Heed Hanlon not Holmes: Don't Psyche Yourself Out

Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence: this is Hanlon’s razor. Add this to your inventory. Level it up. Master it.

You don’t need to shave to understand how a good shave and a good social life ain’t so different. Both are all about “saving face”, each requiring both steady nerves and a clear view or reflection of the situation. College is full of “situations”...

Read More
Gerardo TejadaComment
College Essay Writing: Baby Steps for the First Draft

If you were to gather snapshots of yourself at different points in time, no snapshot would be the same. You might be hanging out with different people. You would be preoccupied with a different set of concerns. You might be dreaming different daydreams. Just two cross-sections of yourself at different times are enough to make the backbone of an essay.

Read More
Albert ChouComment
College: The 4 Best Years of Your Life on Purpose

When faced with applicants of otherwise equal qualifications, colleges use personal statements—which showcase your values, insight, emotional maturity—as a tiebreaker. Your essays will tell admissions officers what matters to you, why they matter to you, and what kind of friend you would be to a fellow classmate.

Read More
Atlas of the Heart

When I decided to major in Cognitive Systems at University of British Columbia, I was baffled by how this intensely multidisciplinary program could encompass seemingly disparate fields from computer science to psychology to linguistics. It was only in my fifth year that I was able to start drawing pathways connecting these nodes which I had thought were wildly different. Like filling in a blank map, I realized that with every experience, good and bad, I was coming to a greater understanding of my mind and my soul—I was charting the atlas of my heart…

Read More
The Girl Who Lived Freshman Year Twice

Everyone obsesses over college rankings, and they’re the reason I ended up transferring from UC Irvine to UCLA. After I transferred, however, I realized that I had left something precious behind, something even more important than number rankings, something that I had first discovered when I was at Irvine and would never be able to find again anywhere else even if I started freshman year all over again…

Read More