[TOEFL essay] Working with machines vs. Working with people

Based on the matter of working partners, people have different favorite kinds of occupations. Some prefer occupations in which they work primarily with machines. Others choose professions in which they work with people. Each of the two types has its own advantages, and which one suits a person best depends on his personalities and field of profession. Personally I prefer working with machines, for I enjoy the feeling of being the boss whenever at work.

First of all, many people like working with machines since they are technically advanced, and are becoming a perfect substitute for human labor. It is obvious that machines and computers are essential for most fields of occupations. For industrial workers, automatic machines are indispensible; for art designers and architects, computers prove to be great tools in mass designing with high accuracy, while for scientists, scientific machines such as computers and telescopes are strictly required for research. As can be seen, machines are ideal partners for a lot of people whose limited time and capabilities do not allow them to work on their own.

On the contrary, human are still regarded as the best working partners by several people whose jobs require human discussion and interaction. It is clear that in some jobs, teamwork and mutual assistance among workers are crucial to success. Moreover, it is widely believed that professions involving interaction between people are much more interesting, while those in which human primarily work with machines are boringly repetitive. To illustrate this point, recent researches demonstrated that more than half the workers doing such jobs as electrician and mechanical engineering over a long time in the US feel they are driven stressed. Lastly, some people prefer the atmosphere of working in a competitive environment where peer pressure can motivate them to work harder and improve their effectiveness and productivity.

For personal reasons, however, I prefer working with machines. Firstly, machines are highly consistent, accurate, and reliable, while humans may be spontaneous and fallible. In addition, it is not easy to find a person whose personalities and working habits fit mine, which is key to successful cooperation. Moreover, I always like to have things work in my own way. Consequently, I consider machines to be my best partners since they are obedient servants who always do whatever they are told to do and never criticize me, unlike some co-workers who may disagree with my plans. To sum up, working with machines or working with human, each of which has its advantages and drawbacks, depends on each person’s preference; I choose to work mainly with machines because of both their reliability and their flexibility, which enables me to do things in my own way.

Writing Winning Essays for College Applications

Original Article: Associated Content

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Applying for admission to a college or university?

As a high school senior or an adult returning to school, you will find that applying for admission to universities and colleges requires plenty of planning and preparation. Hopefully, you have already contacted the admissions offices and selected a few appropriate options.

By the time you sit down to complete the actual admissions application, you have likely done a significant amount of research and study of prospective colleges and universities. In all likelihood, you have met with your educational guidance counselor and targeted certain colleges and universities that offer academic programs in your fields of interest and that seem to be within your grasp of scholastic eligibility.

Perhaps you have visited college and university campuses and consulted admissions staff members. Maybe you have even gathered information of scholarships, financial aid and other special programs.

Choose Your Target Schools.

Admissions fees can be costly, and the applications do take time to complete. In addition, applicants usually have to pay for high school transcript requests and the sending of college entrance test scores to admissions offices at their target schools.

For these reasons, it is important to pare down your application list to a few select institutions. Plenty of applicants choose a handful of colleges, including at least these three options: a long-shot school, a fair bet, and a safety school.

If you choose to apply for early decision admission, you may save some cash. This is an excellent strategy for those with a single favorite school. If your application is not accepted, you will likely have time to apply to other schools after notification.

Get Organized First.

Sort through the admissions application packets from your desired schools. You may discover similar essay requirements. If so, you can streamline your admissions homework considerably! Check word counts and specific instructions, as you will likely have to adapt your essays for each school.

For example, College A may ask you to write a 750-word essay, detailing your career aspirations. College B might want a 500-word piece, highlighting what you see yourself doing five years from now. Certainly, you could write one basic essay to cover both questions. Write the longer piece first, and save the document for College A. Then edit it to fit the request from College B. Save this document as a new file.

Know Neatness Counts.

First impressions are worth a lot, particularly in college admissions offices. These folks receive thousands of applications, and they reject the lion’s share of them. How can you make your application stand out from the rest of the pile in a positive way?

The first, and most obvious, thing you can do is to be sure all of your paperwork is filled out clearly, neatly and legibly. If an admissions counselor cannot read your information, your application will surely be rejected.

Crinkled, messy papers may be allowed in kindergarten, but not in college. This is the time to be as professional as possible.

Write Your Own Essay.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but an astonishing number of admissions essays are bought and sold daily, particularly on the internet. Be forewarned. College admissions staffs are smart people. They have seen it all, and they can spot a canned essay from a distance. Do not attempt to plagiarize or purchase pirated material. Your own future is at stake. Why ruin your academic credibility, before you even begin?
As an upperclassmen, you are now a young adult. Just as you should be packing your own school lunches by now, you simply must write your own college entrance essays.

