I’ve known from a young age that I wanted to work in medicine, and innovation drives the field christened by Asclepius. I joined my school’s Health Occupation Students of America club in my sophomore year to be among other hopeful physicians. Members of the club choose one event and compete in it at various levels, depending on success in the previous levels. My event is a five-minute group presentation of a groundbreaking medical innovation, and in my first...

    The purpose of higher education is genuine education. It’s a simple answer but a telling one. Let me elaborate. Higher education is uniquely different than other forms of education because it is a choice. No one forces students to attend university, and there are alternatives to schooling. Though many well-paying jobs require a college degree- and most of us can't be Mark Zuckerberg with a 54.7 billion dollar net worth and an incomplete bachelor's degree- there are alternatives to college,...

Boston University has appealed to me since I learned of the school freshman year. When I heard how beautiful the school was from an older friend, I started doing my research. BU cares about something that I care about: sustainability and environmental preservation. I want to go to a school that puts effort into preserving the environment and curbing their negative impact. I want to go to a larger school with a more academic atmosphere, and I see that in...

On April 19, 2013, I embarked for the wilderness outside Asheville, North Carolina for 9 days in the Outward Bound Program. I had good times, I had bad times, but I learned a lot about myself and gained some pretty cool stories. I went on the experience-based leadership program with 16 of my fellow 8th graders as our school's graduation trip. It was meant to be a fun and out-of-the-box trip that most of us had never experienced, and one that they hoped would...

The Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote on the moral and political aspects of war, and he asserted that if the object of war is to secure a state, war has to be limited in order to preserve the state itself. As weapons become more advanced, accountability for such weapons must be retained. Without human interaction with the weapons and the thing the weapons are destroying, the world could face destruction by its own inhabitants. When we use artificial...

My favorite fictional novel is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. The book centers around two families living in California during the early 1900s, and has Biblical parallels. Steinbeck is one of my favorite prose novelists because his work is easy to comprehend, yet beautiful. When he described the Salinas Valley or the expansive farm the Trasks lived on, you could picture yourself there, with the characters. And you learned to view the characters as your own family. From the...

In my opinion, and in the opinion of 97% of scientists around the world, the most pressing global challenge is climate change. Climate change will cause a rise in sea levels, flooding low-lying areas; it will increase storm activity, and cause the extinction of up to 40% of the world's species. Possibly the most upsetting fact is that we are causing it, and many are incapable of acknowledging it or working to curb it. Humans take from the earth but never give...

The city of New Orleans has long held my roots and my substitute home. Both of my parents were born and raised there, and I’ve spent enough time lying to say that I was born there to know it is where I want to make my home. But attending Tulane is about even more than living in the Crescent City, the Big Easy, or the City Below Sea Level, it is about finding an academic home where I can...

    When I learned that I had to complete a service project with over 100 hours, it seemed daunting. I chose to work with a local women and children's shelter, the FavorHouse, because I like to work with children. The hours that I have spent with those kids have been some of the most exhausting and rewarding of my year. It was important to me that I work with a local institution, and help people from my community. I conducted entrance interviews...

Many will agree that intelligence is more than the ability to recite a fact or take a test. In fact, it is highly debated whether memory and intelligence are even related. Human intelligence is a complex idea, and must be measured accordingly through different subject areas and across different trains of thought to be considered valid. Thoughts of what intelligence is and how it can truly be measured come up during this time in any young adult's life, especially during...

A name contains more than a few words strung together. Specifically considering the names of humans, a name contains an origin story. The different parts of the name work together to define that person from the point of view of others: there is the first name, the middle and the last. To the rest of the world, a name differentiates someone from the pack. To the person whom the name is given, the name is little more than a way...

What do you hope will change about the place where you live? 250. I live in Pensacola, Florida, infamously known as the panhandle. It is a region known to some for fabulous beaches, and to others for its bigotry. Some citizens living here spearheaded the fight for a return of the Confederate Flag, and for that, I despise my hometown. I hope that the hatred planted here and across the South will one day cease. We are a city of five...

Almost eight years ago, I was assigned Anne Frank for a biographical report. I read The Diary, I watched the movie depicting her life, I read biographies on her life and drew out the floor plan of the annex to show the class. It was the first time I felt nervous before a presentation, because even at the age of ten I realized that the story of this girl was heavier than anyone in my time and place can imagine. ...