University why essay

Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking?

What was the outcome? Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Watch the session. Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it. Our families and communities often define us and our individual worlds.

Community might refer to your cultural group, extended family, religious group, neighborhood or school, sports team or club, co-workers, etc. Describe the world you come from and how you, as a product of it, might add to the diversity of the UW.

Tip : Keep in mind that the UW strives to create a community of students richly diverse in cultural backgrounds, experiences, values and viewpoints. You are not required to write anything in this section, but you may include additional information if something has particular significance to you.

Furthermore, the Professional Writing course will teach me how to write in a concise, straightforward style, a skill vital to a journalist. At The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, I will be able to apply the skills learned in class with media studies in and beyond the classroom. The Honors Program provides an opportunity for independent research into the field of mass media, which will allow for intensive group studies and in-depth research opportunities, and the superb networking opportunity provides the chance to meet and engage with prominent figures in media-related studies, which will provide a deeper insight and knowledge into the field.

The Pre-Law Advising Program is interesting because I want to explore the intricacies of law and policies that govern this world. But all these are what UM has to offer me. The various volunteer programs offered by Volunteers Involved Every Week appeals to me, as does the possibility of volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Michigan, as I have previous experience with elementary school teaching.

And as an international student, I know the pains of learning English as a second language. The short hook. Many students spend way too long on their opening when a short one will do. If you use this first approach, get to the main argument as fast as you can. The clear thesis that provides a path for the essay. Three main reasons and bits of supporting evidence per paragraph. As a result, we learn a bit more about both the school and the author.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying. Word limit: I want to be a catalyst when I grow up, someone who sparks growth while also trying to sustain the environment through improved efficiency. I believe that the use of teleoperation in camera traps in wildlife censuses and studies can be a potential gamechanger in a geologically diverse country like India.

I also feel that haptics interfaces can catalyze the process of discovering and studying unexplored biodiversity hotspots like the Western Ghats and the high-rising Himalayas. Besides this, I would also really get a chance to perfect my butterfly stroke through stroke rehabilitation at the Haptics Lab!

I believe that little sparks of innovation can turn into developed businesses if given the right acceleration and, having already negotiated a deal with the software company Everlution Software Ltd. Courses like Engineering Negotiations will advance my skills in the subtle art of negotiation and develop my thinking in high-pressure situations. I also look forward to engaging in bird photography and ornithology by being an active member of the Penn Birding Club and potentially conducting fall bird censuses to illuminate for students the birdlife that nestles in the university.

I hope to photograph and document each and every one of the species Morris Arboretum Checklist of birds at UPenn. Furthermore, courses like Documentary Strategies and Photographic Thinking will help me better integrate critical thought into my photos and construct out-of-the-box documentaries to put into perspective environmental sustainability at UPenn.

Also, contributing photo essays to the Penn Sustainability Review will allow me to depict the need for a change, beyond words. As I move with a redefined pace towards the goal of global sustainability, I am reminded of the UPenn ideology of addressing the most challenging questions and problems of our time by integrating and combining different disciplines and perspectives. Through my stay at UPenn, I hope to do just that.

In addition to providing a strong foundation in economics, Tufts provides me the opportunity to further explore global health care policy through an International Relations Program that leverages the strengths of 18 related departments and programs. Its strengths in Chinese, Econ and International Relations, combined with its beautiful suburban campus, academic rigor, and global reach have confirmed that Tufts is the place for me. But how do you make the school feel really special?

Like this:. How it works: find opportunities that are particular to the school i. This is my favorite approach, as focusing on fewer reasons allows you the chance to share more about yourself and your interests i. But it can be more difficult to write because, frankly, it can be hard to find specifics that truly set a school apart from other schools.

Prompt: Students in Arts and Sciences embrace the opportunity to delve into their academic interests, discover new realms of intellectual inquiry, and chart their own path through the College.

Tell us why the depth, breadth, and flexibility of our curriculum are ideally suited to exploring the areas of study that excite you.

