most transformative experience was visiting the Libeskind's modern Jewish Museum Berlin. It consists of a tower with a single light source that captures the helplessness of Holocaust victims, a tilted foundation with concrete pillars that show oppression, and a pathway paved with metallic crying faces that create distorted sounds. The deconstructivist style conveys an aspect of Jewish-Berlin history: humanity reduced to ashes.
Libeskind’s tactile representations reminded me of my childhood habit of always touching the walls and floors of old buildings, seeing it as a way to resonate with past inhabitants. I learned that architecture is not merely about design, but also sensation, culture, history, and narrative. Especially during our current chaotic times, architecture and imagery stimulate social awareness and difficult discussions. They inspire my qualitative research on the visualization of depression through architectural spaces, and I hope to continue to address complex global, societal, and ecological problems through an architectural perspective.
Multidisciplinary Perspectives
With a final swipe, I lathered electric blue paint on the last blank spot on the MDF. Beaming, my Eagle Project crew and I exchanged high-fives. It took two years, but we’d finally completed the Story Steps.
Freshman year, Jackson Ridge Elementary requested me to build a structure to hold class assemblies. The problem statement dictated that it must fit within 200 square feet and seat thirty students. Having recently learned CAD-modeling in my Engineering elective, I designed a mini-amphitheater dubbed “Story Steps”.
Collaborating heavily with my scoutmaster and the Walnut Creek librarian, I created nineteen different Story Step iterations, adding guardrails to improve safety and swapping treated lumber for MDF panel to boost durability and curb cost. We considered seven colors before opting for a cheerful blue that matched Walnut Creek’s mascot, a diving eagle.
Many former Eagle Scouts warned me of project bureaucracy. I dispatched hundreds of emails and navigated a morass of troop, council, and district approvals, diligently tracking all of my expenses from numerous trips to Home Depot, and organizing a mail fundraiser to cover them.
The profuse paper-pushing paid off. Thanks to a scaled prototype I pre-built alongside a meticulous assembly line, two years of planning culminated in five hours of work, leaving us enough time to chow down on Domino’s pepperoni pizza afterward.
Occupying a generalist role in my Eagle Scout project -- designer, builder, accountant, project-manager -- fits my jack-of-all-trades abilities. I eagerly absorb information in my AP Physics and Calculus classes, but I also relish learning about ancient government systems in AP World History.
I’m the team-utility tool who’s willing to work behind-the-scenes and crank out the coding gruntwork like at my NASA SEES Internship, but I’m also comfortable public speaking, like presenting our group’s hypothetical Mars mission proposal to my Engineering class. Chatting about fantasy football over lunch comes as naturally as deconstructing a fantasy novel in AP English. I can recite 66 digits of pi from memory, but I also love fencing and competing in a game of H-O-R-S-E with my friends. I’ll bump Travis Scott and Young Thug, but I can also play Chopin’s Mazurka on the piano.
At times I feel like a “master-of-none”, but I’m excited about enrolling at UT to expand my curiosities and explore deeply. Unlike most of my already highly-specialized peers, I invite pivoting into the unknown. Generalists can develop specialties but not all specialists can spread out into generalists. The COVID-19 pandemic teaches me that changing the world requires a flexible mindset and an openness to new ideas and unfamiliar disciplines.
Check out my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness and Youtube Channel
Sustainable Development
My journey accompanying my family in developing large planned communities, emphasizing responsible construction, and promoting sustainable living associated with forestry agriculture in Brazil, reached its climax when I finally could influence the company's directors that it's our social responsibility to build affordable housing with the same amenities allotted to high-income clients living in gated communities.
On a continent with complicated relationships between money, corruption, and the environment, I'm proud that we have just received approval for twenty-three thousand apartments intended for low-income families on a beautiful property. It's challenging to escape crime and poverty when there aren't affordable housing alternatives, let alone options with bike lanes, public transport access, and a low carbon footprint.
I have participated as an intern, together with junior architects and engineers, to develop LEED-certified buildings that will provide affordable housing integrated with nature to families at risk of violence living in favelas. The new first-time property owners will benefit from open park spaces, biking trails, sports fields, shopping centers, locally-owned restaurants, schools, churches, lakes, and orchards planted within the remaining Atlantic Forest surrounding it.
It gives me meaning to assist with the agricultural forestry projects to create orchards within the remaining and recently restored Atlantic Forest surrounding the new community. Following the forest's recovery project's implementation and observing the birds' return, like colorful toucans, to this newly restored and abundant paradise fills my heart with joy. I hope that my small contribution to developing the new residential complex will help families live safely and with dignity. What starts locally can change the world globally.
