Thinking of College

Prompt: You briefly met with a college recruiter last week, and you reviewed a number of questions to ask about colleges. This must have gotten you thinking about your future, so tell us about it: Without any strict requirements, write about your expectations, goals, fears, concerns, questions that you have concerning your future in college. Additionally, now that you know that recruiters want to hear about you and your intellectual interests and pursuits, how do you think being an aware Academic Leader will give you an advantage when applying to the college of your choice?

I think that being an Academic Leader will give me an advantage as I decide to apply to colleges. First of all, I will have some skills that as an Academic Leader you will gain with time. To me a few of those essential skills would be engaging your audience when you are presenting, explaining something, talking in an interview or even just having a simple talk with someone. This does not mean that I will not be nervous but I will already have that skill, as I become an aware Academic Leader.  In addition, as an Academic Leader I have learnt to go along and use my strengths. I will improve my weaknesses to make them less weak but I should show my strengths because they are my strongest point. Being an Academic Leader will also have its advantages when applying to the colleges of my choice because I will be able to make an impression, and hopefully a positive impression! I hope that colleges and universities will be considerate as they select people out. 

Meeting with the college recruiter and reading about colleges did get me thinking about college. After being to many different schools and having studied so hard, I would like to get accepted to the colleges I apply to. The college recruiter mentioned that it gave scholarships, and I wonder if I will qualify for these scholarships. Universities and colleges are becoming more expensive over the years which is why I think scholarships are interesting and I believe that if you have the grades and the components that your college asks for, then you should be given a chance. My goal is for me to fulfill my Undergraduate Studies, by getting a Bachelor’s degree as the minimum, and then maybe change universities or college for my Graduate Studies.  I am concerned about grades and how my CV  will look when I graduate. The IB is also a very important factor that is hard and seems to be a stressful program according to some of my friends that are taking IB examinations this year. On the other hand, having seen the college recruiter last week, brought up some questions, such as, what is the difference between a university and a college? Do your after-school activities count when applying for colleges? Can you go as undecided when applying to a university in Europe? What is the best way to decide what college to go to? Is it possible to visit a campus before you go to it or before you apply to it?  Do things like tutoring or being in NHS count? How do colleges decide if they want you? Is it by having an interview or just through your application? Nowadays, what are colleges looking for? For example your grades is one of the most important parts that they will look at, however what about your personality, the activities you have done or groups that you participate in, or maybe even your qualities as an individual person?

Academic Leadership Overview

Prompt:"In our first two weeks, you have read several articles, seen several videos and been engaged in several discussions related to the concept of academic leadership. At this point, and in your own words, what does the concept mean to you? What subjects or interests do you have a sophisticated, intellectual understanding of that you may want to turn into a major academic project in this class? How do people sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others? How would you feel if someone used your work to manipulate others (as Jared Diamond claims Mitt Romney has)? How can creating academically sophisticated, intellectual leaders help prevent such people from taking advantage of others the way they do? How can this create a stronger democratic society?"

Academic Leadership is when you learn to take matters into your own hands. You become a leader academically. Academic Leadership can help you develop your abilities and can enhance your confidence. This new course that we are going to have this year will be a good experience for us to get ready for IB next year. As John W. Gardner implied in his book Educational Leadership, “In our society, leaders are among the many “performance elites”". He is right; leaders are elites in both profession and the performance. I found a YouTube video on leadership that to me represented what leadership is all about. The quotes that the video had were significant as overall they summarized what leadership was to me. This video was made by a group of Graduate Students at Winona State University. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4rX4rWhX6A

I am interested in psychology and particularly in positive psychology. For my academic project I want to interview people who experienced the Tohoku Earthquake last year, like I did. Each person will have a different story and will have experienced the earthquake in a different place. They will also have a different perspective now on what they plan on doing and how they are holding up. I am hoping to have people of various ages and for some international people. I will combine these interviews and make them into a movie with some facts on the earthquake and pictures on the incident. In order to turn this into an academic project, I was also thinking on writing an essay on how positive psychology can help you in cases of trauma such that of the Earthquake. In order for the essay to be good it has to have an argumentative point of view as well.

People sometimes abuse academic knowledge to manipulate others. It can be done in several ways and one of them is doing it psychologically. If someone manipulated other using my work, I wouldn't be happy because I would prefer for them to ask me if they could use my work and I decide if I want to give them permission or not. In this way less people would be able to manipulate others using someone else’s information, in this case my work. I think that creating academically sophisticated, intellectual leaders will help prevent people from taking advantage of others because these leaders will not allow for that to happen. They will see in the long term and in the short term and can see what is happening with our society and they would be able to find long-lasting solutions. By having, academically, sophisticated, intellectual leaders, we will create a stronger democratic society, because there will be order but these leaders will be cultured and will have a global perspective thus they won’t rule out what one person says. They will listen to everyone and will bring a fresh and new start to the country. They will have some goals and will carefully weigh their decisions, maybe having to sacrifice some things but this leader will think on the long term. John W. Gardner described such leaders in his book, Educational Leadership.