University Offers Full Scholarship For Best Twitter "Essay"

[tlozoot]

"Taking the burden off the 800-word-essay was a huge incentive," she said, apparently without a trace of irony. "I am on social media almost every day, so it's more comfortable to tweet than to write an essay."

Get the hell out. =/

 

[airrazor7]

"Along with the tweet, all other application materials must be submitted via our facebook page or our Myspace page. If submitting via Myspace you must also submit at least one embarrassing photo album; albums based around vacations and parties are encouraged" Pretty sure I read that somewhere in the fine print...

 

[GiantRaven]

This is a cool idea, cutting down on a lot of unneeded waffle. It won't be easy either. How does somebody define who are they in a mere 140 characters, especially to a degree that would get a University seriously interested in them? An interesting challenge, to be sure.

It reminds me a lot of Brian Eno's comments when creating the Microsoft start-up sound.

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem ? solve it."

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 31/4 seconds long."

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.

 

[IndianaJonny]

Seems very Hemmingway-esque, or that he would approve, at least.

 

[supernovashadow]

How... do you make an essay, when your limit is 140 characters? thats like... thats not even an intro paragraph in my highschool's essays.

and 37000 american dollars? tahts going to pay for FOUR years of college. Not to offend anyone that went there, but what kinda education are you gettng from a state school for that much?

[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iowa]
Quite a good one actually[/link] Yeah, I'm a proud alum.

I agree with those who say it's harder than it sounds to make a good tweet that conveys everything you want to say in 140 characters. It definitely requires some cleverness to focus a message down that far. Plus if we're going to give scholarships to people just because they can run really fast etc., why not?

 

[superstringz]

Anyone can write a 400,000 word novel espousing an idealogy. It takes some genius to describe everything you stand for in 140 characters.

 

[FaustianBargain]

Of course this happens while I'm already enrolled...

 

[Zenode]

How... do you make an essay, when your limit is 140 characters? thats like... thats not even an intro paragraph in my highschool's essays.

and 37000 american dollars? tahts going to pay for FOUR years of college. Not to offend anyone that went there, but what kinda education are you gettng from a state school for that much?

EDIT: THough I do hope there is a follow up story that shows who wins and what the essay was.

Wait are you saying $37,000 is a small or high amount to pay, I'm at one of the best Universities in Australia and im only paying $15,000 for 3 years, so that $37,000 seems ridiculously high to me 0.o

I want to see who wins this, just to see the creativity behind it.

Edit:

University of Iowa alumnus Kinzie Dekkenga decided to take a shot at furthering her post-secondary education after seeing the offer on facebook. "Taking the burden off the 800-word-essay was a huge incentive," she said, apparently without a trace of irony. "I am on social media almost every day, so it's more comfortable to tweet than to write an essay."

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaait, wait wait wait wait, an 800 word essay is a burden? I'd be thankful to have that over the usual 2000-8000 word essays I get!

 

[volcanblade]

I think the idea in itself is a cool way of doing it, but I think a full scholarship is not something they should give out for this unless the rest of the application is really good. I could totally agree with a smaller scholarship like this though.

 

[Micalas]

Or you could just go to a school that doesn't require a fucking essay. Just sayin'...

 

[emeraldrafael]

How... do you make an essay, when your limit is 140 characters? thats like... thats not even an intro paragraph in my highschool's essays.

and 37000 american dollars? tahts going to pay for FOUR years of college. Not to offend anyone that went there, but what kinda education are you gettng from a state school for that much?

EDIT: THough I do hope there is a follow up story that shows who wins and what the essay was.

Wait are you saying $37,000 is a small or high amount to pay, I'm at one of the best Universities in Australia and im only paying $15,000 for 3 years, so that $37,000 seems ridiculously high to me 0.o

...

if the college is as good as it says it is, and you go with a national state average on education, then four years runs from 80-125k (depending on where and what you go for).

so thats very small for four years at a university. Unless Iowa is jsut the poor state.

 

[Alar]

"I won't be attending your college, but I could really use the money. Please help me out!"

Indeed... they will not be able to turn me down.

 

[orangeapples]

800 - 2000 word essays are easy, but 140 characters? I do not even know where to begin. That is way too much to say with such little space.

lol, reading over my initial post it was only 139 characters. still doesn't make it easy. How do you make a quality application in under 140 characters? kinda what to try it now...

 

[Iron Lightning]

Oldspeak burden, is doubleplusungood, Newspeak better.