Combating Prejudice, Anti-Semitism, and Discrimination
In seventh grade, the night before Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, a few friends and I received a text message from an unknown number saying that Jewish people should die. It spread like wildfire throughout the school, and within hours, local police confiscated our cell phones and identified the sender of the anti-Semitic text message. It shocked me to learn it came from Joseph, a Catholic boy I rode the school bus with since kindergarten.
As a proud and active member in my Jewish community where I spent years in Hebrew school learning about anti-Semitism, it boggled my mind to experience such bigotry first hand. After family discussions with the prosecutor’s office and the Anti-Defamation League, we concluded that, rather than prosecuting Joseph’s behavior as a hate crime, we needed to treat his offense as ignorance stemming from a lack of awareness.
I was also shocked to learn that his parents denied his actions and I even saw Joseph on the school bus the next day after he was suspended by the district. It was clear that education would be the only way to create change. As a consequence, Joseph was required to participate in monthly anti-bias classes at my local synagogue and have conversations with Holocaust survivors.
A key reason I’m applying to UT Austin is because of the vibrant and charitable Jewish Longhorn community. I intend to take an active role with Rabbi Zev of the Chabad Jewish Student Center to educate others about ongoing anti-Semitism. Belonging to the UT White Rose Society, which raises awareness of the Holocaust and genocide prevention, would also further my commitment to learning from history to teach others.
I want to do my part alongside like-minded advocates to achieve racial and religious equality while contributing to an inclusive atmosphere that welcomes diverse communities, especially those who have historically been marginalized. I understand what it is like to be targeted because of my religion, and I want to do my part in proclaiming “never again.”
Religion at Home and Abroad
Like many San Antonians, I was raised Catholic, but I thankfully come from a very religiously open-minded family, unlike many in my school and community. My mom encouraged me to read the Torah and Quran in between Bible verses. We made a “Stopplebeen” pilgrimage in the summer of 2019 to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.
Our colorful Israeli guide Dror introduced himself. “I am a tank commander in the Israeli Defense Force. My tank is inside a mountain. If the secret word is messaged to me or put on the radio, my crew and I will report to the cave in the mountain.” With our tour guide, I volunteered to read verses from his Bible when we visited the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus reportedly fed 5,000 people with five bread loaves and two fish.
I read verses from the English Quran detailing Muhammad’s epic Night Journey before visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s hotly-contested Temple Mount. I assume visiting Al-Aqsa with a Palestinian guide contrasted touring Jewish sites with Dror. In Jerash, Jordan, traveling to Roman ruins offered opportunities to buy “real” Roman coins just like the “authentic” Native American arrowheads in Missouri.
Seeing the Middle East in person obfuscates the conflict lines. Approaching the Wailing Wall requires passing through Muslim-owned shops alongside a Zionist museum. Our Israeli guide assured our safety from “heathenous” Muslims by pointing out armed guards. The only thing the three religions seem to agree on is falafel. Israel’s recent peace agreement with long-time rival the UAE further complicates the landscape, but my visit to the Middle East helps bring to life current events.
Going overseas reinforced my curiosity for foreign languages and their necessity for digging deeper into different cultures. I’m currently in AP Spanish Literature and my third year of high school French. I dabble in German and Arabic in my spare time and test new language waters on Duolingo.
What excites me most about college is studying abroad. UT’s Hautes Etudes Commerciales international business program in Jouy-en-Josas, France, will allow me to build my BHP core while having my first experiences practicing street French. Exploring my Catholic roots in a Plan II Rome Maymester will provide further context to my religion and culture. Finally, I plan to join the Global Business Bridge (GBB) to contribute my foreign language and cross-cultural skills and address global challenges in African and Latin American countries.
Check out my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness and Youtube Channel
Rejecting Religious Dogma
It seemed like the next logical step in my commitment to Christian ethics would involve enrolling at Liberty University. It all made sense in my head: join my senior girlfriend, learn an integrated Christian and secular curriculum, and collaborate with the next generation of Christian leaders.
I attended their “One Weekend” in late February 2020, a three-day two-night immersion into hypocritical propaganda masquerading as a sincere commitment to the Gospel. Liberty feels like the imitation of a legitimate college campus. At first glance, everything appears orderly and spotless, a confident image of elegance. It’s neoclassical architecture seems nice enough, but if you look beyond the finely mowed grass, you see bricks-missing potholed pathways and dirty, neglected common rooms. Unnaturally separating buildings feels cold and empty. It reflects President Jerry Falwell Jr’s hollowed faith, sacrificing Christian values at the altar of Donald Trump and the alt-right.