I want to spend my life studying, understanding, and helping to fix the human brain. But just counting the peaks is not the best way to measure the benefits. I look forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of neurophysiology as well as working with better equipment in courses like Principles of Neurophysiology. As someone who has long been passionate about neurotechnology, the fact that Cornell is unique in offering classes devoted specifically to the field is very important to me.

I would love to work with Dr. Chris Xu in expanding the current three-photon microscope to be applied on various animal models. I also look forward to helping Dr. Chris Schaffer, whose research on deep neural activity is not being done anywhere else in the world.

I freak out at the possibility of helping him develop a tool to look at multiple brain areas at the same time. Though I have long aspired to study at Cornell, when I visited and sat in on Neurobiology and Behavior II, it made me all the more determined.

Her animations of neurotransmitters crossing a synapse and new synapses forming in neuron clusters kept her students engaged in a way I have not seen in any other classrooms.

I want to go to Cornell because of teachers like her. During my visit I also enjoyed talking with Kacey about her experiences in the college scholars program.

I loved that she had studied the effects of circus and gymnastic performances, like Cirque Du Soleil, on therapy for children with neurological disabilities. I am very excited by the idea of combining neuroscience with something like the effects of learning a classical language on developing brains.

Many studies have shown the plethora of positive effects of being bilingual, but not much research has been done on classical languages. I have been studying Latin for over seven years, and I have experienced firsthand the positive effects. This is the program I would create for my college scholars project. Cornell is also the only university I am interested in that offers a speaking course in Latin: Conversational Latin. For the past six years, I have rarely had to translate more than a few sentences at a time from English to Latin, never truly experiencing the unique grammatical features of Latin, such as intricate word play by Catullus in his Odes, that drew me so much to this language.

I would love to supplement my knowledge by being able to formulate my thoughts in Latin and actively immerse myself in the language. I am really excited about learning the language as it was meant to be learned, as well as the new perspective it will provide me on Latin rhetorical artifacts.

As a kid who loves inventing, enjoys interactive learning, and wants to speak a dead language, I know Cornell is where I want to be. I wonder if my roommate will mind if I bring my EEG? How this essay is similar to the first approach:. He begins with a short intro and solid thesis; both work well.

He weaves back and forth between what he wants and what the school offers. What sets this essay apart: The four examples that name how the school is unique give us a really clear sense of how Cornell is a great fit for this student. How it works: identify one core value that links you to the school and tell a story.

Students who feel approaches 1 and 2 might blend in too much, and are willing to take a risk. Queen Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Babe Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mash up a historical figure with a new time period, environment, location, or occupation, and tell us their story. Alice falls down the rabbit hole. Milo drives through the tollbooth. Dorothy is swept up in the tornado. Neo takes the red pill.

Rather, tell us about its portal. Sure, some people think of the University of Chicago as a portal to their future, but please choose another portal to write about. Vestigiality refers to genetically determined structures or attributes that have apparently lost most or all of their ancestral function, but have been retained during the process of evolution. In humans, for instance, the appendix is thought to be a vestigial structure.

Describe something vestigial real or imagined and provide an explanation for its existence. All of these require explanation in order to properly communicate their meaning, and are, to varying degrees, untranslatable.

Choose a word, tell us what it means, and then explain why it cannot or should not be translated from its original language. Little pigs, French hens, a family of bears. Blind mice, musketeers, the Fates. Parts of an atom, laws of thought, a guideline for composition. Omne trium perfectum? Create your own group of threes, and describe why and how they fit together.

The mantis shrimp can perceive both polarized light and multispectral images; they have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom. Human eyes have color receptors for three colors red, green, and blue ; the mantis shrimp has receptors for sixteen types of color, enabling them to see a spectrum far beyond the capacity of the human brain. Seriously, how cool is the mantis shrimp: mantisshrimp.

What are we missing? How are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? Possible answers involve, but are not limited to, statistics, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and philosophy. Create your own idiom, and tell us its origin—you know, the whole nine yards. PS: A picture is worth a thousand words. Othello and Iago. Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. Autobots and Decepticons.

History and art are full of heroes and their enemies.