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Life
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What is Life?

Life as an academic topic appears across nearly every discipline because it touches the fundamental conditions of human existence — how individuals develop, make choices, navigate systems, and find meaning. In personal issues courses, sociology, nursing, literature, and ethics, students are asked to examine what shapes lived experience and how institutions, relationships, and culture either support or constrain individual ability. The topic resists easy definition, which is precisely what makes it intellectually rich: it forces writers to clarify terms, interrogate assumptions, and connect abstract concepts to concrete human realities.

The papers archived here reflect a genuinely wide range of approaches. Literary analysis appears in essays on works such as Bernice Morgan's fiction and Bessie Head's "The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses," where writers examine how characters construct identity, belonging, and personal freedom. Policy and ethical frameworks drive essays on abortion, DNR legislation, and prison overcrowding, while sociological and cultural analysis informs work on parenting styles, family therapy, and soccer hooliganism. Observational and practice-based writing — such as operating room reflections and evidence-based nursing — grounds the topic in professional experience, showing how the concept of life plays out in direct care and institutional settings.

A strong essay on this topic begins with a focused, arguable thesis rather than a broad statement about life in general. Evidence drawn from specific texts, case studies, policy documents, or observed practice carries far more weight than vague generalization. The most common pitfall is treating "life" as self-evident — a compelling essay defines its scope early, specifying which dimension of individual experience or social process it actually intends to examine.

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Essay Doctorate

Maria Montessori's philosophy of natural child development and education

Learning is a life-long adventure in the philosophy of discovery. To maximize learning, one cannot underestimate two things: learning opportunities and the environment surrounding the learning activity. Learning opportunities must be interesting, meaningful, and purposeful for learners – particularly children. At the very crux of the ideas surrounding the philosophy of education, however, there are two basic views: 1) humans are born with the innate right to learn and self-actualize to their highest degree, or; 2) humans require a strict hierarchy of learning, which then leads to a similar hierarchy within their social contract.

Paper Doctorate

Pascal's gamble as a mystical teaching on faith and belief

This essay is in response to the philosophical argument present by Blaise Pascal in his collection of writings entitled Pensees. The essay reformulates the argument and looks and both sides of the thesis. Ultimately it appears that Pascal's postulate is unrelated until a mystical interpretation is inserted. The paper concludes by accepting mysticism as valid means to interpreting this work.

Essay Doctorate

Leadership competencies and qualities in Napoleon, Prophet Mohammad, and Kevin Rudd

Effective leadership is hardly a matter of chance or luck. It constitutes some sound competencies and traits which every leader must either possess naturally or acquire during his career. Leaders are expected to have major essential competencies in five areas namely, Analytical, Positional, Personal, Communication and Organizational. Not every leader may possess all these but they are widely desired based on literature review and hence a leader lacking any of these might face serious problems.

Essay Doctorate

Genetic engineering's role in addressing global hunger and population growth

This paper analyzes the issue of genetic engineering, and the contribution that genetic engineering can make to the issue of world hunger. The paper covers the contributions that genetic engineering has made to improved yields thus far, and there are also recommendations made as to how genetic engineering can be more useful in solving global hunger.

Paper Doctorate

John Keating's influence on students in Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society is a 1989 film that explores the impact that an English teacher, John Keating, had on his students through his unorthodox methods of teaching and unique perspective on life.

Paper Doctorate

Dehumanization and imperialism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness, a novella by Joseph Conrad, was written at the turn of the century when Great Britain was still living out its last vestiges as the greatest power in the world under the Victorian Empire. Conrad is very symbolic in this story, told in a narrative style. It includes prime examples of sexism and racism as a standard of imperialistic literature.

Paper High School

Elliott Jaques's theory of midlife crisis and developmental transitions

Midlife is a stage in lifespan development and a product of childhood. Reflection and re-evaluation of one's accomplishments does not have to be seen necessarily as a time of crisis and negative experience. Facing existential questions, usually associated with the middle stage of life often entails conflicts between what one is and what one should or could be, but it also opens up new possibilities. Time and maturation underlie existentialist and humanistic ideas associated with search for meanings, individuation, and personal growth.

Research Paper High School

Monogamous, polygamous, and communal family systems across cultures

Family has different connotations for different persons and cultures. In American society, the word is usually meant to denote a nuclear family consisting of a father, mother and their children. However the meaning of family in Asia is different because the family includes the grandparents, relatives and siblings of the elders. Family thus would also denote an entire clan. In African communities the Mormon system has its own connotation of family. Most of the world has some form of plural marriage, or polygamy, and is sanctioned by religions. Polygamy is not a non-western practice, but also exists in modern Western societies.

Paper High School

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" in Dead Poets Society

This paper analyzes the meaning of Robert Frost's "Road Not Taken" as it is read in the film Dead Poets Society. The poem was originally intended to tease Frost's friend, who always became lost after taking the wrong path when walking through the woods. However, the poem became popular as an expression of individuality and non-conformity.

Research Paper Doctorate

New Testament grounds for divorce and remarriage

¶ … New Testament teaches that a man and a woman who marry each other enter into a lifetime commitment and covenant, in which God binds them and holds them accountable to maintain the covenant.

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