7/30/2019 UCAS application 1
1/2
Hartsfeld-Jackson airport, the third largest
international-transit commune, is alive with
400,000 commuters storming through the commons to check their
baggage. Among the sea of
neutral colors worn by the wayward/homebound crowd my brother
emerges from the horizon ofthe departing escalators in his solid
white uniform. He looks world-weary, the eyes of experience
contrasting to the silhouette of a twenty-two year old. He has
just returned from his seven month
tour on board an Indian bound-Maersk cargo vessel, mandatory for
his education at USMMA.
Later my brother and I confided to each other our lives since
his last departure. Mundane
stories of my high school experiences paled in comparison to his
biographical fables. He spent
Christmas in a Spanish orphanage, watched airstrikes over Gaza
from an oil rig, was chased from
a dock by an anti-American Islamist in Egypt, engaged Somalian
pirates in an open ocean
firefight, and watched his 280 foot cargo vessel tilt forty
degrees during a storm. I was filled
with pride for my brother, he escaped our modest, affluent, yet
boring suburban routine and had
come home with a global understanding even our transient parents
couldnt measure up to. His
perspective of life and culture was so much vaster than mine.
How can I begin to understand theworld as he does with his travels
behind him and his adult life to look forward to?
I want that same wisdom travel imparts; the same understanding
my brother obtained just
by being abroad in unfamiliar environments. Ive never visited
Scotland. My understanding of
Scotland derives from stories, photographs, news outlets, books,
and whatever bits and pieces of
the culture that have made it stateside from natives (mostly
fiddle technique, the occasional
bottle of whiskey). Pervading every piece of acquired
information is emphasis on the cultural
identity of Scotland: The old traditions meeting modern
globalization creating a hybrid of culture
that, from what I can tell, is uniqueheritage and post-modernism
in tandem. The thought of
studying amidst that cultural white noise is incredibly
tantalizing. In foreign universities, I see
the potential for a greater global understanding that is
impossible to achieve at a domestic
university.
Its the same reasoning and drive on why I want to study French;
so I am able to relate to
a completely different culture on the simplest of practices:
communication, the basic tool to
exchange ideas. Not that my reasoning is exclusively academic,
its more sentimental than that.My Breton-philic grandparents were
very quick to instill a love of the language at a young age,
never speaking a word of English in my prescence, which forced
me to learn. Imagine our
mutual despondency when I was told I was not allowed to take a
language course in school if I
was to maintain my performing arts magnet seal. I did take
French over the summer but
cramming a years worth of material into a five week span is as
unrealistic as it is stupid (the
credit was valued more than the actual education). I never
explored French rhetoric or literature
and was only exposed to the works of Caillobette, Proust, and
Grappelli on my own
inquisitiveness, never taking them to the classroom environment.
When I began my Parisian
swing band, I found the only places that catered to our sound
were the French owned bakery
(where we played in afternoons for coffee and tips) and a street
corner. Its the unexplored but
familiar discipline for me.
While I am able to study French at an American university, I
dont believe it expand my
own role in globalization as much as studying at a Scottish one.
The same understanding my
brother came home with is what Im seeking from secondary
education. Its the same experience
