Personal Statement: The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho

A personal legend is a journey that everyone must undergo at some point in their lives to fulfill their life purpose. My name is Mohamed Jallow; I just recently turned 16 years old, and I moved to New Jersey 2 years ago. At this present time, I am very interested in studying Industrial engineer as a major after high school, this discipline will shape me into a leader, and offers a great salary to sustain the quality of life, that I want for me and my family. Reading The Alchemist, alchemist explains to the Shepherd that “…when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too” (pg. 150). I always strive to be the best in anything that i do, and when i taste the fruits of my labor, i would make sure that my family, and everyone that supported me enjoy it as well.

We as a human race are mentally programed to explore the unknown whether it is sneaking out into the woods behind your house as a child or going up into the depths of space. Curiosity is what allows us to think outside the box, and when we expand out of our comfort zones we discover things that help advance our race as a whole. There was once a time when space exploration was just a science fictional thought – humans were never expected to pass through Earth’s atmosphere. It all began during the Cold War, when different counties began competing with each other. The race resulted in numerous satellite launchings and the mission that brought man onto the moon; Apollo 11. This inspired so many in the rising generation to pursue careers in science

My passion for mathematics was fixed at the age of ten, on the morning that my mathematics teacher told I would be sitting the Junior Maths Challenge, 'as practice for when you are older'. As I nervously started to answer the questions, a whole world began to open before me. I revelled in the problem solving, answering questions of a nature I had not seen before. My teachers were delighted when I emerged from the exam hungry for more. Since then I have consistently demonstrated my aptitude, achieving gold awards through to senior level, and scoring highly in the European Kangaroo.

The human mind is already a curious place, but if we go to the deepest corners

Curiosity is often defined as a strong desire to know or learn something. Being filled to the brim with curiosity is one of the most amazing feelings. Finding something you are interested in and wanting to know every single thing there is to know about it. Being inquisitive is such a powerful thing, always wanting to see more, to hear more, to do more, to be more. It makes people who they are, if someone is not very curious, they might be very dull because they know what they know and they are content with that. It is the naturally curious people that get more out of life, because they are always searching for something more, something bigger and brighter, and often they find it. But, in certain situations, being overly

To start off, I enjoy doing labs and research, most people would not want to explore new things but just learn new things. I am different, I want to be the person that makes new things for other people, I want to be the one that experiments with new things and find out myself how something works rather than just Google it and read about it. I feel like I have a lot of curiosity, that I almost feed off it and always follow it. A lot people say that curiosity is not always good that it can lead you to bad situations but I think that it's the opposite. I think that if you experience something by hand you know it the best and it can lead to something that can further be explored. Another part of me loves not just to explore but reach a goal as well.

“The roots of our peculiar curiosity can be linked to a trait of the human species call neoteny.” this is from an article on www.BBC.com, it explains that we humans are curious because of a trait called ‘Neoteny’. It's in our nature to want to explore, to be curious, we will always want to know what's out there. Most of our ancestors were explorers, they would find things that we didn’t even know existed. For example; Neil Armstrong the man who went to the moon, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark who found a water route to the Pacific, and Sir Francis Drake carried out the second encircling of the world in a single expedition. Leading to new discoveries.

Reading has allowed me to become more communicative and understanding of others’ feelings. In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, there is an emphasis on the personal legend of humans. Essentially, the author is conveying that humans should be what they truly want to be, whether it’s pertaining one’s occupancy or personality. I have learned how important this message since in the book it explains that those who don’t learn this will regret it the rest of their lives. Furthermore, I have developed better communicative skills from this as I have learned more about how humans are and whereby I can empathize more easily. This has not only taught me to take this into consideration in my life, but has also taught me about the vulnerability of human nature.

The pursuit of Scientific Vitality is one that can only be characterized by the innate quality of human curiosity. Ranging from the azure color of the sky to the sounds of firetrucks, the moment we enter this world, our mind is constantly flooded with information, many of which we do not fully understand. I had always accredited myself of my curious nature. Even a simple trip to Costco presented to me an opportunity to question close to everything in existence. What made 4K televisions so mesmerizing as they repeatedly played the same mountainous scenery in an inexhaustible cycle of crisp cinematography? What biological miracle had constructed the heavenly dust glistening on the churros of the food court? Why did the paltry amount of free samples

The bestseller novel “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is known by many people for its valuable lessons and ideas. However, I am not one of these people as I am not fond of this book.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a book about a boy that has a dream but tries to pursue his personal legend of finding his treasure. He dedicates his life to finding his treasure but comes across obstacles that keep him from wanting to accomplish this goal. Beautiful riches, a girl named Fatima and other things cross his path and he is almost persuade to give up his personal legend but he meets someone called the alchemist that gives him wise words and makes him realize that in order to be happy and content with his life he has to accomplish his personal legend.

Arguably, the most significant passage in Curious is, “Boredom is furiously averted or deferred; new information and sensations are constantly sought. It is impulsive and irresistible; it seizes us,” (5 Leslie). In context, this quote is describing diversive curiosity, but through analysis it can be see that this is how all of curiosity is.

Ramanujan, because of his lack of ‘formal’ education, could look at the world in a new way and develop unthinkable equations and theories, most of them having been proven correct by researchers around the world. Ono connected deeply with Ramanujan, both sharing a hate for education in their younger years. Yet, while Ono admits that he does not share the genius of Ramanujan, he saw through him that a man who did not even graduate college could achieve greatness in the field of mathematics. Using Ramanujan’s notebooks filled with seemingly meaningless notes and formulas, Ono and his collaborators found a way to find as many functions as he wants as long as their values are algebraic. This discovery made him a world-renowned expert in number theory and mathematics, and especially Ramanujan’s life and works. Ono, in his appreciation to Ramanujan, leads the Spirit of Ramanujan Math Talent Initiative, where he strives to find undiscovered math geniuses like Ramanujan and help them grow in hopes of nurturing someone with as much talent as him in order to help advance the field of mathematics. He also continues to study Ramanujan’s math theories, hoping to one day to understand why Ramanujan saw the importance in his theories and utilize them to solve one of many mysterious laws of the mathematical and theoretical

I remained perpetually curious because of my father’s influence.  I developed a yearning to explore that still remains to this day. At times, I feel that there is nothing that makes me happier than exploring and trying to understand the different systems and technologies that we use on a daily basis. I feel my upbringing has played a definite role in

Mathematics is the one of the most important subjects in our daily life and in most human activities the knowledge of mathematics is important. In the rapidly changing world and in the era of technology, mathematics plays an essential role. To understand the mechanized world and match with the newly developing information technology knowledge in mathematics is vital. Mathematics is the mother of all sciences. Without the knowledge of mathematics, nothing is possible in the world. The world cannot progress without mathematics. Mathematics fulfills most of the human needs related to diverse aspects of everyday life. Mathematics has been accepted as significant element of formal education from ancient period to the present day. Mathematics has a very important role in the classroom not only because of the relevance of the syllabus material, but because of the reasoning processes the student can develop.