Share Your Heart.

Why do you suppose colleges require admissions essays at all? Don’t they realize you already have enough homework and deadlines to meet?

Unlike your academic transcript, your personal reference letters and your standardized testing scores, the admissions essay offers you an opportunity to express yourself. It gives admissions counselors a glimpse into who you are, what you stand for and what makes you special and unique. At the same time, the essay allows you to demonstrate your flair for communication. You can really shine here, by expressing your views clearly and creatively.

Make the Topic Your Springboard.

Usually, the topic is an open-ended question or statement. Here are a few examples:

Recount a personal experience that helped to shape the person you have become.

Describe the individual who has impacted your life the most and why.

Name your most valuable personality trait, and describe how this plays into your life goals.

How would your best friend describe your personal character?

If you were to write your own obituary, what would you say?

Select a work of literature that has significantly affected your world view, and explain how this has been so.

Before you begin to write, take a few days to ponder the assignment. Instead of merely answering the question, try to use the topic as a launching point for deliberately painting a portrait of yourself and what you stand for.

Showcase Your Verbal Skills.

Remember the rules of grammar, punctuation and language usage here. Strive for flawless spelling as well. Perhaps the words of your freshman composition teacher will return to haunt you, as you write your essay. If not, you will want to pull out your grammar textbook to revisit those rules. Academic integrity counts, particularly in college admissions essays!

This is the time to show off your excellent writing skills! Don’t be afraid to ask an excellent writer to look over your first draft and give you some constructive criticism and practical suggestions.

Avoid Acronyms, Slang and Profanity.

You might consider the college admissions essay as a written interview, of sorts. If you were preparing for an in-person interview, you would surely wear your finest professional-looking apparel. You would bathe and groom yourself appropriately and style your hair to your best advantage. Why should the written application be any different?

Avoid slang, profanity, chat-room abbreviations, and sloppy contractions. Use your best language, not your worst! Look your best, even on paper!

Aim for Excellence.

Even if your grades and test scores are slightly lower than a college’s admissions standards, a shining essay may be just enough to convince that school’s staff to give you a chance. On the other hand, a bland and boring essay will cause any application to be quickly forgotten and probably rejected.

Don’t try to sound cute or coy, as it usually comes across as trite and contrived. Instead, be honest and as convincing as possible. Use active and colorful verbs (instead of passive ones, such as “is,” “has,” and even “does.”). Consider the difference between these two statements:

There are three reasons why water must be conserved to protect the earth.

We must conserve water for three reasons. The earth depends on us!

Which phrasing is more dynamic and interesting?

College admissions staffers must wade through mountains of paperwork. You gain nothing by boring them, but you can earn big rewards by enticing them!

Proofread for Perfection.

Nothing sinks an application faster than misspelled words, run-on sentences, fragments or other mechanical errors. If you desire admission to a certain college, then you must present an essay that clearly demonstrates you have mastered high school language.

Of course, you will run a spell-check and a grammar-check on your computer before submitting your application. Do not merely rely on this. Computers will not identify homonyms. They often overlook grammatical errors as well.

Read your entire application aloud. Check sentence flow. Ask another capable writer to proofread it for you as well. Set it down for a day or two, and read it again.

Exceed the Requirements.

Leave no blanks empty on your application. Include all required items. If the instructions call for two essays, you obviously must write them both.

Although some high school teachers may offer partial credit for incomplete answers, college admissions staffs do not.

Of course, if the assignment calls for 500 words, you cannot attempt to submit a 1,000-word essay. Use the tools in your word processing program to count the words. Revise as many times as necessary, until you have a polished piece of the assigned length.

Post Your Application With Punctuality.

No extensions. Don’t even ask!

Get your admissions application and all essays done, and turn in the entire packet before the deadline, or you are out. It’s as simple as that.

In addition, you will want to touch base with any teachers, youth leaders, employers, pastors or others who are writing reference letters for you. Remind these kind folks, as politely as you can, how much you appreciate their references and that you know they will get their letters in by the deadline. (Be sure to let them know when this is, as well as where to send their letters.)

Meet College Admissions Staffers in Person.

A face-to-face meeting can make a tremendous difference in the college admissions process. If you are able to visit your favored campuses and attend an in-person interview with an admissions staffer, you will have one more opportunity to ask specific questions and to demonstrate your own eloquence.

