Tag: Social Justice Essay

How to Write the 2021 University of Texas Application Essays Part 1

How to Write the 2021 University of Texas Application Essays Part 1

wordguild

My hook for this post is the University of Texas application for 2020-2021, but I am also going to take a look at reusing essays selectively in your other applications, which can save a lot of time and work. There are a couple of venues for applying to the University of Texas, and in discussing these I will introduce (briefly) and compare several important application portals used in Texas, but also nationally. Lesson one: to write a great University of Texas essay, you actually start by taking a look at the alternative of using either the Texas application site or the Coalition Application site.

Like the University of California, Texas runs its own college application portal. But in addition to the Coalition and UT/Apply Texas portals, the good news is that you can write a great University of Texas essay and turn around to reuse it for some of the 800-plus colleges using the Common Application portal, with little or no reediting–if you watch your word counts and choose your prompts wisely.

Different Application Portals: Apply Texas

Goal #1 for applying to college in 2020-2021 is to look for ways to reuse essays. Which brings us to those application portals.

Apply Texas is the foundation of all Texas applications, but universities determine which prompts to use. Assuming you are applying to the University of Texas, you could go directly to the UT website, which shows a single prompt fo the longer personal essay. This prompt is also up as the “A” prompt on the Apply Texas portal, and it is the Apply Texas system that handles all the data and that stands behind the various Texas public university applications–it’s a bit like the way the University of California is set up as a single portal, but there is more variation in the application requirements for Texas. Technical and state colleges are included in Apply Texas, whereas in California, the Cal State university system has a portal that is entirely separate from the University of California system.

For an example of how the Apply Texas requirements can vary from school to school, UT Austin requires a full set of the Texas application essays, including using option A for that longer essay and several shorter essays of about 250 words. In contrast, Texas Tech “strongly suggests” that you write at least one of the required essays but does not require it.

Of course, if you are a serious applicant to Texas Tech: write all of the essays. When offered the chance to do more, you want to do more. It demonstrates commitment.

And this year, in particular: if you did not take the SAT or ACT before the Covid rules came into play, or want to retake because your scores are below the mnidle 50%, but don’t end up getting one of the limited seats available before apps are submitted (or you just don’t want to risk your own or your family’s health for another test) you will want as much positive material for that holistic application evaluation as possible, to make up for missing data from standardized tests.

The Next Portal: The Coalition Application

Next portal: That longer essay prompt for UT Austin, which is Prompt A for Apply Texas is actually shared with the Coalition Application. “Coalition” is the short name for The Coalition for College Access.This might seem odd until you look at the UT Austin site, where it tells you that you can use the Coalition portal to apply, and skip the UT/Apply Texas portal.

To clarify: you only use one portal to apply–you will apply either through the UT portal, which is supported by Apply Texas or you will apply to UT through the Coalition App portal, which also allows you to apply to other schools listed on the Coalition portal, both inside and outside of Texas. So the Coalition is accepted by UT but is not limited to Texas schools. The question then, is whether it covers all or most of the colleges you want to apply to.

How to choose? See if all the colleges you want are among those listed on the Coalition App–if they are, you will save a lot of time by filling out all that basic data from name and personal information through activities only once, instead of using diferent sites and pasting in and tinkering with the same basic information, data and short responses over, and over. Using a more national portal like the Coalition Application offers efficiency. But the Coalition Application itself is not the biggest of the portals available.

A Comparison to the Common Application

A big drawback of the Coalition App is its relatively short list of participating colleges. The Coalition has 151 schools participating for 2020-2021. Compare this to the Common Application, which will be used by 884 universites. Sadly, the Common Application is not accepted by UT, among many others, but the Common App’s reach does make it a portal you are likely to use at some point this year.

To be very clear: though the Common Application is indeed the most commonly used app portal of all, its not an option for Texas public colleges (e.g. Texas Tech, UT Austin, et al). Outside of the University of California system, however, most of the big-name colleges that might come to mind do use the Common Application.

