哈佛校报公布2021哈佛录取er的十篇优秀文书,中国申请者写了什么主题?Part 6
分类:留学指南2021-08-19
哈佛校报公布2021哈佛录取er的十篇优秀文书,中国申请者写了什么主题?Part 6
I entered the surprisingly cool car. Since when is Beijing Line 13 air-conditioned? I’ll take it. At four o’clock in the afternoon only about twenty people were in the subway car. “At least it’s not crowded,” one might have thought. Wrong. The pressure of their eyes on me filled the car and smothered me. “看看!她是外国人!”(Look, look! She’s a foreigner!) An old man very loudly whispered to a child curled up in his lap. “Foreigner,” he called me. I hate that word, “foreigner.” It only explains my exterior. If only they could look inside.…
They would know that I actually speak Chinese—not just speak, but love. They would know that this love was born from my first love of Latin—the language that fostered my admiration of all languages. Latin lives in the words we speak around the world today. And translating this ancient language is like watching a play and performing in it at the same time. Each word is an adventure, and on the journey through Virgil’s Aeneid I found that I am more like Aeneas than any living, dead, or fictional hero I know. We share the intrinsic value of loyalty to friends, family, and society. We stand true to our own word, and we uphold others to theirs. Like Aeneas’s trek to find a new settlement for his collapsed Troy, with similar perseverance I, too, wander the seas for my own place in the world. Language has helped me do that.
If these subway passengers understood me, they would know that the very reason I sat beside them was because of Latin. Even before Aeneas and his tale, I met Caecilius and Grumio, characters in my first Latin textbook. In translations I learned grammar alongside Rome’s rich history. I realized how learning another language could expose me to other worlds and other people—something that has always excited me. I also realized that if I wanted to know more about the world and the people in it, I would have to learn a spoken language. Spanish, despite the seven years of study prior to Latin, did not stick with me. And the throatiness of French was not appealing. But Chinese, more than these other traditional languages, intrigued me. The doors to new worlds it could open seemed endless. Thus I chose Chinese.
If these subway passengers looked inside me, they would find that my knowledge of both Latin and Chinese makes me feel whole. It feels like the world of the past is flowing through me alongside the world of the future. Thanks to Latin, Chinese sticks in my mind like the Velcro on the little boy’s shoes in front of me. If this little boy and his family and friends could look inside, they would understand that Latin laid the foundation for my lifelong commitment to languages. Without words, thoughts and actions would be lost in the space between our ears. To them, I am a foreigner, “外国人” literally translated as “out-of-country person.” I feel, however, more like an advena, the Latin word for “foreigner,” translated as “(one who) comes to (this place).” I came to this place, and I came to this country to stay. Unfortunately, they will not know this until I speak. Then once I speak, the doors will open.
你的大学文书应该有两个目的:一是让读者了解你的情况,这是他们在你申请书的其他部分无法做到的,二是提供一个你写作能力的例子。对于前者来说,你希望展示五种软技能,这五种技能至少是大多数大学都有意搜集的,它们表明你有能力在他们的学校成为一名好学生。
Alex以一种有趣的方式实现了两个目标。在没有看到她申请书的其余部分的情况下,我只能假设她可能有兴趣攻读一门语言专业(如果她攻读的是应用数学专业,这篇文章将非常有趣),而且她可能参加过某种团队运动,以展示团队合作的软技能。老实说,作为一个自己会说五种语言并在大学学习拉丁语的人,我不一定同意她对语言的评价。但我很感兴趣。我想继续读下去。她不应该在这篇文章中把每件事都写对;她应该表现出学习的能力。她就是这么做的。
我想继续读下去,因为她对自己的身份说了些什么——无论是表现的还是真实的——我很好奇。通过我们在大学入学和招生方面的工作,我们只在服务不足的社区工作,无论是有色人种的学生,还是对STEM感兴趣的女孩,还是第一代大学生或更多的人。人们想当然地认为,我们是在利用这些身份来编造悲伤的故事,招生办的读者会立即抓住这些故事。我们没有那样做。我们鼓励学生写一些类似于Alex所描述的东西——你的身份如何创造了一个学习机会或一个恢复力或决心的时刻。Alex似乎是一个资源丰富的人:她能接触到某些文本;语言课程以及她花在学习这些语言上的时间;就连她的句子结构也泄露了这一点。但她以谦逊的态度适应环境的开放性是一项关键技能,这对于成为一名优秀的学生来说是非常必要的,不幸的是,这是一项很多学生都没有掌握的技能。
对于第二个目标,她在展示自己的写作能力方面做了大量的工作。她的句子结构多种多样,语法和拼写上没有严重错误。第二段的最后两句话向我展示了她的技能水平和个性。我也很欣赏她没有回避她所能接受的教育。Alex聪明,机智,游历广泛,我很喜欢。
这篇文章介绍了她是谁以及她的软技能,同时也展示了她的写作能力。
如需进一步了解,或有任何相关疑问,欢迎在线咨询留学专家。如果您对自己是否适合留学还有疑虑,欢迎参与前途出国免费评估,以便给您进行准确定位。