I questioned my decision to apply and enroll with the five or so other [private Christian school] classmates who attend each year. A recent graduate notorious for her toxic personality has unsurprisingly emerged as a leader on Liberty’s campus. Their student body presents a distorted reflection of human decency. It isn’t accidental that nearly every student I saw at the near-daily 8,000 student Convocation gathering at the Vine Center is white. Students stride with an air of dogma-enabled superiority.
Newsflash Jerry: Jesus wasn’t white, and he definitely wouldn’t vote Republican. If God’s Kingdom is reserved solely for fake hetereosexual white people, I’d rather burn at a heathen “liberal” university where I can think critically and engage my doubts and beliefs, just like Jesus.
More alarming than the lack of cultural diversity is the utter scarcity of diversity in thought. Everyone walks in lock step: same page, same opinion, same agenda, indoctrinated clockwork. I expressed interest in joining the “elite” worship team who treated me with insincerity and condescension because I didn’t pass some arbitrary purity test. How can Liberty claim to be a city on a hill broadcasting light across a dark world?
I reject Liberty’s lukewarm Christianity in favor of thoughtful dialog and finding common ground with people from diverse cultural, religious, political, racial, and sex/gender backgrounds. Without thoughtful dialog, how can we ever hope to change the world for the better?
Arts and Sciences, Future Career Uncertain
I used to believe that absorbing lectures and memorizing information correlated directly with genuine learning. Early on, math stumped me because lectures droned on while I struggled to apply what we learned. However, in high school my algebra teacher shifted my mindset because she reinforced mastery of the material subsequently applied to increasingly complex problems.
Understanding the underlying mechanics of advanced math allowed me to teach myself more advanced topics. Likewise, studying the sciences requires internalizing large amounts of content, elements, and formulas. Applying scientific concepts across domains comes more naturally to me than math. Although I eventually want to pursue a healthcare profession, what I love doing the most in my free time is writing.
When I was a child, I wrote fantasy stories, and once, a full-length novel. Rereading my old works now, their premises and writing were quite simplistic, but I’ve stuck with it. My writing has matured through the experiences of growing older like newfound academic stress, social anxieties, and discovering my identity. I started submitting my writing to local events like PTA contests and later, to national ones such as the Lake Effect Poetry Contest. It takes courage for other people to read your writing, so competitions encourage me to be more creative and mindful of communicating life’s complexities to people who don’t know me.
I’m excited for an interdisciplinary education at UT since it has renowned professors in essentially every subject. I look forward to taking Professor Davis’s course on social thought and the history of feminism and political philosophy with Professor Deigh. COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of medical ethics, so social work and Plan II Professor Sonnenberg’s humanities approach to medicine appeals to me. My creative background will contribute to science courses, and I can bring scientific approaches to liberal arts discussions. Breaking down departmental boundaries is essential for addressing complex global problems like public health and climate change. I’m unsure of my future career, but I hope to tackle humanity’s Biggest Questions.
Check out my new book Surviving the College Admissions Madness and Youtube Channel
Issue of Importance
We live in a modern Gilded Age. Amazon can deliver motion detecting toilet seat lights in a couple of hours, but it depends on a legion of overworked warehouse workers. They may earn $15 an hour or higher, but with fewer protections to cover long-term disability. Turnover in fulfillment centers remains high, and Amazon is notoriously opaque about sharing injury or COVID rates.
Journalists and documentarians brought awareness to sweatshop factories that supply our global fashion and electronics supply change. Rising inequality and a shrunken middle class follow from the logic of global capitalism. Uber’s refusal to classify drivers as employees symbolizes prioritizing shareholder profits over basic human decency. Protecting workers in the gig and technology economy are society’s most pressing issues.
Former Facebook Exec. Chamath Palihapatiya says “150 people run the world… almost all are men and white.” Shoshana Zuboff calls technologists like Bezos and Zuckerberg the “high priests of surveillance capitalism.” Digital ethicists like Tristan Harris push back against the “move fast and break things” ethos, but at the top of corporate boards and senior engineering teams, there appears to be little diversity of thought. Although consumers like you and I become the raw materials for data gathering, “essential workers” form the backbone of our digital feudalism.
Understanding the human psyche and the history of capitalism requires Plan II’s courses in Anthropology and Economics. History teaches us that the pace of change may be a matter of degree rather than kind, and learning from other countries in non-US history courses helps explore “Where did society go wrong?” and “What can we do to fix it?” together. Education and awareness is a prerequisite for resisting technology’s tug and advocating for the least fortunate locally and globally.