CRITICAL & CREATIVE THINKING STATEMENT

In an age of increasing automation, standing out is becoming ever more important. Critical and creative thinking skills are one of the realms in which we can still stand out. Over my life and throughout my schooling experience, I have developed such skills. I would like to outline two artefacts from my time as a student at the University of Washington Bothell.

In the winter quarter of 2025, I wrote an essay examining climate change for the class Intro to Climate Science. The specific case I chose to study was the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. In this essay, I demonstrated my ability to think critically by synthesising information from multiple sources to build a cohesive argument. I examined a number of sources linking climate change to extreme weather events, and specifically the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. I also analysed a number of other sources to find how mismanagement in the incentive structure for Texas’s deregulated energy market led to the failure to protect critical equipment, causing the blackouts that disproportionately affected Black, Hispanic and low-income families.

This essay also showcases my creative thinking through the solutions I proposed. Instead of just describing the problems, I developed recommendations at multiple scales, from governmental policy changes, such as mandating winterisation of infrastructure and connecting to the national power grids, to individual actions like improving winterisation of homes and building community support networks. The multi-level approach showcases my ability to use critical and creative thinking, all of which exemplifies my skills in this arena.

My second artefact is a scene analysis I wrote in fall 2024 for Introduction to Film Studies, examining the climactic confrontation scene in Dee Rees’ film Pariah. This assignment required me to analyse how cinematic techniques communicate meaning beyond dialogue. I demonstrated critical thinking by closely examining the cinematographer’s deliberate choices—the claustrophobic close-ups, the frenetic documentary-style camera movement, and the way at least two of the three characters remain visible in nearly every frame. I interpreted these technical decisions as visual metaphors for the family’s entrapment in their destructive argument, showing my ability to move beyond surface-level observation to deeper analytical interpretation.

Creative thinking emerged in how I connected specific visual moments to thematic meaning. For instance, I identified how the camera “pins” the protagonist Alike against the wall just as her parents’ accusations do verbally, and how the editors’ rapid cutting between angles creates a “visually nauseating” effect that mirrors the emotional violence of the scene. This analysis required me to think imaginatively about the relationship between form and content—understanding that filmmakers communicate through visual language as much as through words. By articulating these various connections, I demonstrated my capacity to engage creatively with complex artistic works and communicate my interpretations clearly.