almaskar

Hey everyone, If you want your supplementals / personal essay reviewed or have any other questions for me about applications or anything else, you may now book a 30min or 1hour one one-on-one meeting with me. DM me @alm_askar for more information (time, price, etc.) The amount of spots is limited. Thank you and Happy Holidays RD season!

“You look lonely. I can fix that.”

I would like to take a moment to thank Freshman Admissions and @valeranotes personally for showing me the art of college essay storytelling one year ago. Besides the fact that a considerable portion of my audience knows me from Freshman Admissions, this summer, Valera generously referred some of his clients to me, and the chain reaction continued to change the fates of people now even beyond just me. Although I do not plan to continue to be in this field in the future, being able to make a direct impact on bringing more Central Asian students on the world stage feels amazing.

one more! NYU Shanghai

One of my students got into Northwestern University in Qatar for full-ride! First in the history of our school. So proud of Aliya.

first time I felt represented here. I think even the official US visa documents don’t include this option. Thank you CS61A.

UC Berkeley has its flaws. But no one can deny that it is a badass of a university. The only institution with an element on the periodic table named after it, Berkeley has more Nobel laureates than Stanford, MIT, and Oxford despite having an endowment 10(!) times less than that of rival private universities. To me, it is nothing short of a miracle. Berkeley is indeed a rebel - not only through its liberal values and the Free Speech movement but also in academia. Go Bears!

you can’t kill a legend.

But if Mexico wanted to join an anti-American military alliance... Berkeley is a deeply liberal campus. Still, there were multiple occasions when I had to explain why saying "Russia's invasion of Ukraine was politically justified" is a fucked up and brain-dead thing to say. They usually sugarcoat it with: "I am not saying it is morally justified, just politically" as if you can dumb down politics to a vacuum. The history of American geopolitics is full of blood, and I guess instead of using it as lessons not to be repeated, American liberals prefer to justify other war crimes and indulge in whataboutism. I do not know why it is so hard to accept the fact that an independent country has the right to distance itself from an authoritative, corrupt, and backward neighbor. *Erica Marat is a Professor at the National Defense University in Washington D.C.

living in the US is when Lady Gaga is advertising a migraine medication right before your yt video

one more example: this is how "design made right" turns a personal introduction “I graduated Berkeley in 1992, worked a part-time job at a bar and drew chalkboards of beer labels for 8$ an hour" to an eye-catching hook that grabs the attention of the audience until the very last slide of the presentation. Infographics immerse in a story, and the story offers infographics. What a beautiful way to approach storytelling.

The Best Presentation in My Life or Designing the Future Matthew Carlson, the Director of UX Design @ Adobe (previously worked at Facebook and Twitter) had insightful takes last Tuesday on how design will adapt to the future we step into as AI proves its place as the next groundbreaking technology since smartphones. Matt argues that at its core, design is a philosophy of how we approach our systems. He reflected that concept elegantly in a set of simple rules and drawings and presented the main design principles of the Modern age: democratization, clearness, and humanness. Any innovation breaks down to the real world and our needs, and Matt understands this better than anyone.

never realized that photo of Nazarbayev aligns so perfectly with that meme until I did that

A presentation I made for my R5A class

never forgive them for what they did.

◼️Можно много рассуждать на тему: «Когда в Казахстане перестало существовать правосудие?», но вчера лично для меня власти забили в её гроб последние гвозди... Убийство 4-летней Айкоркем Мелдехан является одним из самых кровавых злодеяний Акорды в Январской трагедии 2022-го года, и неудивительно, что Токаев пытается скрыть это преступление от общественности. На протяжении всего расследования убийства Айкоркем, её отца Айдоса Мелдехана пытались задобрить разными подачками в виде квартиры, денег, лечения и прочего, чтобы он пошел на примирение с властями, заткнулся и не придавал публичной огласке подробности смерти Айкоркем. Кстати, останки погибшей девочки так и не передали её семье. Через фонд «Қазақстан халқына» (Олжас Худайбергенов - главный «разводящий» Токаева по Қантару) они тогда смогли купить немало семей жертв и пострадавших. Когда это не удалось провернуть с Айдосом Мелдехан, его начали прессовать. Из Акорды спустили приказ для СМИ и блогеров, чтобы они игнорировали любую информацию связанную с убийством девочкой. Я знаю политиков, журналистов, лоров, с которыми они договорились. Пытались выйти и на меня, звонили, просили не связываться с Айдосом Мелдеханом. Я как раз к этому времени выпустил материал про Қантар для проекта Belsat, где посвятил делу Айкоркем отдельный абзац. Мне цинично заявили, что «отец уже выторговал от государства хорошую компенсацию и ему нужно заткнуться. Денег и квартиру он взял, что ещё ему надо? Ведь погибшую дочь не вернешь?!». Скидывали мне и информацию про судимость Айдоса Мелдехана, какие-то нехорошие факты из его биографии. Всё это лишь сильнее убеждало меня, что Акорда, как огня боиться факта убийства Айкоркем. Для неё это злодеяние - триггер, а девочка - сакральная жертва, способная разрушить всю подлейшую ложь, в которую цинично обряжают Январскую трагедию. Это символ расстрелянного и запытанного Қантара, который нужно сейчас скомпрометировать любыми методами. Так что физически убив 4-летнюю Айкоркем в январе 22-го, Токаев сейчас пытается убить её второй раз. Уничтожить, втоптать в грязь память о невинном ребенке, глядящего на нас с вечным вопросом: «Қай аға мені атқан?». t.me/maitanov_online

Our history left us so self-conscious about our national identity that it takes one (!) article title to cause a huge national backlash. (fyi bloomberg has always been a shitty news source) Say, we were able to change that article’s title - what would be the point? What is so important about Western opinion of us? Does the perception of ourselves, as Kazakhs, as a sovereign state with an independent culture have to be ingrained in some ignorant journalists’ view? It saddens me that I see many offended people who seek justice for the idea of Kazakhstan but few for the reality of it where we have to witness our national legend engage in self-harm while protesting his politically motivated prosecution.

I ask each one in my small audience of this channel to not stay indifferent to this situation. Talking about it and acknowledging the oppressive reality we live in is the first step to making changes. This problem is not something global and incredibly complex, neither it is beyond our reach - the government will abuse its power only to the extent we allow it to. Otherwise tomorrow, or the day after that, the system will come after me, you, and everyone else who dares to call reality as it is.