The epitome of innovation
what speaker would you bring to your school?
I was walking through the streets of Bologna Italy when I saw a huge gathering at one of the city squares. It was a climate change summit and they were showing a movie on a huge screen for the entire city to watch. The movie was about people trying to make a change in the world, and one of them was Elon Musk. One of his ideas was to build 7 super battery plants around the world. These 7 plants would have the biggest carbon footprint of any other building ever built but they would be able to supply the entire world with energy. All of his ideas seemed crazy and impossible, but that’s what intrigues me most about him. That is exactly why if I had to invite one speaker to speak at my school it would be Elon Musk.
I came home from the trip thinking about how awesome it would be to talk to him or to hear him speak. Just a couple of months later I watched Elon Musk’s company Tesla unveil their two brand new cars. One was a semi-truck unlike any that the world has ever seen. It is 100% electric, requires 0 maintenance, can go 300-500 miles per charge, and can charge up to 80% in 30 minutes. Those specs are unheard of. Their other car, the Tesla Roadster, is the fastest car ever produced for the public. To think that all these genius ideas and innovations all come from the same person is hard to believe. Any one of Elon Musk’s accomplishments alone would have been enough to make a lasting impact.
I remember my first time in a Tesla Model S one of Elon Musk’s most successful Tesla models. It was like walking into a car of the future. It was silent while driving, but was faster than any car I have ridden in. Its giant touchscreen control tablet made the car feel like a spaceship with all its different buttons and modes. When we went on the highway, Steve, my family friend who was driving the car, took his hands off the wheel and let Tesla’s autopilot do the work. I could not believe that the car was turning by itself and that with all of its sensors was navigating a road that only humans with at least 16 years of living experience and at least 9 months of driving experience could drive on. I loved everything about the car. In my eyes, it was the epitome of perfection.
There are very few people that set goals that are hard to reach, and then do whatever it takes to reach them. Elon Musk does the impossible. The US government has spent billions and billions of dollars on building rockets, and each one of those rockets never returns to the earth. Instead of being content with wasting billions of dollars, Musk’s company SpaceX built and tested a rocket that can go to space and then come back and land on Earth. Elon Musk uses his private company to do the unimaginable. Some call him crazy, but I think he is brilliant. I would love to see what goes on inside his head.
I think that the creative culture at Uni High combined with Musk’s out of the box thinking, would lead to great things just waiting to happen. I think Elon Musk can provide students with inspiration to shoot for the stars, and to always keep improving. This generation has a lot on its plate. With global warming on the rise, and global tensions only growing stronger and stronger, it is up to us to build, innovate, and find solutions. Elon Musk is leading the way and paving a road for young adults to follow and expand on. If he’s not the perfect speaker for my school, I have no idea who is.
I think that you do a really good job of using your own experiences to introduce the reader to Elon Musk. I'm sure you knew about him before the climate change summit in Italy, but that story serves to bring the reader along with you as you learn about him. Throughout, you include personal narrative instead of just talking in the third person about Musk, but there is room for more reflection. I feel like this prompt dosn't lend itself as readily to reflection, but I'm sure there is a way to work it in somehow.
ReplyDeleteHi Ethan!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the beginning of this essay--you set the scene well and drew me in. Perhaps at the end of the paragraph, when you introduce Elon Musk as the person you would invite, you could do it a bit less explicitly in order to not break the tone of that paragraph. Also, while the paragraphs individually contain really interesting information, like your experience in the Tesla, I think they can be a bit more connected to help with the flow of the essay. Good luck!
This was an interesting blog post! I like how you draw in the reader without saying specifically what you are writing about. I agree with Mallika that it might work better to not outright say Elon Musk is who you would invite.
ReplyDeleteNice post. The connection between walking in Italy and learning about Elon Musk is quite neat, and makes your introduction unique. However, I think some parts could be removed and others added. The paragraph about the trucks, for example, isn't the most important to your point. I think you could remove that paragraph and add more transitional sentences to connect the paragraphs that describe him and the more personal paragraphs better, or weave in more personal things to the paragraphs that describe him and his achievements.
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