Undergraduate / What Falling Off A Horse Taught Me; Common App Extracurricular [2]

For the Extracurricular Essay on the Common App I decided to write about one of my favorite activities, horseback riding. This is a rough draft and I really need ideas or corrections on how to improve this.

I can remember the thud of my back hitting the ground, and the sight of two metal clad hooves hovering above me. As my horses hoof struck the ground right near my head I could remember my very first coach telling me that I wouldn't be a real rider till I fell off or was thrown off. For most of my horseback career I assumed this was something coaches said to make little kids feel brave. But right then I began to understand what people meant when they said falling makes you a real rider. In the horseback community falling is both a disgrace and an achievement. Falling means you failed, and in any competition it is sure to earn you last place. But being thrown is an achievement too because sometime after being thrown riders find the strength inside themselves to get back in the saddle which at some point down the line just means being thrown again. Riders learn a lot from falling than just what pain feels like. Falling teaches riders how to be humble and admit to a mistake, it teaches them how to fix their mistakes and most importantly it teaches them how to continue on.

Undergraduate / How France Made Me Change Schools/ Common App [7]

This is for the Common App personal Essay:

Two weeks before I was set to enter my senior year at Hudson High School, my father came home with the news that his job transfer went through and we were being relocated to Brest, France. For two days I attended Hudson High like a normal student because my parents did not know what they would be doing about my education in France. It turned out that Brest does not have an American or International school, so my parents went into panic looking for schooling options. My mother finally stumbled upon the answer, K12 International Academy, an online school.

My parents presented me with the option of staying in America through December and attending Hudson High School so that I could walk at Hudson's graduation ceremony. Walking at graduation was a luxury I would not be given at an online school, where the students are spread out across the globe. My parents knew how much I had been looking forward to walking at graduation, and worked out an early graduation plan with my principal, where I would graduate in December, and come home from France to walk at graduation. I was all set to take the deal until my dad got word that the rest of the family would move in the beginning of November. This brought up a lot questions I had to find answers to. Who would I stay with when my family left? What would I do to continue my education in the months between my early graduation and entering college while in France? Would missing my family be an issue? What factors hadn't I considered?

When my parents and I sat down to discuss what I had decided my mother asked me to consider what doing online school would mean to my sister Kayleigh. She was already having a difficult time with the upcoming move, and the unknown of online school spooked her even more. My parents reasoned that not only would I be there to help her academically but emotionally with the transition. That eventually became another reason why I decided to go to K12, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that online school presented me with the flexibility I needed to expand my horizons. It would introduce me to people from all over the world, and when in France it would give me the ability to travel freely and go to school simultaneously.

The thought that I could have stayed in public school and walked at graduation occasionally pops into my head. But the thought of sitting in an overcrowded room listening to speech after clichĂŠ speech no longer bothers me. I no longer pine over the loss of my high school graduation, but look forward to my college graduation.

Undergraduate / Marketing and public relations; Emerson Supp/ What influenced to choose my major [3]

The Emerson Supplement has this question: As you know, the academic programs at Emerson College are focused on communication and the arts. Please tell us what influenced you to select your first choice major and, if applicable, your second choice major. (100-200 words) Not sure if this essay is any good.

If high school teaches teens anything, it is that image is everything. High school is a time when we accept others opinions and ridicule as law, and allow it to rule us. Kids spend hours of their precious time sculpting their Facebook page to perfection. What we hear on Facebook or Twitter is not questioned, and can ruin a person's reputation in a second. Instagram runs peoples fashion sense, and when the same pair of boots pop up on a feed more than once, suddenly everyone has to have them. We do all this and more, just to be kept from being swept aside.

Social media opened my eyes to a world where information is traded instantly and can influence an opinion without a moment's notice. After four years of keeping my head above water in the tropical storm we call high school I realized that everything that all this is a type of job in the corporate world. The idea that a commercial before a Youtube video, or an ad on the side of Facebook can sway a person's opinion is fascinating to me. Marketing and public relations is a growing field, it adapts and changes with the time just as I learned to in high school.

Undergraduate / Marketing Supplement for Emerson/ Choosing the major [3]

In July of 2012 Americans watched over 9.6 billion video ads, which is a total of 3.9 billion minutes. The internet and the media that grew from it have changed the way companies market their goods. Online advertising is making significant growths each year and companies are changing from traditional methods of marketing to online advertising. Online marketing saves money for companies and reaches more target audiences.

I grew up in this technologically advanced era that has spawned new ways of advertising. I have been exposed to the enormous shift in the way products are sold. And I believe this change is not going to stop, with all the technological advancements, new social networking sites, and growth in media's presence online, the marketing world is going to have to keep adapting to an online advertising platform. I want to be part of the growth in advertising. I want to find new ways to market people's goods. I want to right in the middle of the change the marketing world is making. I believe that Emerson College's marketing program will give me the communication tools and experience necessary for reaching my goals.

As you know, the academic programs at Emerson College are focused on communication and the arts. Please tell us what influenced you to select your first choice major and, if applicable, your second choice major. If you're undecided about your major, what attracted you to Emerson's programs? Please be brief (100-200 words).