Instructions

• Write a response to any one article listed below.
• Your essay should be approximately 500-750 words (equivalent to 2 to 3 double-spaced pages).
• Your goal is to demonstrate that you like to think. Write a pro, con, or pro-and-con paper, and feel free to be creative beyond the essay. Give evidence and make illustrations. Be rhapsodic, terse or satiric, but show us an energetic mind.
• No substitutions in genre or media, please.
• We will forward a copy of your essay to the Honors College to serve as your Honors Application Essay. You don't have to apply for the Honors College to compete for a Presidential Scholarship, but it is one of the great options for ambitious students enrolling at ACU.

Format

• At the top of your essay, give your name, email address, and phone.
• Give an original title for your essay.
• Below your essay title, state the topic you are discussing.

Essay Topics

• Henry David Thoreau said, "Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Argue how this philosophy would or would not work for achieving a career. Explore at least one example (real or hypothetical) in detail.
• Bill Gates said, "I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in." In view of how terrorists use cell phones and the Internet, how people wreck cars while text-messaging, and so forth, is Gates's statement valid? Why or why not?
• Margaret Thatcher said, "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects." Discuss why you agree or disagree.
• Arnold Toynbee said, "Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice." Show how this principle works or does not work in some particular field (politics, sports, family life, religion, etc.). Explore at least one example (real or hypothetical) in detail.