This is why you want to look at it now, and another reason: the Common Aplication essay prompts are up, so you can compare them, to the UT main essay. And there are other good schools in Texas among the Common App’s 800-plus clients, including Baylor, Rice, and TCU, not to mention those dozens of schools you have heard of and likely want to apply to outside of Texas.

So our focus on the Common App in this post is aimed at the possibility of reusing an essay on two or more portals.

Why You Should Look at Reusing Essays

The typical person applying to 10 colleges will generally use at least one main, longer essay of 550-650 words, and a series of supplementals. This means that you could easily write 20 essays for 10 apps–or 30. Most of these supplemental essays will be shorter than the 550-650 word main essays, but still–the more chance you have to reuse material, the more efficiently you can move through the work. And the workload, once school starts, can be quite extreme. With all the variables up in the air for this year, saving some labor on essays is a good idea.

I want to add before you go on to the rest of this post, and taking a look at the essay prompts, that there is one caveat–the various essay checking software programs, like Turnitin, will flag repeat uses of essays, and the use of such software is becoming more widespread–either through the adoption of Turnitin or other options, like in-house algorithms at some schools. Noting that it’s not really possible to plagiarize yourself, the focus here is on being sincere in your appeal to your target schools, and crafting the majority of supplemental essays carefully to suit your targets. But you need to balance this with the knowledge that, in the contemporary application scene, most students applying to selective and super selective colleges apply to ten or more universities, and they almost all reuse some degree of material. I will discuss fine tuning strategy on this in a later post.

Pay Attention to Word Count Limits in Essays

In addition to looking at the essay prompts, you should note that there are some differences in the word counts allowed–if you use the Coalition site, they suggest no more than 550 words; the Common Application allows no more than 650 words, and that is a firm limit; and for U Texas, I suggest 550 to no more than 650 words. (I’ve seen essays of up to 700 plus words accepted through the UT section of the Apply Texas application portal in the past, but suggest shooting for 550 as your max in your Texas main, which of course is the max word count suggested on the Coalition App.)

Many Application Essay Prompts Will Be The Same As Last Year

Whether they have reached perfection or just can’t get a revision done in this Covid-disrupted year, all three of the portals we have discussed will be using the essay prompts they had up last year. Please don’t take this as a green light to imitate your older sibling’s essays from last year, however–that essay scanning software I discussed is one reason. Being yourself and doing your own thing is another.

Let’s take a look at Texas first, then I will compare Texas prompt A to the current Common Application prompts to show you how to save a lot of work by reusing an essay or two–

2020 through Spring 2021: University of Texas Essay Prompt A

ApplyTexas Essay Prompt A

Guidelines for Essay Topic A—350-ca. 750 words, recommend aiming for 550 words.

Texas Essay Topic A (For U.S., applicants, as well as Transient, Readmit, and Transfer International applicants): Tell us your story. What unique opportunities or challenges have you experienced throughout your high school career that have shaped who you are today?

This is the definition of a “personal” essay question, and it overlaps with a range of essay prompts required by other universities. It also overlaps with most of the Common Application prompts, depending on the angle you take–and when you can use one essay for two applications, that is a must-do opportunity. Just take a look at the Common Application prompts, which in the main define a more specific angle on the same broad prompt for how your experience has shaped who you are.

You just want to be sure your focus is on the last few years/high school, but keeping the focus on ongoing and recent experience is a rule of thumb in college essays anyhow–as opposed to writing about that deeply felt experience in elementary school. Generally skip those, unless they initiated or motivated activities that are still ongoing in high school, particularly if they continue today.

A Few Words About Social Justice Topics

One specific comment on topics at this point: Most college counselors advise against putting controversial, editorial-page topics at the center of college essays, but in my opinion, this year is different. Social justice, a perennial but undervalued subplot in American life, has come to the fore as the main focuses in recent months for most of you, for reasons I do not need to review here.

