Essay Test: Travel, Philosophy -- Inside Out

The following essay was submitted as a part of the application materials to highly selective universities in the US.

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I travel frequently. Well, fairly frequently for a girl from tobacco country. And I have a bit of the philosopher in me about the whole idea of a journey, of the movement-as-search-for-the-unattainable-desire already memorialized in Joyce’s Dubliners-- my favorite book for planes. But on one trip, I encountered someone who taught me truths about myself, instead of allowing himself to be pigeonholed into one of my all-inclusive labels.

I was fourteen, and traveling by myself to France, trying to keep my rapidly inflating ego in check. I was on a train heading from Paris to Limoges—some four hours away—where I planned to meet my god sister. Then a bearded man walked into the compartment. Then another man. I panicked. Although I had already taken two years of French, I spoke awkwardly at best, and could comprehend little. Especially when a Frenchman stuck a cigarette between his lips, yanked at the window, nodded to me, and then loosed a stream of mumbled vowels. I debated whether or not to risk a conversation, then decided against it. With my luck I would probably tell him I had eaten the window with orange and fish.

“Desole, je suis americaine,” I said, and added my perkiest, most desperate smile. “Forgive me”, I tried to telepath. “Your country is beautiful. Love those pastries.” It was going to be one heck of a train ride.

The second man sat next to me. He was young—probably just a university student. Acne scars scraped across his chin.

“He wants to know if you would mind if he smoked a cigarette,” he translated.

“You speak English!” I cried. Too loudly, I think. He drew back as I leaned toward him excitedly, like a hungry dragon swooping in for the sacrifice. “Oh, tell him I don’t mind at all. Where did you learn to speak English?”

I found out that my first impressions were right. He was a university student from Budapest, named Ishmael, a beautiful name linked inexorably in my mind with Melville and his great novel. He shared his lunch of apple and potato chips with me, as we discussed eastern European politics, something I knew nothing about.

“What was it like to live under Communism?” I asked. I’m talking to a real live oppressed person I thought in my happy ignorance. His face changed and he gave me a dark smile.

“I was too young to know, but my mother told me that when she grew up any time anyone complained about Communism in the house someone would tell her, ‘Be Quiet! The walls have ears!’” His voice was like the after-hum of bees.

“Things are not that much better for many now. Not like America.”

“Our political situation is deteriorating, I said. “Along with the tolerance in my country for people of different backgrounds, religions, socio-economic stations.” I realized simultaneously how intelligent I sounded and how pompous I was. Still, I would never be gagged from speaking in my own home.

The topic of our conversation spread, as teenage talk usually does. We discovered both had an affinity for Mahler and the Beatles, Kandinsky and Sam Francis, Milan Kundera and T.S. Eliot.  He lectured me on the frivolity of nineteenth century literature and I disagreed. Then, glowing and keyed up with my own intellectualism, I brought reality, the mother load of all philosophical ponderings.

“I think nothing is real but our basic instincts. Eating, sleeping, breathing, coveting,” he said. “What about art and literature?” I asked. The other people in the compartment were looking up as my voice grew shrill. “What about God and envy and reason, and everything else like that?”

“How do you know those things exist?”

“If we didn’t how could we conceive them?”

“I don’t know”, he said calmly “I don’t know how something like reason came about.”

“Reason is instinct!” I said. My voice rose a pitch higher. “Reason lies at the base of all other instincts. Man has the instinct to forage for food. But the reason—because he is hungry—is behind that instinct. It is behind every instinct.” Ishmael bent his head slightly. A blush started under his pimpled skin.

“You are probably right,” he said very quietly. “I do not know how metaphysics are taught in the U.S. (here I realized I didn’t know what metaphysics was) “and it has been too long since I studied philosophy.” Seeing how he gracefully bowed in defeat to me, a young kid, because he realized just how much I wanted to win, to show him how much I knew, I calmed myself, took a deep breath, and understood how much smarter he was than I.

I would learn more from Ishmael than I did from my train seat, with the French villages rising and falling away outside our windows like the blue-veined legs of old women, and unfiltered cigarettes burning the air. I would grow again, and learn again, from traveling on these metamorphic journeys to somewhere I had not yet reached. But I brought away from our encounter an appreciation for simplicity in humanity. The Hungarian student acting gallantly to a lost American share the same face as others, a face I have come to recognize. It is the face of a person taking joy in things, things like being able to speak freely, to argue out loud, or to not say anything at all.

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Rate this essay from 1-5 with 5 being the highest mark. What rating did you give it and why?

What 3 words would you use to describe the writer of this essay?

What is this essay really about?

How would you describe this writer’s voice?

This essay exceeds the word limit for the Common Application. What would you advise this student to cut to fit the limit?

Many ‘experts’ on admission essays tell students not to write about trips and travel because they often smack of privilege while Disneyfying the place and the people. Do you think this is true of this essay? Why or why not?

Is this student independent? Support your answer with details from the essay.

The student underscores her intelligence several times in the essay. Is this off-putting? Should she be more humble?

Does this essay help predict academic success? If yes, what makes you think so?

Would you want this student as a roommate?

Do you have philosophical discussions with your friends or even with strangers? When was the last time this happened?

Would this essay make for a good scene in the sequel to the film Inside Out? Why or why not?