Thursday, February 01, 2007
the best and the brightest
I was recently asked to review some applications for a fellowship which is awarded to first year graduate students in engineering at UD, where I got my masters degree. Maureen and I have enjoyed reading them over and so I thought I’d share some of what we’ve seen.
In keeping with conventional wisdom, the students from China have a much more rigorous undergraduate education than here in the US. All seem to have taken up to 10 different classes each semester as an undergrad, while US students typically take about 5.
And although the transcripts I looked at were understandably focused on engineering, do not think that the notion of a liberal arts education is out of the question over there. With so many classes each semester, there is time to squeeze in some non-science stuff such as:
Cultivation of Ideological Morality
Principles of Marxist Philosophy
Appreciation of Famous Dramas
A Carnival for Happy Writing
The personal essays are great too. If a good introductory sentence should serve to grab your attention, then this one is the best of the bunch:
“My obsession with microcosms and my profound desire to associate with a diverse set of people, develop a broad skill set, and serve the community, are sysnergistically cyclical…” Aren’t you dying to know what comes next!?
Well I’ll tell you. The 2 page essay which follows that lead in uses the word ‘microcosm’ 15 times. 3 of these are knocked out in the single sentence, “My association with the UCI university microcosm resulted in association with other university microcosms and travel to different city microcosms.” And yes, this was one of the better applicants.
A different essay afforded me the pleasure of reading about a river which used to be ‘vigorous’ but had now become ‘moribund’. How sad.
Another student had difficulty motivating students when teaching a science class. She was such a dedicated teacher that she “even learned to play on-line game [sic] to understand teenagers’ sub-culture.” What a noble sacrifice!
I was recently asked to review some applications for a fellowship which is awarded to first year graduate students in engineering at UD, where I got my masters degree. Maureen and I have enjoyed reading them over and so I thought I’d share some of what we’ve seen.
In keeping with conventional wisdom, the students from China have a much more rigorous undergraduate education than here in the US. All seem to have taken up to 10 different classes each semester as an undergrad, while US students typically take about 5.
And although the transcripts I looked at were understandably focused on engineering, do not think that the notion of a liberal arts education is out of the question over there. With so many classes each semester, there is time to squeeze in some non-science stuff such as:
Cultivation of Ideological Morality
Principles of Marxist Philosophy
Appreciation of Famous Dramas
A Carnival for Happy Writing
The personal essays are great too. If a good introductory sentence should serve to grab your attention, then this one is the best of the bunch:
“My obsession with microcosms and my profound desire to associate with a diverse set of people, develop a broad skill set, and serve the community, are sysnergistically cyclical…” Aren’t you dying to know what comes next!?
Well I’ll tell you. The 2 page essay which follows that lead in uses the word ‘microcosm’ 15 times. 3 of these are knocked out in the single sentence, “My association with the UCI university microcosm resulted in association with other university microcosms and travel to different city microcosms.” And yes, this was one of the better applicants.
A different essay afforded me the pleasure of reading about a river which used to be ‘vigorous’ but had now become ‘moribund’. How sad.
Another student had difficulty motivating students when teaching a science class. She was such a dedicated teacher that she “even learned to play on-line game [sic] to understand teenagers’ sub-culture.” What a noble sacrifice!