If you are genuinely engaged in the movement for equality and social change, this could be a good topic. Just be sure this is a real commitment for you personally, with some roots, as no doubt quite a few people will choose to write about this as the challenge or experience they faced, or the belief (system) they challenged in college essays in 2020-21. This is a challenging topic, and you need to avoid preaching to the converted (as well as the unconverted) and you really want to be wary of name calling and oversimplification, particularly of solutions. And of course, eschew cynicism. Click my tag for Social Justice at either the top of bottom of this post to see some other discussions of social justice topics over the years.

Now let’s take a look at how closely the Common Application overlaps with the focus of the Texas main essay.

Comparing the University of Texas and Common Application Essay Prompts

In addition to the quick comparison of prompts below, I have recently posted on how to brainstorm/start the Common Application Prompts for 2020-2021. I have also looked compared the Common Application Prompts to the Coalition Application, here: Coalition App Versus Common App Essays.

Common Application Prompts for 2020/2021–compare these with the U Texas Essay A–

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. Note that you would put the majority of the focus on your high school experience, with some background or lead-in, and this prompt is a match for the UT application essay A.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? If your high school experience included a challenge or setback you had to overcome, bingo. Also a match for the Texas application essay, option A.

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? If this challenge occurred during your high school years, even it it did not happen on campus, just connect it the the person you are or have become and link it to some reference to your high school experience, and you are set.

4. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma – anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution. Notice that this offers you an opportunity to look at the past or the future. For UT you’d need to background the essay in the past, but then you could always turn from that past experiene to the future, to how your education will be shaped by this and what you plan to do with that education–which is a nice way to wrap up an essay–you never want to repeat or restate your introduction in the conclusoin of a college essay–that is formulaic writing, and frowned on. Not to mention that it does not fit in a pesonal essay format.

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. This overlaps not only with some of the other Common Application prompts, it also matches UT’s prompt A, again if you focus on this occuring during your high school years.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? Again, if you discovered a passion in high school, or discuss one that grew during high school (usually academic, and tied to whatever you want to major in or focus on in college, for the best effect), this also ties in well with the University of Texas essay.

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. Since anything goes here, any Texas essay should also fit.

Contact Me for Editing and Essay Development

Texas has three additional, short essay responses required, and there is some variation in these (e.g. a prompt for Art and Architecture majors) and I will come back to these in the next week or two. Let me know if it was useful for you to look at comparing and reusing essays–I may look at the UT system short essays in comparison to those used by other systems if y’all hare enthusiastic about this approach. You can leave a comment, or if you are looking for essay development and essay editing, and you want the best, hands-on assistance, Contact Me. This link takes you to my business portal.

I do all the editing and coaching myself, so if you do want to create your best possible essays, contact me soon, while I still have some space available.

The Eyes of Texas

Oh, and of course, here is your bonus for this post, the University of Texas, fight song:

“The Eyes of Texas”

I once did know a president

A-way down South, in Texas.

And, always, everywhere he went,

He saw the Eyes of Texas.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

All the livelong day.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

You cannot get away.

Do not think you can escape them

At night or early in the morn —

The Eyes of Texas are upon you

’Til Gabriel blows his horn.

Sing me a song of Prexy,*

Of days long since gone by.

Again I seek to greet him,

And hear his kind reply.

Smiles of gracious welcome

Before my memory rise,

Again I hear him say to me,

“Remember Texas’ Eyes.”

*“Prexy” refers to a President, particularly a college president, and dates back to the early 19th Century, so yes, it does predate UT Austin and in fact predates the state of Texas.

(To be sung at UT football games and after a few too many fermented beverages on sundry occasions. Of course, that won’t likely happen this year, but we can hope for the 2021 season, when you will likely be arriving on campus.)

