SSAT Essay

It is universally acknowledged that independent ideas can be considered more creative, vivid and talented. Independent ideas always reflect individual’s realistic opinions. Although some people believe that accepting the opinions of others is a better way to avoid mistakes, I personally have a different point of view. I believe that developing our own opinions is more important than accept others’ ideas.

Mark Zuckerberg is one of the persuasive examples, which makes my point more clear. Mark Zuckerberg is an American computer program and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the most influential social-networking website Facebook. By the time he began classes at Harvard, Zuckerberg had already gained the reputation as one of the smartest students in Harvard. Nevertheless, there are only a few of people know that Zurkerberg actually did not complete his university years. The reason behind that was he wrote his own program, which allowed users to make class selection decisions online. Later on, his website became more well known, and his new idea came out, which was the social networking Facebook. It turns out that he didn’t follow other students’ step to finish collage; instead, he developed his own business. The example of Zuckerberg demonstrates the importance to cultivate our independent opinions without accept to others’ opinions.

Moreover, listening to others’ opinions sometimes will bring us negative effects. Anna, one of my best friends, had a similar experience. When she took her English test two days ago, she couldn’t figure out the answer for one of the questions. She spent lots of time on it but she still didn’t know the answer of that question. Because that she really wanted to get good grades, she asked Jack, who sat behind her. Surprisingly, Jack knew the answer so he told her. She completely trusted him and wrote down the answer. However, when the test result came out yesterday, she found out the answer which Jack told her was wrong. Therefore, listening to others’ ideas is not a good choice. We should trust ourselves and develop our own opinions. Such as my friend Anna, who listened to others and therefore got a terrible outcome.

In conclusion, based on the above discussion, it’s not difficult to notice that developing our own independent ideas is more significant than accepting the opinions of others. We are not supposed to oversimplify this statement and disregard its complexity.

Randy Pausch

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch 

Photo of Randy Pausch

The inspiring video that I watched last week was called “The Last Lecture."The speaker, Randy Pausch, was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction. It is kind of hard for me to believe that Randy Pausch actually died at age of 47 from pancreatic cancer. Indeed, it is also hard to imagine his death because he was such a great professor, who had brought us all kinds of different types contributions. Especially, I have learned different life lessons and experiences from his lecture.

The beginning of the lecture first impressed me when he talked about his childhood dreams. For instance, one of his childhood dreams was to be in zero in gravity. It seems sort of like nonsense and funny, does’t it? I really think that everybody has had those naïve opinions when they were little. Even though our dreams that we had in our childhoods were out of track or a little bit full of fantasy, they were definitely a good start in setting up some goals as Randy did. What I learned from this part was to keep chasing our dreams no matter how hard they are, and to never give up. 

Moreover, Dr. Pausch’s makes a significant point: we should be valued and proud of ourselves.  This reminded me of my father. My father once told me that I should be proud of what I will be doing in the future even if my job is a street cleaner. I did not understand what my father actually meant until now. As I am getting older, I am also getting more mature, and some of my immature and ridiculous ideas have disappeared as time was passed on. I kind of get why my father told me this. We are all successful people as long as we are valuable to society and no matter how embarrassing or shameful our jobs are. I am glad that Dr. Pausch proved this truth again which made me more certain and clear of my future job orientation. 

The last question was how to get people to help you. Here is an example from my life experience: I used to have lots of struggles in studying math when I was in elementary school. After I had a conversation with my math teacher, I got to know that getting help from teachers or parents was really important. In fact, there was nothing I could do without help from others at this point. Since then, I have gotten more used to asking questions that I had always been struggling with. Although Randy Pausch is gone, he has left precious lessons from his 47 years experiences. 

Resolutions for 2015

At the beginning of 2015, I am going to make three goals for myself. One of the most important reasons is that I would like to challenge myself and become a better person in the future. I certainly know it is hard to accomplish all of them by the end of year; however, difficulties and challenges will wake me up and push me further.

