What do you think about my summer????

pfaocltd
Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:52:38 +0000

I hate to play devil’s advocate here, but I have to toss some ideas around: you’ve described what you’re planning to do during summer adequately - but what were you planning to do after summer, and what did you do before summer?

Learning new things, art, for instance, is great. But setting yourself a short term goal of forcing together a portfolio for any university application might not be a good idea. I don’t have an idea of what you did before summer, so I won’t know: however, make sure you ask yourself, “Does this look out of place in my application?”

Are/will you able to exercise your autonomy in art? (are you able to do what you want to do; share your ideas with a larger audience of people whom you don’t know in first degree; make decisions for others; make decisions for yourself?)

Was there a long lull, inertia, steep learning gradient that you had to overcome?

Did/will you encounter a problem which couldn’t be mitigated by means of time and effort alone?

(To be honest, entertaining the idea of putting together a nice portfolio in 3 months is an insult to art. I have friends who quit school to learn art: and they tell me that after 3 years, they still can’t draw a smooth line immediately with a pen. One of them said that he spent 3 months purposely sketching without an eraser for training.)

As for the program, “among 100 participants selected for <prestigious program=”“>” says that you have a certain level of qualification, but did you work hard for it to happen because you wanted it to?</prestigious>

Do participate in your planned activities, definitely. They are wonderful opportunities and will broaden your views and experiences. But also continue with what you were already doing for years, even if it may seem to bring you away from the goal of getting into a dream school - because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to stay with you, whichever college accepts you. And not some certificate of participation to some prestigious program.

P.S.: A cyclotron is damn cool. But do you know: there’s more electromagnetic theory behind its operating principles than nuclear physics behind the experiments that they can give you in 3 months? (Maybe it’s just me, but I find the electromagnetic theory more interesting in this case.)