How to Write the Princeton University Supplemental Essays for 2019-2020–Tips for Using Research, Finding Inspiration and Creating Winning Essays

wordguild

This post covers how to write successful Princeton University Supplemental essays for the 2019-2020 application year. I include a review of the history of these prompts, the writing situation, and examples of strategies with links to key information for writing successful essays.

What is New for This Year in The Princeton Supplemental Essays? Not Much–Princeton has put up the same prompts that they have been using for several years with no real changes.

Overview for Writing a Successful Princeton Supplemental Essay

The last time Princeton made a change in their essay prompts was in 2017, when they dumped their Woodrow Wilson, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service” speech as the focus for an essay.  Unfortunately, Wilson, former Princeton as well as U.S. president, has, or had some baggage.  He was a kind of walking paradox whom  some have described as a Progressive Racist–see here for more: Woodrow Wilson’s segregation policy.

The Wilson Speech essay was replaced by another speech essay, this one by Princeton professor Omar Wasow, who spoke about social and economic disparities, on the occasion of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. Replacing Wilson with Wasow was obvious response to student concerns, but more important for defining your writing situation, essay prompts define an ethos that the university wants to represent. In that sense, the spirit of service in the old Woodrow Wilson prompt lives on, here defined by a concern with inequality and racism–and presumably a desire to change things for the better, i.e. serving the community. More about that when we get to Prof. Wasow’s essay prompt, below.

Analysis of Princeton Supplemental Essay Prompts and Key Strategies

And now for the prompts themselves: read on for an annotated discussion and how-to advice for each of the Princeton Supplement options:

Princeton Prompt Option 1–Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.– 

I have discussed this topic at length in several other posts–the person of influence is a tried-and-true subject–so click here for much more detail on this topic:  Writing About a Personal Influence (part 1) .

Princeton Prompt Option 2–“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University and co-founder of Blackplanet.com. 

This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University.  Does this mean you need to write an essay on race or race relations?  Not necessarily–it’s more advice about what I would call atmospherics–keep in mind that our country, which was supposedly post-racial during the Obama presidency, has rediscovered its problem with race as well as with economic inequality, and the disappearance of President Wilson from the prompts roster at Princeton is one sign of that.  You might want to have a look at Professor Wasow’s background and the speech that inspired this prompt, and to delve into the online community he started, Blackplanet, as you think about this one.

If you go with this topic, keep in mind the potential pitfalls of writing about disparities and problems of race and money– looking arrogant or paternalistic or simplistic or self righteous as you insert yourself into the problems of others.  So if you choose to write about culture or disparities, try to do so without looking like some kind of imperialist in a pith helmet.

Economic inequality has been a problem since, well, forever, but it snapped into sharp focus with the Great Recession as many more people fell out of the middle class and foreclosure was the first word that popped up when you typed in “real estate.”  Here we are a decade later, and though jobs are up and Wall Street is on a tear, inequalities have only grown(while the banks have grown bigger).  If you have an interest in these matters and already have something to say on the subject that will not sound too preachy, it can help to drop informed references to the ideas of experts and social critics.

For example, you can find interesting commentaries on many aspects of inequality in the U.S. of A, in Vance’s look at white, rural poverty in  Hillbilly Elegy or in Coates’ take on the effects of racism in Between the World and Me. 

Keep in mind that writing effectively about  topics like poverty and race pretty much demands a preexisting interest in things like politics and race, as well as sociology and economics, and that you should have done some reading outside of class–you know, current events, topical books like those I linked above, online discussions, TED talks, etc.  And while reading books like those I link can be useful, you are writing an essay about a personal concern here that happens to be social as well’ you are not writing a a book report or an essay for class. Personal experience is key.  Keep that in mind.  

The best personal statements have a personal connection, to your experience, interests, and moral sense–as well as to your past involvement.  So don’t suddenly become a civil rights advocate or advocate for the poor just in time to write this essay.  For some more guidance on how to write about a topic like this, my old post on the service essay for Princeton actually (and perhaps ironically) works well– click to the right and scroll down to find the quote about not being a hand wringer, and read from there. 

