College Essay
Essay Prompt:
Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
Colleges I’m applying to:
Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
Colleges I’m applying to:
- University of Denver
- Lewis and Clark College
- University of Puget Sound
- Montana State University
- Colorado State University
- University of Hawaii at Manoa
- University of Illinois at Chicago
- Willamette University
- Western Washington University
College Essay Reflection
Goal 1- Improving the Hook. Moving into my future writing I will make sure that I am introducing my pieces with a strong and elaborate hook. In the first few stages of developing my college essay I encountered many problems with my hook. I could not figure out where to start but in my essay first draft I started with “Throughout my internship, my active attention to detail was crucial in many aspects. I had to understand the little differences between the arthroscopic tools and make sure everything was set up correctly for the surgeries.” The quote from my essay is being used in my third paragraph but I felt that it did not really grab the reader's attention. With the support of my peers I was was inspired to bring the reader up close to my experience and use an anecdote to show them how I really felt during this life altering experience. It was powerful, so it needed to be expressed in that fashion. I feel that for my future essays I will continue to improve on this skill because I believe that it is very important and valuable to the essay. I can do this by creating memories for life and lines that may be skewed,but impactful to the story as a whole. I will use the experience to grow in the area of developing concise and clear anecdotes to help improve the integrity of my writing.
Goal 2- Making sure my Ideas Flow. After I had produced this essay, I felt that some of my sentences and ideas did not flow into the next part of the text. It was difficult for me to piece together logical transitions and this was especially shown when I stated, “ I am eager to seek opportunities that allow me to explore this field and ultimately create a vision for my future. This feeling was indescribable but one of the biggest reliefs in finding something that I am truly passionate about studying.” I put these sentences together in a way that could have been condensed into a more specific way. I felt that I did this a few times but I would change it to “Although this feeling was indescribable, it was a huge relief in finding something that I am passionate about learning.” Replacing this sentence with the first one would have helped me with the word count and potentially giving me more space to write. I will continue to apply this skill in my future writing because I believe it is beneficial to the strength of my writing and in turn it would make my writing more specific and concise. This applies to making sure my ideas flow together because if I use specific word choice i will be able to make easier transitions into other parts of my writing. I will continue to improve this skill-set by using the thesaurus and spending time reading over my essay for areas I could change and condense the wording.
Goal 3- Comma overuse. During this process of creating this essay, I was very convinced that the words I was typing needed to sound exactly like I talk in real life. I was excessively using commas to continue my sentences that ended out being run on sentences. For example, In my essay I said, He then gathered the arthroscopic equipment to perform the ACL surgery, with tools provided by Arthrex, the company I was interning for.” Adding this into my essay was very difficult. The overuse of commas might have confused the reader and it was just not necessary. For future assignments I plan on focusing a lot of my revision time to making sure there is no run on sentences and the ideas flow in a logical way.
As I look back at my first draft of my college essay, I noticed that my ability to bring the reader up close with my experience was very valuable. In my first essay It was dull and just told the basic story of my internship, as I received feedback from Claire on how I should bring the reader up close in my experience. She told me to think back, “remember something that the doctor said that was impactful to you.” I don't have the specific wording that I used in my first draft but as I thought about something I could say to improve it I began to try different sentences out in my essay. The final anecdote that I chose to put in my essay was, He began the surgery and about two minutes into the operation he paused and said “Jake, do you understand what the goal of this surgery is?” I said “No sir, in fact I have absolutely no idea.” I believe that adding this to my essay gave it great context so the reader really knew how I felt. I still have plenty of room to grow in this area and have the ability to show and not tell. The fact that she opened my eyes to these possibilities will give me ideas for the future writing and I will continue to grow in that area.
Goal 2- Making sure my Ideas Flow. After I had produced this essay, I felt that some of my sentences and ideas did not flow into the next part of the text. It was difficult for me to piece together logical transitions and this was especially shown when I stated, “ I am eager to seek opportunities that allow me to explore this field and ultimately create a vision for my future. This feeling was indescribable but one of the biggest reliefs in finding something that I am truly passionate about studying.” I put these sentences together in a way that could have been condensed into a more specific way. I felt that I did this a few times but I would change it to “Although this feeling was indescribable, it was a huge relief in finding something that I am passionate about learning.” Replacing this sentence with the first one would have helped me with the word count and potentially giving me more space to write. I will continue to apply this skill in my future writing because I believe it is beneficial to the strength of my writing and in turn it would make my writing more specific and concise. This applies to making sure my ideas flow together because if I use specific word choice i will be able to make easier transitions into other parts of my writing. I will continue to improve this skill-set by using the thesaurus and spending time reading over my essay for areas I could change and condense the wording.
Goal 3- Comma overuse. During this process of creating this essay, I was very convinced that the words I was typing needed to sound exactly like I talk in real life. I was excessively using commas to continue my sentences that ended out being run on sentences. For example, In my essay I said, He then gathered the arthroscopic equipment to perform the ACL surgery, with tools provided by Arthrex, the company I was interning for.” Adding this into my essay was very difficult. The overuse of commas might have confused the reader and it was just not necessary. For future assignments I plan on focusing a lot of my revision time to making sure there is no run on sentences and the ideas flow in a logical way.
As I look back at my first draft of my college essay, I noticed that my ability to bring the reader up close with my experience was very valuable. In my first essay It was dull and just told the basic story of my internship, as I received feedback from Claire on how I should bring the reader up close in my experience. She told me to think back, “remember something that the doctor said that was impactful to you.” I don't have the specific wording that I used in my first draft but as I thought about something I could say to improve it I began to try different sentences out in my essay. The final anecdote that I chose to put in my essay was, He began the surgery and about two minutes into the operation he paused and said “Jake, do you understand what the goal of this surgery is?” I said “No sir, in fact I have absolutely no idea.” I believe that adding this to my essay gave it great context so the reader really knew how I felt. I still have plenty of room to grow in this area and have the ability to show and not tell. The fact that she opened my eyes to these possibilities will give me ideas for the future writing and I will continue to grow in that area.