A couple of weeks ago I wrote a paper it was more of an analogy between finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe and finding the right college for high school students. Well my professor loved it and suggested that I try to get it published and well I'm going to try but I get the feeling it would not be good enough so, here's my question to you read my paper and telling me what you think about it, and suggestions would be very helpful. So read away....
"Finding the right college is like finding and creating the perfect brownie recipe"
If a high school student came to me and told me they wanted to be successful the first thing I would do is ask why do they want to be successful, and if they told me they wanted to be successful because they want everyone to be envious of them I would tell that they have to go to college, because in order to achieve success you must be willing to put the work in and get educated. Then I would tell them that picking a college is like creating a perfect recipe for a batch of brownies. In order to gain success and achieve their goals a person has to be willing to try and fail, but they also must be willing to fail on more than one occasion; because in order to create a great recipe one must be will to suffer through a few stomachs before coming up with the perfect recipe. “I can’t win anything until I’m willing to lose everything” (Kevin Shultz)
There are six steps one must take in order to achieve the perfect brownie recipe, this includes many trial and errors. Once someone has done the research, put in the time and the energy and has tried countless recipes they will have created brownies that everyone will not only devour but will be completely envious because they were not able to come up with a recipe that delicious. Just as there six steps to perfecting the best brownie recipe there are six steps a student must take in order to go to a college that will help them get ready for the real world and help them to achieve the success they want.
Step one research, in order to create the perfect recipe one has to research and see what kind of brownies are out in the world because not every recipe is the same. There are different countries which may have different ingredients or the country’s ingredients may have a different type of taste to them because they might be grown differently and because of the differences the brownies may distinct taste. For instance Mexico’s chocolate tends to have a different taste from the type of chocolate that is made in the US, in my opinion it tends to taste more like dark chocolate.
A person can also look at award winning recipes online or in cookbooks and they can compare and contrast the differences between the recipes, by doing this they will be able to see which recipes stand out the most. People who post their ingredients on line or have sold their recipes to companies will do it because they want to show the world how they have successfully created a recipe every person will want to have and want to get recognition for it. “Students who rely on performance goals might be motivated to gain recognition for their accomplishment or to avoid the embarrassment of a poor performance.” (Burger, 2008; 199) When students go to high school many of them know they want to go to college but they know they are not only in competition with the thousands of students in the U.S but the millions of other students in different countries who are all trying to get into the same school and because of this they are determined to stand out from everybody else.
Step two once you have done your research and found a few recipes that not only sound delicious but also have a few of the same ingredients, a person should also look for recipes that o have at least two or three different ingredients form one another. The one or two different ingredients tend to be the key ingredients which make the recipe stand out from every other recipe. For instance one recipe may require molasses, while the other requires miniature non sweetened chocolate chips. Then it’s time to take each recipe find the ingredients which at times can be a bit tedious because at times a local grocery store will not carry certain ingredients and because one has to see if the ingredient can be replaced with another one that will help the brownies have a distinct taste, for instance there are a few grocery stores that do not carry molasses or only have sweetened miniature chocolate chips.
Just like finding recipes students should research and find out what types of schools are available to them. They should look for a few schools that not only catch their attention but offer a few things that are completely different from other schools. For instance one school may offer a class in learning Japanese calligraphy while another school may offer a course in learning to make handbags. Then the student should look to see what the college admission requirements are in order for a student to get accepted, for instance some schools may require SAT scores but not require ACT scores, or at times they will not require either one but require the admission essay and possibly a resume to stand out from all of the other applicants essays.
Step three once you have your ingredients it’s time to have patience and put a few recipes together this will require a lot of time because there are moments when one thinks certain ingredients will go well together but in the end the combination can be an awful blend. For example the combination of chocolate and sweet and low sugar is not a very good combination because sweet and low can be over powering and because of this sweet and low will over power the taste of the chocolate and in the end instead of tasting chocolate people will only taste the sweet and low. When looking at college requirements, most of them will require an admission essay a person should writing down a few ideas they could talk about in their essay. They also make sure the courses they are taking in high school will help them be successful in college. Taking only the course requirement in high school and not taking enough extracurricular classes to expand one’s horizons will make a bit difficult for students to want to expand their horizons in college.
Step four once you have the have a few recipes put together then comes the fun part, baking and tasting. Once you have ingredients all together in a bowl take a bit of the mixture to taste to make sure it tastes good. By tasting the raw mixture a person will be able to determine whether or not to even bother baking the mixture because if the brownie mixture does not taste well together before its baked then chances are once you bake the mixture the brownies themselves will not taste good either. If the raw mixture does not taste good then the baker should try to find out what ingredients did not work well together, they should also try to figure out why the recipe did not work. When a student has narrowed down the schools they are interested in they should not only read about the schools but they should also take a tour of the school and see if the school looks as amazing in person as it does in the college catalogs.
Because I can honestly say there were times when the schools sounded great in print but when it came down to seeing them in person there were times when I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. There were a few times when I walked onto the campus and thought “really was the picture they put on the catalog from another school because this looks nothing like the picture.” There were also times when I sat in on a few classes found myself thinking “this teacher is putting me to sleep, could he speak any slower.” Then there were times when I would to go to a school and think instantly “oh wow this campus is so beautiful and so serene.” I remember one of the first things I thought when sitting in Concordia’s classes was “wow this teacher really loves her job.” I remember seeing the enthusiasm as she spoke about the subject and everybody in the class was very engage and excited as well it got me excited as well.
Step five trial and error as I mentioned before a person has to have a few different recipes before finding the right one. This may mean baking four or five different recipes before finding the recipe that makes your stomach scream “give me more brownies!” This also means having other people try your recipe and getting suggestions from other people as to how to improve your recipe. This is also applies to students when they are looking at colleges they should not only visit and read about the college they should also talk to students who go to the school and see why they chose the school.
High school student should also try to remember when choosing a college to go to they should try to write down the reasons they are interested in the schools they have chosen; reasons such as liking how the professors teach, whether or not they like the idea of having to pay to use the laundry machines, or to pay for toilet paper. Whether or not they will also be able to stay in a dorm or save money by living at home with their families could also be a factor in making the decision. They may want to factor whether or not lecture halls will be an issue when choosing a school because there are some students who like their classes to be small because they want to have the ability to have that one on one connection with their professor. They should also remember to choose more than one school to consider because there is always the possibility that when they apply the school may reject them.
Step six the perfect recipe, after attempting many different ingredients and after having tried a variety of different recipes and after having a plethora of brownies by the 30 or 100th recipe a person should be able to choose the recipe that made their stomach and mind melt the minute they took a bite of the brownie. After going through three or four years of high school, taking all the course requirements necessary not only to graduate high school but to be able to go to college and after taking ACT and SAT classes that will help them to get the highest score possible. Then after writing one to twenty drafts of a college admission essay and submitting all twelve of their college application, they will come home from school one day and get the acceptance letter from the school that melted their stomach as well as their mind.
Once they are in college they will have the opportunity to start their career as a college student. In college they will be given the opportunity to take as many classes as they want to help them expand their horizons and give them an opportunity to see the types of careers that are available to them. Then once they have chosen a major they will be able to throw themselves into the major that will make not only make them happy but will give them the success they need.
There were six steps involved in creating the recipe for the most amazing brownies and just like the brownies choosing the right college requires six steps as well. As I said earlier in my paper a person has to have a lot of patience because choosing the wrong college is the same as choosing a wrong ingredient to put in the recipe, one bad ingredient could lead to the worst brownies, choosing a college for the wrong reasons could lead to four to five years of being miserable in college.