Princeton Prompt Option 3–“Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.”

–Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy and chair,  Department of Philosophy, Princeton University.

This reads like some kind of tricky A.P. essay. Breaking it down, the important things are “things’ from “culture” that will make life meaningful. Let’s start with culture itself–

Culture gives everything from a world view to food to ideas about who should wear what on their head and when; it is a kind of agreement about what is real and how to act.  And like fish in water, we do not really understand our own culture until we live in another.  For many of you, this probably happens every day, as you go from one culture at home to another at school and with friends.  This essay is probably the easiest for those who have that kind of experience.  On the other hand, as our current president argued in a speech in Poland, there are a set of ideas that may loosely be described as Western–but I don’t think that the president’s speech actually reflected ideas like empiricism, openness to new ideas . . . free thinking . . . . which I consider hallmarks of Western Civ, at least as ideals for the last four hundred years.  

Not that our civilization lived up to those ideals, but still. Certainly the Western or European culture that arose in Rome and led to the Enlightenment created a set of important ideas, one of them being expressed in the clause, “We hold these truths to be self evident,  that all men are created equal . . . ”  Notice how that piece of paper in which the colonists declared independence is basically just a set of ideas. That’s what we are.  But back to the president’s speech:  you don’t have to argue for  a war of cultures to describe the influence and nature of your culture.  

But there is also the culture of your personal background and family, which include food, values, religion, et al. If you are really into philosophy, are a Competition Civics type or Lincoln-Douglas debater, you may be better primed than most to write about the broad idea of culture I defined in the paragraph above; if not, you might start at home, and consider your culture there. Or you could start with a thing in our culture that is important to you. For me, that would be a library. Check out this for some examples of great writing on libraries: 12 authors on libraries. For you, it might be a turntable and the history of hiphop tied to that. Make it personal and avoid preaching.

Princeton Prompt Option 4. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay.

Examples for Writing A Successful Princeton Supplement About Quotes

If you searched “Essays that start with a quote,” in addition to finding a number of college application essay books, you’ll also find web pages explaining how clichéd and terrible these essays are.  If you were cynical, you might draw the conclusion that this essay is a trap.  An optimist might argue that Princeton is trying to breathe life into a venerable style of essay.  My view is, it depends on what you do with it.  Anything which is treated witlessly can become a cliché.

The first thing to think about with this prompt:  starting with a quote can be hackneyed and the quote intro can also be used thoughtlessly or clumsily–for example, by jumping from the quote to a more-or-less unrelated idea in such a way that the quote is really an excuse to start an essay more than a true starting point.  

The idea is that the opening quote should be integrated into or lead naturally into the opening paragraph and so flow on through the rest of the essay.  It might be best to look at a few examples of folks who know how to work a quote into an essay–you might try reading some Montaigne, or for a modern idiom, you could try this link, to Paul Theroux’s the Old Patagonian Express, and read pages 3-6, which don’t begin with a quote, but he soon uses multiple quotes and you can see a good example of quote and content being integrated there..  This three-page section of the book has been excerpted as an essay and gives a good example of thought and action as Theroux looks at himself in relation to others engaged in the same activity.

I also suggest that you visit the New York Review of Books, which always has an article which discusses a series of new or recent titles and puts them in perspective. Have a look at my posts on writing about books, starting with this one, and you may find some useful passages for your purposes in this quote essay–be aware that the NYRB articles are meant largely to discuss books but many wander far afield in ways that may give you ideas on writing an essay tying your own life to what you have found in a book.

