Trinity College Optional Essay

We live in an urban-global age with over half of the planet's inhabitants living in cities. Trinity College is an urban liberal arts college deeply engaged with the local community and committed to making an impact across the world. How do you aspire to use your education to impact local and global communities?

Following the Great Famine and the Black Death of 1350 population has risen sharply. One billion was the population in 1804. It took 156 years to become triple its former value. Demographic values as of July 2015 (7.3 billion) states that the addition of ciphers has occurred at an unprecedentedly expeditious rate which is a global concern. The increasing population presses upon the natural resources. The increase in inflation and economic upheavals has burgeoned and engendered throttling competition among the members of this ‘same global family’. Such harbingers herald the dire need of loving, compassionate and competent people who can play the role of a philosopher’s stone – transforming the base metals into gold.

I am passionate computer geek. I’ve been in the wreath of love since a very tender age. In fact I decided to make my career in computer science when I was in my 6^th grade, i.e. 12 years old. From that age to this day I’ve never for a fraction of a second wavered. No whims or caprices have ever moved my dogged decision to explore the unseen nadirs of computers. In a digital age where more than three-fourth of the population is being swayed by digital devices and the Internet it is instrumental that people like me come to the forefront to serve the world for all its benedictions bestowed upon me out of pure munificence. 

Nonetheless not even the vestiges of the Golden world can be found in this cauldron, our world! Dualities, the inscrutable and the inseparable, lie at the heart of this mortal world – a paradox unplumbed. From the silver dime (the obverse and the reverse) to the elitist spiritualism (Man and God), from the esoteric intricate binaries (zeros and ones) of the switching circuits to the De Brogli’s wave/particle duality, duality is the norm. Corin in ‘As you like it’ by Shakespeare, Act – 3 scene 1 line 26-27 states that “The great of cause of the night is lack of the sun”. The yin and yan have existed from time immemorial. But I’ve many times beheld keenly the skies kiss the bashful maiden earth at the horizon and have felt jealous. O that I understood this mystery! However suffice it to assert that it is wise to extrapolate the duality to the virtual world where one may run into gobs of vicious devils desperate to compromise their fellow mates’ security for their personal gains. 

My major at Trinity College would be computer science. I’m more biased towards Information Security and Ethical Hacking. The antiquated world chattered its teeth in the face of a glistening poniard but today the threats have grown much more subtle in nature. To slay a person with a single slash is better than to hack his or her computer! The avaricious fools (modern cow boys) out there, just ‘For a Few Dollars More’, hack the bank accounts, use their social engineering skills to set up a trap for the not so well-informed, assault an individual’s privacy, breach laws that foster harmony in the community or may be just out of a cynical outset plague the world to derive sadistic pleasure. The world is progressing towards ‘Artificial Intelligence’ where humans would be superseded by machines if left unchecked. Science fiction movies such as ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Surrogate’ are no more the figment of man’s imagination but will be embodied into the silicon chips at the earliest. 

The global community is in the need of people who will prevent the world from running into the hands of ‘machine minds’ and at the same time develop ‘machine hearts’ that shower the earth with boons unabated! The brevity of a bard makes his expression poignantly heart wrenching. To weave a maze of ornate clauses does not become me. The succinct three lines at the beginning of this paragraph have sought to maintain the ineffable ember burning at innermost recesses of my being.