About me:
I was born and raised in San Marino, California, a suburb outside of Los Angeles. I come from a family of 6- my loving parents Rick and Andrea, my older sisters Alex and Gracie, and my younger brother Matthew. I’m very close to my family and keeping close contact
with them while away at college has been very important to
in senior yearme. I’m a passionate person that cares a LOT about the things that are important to me.
My interests include messing around with my friends, reading (I love to research and learn obscure facts), video games, and sports. I’m a very active person- I work out almost everyday and played a bunch of sports in high
school (I was an all CIF quarterback at San Marino High School).
I currently am studying business at Texas Christian University and hope to enter the field of commercial real estate after I graduate. I was lucky; TCU was the only school I really had my heart set on, and was the only school I ended up applying to. My backup plan if I didn’t get admitted to TCU was to enlist in the marines. Needless to say, my mother is happy with my admission to the best school in the country.
Writing History:
Unlike your average high school student, I enjoyed English class and writing papers- it was often my highest scoring class. As I stated before, I enjoy reading and looking up obscure facts. Because of these tendencies, I enjoyed writing papers because I would just try to find a topic that interested me. I was always really good at argumentative essays (which explains why my strongest papers were essays 2 and 4), and had a knack for finding powerful quotes to back up whatever thesis my paper was about. However, college writing class was a new beast for me. My writing class was a new field for me because it required me to write in a blog format. This was different for me because blogging calls more free speech and expressive, personal language. This proved difficult because through all my years of high school, I was used to a formal style of writing that fit a “cookie cutter” essay- I realize now after blogging that almost all of my high school essays were just copies of one another with different themes and ideas. Once I mastered writing through blogs, I have realized that blogging is the best form of writing- it gives the author the freedom to express themselves while still getting the point of their essay across.
Essay 1: This I Believe
Essay 1 is about how I believe in the power of time. I state it can heal, create, and destroy. I demonstrated all of its powers by telling the story of my Grootvader’s (Dutch for “grandfather”) passing. He suffered from severe dementia, and watching the patriarch of my family pass was tough for all of my family since we are so close. Throughout the essay, I emphasize the word time and words associated with it, and use it to highlight my belief in the power of time.
essay2 explores the controversy surrounding human cloning. I was interested in the topic as I had watched Star Wars the night before class, and was inspired to learn more about human cloning and the ethical debate that rages around it. I weigh both sides and give the pros and cons of cloning human beings. It turned out most pro-cloning arguments had to do with medical and scientific research, and anti-cloning arguments had more to do with ethics and morality. It was interesting to discover the divide in the debate and flesh out the different belief systems in today’s society (science vs. ideology). Because this topic was so interesting, this was the easiest paper for me to write
Essay 3: Profile of a Place
Essay 3 was the most difficult essay for me to write because I was completely unfamiliar with the essay model. It required me to survey a location on that means something to me, and explain what the meaning behind the place was. I ended up writing about my father’s business/office, prosthetics and orthotics corporation called Human Designs. I highlighted that I look up to my father and admire what he has created, and wrote that Human Designs captures something today that many large medical corporations fail to do; really care about their patients and see them as more than just a cash cow. I explained what it was like to work there over the summer and compared it slightly to my time helping out in a hospital, and continually expressed that I admired what my father envisioned when creating his corporation: A company that emphasized passionate, caring support and service to patients in need
This essay was a lot of fun to write and is similar in structure somewhat to Essay 2. I had to select an argument/debate and explore both sides, and ultimately decide which side of the argument I fell on after researching, or even provide a new solution/stance in the debate. My topic was about torture in the modern Middle East, and whether or not it is effective and should be utilized. I explored both sides through research and presented the information on the paper. Since it was such a heavy and morbid essay topic, I tried to use a voice that was unemotional and provided pictures to help the “mood” of the paper. I entered the essay on the pro-torture side, and after thorough research and actually writing the paper I experienced a shift in my beliefs. I guess my argument was so strong it shifted my own belief…
aferraco 