Undergraduate / 'the local community garden' - CommonApp Extracurricular Activity [6]

This is the Commonapp essay for elaborating on an extracurricular activity you've done. Please give me some criticism!! Thanks for any help :)

In the Spring of 2011, my mom told me she had signed me up for the local community garden. We planned to donate all of our yields to the soup kitchen. On the first day, there were seven people at the garden plot who had all "willingly" volunteered to help out. I had a miserable time slaving over vegetables and dirt for three hours that day. However, as the garden grew, the effort of the other five volunteers slowly diminished into nothingness and so, I was forced to take on a greater responsibility. In July, I received my driver's license just as our garden came to fruition. The task of delivering the vegetables to the soup kitchen was bestowed singularly on me. With a full basket of vegetables in the passenger seat, I would roll down the windows and drive to the soup kitchen every weekend. The experience was both liberating and rewarding. It was the small things. A nod of approval from a homeless man. A smile from a woman waiting in line. The community garden became an outlet of independence and I am glad my mom signed me up.

Undergraduate / 'The Man in the Glass' - CommonApp Main [3]

It's a little long so bear with me. I think it's a bit unoriginal but it's the truth nonetheless and I'm proud of this essay. However, please give me some criticism. Post some help and I'll help you with your essay too!!

________________

The Man in the Glass

"You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on the back as you pass. But your final reward will be heartache and tears if you've cheated the man in the glass".

These are closing words of Peter Dale Windrow's 1934 poem, 'The Man in the Glass'. I've never been one for poetry. In fact, I rather dislike the whimsical and formless nature of most poems. However, when my mother taped this short poem to the bathroom mirror in the summer of 2009, I was inexplicably moved by Windrow's words. This poem conveys a simple, human truth that I have learned throughout the course of my life.

We are always trying to please someone other than ourselves. It may be a fellow student, a teacher, or a parent. For me, it was my lunch table group during sophomore year. I would say I was fairly popular in the early high school years. However, many would agree that popularity in high school is not a measure of merit. I was popular because I could make people laugh at the expense of another student's humiliation. At lunch, the other students at the table would make fun of a kid named Sam. I could always see the sadness and disappointment in his eyes when the kids jeered him for the way he talked or the clothes he wore. I used to pride myself on not participating in this barrage of insults, however, it is now that I realize this was my greatest failing. I had never spoken out. I had never defended Sam. I was living for the approval of others, but not the approval of myself. During the summer of 2009, I read Windrow's poem on my bathroom mirror. My thoughts immediately turned to Sam and on the first day of junior year, I apologized to him. A few weeks later, I worked up the courage to make a small speech to my lunch table about what I truly thought. Sam and I are good friends now and we sit at our own lunch table with a few other kids. No doubt I am not as "cool" as I once was. I have even been confronted by students asking me why I sit at the losers table now. I tell them, "because that's where my friends sit". We call our table the refugee table because when kids are excluded and ridiculed, they come to at our table to eat lunch. Most of them end up staying.

In life, we seem to always be wearing masks to present a "better" version of ourselves. You can convince your friends and parents of anything. You can earn the appraisal of anyone if you choose. But at the end of day, when you look into the glass, your mask is torn off and your true nature is revealed. I have learned that it is folly to live for another's goals at the expense of your own. Instead, cherish your friendships, but always true to yourself.

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Undergraduate / (Submit button) Emerson 'Title of Your Life Essay' 200 words [3]

This is easily the weirdest essay I've ever written. I have a secondary backup essay in case this one is too...odd. Please critique this, I beg you, I will return the favor. The script format is my own creative decision.

Prompt: Much of the work that students do at Emerson College is a form of storytelling. If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it and why? Please be brief

Essay:

FADE IN:

INT. LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT

The room is almost pitch black except for the blue glow of a laptop reflecting
on a young man's face in the corner of the room.

NAME OMITTED (V.O.)

The Significance of Insignificance.

INT. OMITTED HIGH SCHOOL -- DAY

We see the same young man walking down the crowded hallways of a high school in
slow motion.

NAME OMITTED (V.O.)

All my life I had been a slave to significant factors.

The young man waves to another student passing by in the hallway. A bright light
shines through a nearby window.

NAME OMITTED (V.O)

What I saw on the surface was all that existed. But my years in high school
were an awakening rather than a transition.

The intensity of the light drowns out the walls and the people so that only the
young man is visible walking into a white nothingness.

NAME OMITTED (V.O)

Now, I can finally see the colors in the darkness. The angels in the
architecture. I can finally embrace the insignificance of my own being
so that I can create something truly...significant.

INT. LIVING ROOM -- NIGHT

The young man is typing quickly on his laptop. Finally, he stops. He eyes the golden
"Submit" button at the button on his screen. He takes a deep breath, and clicks it.

CUT TO BLACK.