Many Students Expand Their View of the World During Their Time in College. Such Growth Often Results from Encounters Between Students Who Have Lived Different Cultural, Economic, or Academic Experiences. with Your Future Growth in Mind, Describe a Potenti

The prompt:

Many students expand their view of the world during their time in college. Such growth often results from encounters between students who have lived different cultural, economic, or academic experiences. With your future growth in mind, describe a potential classmate that you believe you could learn from either within or outside a formal classroom environment.

The Essay:

I remember a writing prompt one of my classes was given in elementary school. Ð'ÐŽÐ'oImagine you are choosing one thing to bury in a time capsule so that when it is rediscovered centuries from now it can give the people of the future insight into our civilization and culture, what would that object be and why?Ð'ÐŽÐ'± The students in my class each gave excited, thoughtful responses: a radio, a history book, some sort of modern day Ð'ÐŽÐ'oRosetta stone.Ð'ÐŽÐ'± We all wanted to put something in our time capsule that showed our progress, something that epitomized modern life. We all declared in our childish arrogance exactly what the people who opened our time capsules would learn from what we gave them. We assumed that the secrets of the future were ripe and ours for the picking. We were never slowed by the thought that if centuries from now people discovered a history book, say, it is altogether possible that they would be more interested in the paper itself than in the content of the book. I can imagine that paper would eventually be phased out of use, or that it would be made differently, reinvented centuries from now as it was centuries ago. I can imagine all sorts of things, none of them with any real validity. If I knew the progression of time well enough to know what, in the future, would give me insight into the present, then I wouldnÐ'ÐŽÐ'Їt have any use for the insight I gained from it. Omniscience and learning are not very compatible.

As a senior in high school I chose my future college with the same childish arrogance I used to write my elementary school essay. I wanted so badly to expand my horizons that I chose my college because the culture of it seemed particularly different from the town I grew up in, and the way I was raised. Having lived most of my life in one of the most liberal communities in Massachusetts, and perhaps in the United States, I was ready to watch all of my beliefs tested against what I saw as the hard, southern conservatism of Williamson County. I wanted to prove to myself the strength of my convictions by living in a place where they were not standard. I wanted to discuss the world with intelligent people of differing opinions, and expose myself to diverse views. Somehow I had convinced myself that if I did not actively seek out persons of different

...