In the same vein, In the link here, you will find an NYRB discussion of Michael Lewis’ Boomerang, an especially good book and article for those of you interested in the social and economic problems that led to Occupy, back in the day, and that in part also fueled our current political fire –it’s a good model for how to discuss a book both in relation to oneself and to the larger world, which is part of what they want from you in this prompt.  Of course, you should also be able to show yourself doing something beyond simply observing.  It would help, of course, if you were a participant in some sort of action, though the author shows his own ability to think and does act on his principles by reporting on the book and the world around us.

Here are two  more specific examples from Joan Didion; both are a factor of magnitude longer than the 500-word essay, but they still give you the flavor and an example of how to work with quotes.  Notice that some of Didion’s essays could be cut down to a three-paragraph excerpt and, with perhaps a sentence or two of more direct exposition, work as a short essay, like the one you want.

“Goodbye To All That”

“On Self Respect”, in which Didion quotes from herself to get things going. Cheeky!

For those of you writing the Princeton Engineering Essay, I will be posting on this very soon, so please come back to read my discussion of the Princeton Engineering prompt–you might as well write your supplemental first and then do the research that an engineering essay requires.

More Thoughts On The Problem Essay

wordguild

Who should read this post:  anyone who needs to write about a social, environmental or just big problem. This post was originally written when the Common App asked that applicants write an essay about a problem they would like to solve–a question that is no longer on the Common App, but the advice here is still relevant, and so are some of the topics.  Read on for more, and for a link to the “beauty queen” trap that this essay contains.

The last couple of posts have dealt with strategy for Common App Prompt Two and have analyzed several topics in depth. I recommend that you have a look at them. I think of Prompt Two as the Big Problem prompt–though if you are involved in a local issue and well-versed in it, a “small” problem can be a brilliant choice.  I will address the local problem as a topic in my next post.

In this post, I will more briefly consider a number of additional topics which I have seen used recently to address Prompt Two.

Some global considerations for this prompt: first, remember that you are developing a form of argument which certainly includes an analysis of cause and effect and which should have a solution to the problem discussed. If you prefer narratives or don’t have an existing interest in and basic knowledge of a topic of local, national or international importance, move on to the other prompts. See my previous posts about other risks of this prompt, such as the “beauty queen” trap.

Remember that the prompt is one thing, the topic you choose another. The number of topics possible for an argument addressing Prompt Two is as large as the number of problems in the world. This is as good a thing for an essayist as it is a bad thing for the world at large. Therefore, try to be sensitive–you are writing about something that may be a very real source of suffering for others.

Below is  a list of essay topics addressing this prompt which I have seen in the last year, along with questions and considerations for these topics; keep in mind that Prompt Two more than any other Common App prompt demands knowledge, the marshaling of empirical facts and, most likely, some time spent researching:

1. The problem of food shortages and famine

Hunger, like poverty, has always been with humanity. Keep that in mind. Any solution you come up with can improve things but don’t try to end world hunger forever in a 500 word essay. There are always complicating factors to consider. In recent years the U.S, one of countries which is an important grain exporter, has devoted more and more corn to fuel production. The policies and economics of this are complicating food production around the world.

In addition, many food experts say that we are leaving an era of surplus for one of shortages. Political and economic disruptions and, more importantly, weather–or changes in climate–in the last few  years have caused regional crop failures. Russia, another country which exports grain, last year suffered a record-setting heat wave and fires which caused it to curtail exports.This year the grain belt of the United States is suffering under its own record-setting heat wave, and as I write this, corn is set to pollinate in several states but the heat lingering this weekend will severely hinder this process and possibly decimate this year’s corn crop. Some agricultural areas of the U.S. are facing a drought as bad and long as that of the Dust Bowl Era.

In short, we face a period in which agriculture will have to adjust rapidly. Don’t naively assert that simply making distribution more “fair” or tweaking a few genes will make everything better.  Starvation-driven migration and political instability is likely to become more common in the near future and hunger itself could complicate the problem of feeding the hungry as it disrupts social structures and distribution networks.    Sorry to be a bummer, folks, but it’s just so–so you don’t want to oversimplify.

