Sitting in my dorm room, I have finally realized what it means to grow up in a technologically advanced generation. Try walking down the residence halls on any university campus a
nd find a room that does not have a computer. I would be stunned if someone could prove me wrong. However, the easily accessed information that modern technology provides has plenty of down falls. Of course there is the obvious malfunction of a machine trying to perform to its full potential, but more than that, we have become a generation so focused on cramming our every thought online. As Web 2.0... The Machine is Using Us presents to its audience, we have all become connected through the easily accessed information one may propose online. We have all become connected through the interworkings of a medium that 10 years ago was unfathomable. Who can know what is to come for furuture generations. Parents across the globe complain about how connected their children are via the internet, and can be rightfully disconcerted due to the vulnerability one puts himself at risk to presenting his or her every thought into a blog for millions to read, if the intentions were there. I like to think that the academic advantages of modern technology outweigh the setbacks, but it is hard when so many times people abuse the privilege. Checking facebook, and setting a new “profile picture” has become the lingo of the youth of the nation. We have moved from expressing our emotions vocally and on a more personal level to writing out our feelings like automatons with head phones in our ears, removing ourselves from the exterior environment and physical contact with other human beings. I find it hilarious that after playing on the new Nintendo Wii, a screen comes up suggesting to the player to take a breather and enjoy what the outside world has to offer, as we get so caught up with pixels and special effects. A dorm room, probably the closest an individual will come to living with someone else before finding their significant other, still can be manipulated so that the two inhabitants do not even have to have a full conversation before lying down to sleep.
College, as a whole, has opened my eyes to different aspects of my life. For as long as I can remember, I always aspired to do great things, and never really knew the direction that I would take in order to do that. More and more throughout high school I tried to define who I was as a person, and unfortunately faced my immortality head on after my freshman year. That summer, my father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and passed away subsequently the summer before my senior year. Stephen R. Covey says “you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.’” (131). For the final two years of my dad’s life, I put everything that I knew on hold, and for the first time, did not know what move to make next, until recently. I feel that it is a necessary point, and integral part o
f knowing who I am as a person, for one to know what I have been through, and although may seem rather bluntly stated about the last three years of my life, I figure the sooner the better and to put it out there. Discussing death and isolation, and the unknown was difficult for me to encounter at first, but I think has made a seriously proactive effect on my life. As stated previously, I demand greatness from myself, but until I had to face my own mortality did that mean anything to me. Knowing that life was a gift, and short lived, precariously perched teetering for one small slip for the day for everything to end made me think of what sort of life I was going to aspire for. As a student, I feel as though my biggest asset is my ability to delve into a variety of different tasks, and give them my fullest and best attention, and most of the time doing a very thorough job. Something that I have struggled with is the knowing that I will probably never be the best in one specified area, but the consolation prize is being a sort of Renaissance man, and finding success and fulfillment in what I know I have the capability to do. It is this standard of living, if you might call it, which guides my every action and motivates me to persevere through challenges. Likewise, it makes certain decisions difficult. When I was applying for colleges, I searched for areas of studies that intrigued me, and found that mostly it was a very limiting decision. On the one hand, I have a deep appreciation of architecture, and would love to explore what it all has to offer. However, declaring architecture as my one focus would be blasphemous considering I have never really explored what design and creativity has to offer me, and I know that the mathematical and structural components would not present a balanced life that something in the humanities could do. On the opposite spectrum, I looked into smaller schools that had strong liberal arts programs, but knew that I would be settling by not allowing myself the opportunity to discover things I hadn’t touched before. Reading the excerpts from Covey rang true to the way that I feel about human nature as a whole. I am looking for balance. The brain is something that I know I will never understand, and am constantly amazed and baffled by everything it can do, conceptualizing, understanding, creating, remembering …etc. Utilizing the brain to its fullest extent is something that I feel everyone should strive for. Embrace what life has to offer. Grow, experience, learn.
A lot of the ideals and beliefs that I have created for myself are direct results from the experiences I have been through, and the way that I chose to react. For me, knowledge is essential to success, whether it be the knowledge of self and environment, or rather the textbook knowledge preached by the greatest lecturers of the world. I have come to understand, and continue to challenge, who I am as an individual, but have discovered many ways in which to compliment my conceptualization of ideas, and how to articulate what I know. I am a product of an overly analytical education. My senior year English IV projects varied from interpreting the sexual connotations of Shakespeare, to finding the complementary elements of Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In contrast, I am equally a very visual person, and have to see the end result before trying to pick my way through the elementary levels of a project. The most interesting, and best way for me to express a topic of discussion is through multimedia projects. In Bump’s essay "Left vs. Right Side of the Brain: Hypermedia and the New Puritanism, he quotes Healy who says “‘Video is persuasive… it pulls on emotions and evokes mood more readily than does print’” (Article 10). For some reason, the presentational quality of film, or visual material, induces a much more genuine approach to discussion than does the written. Take film as an art form for instance. The other day I listened to a lecture on the effect that film has on viewers. If you were to compare the differences between a novel and its counterpart as a movie, the two would probably be very different. Everyone has their own idea of how a book should be interpreted, but by seeing the same story through another person’s eyes presents the viewer with sometimes a contrasting idea, motivating individual interpretation.
