phaed
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Great point. I think my interpretation of the word in this context has drifted from the norm because I've built such a philosophy around it. How else can we describe the manifestation of "passion" that I wrote about? Is "focused ambition" any better of a way to name this?
"I liked band enough to stick with it for a couple years, and that's an Activity, and I can write something convincing about my passion for it. Therefore I can't quit band now that I've stopped liking it because then what would I look passionate about?"
Here's a virtual high-five for capital-A "Activity." This is the kind of thinking that guides otherwise brilliant students away from their ultimate potential.
I favor efficiency of discourse over tact
You'll notice "efficiency of discourse" is not my strong suit with this topic. My apologies—I have a lot to blather about that has been held in for too long. I've bolded the occasional important phrase to help the LW-skimmers of the future parse through my dense stuff. :)
I should amend my preface before continuing: I'm writing solely from the perspective of and about the top ~5% of a high school class. I assume that students taking the time to weigh the human capital growth prospects vs. the signaling benefits of an opportunity belong to this class. Among this group you can expect to see something close... (read 850 more words →)
Preface: I graduated from one of the top public high schools in Arizona and will be starting classes at Stanford in just a few weeks.
It's been my experience that the overwhelming majority of AP / honors students (the top performers at a US high school) are more preoccupied with the signaling effects of any given activity than its immediate or long-term effects on human capital growth. In the AP classes in which I was involved, I'd estimate 50–75% of the students enrolled in the class not based on genuine interest but rather driven by the will to "be an AP student" or "have a good-looking transcript." Even the majority of administrators and... (read 518 more words →)
I've been writing a journal/diary-style daily reflection since Aug 1 as part of a quantified self project.
Interesting, could you elaborate on this "quantified self project?" How do you plan to analyze these entries quantitatively?
Aced all my classes in my first quarter at Stanford, took up blogging (again!) and used (social) pre-commitment techniques to stick with it, finished a timeboxing analysis and found some interesting patterns in how I manage my time, started deliberately tracking short- and long-term goals and established systems with which to track these resolutions, and began a segmented sleep experiment (and will continue for a week or more based on how things go).