2. Renewable Energy

It isn’t easy being green. All human energy production has negative consequences–weighing alternatives is a matter of assessing costs and benefits. Wind turbines, for example, consume no fuel as they produce electricity, but they do kill thousands of birds a year in the large installation at the Altamont Pass area of California, which, as it turns out, was built on a major migration for raptors. Oops. That’s the point: think critically and research possible problems–unintended consequences are those we don’t foresee or take seriously enough.

Know about your topics and subtopics. Solar power takes different forms–primarily, it can be dispersed (on rooftops, for example) or centralized (like the large solar installation near Barstow, CA). Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, though both will require that our power grid be restructured. In addition, some sort of production must occur independent of sun and wind for times when they don’t produce energy.

Don’t forget that all technology requires resources–batteries, for example, are a way to store electricity for windless times and nighttime, but lithium batteries require . . . lithium, among other relatively rare or difficult to produce elements. Check up on its availability. How big is the supply of materials needed for alternative energy technology? Think big but look at the details. I recommend the book Out of Gas for its brilliant discussion of our current energy conundrum, including the physics of various alternatives and of our environment. It is concise and brilliant.

3. Nuclear Energy Solves Our Problems

Tsunami in Japan. That’s what comes to mind, right? Up until a couple of years ago, nuclear was making a comeback as a Big Solution to Big Problems, but the toxic nature of nuclear fuel and the necessity to store waste for periods of time longer than human civilization has so far existed make nukes look a lot less attractive these days, especially  given the surprises that the universe has recently reminded us it can throw at us. Take Diablo Canyon, on the California coast, for example. It will be relicensed soon, having run through most of its originally planned life span, despite the fact that it lies within a few minutes drive–or sail–of multiple potentially dangerous earthquake faults, none of which you have ever heard of but any of which could damage this plant and the infrastucture around it. What, Mr. B, are you a no-nuker? Yes and no. What I am saying is that this is a difficult topic, at least for this year, unless you happen to be interested in nuclear physics or in engineering in the nuke field. This means that this could be an interesting challenge for you.   Maybe you even have some ideas for big changes or an idea that might crack the problem of cold nuclear fission. Great! Go for it. Do not be dismissive of those who disagree or fear this technology, though–they have a lot of evidence to justify their fears, at the moment.

4. Sovereign Debt, aka National Debt or Just Debt in General (Hello, Detroit)

A hot topic among the politically minded. In later posts, I will discuss the uses of analogies at more length, but I will point out some problems with tendency some have of comparing our national budget to a family budget. The analogy makes the assumption that all families do balance their budgets every year.  Without even looking at whether the United States Government can be compared to a family, we can see that this analogy has problematic assumptions.  Many families in this country have had economic troubles lately, and many have used credit cards or borrowed money to get through the rough times as opposed to, say, automatically foreclosing on their house  because a breadwinner lost a job.

Looking at the other side of the analogy, what would a country with cap do if, or example, it were experiencing income problems like the family above and at the same time it were attacked by another country?  Should the country surrender instead of borrowing some money?     Unless you are very serious-minded, have studied this at length with someone who has  expertise (an excellent Gov or History teacher as well as a good Econ class would be advisable), and are committed to deep and nuanced thinking, stay away.

Find John Lanchester’s IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay–reviewed in this link–if you want to read up on this.  Then again, maybe that would turn this into an intellectual experience essay. . .

5. Immigration

This is a favorite of the louder voices on both sides of the opinion pages and in both camps of the land of talking heads, which should already be a warning to you. Who is your college reader going to be, anyway? Do you know what the political outlook of this person is? Unless you are well-versed and can present a very balanced discussion which looks at not both but the many sides of this issue, Stay Away.