Be prepared to articulate your own academic and extra-curricular achievements, as well as your dreams and plans for your schooling and professional future. (Of course, you are at liberty to change your career choices along the way, but it is important to put some thought into this ahead of time.) An on-site meeting offers you an excellent chance to stand out from the vast crowd of applicants.

Often, colleges and universities will send admissions staffers to high schools for college fairs and expos. If you can meet representatives from your desired colleges and universities this way, you can also gain an advantage. Be sure to introduce yourself, and provide your name and address, so the staffers can identify you later, when you apply to their schools.

Wait Patiently for a Response.

Although it may feel like forever, you will receive an answer in due time. Perhaps you will wait weeks or months, but it will come. Badgering the admissions office (by phone, mail, or email) for a response will work against you. Demonstrate your personal maturity by waiting for the answer. Before you know it, the mail will arrive!

Rising Above The Crowd: How to get noticed in the college admissions race

A very helpful article on getting into colleges.

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MiamiHerald – March 2008

BY GIGI LEHMAN

COVER STORY

You’ve earned a 2200 SAT score, a 4.5 weighted GPA from Advanced Placement classes, and you’ve spent the summer building houses for the needy — when you weren’t playing the oboe or winning gymnastics medals. Think you’re a lock for the college of your choice?

Better think again.

In numbers alone, the competition is tougher than ever. Reasons include an increase in the number of college-age students and an increase in the number of college applications per student, thanks partly to the ease of submitting multiple applications online.

NEED A HOOK

So how can a student stand out in the crowd? Pam Proctor of Vero Beach, an independent college consultant, says every student needs what she calls a ”hook — the one passion or interest that is so strong that it will set you apart from all the other kids who are applying.” Her tips can be found in her 2007 book, The College Hook: Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game (Center Street, $21.99).

Many of Proctor’s ideas are echoed by guidance counselors — and students who have successfully negotiated the admissions process. Their advice: Beyond grades, test scores and activities, students need to have a strategy.

”For a long time colleges were looking for a well-rounded class,” says Ari Worthman, associate director of college counseling at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale and formerly an admissions officer at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. “Now they’re looking for well-lopsided classes.”

In other words, ”schools are looking for students who are passionate about one thing,” said Alina Grandal, College Admissions Program advisor at Hialeah Senior High School.

For Jennifer Estimé, a senior at Southridge Senior High School, track has been her passion since middle school. In addition to competing, Estimé has spent many hours helping officials at track and field events. She also organized a track clinic for children at a winter break camp in a county park. Her efforts won her both athletic and academic scholarships to the University of Miami.

At G. Holmes Braddock Senior High, senior Dayme Sanchez has taken a similar route with dance. She is captain of the school dance team and has volunteered at a dance academy. When applying to Stanford University, Sanchez sent a video and a résumé to the dance department.

Get to know your teachers and counselors — and let them get to know you, experts advise.

‘I think more and more, counselor and teacher recommendations are important because schools are smartening up to the fact that many students’ lists of activities are contrived,” says Alex Friedlander, a Pine Crest senior who has been admitted to the University of Pennsylvania.

Students should realize their best recommendation may not come from a teacher in whose class they got an A, says Maria Mendoza, CAP counselor at Braddock High. ‘If a teacher can say, `At the beginning he struggled and at the end he got a B, but he didn’t drop the class and he came for tutoring,’ that is a good recommendation.”

SUMMER PROGRAMS

Don’t take the summer off.

Mendoza and author Proctor both recommend applying for summer programs at colleges and universities because they carry the most weight with admissions officers and because they can give students a taste of what college is like.

Many summer programs offer financial aid. For students who need to work during school breaks, programs at local universities could be an option.

Meet with visiting college representatives.

”If a student doesn’t bother to set up an interview, I don’t go chasing after him,” says an anonymous alumni interviewer quoted in The College Hook.

Friedlander says he struck up a good rapport with the Penn alumnus who visited South Florida, and he believes that meeting was one of the factors in his acceptance.

The essay is a great opportunity to stand out.

Conventional wisdom has been that the essay is a determining factor mostly for students ”on the bubble.” But with record numbers applying to colleges, almost everyone is faced with this uncertainty, so make your essay memorable.

DON’T MENTION IT

Some topics should be avoided, says Proctor and others. The top three no-no’s are religion (it’s too easy to offend the reader, unless you’re applying to a religiously affiliated school), community service (everyone does it and many write about it) and ‘’sports as a metaphor for life.” (It’s hard not to write in clichés about sports.)

Exceptions exist to every rule, though. An essay praised in The College Hook was written by a student whose penchant for sarcasm did not translate well when he lived in Costa Rica while helping to build a community center — a twist on the ”community service” essay.

