I am an international student who will apply RD to Harvard. I wanted to get a head start on my supplement for Harvard (which lets you pretty much write about anything) and decided to write on the philosophy of the absurd by Albert Camus. To put it in a few words, it refers to the human tendency to seek meaning in life and the inability to find any. When faced to the absurdist paradox, one must accept the absurd but revolt at the same time (I recommend reading Sisyphus’ myth if you want to learn more). I really enjoy reading and writing about philosophy and I am planning to give examples of how I revolt against the things I find absurd in my every day life, but I am afraid my essay will not sound straight forward enough as it is dealing with very abstract concepts. Also, I am trying to make it sound less gloomy (since absurdism also deals with suicide) by inserting absurd yet funny situations as examples (I am introducing my essay with the dream I had where I was moon walking into the oval office wearing a T-shirt of teenage Nicolas Cage and found Genghis Khan breathing sriracha sauce; which I thought was completely absurd).
Is my example too insolent? Is the topic of my essay too dramatic/abstract?
I was also thinking of using this essay for UChicago’s supplement, and rewrite it a little so it’d fit one of the prompts.
Any feed back is appreciated.
Thanks!!
A godless, material universe leads inevitably to absurdity and nihilism. So you applying to Harvard (or any college for that matter) is also absurd. Are you willing to leave that door open for any potential adcom to shut it in your face?
Very true. After an eldritch first paragraph, my essay focuses on the fact that despite the absurdity of life, one must constantly revolt against it, and that’s where you can find your own meaning. For example, I run an afterclass school that helps the refugee community in my hometown improve their French to facilitate intercultural understanding. In a sense, that was my way of revolting against the absurdity of war.
Applying to college in America is also my way of revolting against the absurdity of having to be born and to live in one place. Expanding one’s horizons is a way of escaping the absurd, while maintaining an ironic distance to it.
I am starting to realize that all of this is maybe far fetched but I am running on my 5th cup of coffee and words are just flowing on my essay lol
I don’t know about Harvard but I love this topic, it sounds unique and I have always been fascinated by Camus’ approach. Make sure it’s ultimately talking about yourself, not just abstract notions. I didn’t really get the part about the dream - did you eventually find a meaning in it?
The part about myself is basically about how I “revolt” (to use Camus’ terms) against the absurd. I hope it sounds convincing.
The dream is basically my hook - it is deprived of any apparent meaning, just like the universe. Frankly, I think I am going to ditch that part because it might sound not serious enough (then again everything else in my essay is pretty serious).
Are you sure you fully understand Camus and existentialism? And is your description of your “revolts” basically a cover for presenting your dedication to various helpful activities to impress adcoms.
The best essays I have read deal with the ordinary, are humble and likable, and sometimes focus in on something unexpected, like a childhood toy or something.
It’s just that I find it really hard “selling myself” to the adcoms without coming in as too arrogant or dramatic and thought writing on the absurd would both sound smart and laidback. It’s all about that perfect balance between originality and pertinence, which can be hard to pinpoint;
I think I will keep the topic, and change the approach.
Also, I believe Camus denied being an existentialist, and that it was even one of the reason that lead to the schism between him and Sartre (well, that, and the anti communist sentiment as well)
Sounds like you’re trying too hard to epitomize the stereotyped Harvard student. Don’t try to make yourself seem smarter by using the word eldritch – the essays are supposed to display your personal qualities.
I am not a native English speaker. I grew up speaking French and Arabic but lived in the U.S. for a while. I like to use specific words when I write, but I do realize it may come across as pompous. Frankly, I had a lot of second thoughts about this essay; I’d like to write about philosophy in a way that truly reflects my qualities as a thinker and not just write a reflection of what I believe a Harvard student would say.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think the essay was a bad idea. But the execution would be extremely difficult. @compmom is not wrong – it’s a lot easier for a 17-year-old to write effectively in a modest voice about familiar things than to write effectively about philosophy in five paragraphs. (Not that either is really easy . . . . ) But if you pull it off – and your writing so far in this thread makes me think that maybe you can, if you work at it – that would be very impressive.
I didn’t like the description of the opening, though. By the time you got through describing your complex dream, you would have used up a lot of the the reader’s attention span. You would also have set up an expectation that you were going to say something pertinent to its details, something that justified the long description. And you would proceed to disappoint the reader by revealing that you had nothing more to say than “that’s absurd,” before you started talking about Camus, Sisyphus, language classes, and nationality. That doesn’t seem like an effective plan for a short essay.
Re vocabulary. You don’t seem to overuse big words, and you do seem to have a basic handle on Camus (from what I remember – my mother was a huge fan of Camus). But be careful! Your use of “eldritch” seemed a little off (although maybe not, based on exactly what you planned for that paragraph). To me, “eldritch” implies spooky, supernatural; your crowded dream sounded like a Freudian mixer.
Sorry, but IMHO this is wrong-headed approach and the quickest way to the reject pile. What you described above is an academic essay – and that is NOT what colleges are looking for in personal essay.
You don’t have to be serious. But you do need to make sense. Not just for valid writing, in general, but because this is for a college admit review. They don’t need you to strut.
“…too arrogant or dramatic and thought writing on the absurd would both sound smart and laidback. It’s all about that perfect balance between originality and pertinence…” Don’t overthink this. The failure in overconfidence is it affects their perception of your thinking, maturity, and more.
Wonder if, for your purposes, you mean revolt or, rather, “protest.”
It could be amusing, but you’ll need a strong ability to self-edit, to not come across as a pretentious young 'un, thinking he’s got it all pegged. I don’t see the need to talk about, say, some hobby. You would be presenting an aspect of your thinking. But man, oh, man, it would need to be “just right.”
I have noticed that non-native English speakers tend to use big words more than those who have always spoken English. Be careful on that. If you can say what you want to say with a simpler word, use that. It makes an essay more likable and reduces the chance of using a word while missing he subtle nuances of language that make it inappropriate in that context.