            First of all, I want to be more active and talkative during school days, especially during class. In fact, being an active person can help me to understand teachers’ teaching points much better. For instance, if I don’t express any of my opinions or give any eye contact to teachers, they probably think that I do not understand what they are talking about. Certainly, this was one of my weaknesses for the whole year in 2014, and I did not make it better which I am kind of regretful about it. Thus, I eagerly want to start a new beginning for a brand new year. Even though it is a bit harder to achieve it, I will not give up till I am successful.

            Secondly, I really want to go to Tibet this year if I have a chance. I have been thinking about traveling there with my family for such a long time. Traveling to Tibet seems not a big deal because it’s such a simple thing to do. Nevertheless, we hardly have got time to do it. We have spent lots of time on our personal stuff and barely go traveling during vacations. This time, I am eager to travel along with my parents no matter what; I even made some plans about this trip yesterday. I had never known how attractive that Tibet was before. But this time, my wish is getting stronger and stronger.

            My last goal, which is the hardest to achieve, is getting better grades in all my subjects. Honestly, A’s are what I want the most for all my subjects. Perhaps, the hardest subject is Chemistry. For the last three months, I have absolutely put lots of efforts in it, but I feel like I still have a long way to go. I have considered that I’d better find another path or strategy to improve my Chemistry grades, such as go to extra help more often or pay more attention during class. The Chemistry exam set off an alarm, and I have realized its real time to prove myself. As long as I have enough confidence, I will achieve it, eventually. I hope all of my goals will come true in the future. I am looking forward to starting a new beginning.

             

           

Always believe in yourself: Thanks giving is coming soon

  It’s hard to imagine that I did my oration last week. I can’t believe that I made it eventually! I have to say that I put lots of effort on it because it’s my fist time to make a speech in front of a large amount of people in English. Especially, it will be harder for non-English speakers. It’s a big success for only standing there on the stage. I think this is what we called “courage”. I still remember what I felt when I was on the stage and was ready to give my oration to other. I was nervous, obviously. However, while I was looking around, I saw people’s faces with all kinds of emotions. Familiar faces and unfamiliar faces; exciting faces and boring faces. At that moment, I found back my confident. I told myself that don’t be afraid and show my confidence to them. As soon as I started my oration, anxiety suddenly disappeared.  I was able to see people’s reaction when I finished my oration. I thought, pretty much, they were satisfied with my performance. Nothing could be more exciting than that moment. Applause surrounded me. I felt great, like a real winner. In addition, I realized it’s actually pretty easy to accomplish something that we wouldn’t’ t even think that we can do it. I am sure there are tons of people who have the similar feelings as I do. We once all thought we could not achieve the goal, but eventually, we challenged ourselves and made it.

  Thanksgiving is coming soon; therefore, I want to say “thank you” for all of my teachers who helped me went through each of difficulties no matter during classes or in the daily life. Thank you for always being patient and nice to me. I will continue work harder and reach higher. 

Inspiration

I remember a quote, which says that “Always do what you are afraid to do”. This quote gives me some inspirations about my personal life experiences. When I was young, I didn’t work really well on mathematics. My math skills were pretty poor; therefore, I was definitely afraid of solving math questions. Obviously, I did not bring any aids by myself through evaluate different types of problems. With helping of my mom and some teachers, I still couldn’t find the correct road on the way to make the improvement of mathematics. The sequence was that I lost lots of interests on math gradually. This situation had been going continuously after I entered in the middle school. For the reason that my mom told me I should have courage face difficulties and find solutions from those difficulties. Since then, I kept telling myself to face those real problems instead of sitting there and thinking all the time.  Every coin has two sides, and there are two sides for me as well. I have enough capabilities to improve myself on mathematics but I am afraid that what if I am not able to do it. I am the person who considers a lot, and I am also a negative person, which I think I should make some changes of it. Sometimes, I should give me some pressures and face the challenge, even though it’s hard to accomplish. I believe that weakness can explain “fear”. As a result, always do what you are afraid to do. This will make the real success in your future.