And one of Friedlander’s essays for Penn was about his long involvement in kenjitsu, the art of Japanese swordsmanship. With evocative writing and an explanation of how kenjitsu illuminates aspects of Japanese culture, he avoided the pitfalls inherent in the sports essay.

Leadership is the new community service.

”Colleges really want to see leadership,” says Veronica Barroso, a Braddock senior who has applied to Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Duke and the University of Miami. “If you did a community service project, how many people did you touch?”

Because Barroso’s college ”hook” is her involvement in speech and debate, she volunteered to be one of two managers of a state debate tournament hosted at Braddock. ”I felt like I was the manager of a Fortune 500 company” by helping to organize the statewide event, she says, and it gave her leadership credentials to list on her résumé.

When it comes to narrowing your college choices, round up more than the usual suspects.

Large state universities and the University of Miami have been on South Florida students’ radars for decades. But other schools may be easier to get in.

”The University of North Florida has been Florida’s best-kept secret, but the secret is getting out,” says Joel Chaitovicz, UNF admissions coordinator for the region that includes South Florida. “Our applications are 15 to 20 percent higher than last year.”

Chaitovicz, a 1996 graduate of Homestead High School, knows how to sell UNF to local students.

”When I speak to a Miami teenager, I tell them they’re a teenager in a very rapid city where they feel very overwhelmed. Do they want to keep feeling overwhelmed in college? Smaller schools [UNF enrolled 16,000 students last year] have smaller class sizes. And we’re 10 minutes from the beach” in Jacksonville.

Lou Gilman, CAP advisor at Southridge High, is seeing more students apply to historically black universities and colleges like Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens.

And author Proctor, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, wishes more female students would consider women’s institutions like her alma mater. One student who did is Hanny Rivera, a senior at Hialeah High.

FOUR SCHOOLS

Rivera visited four schools through diversity recruitment programs that paid for her trip; one of them was Wellesley College, a women’s school in Massachusetts.

”I thought I’d hate it, but it wasn’t at all like I thought it would be,” Rivera says. Wellesley is now one of 11 schools to which she has applied.

Find a school that’s likely to want you.

Researching schools that recruit students like you is a good way to boost your chance of admission, says Proctor. For example, ‘Emory is really going global. Students who have a multicultural hook can play it up and use it for Emory. Colorado College is a very `green’ school that environmentalists can apply to.” Looking on a school’s website is an easy way to determine what a college’s ”hook” might be, Proctor says.

Natalie Reyes, a Braddock senior who wants to study mechanical engineering in college, has applied to eight schools, all known for their engineering programs, although some — Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering — are little-known outside the field.

”I researched Rose-Hulman tremendously,” Reyes says. “They ranked No. 1 for the ninth year [in U.S. News & World Report magazine] in overall engineering and mechanical engineering.”

Pine Crest senior Friedlander urges his peers not to sell their souls in search of that fat acceptance envelope.

In his own case, a counselor told him he was making a mistake when he quit lacrosse to concentrate on martial arts. She thought lacrosse would look better on his college application.

But, Friedlander says, ”I never did the things I do with the intention of looking good to a college,” and he was still admitted as an early decision applicant to Penn.

“I think that I would still be doing everything I’m doing even if there was no college at the end of the road.”

Reading List for March 08

For I’m sure I will be very busy in the upcoming weeks, due to the approaching of the final exams, which come pretty earlier this year, I’ll give myself the privilege of having to complete only 3 books, not 4 as usual, this month.

1. 1984 – George Orwell

2. The Lexus and The Olive Tree – Understanding Globalization – Thomas L. Friedman

3. Robinson Crusoe

Vietnam’s professors – Get up and do something

I was surfing VietNamNet Bridge when this article popped up straight to my eyes. This is maybe the first time in a long time I’ve seen a good analysis from VNN. I reckon it really worths reading and discussing.

*****

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/reports/2008/02/768187/

VietNamNet Bridge – When evaluating the intellectual standards of a nation, the number of scientific articles published in international academic journals and respected magazines are considered the top indicator.

Research published in academic journals must go through a strict and rigorous consideration process. The number of published research projects is the number-one standard for promoting professorships at universities and it reflects the scientific productivity of a country.

Research and related publications are usually conducted by post-graduates studying and researching towards earnings Masters or Doctorate level degrees. According to the Vietnam Science and Technology book, by the end of 2003, Vietnam had 2 million college and university graduates, including 14,000 doctors and 20,000 Masters Degree holders; it also had around 6,000 Associate and full-fledged Professors.