nd find a room that does not have a computer. I would be stunned if someone could prove me wrong. However, the easily accessed information that modern technology provides has plenty of down falls. Of course there is the obvious malfunction of a machine trying to perform to its full potential, but more than that, we have become a generation so focused on cramming our every thought online. As Web 2.0... The Machine is Using Us presents to its audience, we have all become connected through the easily accessed information one may propose online. We have all become connected through the interworkings of a medium that 10 years ago was unfathomable. Who can know what is to come for furuture generations. Parents across the globe complain about how connected their children are via the internet, and can be rightfully disconcerted due to the vulnerability one puts himself at risk to presenting his or her every thought into a blog for millions to read, if the intentions were there. I like to think that the academic advantages of modern technology outweigh the setbacks, but it is hard when so many times people abuse the privilege. Checking facebook, and setting a new “profile picture” has become the lingo of the youth of the nation. We have moved from expressing our emotions vocally and on a more personal level to writing out our feelings like automatons with head phones in our ears, removing ourselves from the exterior environment and physical contact with other human beings. I find it hilarious that after playing on the new Nintendo Wii, a screen comes up suggesting to the player to take a breather and enjoy what the outside world has to offer, as we get so caught up with pixels and special effects. A dorm room, probably the closest an individual will come to living with someone else before finding their significant other, still can be manipulated so that the two inhabitants do not even have to have a full conversation before lying down to sleep.
College, as a whole, has opened my eyes to different aspects of my life. For as long as I can remember, I always aspired to do great things, and never really knew the direction that I would take in order to do that. More and more throughout high school I tried to define who I was as a person, and unfortunately faced my immortality head on after my freshman year. That summer, my father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and passed away subsequently the summer before my senior year. Stephen R. Covey says “you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.’” (131). For the final two years of my dad’s life, I put everything that I knew on hold, and for the first time, did not know what move to make next, until recently. I feel that it is a necessary point, and integral part o
f knowing who I am as a person, for one to know what I have been through, and although may seem rather bluntly stated about the last three years of my life, I figure the sooner the better and to put it out there. Discussing death and isolation, and the unknown was difficult for me to encounter at first, but I think has made a seriously proactive effect on my life. As stated previously, I demand greatness from myself, but until I had to face my own mortality did that mean anything to me. Knowing that life was a gift, and short lived, precariously perched teetering for one small slip for the day for everything to end made me think of what sort of life I was going to aspire for. As a student, I feel as though my biggest asset is my ability to delve into a variety of different tasks, and give them my fullest and best attention, and most of the time doing a very thorough job. Something that I have struggled with is the knowing that I will probably never be the best in one specified area, but the consolation prize is being a sort of Renaissance man, and finding success and fulfillment in what I know I have the capability to do. It is this standard of living, if you might call it, which guides my every action and motivates me to persevere through challenges. Likewise, it makes certain decisions difficult. When I was applying for colleges, I searched for areas of studies that intrigued me, and found that mostly it was a very limiting decision. On the one hand, I have a deep appreciation of architecture, and would love to explore what it all has to offer. However, declaring architecture as my one focus would be blasphemous considering I have never really explored what design and creativity has to offer me, and I know that the mathematical and structural components would not present a balanced life that something in the humanities could do. On the opposite spectrum, I looked into smaller schools that had strong liberal arts programs, but knew that I would be settling by not allowing myself the opportunity to discover things I hadn’t touched before. Reading the excerpts from Covey rang true to the way that I feel about human nature as a whole. I am looking for balance. The brain is something that I know I will never understand, and am constantly amazed and baffled by everything it can do, conceptualizing, understanding, creating, remembering …etc. Utilizing the brain to its fullest extent is something that I feel everyone should strive for. Embrace what life has to offer. Grow, experience, learn.
A lot of the ideals and beliefs that I have created for myself are direct results from the experiences I have been through, and the way that I chose to react. For me, knowledge is essential to success, whether it be the knowledge of self and environment, or rather the textbook knowledge preached by the greatest lecturers of the world. I have come to understand, and continue to challenge, who I am as an individual, but have discovered many ways in which to compliment my conceptualization of ideas, and how to articulate what I know. I am a product of an overly analytical education. My senior year English IV projects varied from interpreting the sexual connotations of Shakespeare, to finding the complementary elements of Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. In contrast, I am equally a very visual person, and have to see the end result before trying to pick my way through the elementary levels of a project. The most interesting, and best way for me to express a topic of discussion is through multimedia projects. In Bump’s essay "Left vs. Right Side of the Brain: Hypermedia and the New Puritanism, he quotes Healy who says “‘Video is persuasive… it pulls on emotions and evokes mood more readily than does print’” (Article 10). For some reason, the presentational quality of film, or visual material, induces a much more genuine approach to discussion than does the written. Take film as an art form for instance. The other day I listened to a lecture on the effect that film has on viewers. If you were to compare the differences between a novel and its counterpart as a movie, the two would probably be very different. Everyone has their own idea of how a book should be interpreted, but by seeing the same story through another person’s eyes presents the viewer with sometimes a contrasting idea, motivating individual interpretation.
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