6. Terrorism and Extremism

Terrorist acts are a result of extremism and, as the news this week from Norway shows,  both of these phenomenon are universals–that is, they appear across cultures and historical periods.  Anarchists in the 19th and early 20th Century  committed terrorist acts and assassinations in the United States, across Europe and in Russia.  The September 11th attacks had precursors in the decades leading up to this century, including an attack by nominally Christian American, in Oklahoma City.  The use of violence and the threat of violence to spread fear is as ancient as agriculture and the causes of this in the modern world are many.  Read up and think long if you want to tackle this topic.  The Proud Tower, by Barbara Tuchman, discusses the Anarchist movement of the 19th and early 20th Centuries (among many other things); The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright gives an excellent overview of so-called Islamic terrorism.  The content of these two books provide and interesting contrast between anarchy, an essentially areligious, even anti-religious movement which spawned terrorist acts and the ostensibly religious terrorism of Al Quaeda and groups like it.  Balance and a historical perspective are requirements for an attempt at an essay on this.

8. Social Justice Topics

Some of the topics above could fit under the umbrella of social justice, as could topics which I have discussed at length in earlier posts.  Social Justice is a recently coined phrase–justice is clear, but the idea in social justice is  to create a more just society.  This requires action by organizations and governments.  Social Justice curriculums are becoming common in high schools and have been established for years in many universities.

You can write an essay on a “social justice” topic without using the term social justice.  In fact, I recommend doing this for a number of reasons, one of which is tha common topics many social justice classes share and the common answers these classes tend to propose to these problems.  You want to show original thought and writing; you do not want to regurgitate a packaged answer to a problem you studied in class.

I have also found that these essays too often read like homilies and  don’t show enough critical thought.  They often take the form of “if only x would be recognized, discussed, changed, then y would be resolved/solved and justice would reign.”

While it is more likely than not that a college essay reader would be sympathetic to a social justice argument, you need to do good research and show an understanding of complexityand the difficulty of change in a social justice essay.  Too often essays on social justice problems offer simplistic solutions to complex issues, most often as a result of assuming that individuals and groups can easily change their thinking through education (becoming more enlightened, confronting history, etc) or through some sort of legislation.  Change is difficult and slow, particularly in cultural shifts and remedying poverty and inequality.  See the history of African Americans for more . . .

9. Pollution and Environmental Degradation

Many kinds, many reasons, and we are all part of the problem.  Think of this as like an original sin of which we are all guilty and you will avoid the Soapbox of Self-Righteousness.  I think of an essay I read long ago by Alice Walker in which she described communing with trees.  The essay represented humanity, and specifically industry and technology  destructive of nature.  In the essay,  Alice recounted an attempt to commune with the trees, to show them that she was not part of all that. She loved trees, she felt with them, she became one with them.

I had a strong negative reaction to this essay which was written by a person who has been responsible for the murder of more trees than any anti-environmentalist politician.  She is a writer, after all, with most of her career in an age when books were printed.  Not only that, I suspect she was a passenger in or drove a car to visit this grove of trees she describes in the essay.  I tossed the book across the room and didn’t read more for a long time.

While Alice is one of our major 20th Century writers and a great battler for the environment–and for redwood trees specifically–her essay struck me as naive and self-righteous.  It’s nice to be aware of the dignity and value of trees as a class and of individual trees you know, but we all use paper made from trees.  We all use transportation which was built using and which propels itself with  fossil fuels, even if we plug in our cars.   So beware of your own sense of righteous indignation if you choose this topic, and be aware that solutions to environmental problems are usually complex.  Climage Change seems to have finally fueled (pun intended) a movement and, as of this summer, you could even show some commitment to this by going to a rally or event.  Check out 350.org if you have an interest . . .

10.  This is not a new topic, just a final thought:  you should care about the topic you choose.  Don’t suddenly decide you have an interest in justice,  hunger, environmental degradation, climate change, extremism, or any other of that devil’s alphabet of problems troubling our times.  If you read and keep up with such things and like analysis, this is a good prompt for you.  If not, move on to the others.  Good luck and Godspeed!