The question is how does Vietnam’s scientific productivity rate against other regional countries. To answer this question, we can refer to data provided by the Institute of Scientific Information and Scientific Publications of Vietnam.

Actions speak louder than words – complete silence

Between 1996 and 2005, Vietnamese scientists published 3,456 research projects and results in international scientific magazines. On average, each Associate Professor and Professor of Vietnam published 0.58 scientific articles in 10 years!

In other words, every two professors released just over one article in a decade. Meanwhile, universities in regional countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore set standards or encouraged each professor to have at least one article published in an international scientific magazine every two years. In developed countries, Professors must publish at least one article every two years, otherwise they may lose their job.

Vietnam’s results are modest at best and the lowest in the region. The number of scientific articles published by Vietnamese researchers is equivalent to one fifth that of Thailand (14,494 articles from 1996-2005), one third of Malaysia (9,742), one fourth of Singapore (45,633) and lower than Indonesia and the Phillipines (4,389 and 3,901, respectively).

How about Vietnam’s stronger and weaker research fields? Around one fifth of scientific research is related to biology, compared to 43% in Thailand. Specifically weak fields are the environment (4%), economics (2.5%), biotechnology (1.3%) and humanities-social sciences (1.6%).

The number of scientific publications associated with math and physics makes up nearly one fourth of the total number of published articles, compared to just 0.5-4% in neighboring countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

While Vietnamese scientists lack facilities, around 80% of scientific research in Vietnam is conducted in cooperation with foreigners. Only 20% is entirely performed and run by Vietnamese scientists.

However, that ratio is different for different fields, for example only 3% of medicine-biology research is completely implemented by Vietnamese scientists, none of biotechnology, and up to 66% of math, nearly 40% of technology, and 41% of economics.

Quality of scientific research is also questionable. Valuable research is often cited by international scientists who thereby appraise the validity and importance, it is necessary to look at the citing percentage.

Generally, around one fifth of scientific articles from Vietnam have never been quoted on after five years of publication. This is the same situation in Vietnam’s neighboring countries like Thailand (15%), Malaysia (19%), Indonesia (19%), the Philippines (19%) and Singapore (17%).

Analysis shows that locally-conducted research is usually of lower quality than international research. On average, each locally-conducted research publication is cited 3.2 times while it is 11.6 times for international publications.

Call for Reform

The above data points out that Vietnam’s scientific “output” is very modest compared to regional nations, and completely incomparable to the rest of the world.

Vietnam’s scientific research primarily focuses on theoretical fields, for example math and physics, and Vietnam is weak at researching the application of science and specifically, environmental sciences. Meanwhile, as part of its economic development process, Vietnam needs applicable research rather than theoretical.

Additionally, domestic scientific research largely depends on international assistance. International cooperation significantly helps modern scientific achievements but it is better for cooperation if scientific research is conducted with a majority of Vietnamese materials and funding and the results of which will thereby belong to the Vietnamese people.

It is a fact that many Vietnamese scientists take part in research projects with foreign partners, and the results at attributed to the foreign associates.

Vietnam’s investment in sci-tech is very small compared to neighboring countries. In 2006, the country invested $428 million into science and technology, accounting for around 0.17% of GDP.

According to UNESCO, in Southeast Asia, Singapore has the highest investment in science and technology with 2.2% of GDP, equivalent to $30.1 billion, followed by Malaysia 0.5% of GDP or $1.54 billion, Thailand 0.3% of GDP or $1.79 billion. If based on GDP, Vietnam’s investment in science and technology is higher than Indonesia (0.05%) and Philippines (0.12%).

It is absurd that while many research projects lack capital, the State budget for sci-tech activities is not fully utilized. Budget management and distribution in sci-tech activities is now a problem.

It is necessary to consider the number of scientific research projects announced in international scientific magazines as a key standard in promoting professorship. Vietnam still uses local standards to promote professorship. Most Vietnamese doctors don’t have and may never have articles posted in reputable international scientific journals.

According to statistics, up to 70% of doctors in Vietnam don’t do research but assume administrative and management posts. Consequently, though Vietnam has up to 14,000 doctors and 6,000 professors, its scientific productivity doesn’t even compare to neighboring countries, let alone the rest of the world.

It is said that scientific research in Vietnam is lagging behind economic development. To deal with this, the State needs to reform the scientific management system immediately, or suffer the consequences.

(Source: TTO)

*****

A very good read. I was never in doubt Vietnam has a poor standard in evaluating and promoting professorship, but the article provides me with a lot more specific and ‘painful’ insights into this shameful reality.