Writing Feedback / 'Inspiration to my brother and sister' your short and long-term goals and priorities [4]

Discuss your short and long-term goals. Are some of them related? Which are priorities?

Am I answering the questions correctly? Do I have any grammatical errors? Any suggestions on how to improve this essay?

Civil engineers aren't just in demand, they are a necessity. Many civil engineers were involved with Hurricane Katrina clean up, and others are helping to redesign cities and suburbs. Their knowledge and skills give birth to magnificent structures and are behind everyday constructions that the general public takes for granted, like the bridges we cross, the malls we shop at, and the houses we live in. After receiving a degree in Civil Engineering I hope to work on improving upon already built structures, creating new ones, and contributing innovative ideas and functions to the world around us. Another goal I want to achieve with my degree is to improve underdeveloped countries . My parents lived in poor conditions when they where young so I want to help people who are living like that today. I also plan to take care of my family and have a family of my own.

Along with this, I hope to be an inspiration to my younger brother and sister. I hope to show them that there are no obstacles big enough to prevent them from reaching their dreams. I hope I can inspire them to get an education so they can reach those dreams. My twin brother and I are hopefully going to help them pay for their college education when that time comes.

My short-term goal is to gradute from high school with high grades and to learn as much as I can so I can be prepared for college. Along with this, I am also working towards receiving scholarships so I can afford my education. If I achieve these short-term goals, I will be able to achive my long-term goals of working as a civil engineer and making a positive contribution to my family and to the world.

Undergraduate / 'A track meet' - involvement in and contributions to a community near your home [2]

Discuss your involvement in and contributions to a community near your home, school, or elsewhere. Please select an experience different from the one you discussed in the previous question, even if this experience also involved leadership. What did you accomplish? How did this experience influence your goals?

Do you see any grammatical errors? Is it answering the question being asked?

A couple of years ago, I had the honor of volunteering with the Special Olympics Program which benefits people with mental disabilities. I had no idea what to expect the first time I volunteered at an event like this. I had never met a person with mental disabilities so I was afraid of not knowing what to do or what to say to them.

The event was a track meet and you could see athletes everywhere. Some were running, others were sprinting, others were jogging. My first job consisted of timing the races. As time passed, I saw myself cheering them on and yelling at the top of my lungs. I almost even forgot to stop the timer once because I couldn't contain my excitement. After timing the athletes, I got to walk them to the water cooler. As we walked down the grass, some of them would tell me about how much they had trained and others would tell me about how they had beat their best friend in the race. It was so much fun listening to the racers' captivating stories. In no time, I was talking to the kids as if I had known them for quite awhile.

My best experience that day was getting a hug from a little girl named Casey when I was leaving. I was happy that I had helped her, but more than anything, I was grateful that she demonstrated how anyone, not matter what obstacle or disability, can work hard for their dreams. Though she did not win first place in her race, she was ecstatic, and I know all her hard work and training paid of.

I'm glad I got to go and help by cheering the athletes on as they ran around the track, serving them water as they crossed the finish line, giving them food during their break, and even talking to the participants. That day I realized that community service is more than just work. Community service became a way to learn from others and experience what the world has to offer while offering the world what you have. This experience inspired me to use my talents and skills to help others, and to take full advantage of my college degree in order to make the world a better place.

Writing Feedback / Essay about an unfair situation [2]

Briefly describe a situation in which you felt that you or others were treated unfairly or were not given an opportunity you felt you deserved. Why do you think this happened? How did you respond? Did the situation improve as a result of your response?

Do you see any grammatical errors? Am I answering what the question is asking?

According to the most recent U.S. Census in 2000, minorities account for almost half Conroe's population. Hispanics account for 32.6 percent of the population and black residents account for 11.1 percent. Only about two percent of the registered voters in Conroe voted in the last municipal election. After finding this information with the help of our sponsor, the Youth League of United Latin American Citizens of Conroe decided to be proactive. We endeavored into a number of events that would change the lack of political activism in our community. Many of us in the Youth LULAC live in neighborhoods where the vast population is made up of minorities. We decided it was about time we did something to change our community for the better.

In a democracy, fairness is everyone having a voice. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is "government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people." With so many people not voting and not participating in Conroe's political process, everyone's voice is not being equally heard and therefore the process is unfair. With houses getting flooded when heavy rain falls and roads needing repair, people need to be able to know about the candidates and vote for the one who will best meet their needs or at least listen.

One of the ways we responded was by going door-to-door, handing people voter registration cards, and helping them fill-in the information. Our sponsor helped us by telling us where the least amount of people were registered to vote. We also offered to call people already registered to remind them when the next elections were. All of these people agreed to give us their number. After this, we planned and went to a town meeting in downtown Conroe. My AP Government class had recently debated the issue of moving to regional primaries in order to have a better representation of the America populace. We decided to take this at the local level and ask the government officials to consider single-member-districts. In single-member district elections, district residents can only elect someone from their district. In at-large elections, all residents vote for all positions. We reasoned that single-member districts would allow residents to have more of an equal voice and more control over governmental decisions than at-large elections.

Ironically, though we were working for better equality and fairness, we came across racist remarks. The local newspaper decided to interview some of the Youth LULAC members after the meeting. A couple of days after the newspaper came out, some people posted ugly remarks on the newspaper's online version. These people claimed that we were a group made up of illegal immigrants who didn't pay taxes. According to these people, we were just here to take their money. They also called us ignorant all because we were a "bunch of high school students." Of course, we wrote back saying how they were wrong in their assumptions. We waited a couple of days for their response, but they never wrote back.

Overall, our efforts of making Conroe's political system more fair is slowly progressing. Though we didn't get single-member districts and received some hostility from some people, we are pushing forward with our efforts. We are currently planning a voting registration fair and a debate among the congressional candidates. Hopefully our efforts will eventually lead to a Conroe where more people are politically active, voicing their opinions, and accepting of each other.

Undergraduate / 'History teacher' - discussing the subjects with which you had difficulty. [3]

Discuss the subjects with which you had difficulty. What factors do you believe contributed to your difficulties? How have you dealt with them so they will not cause problems for you again? In what areas have you experienced the greatest improvement? What problem areas remain?

Do you have any suggestions to better my essay?

When I was younger, history seemed like the most pointless subject in the world. "Why do I need to learn this if it already happened? How are dead people and dead events going to be of use?" Because I truly didn't find history the least bit enjoyable, I tended to not try. Memorizing dates and names of people was so exhausting and I never seemed to remember them except for the day of the test.

As I learned more and more about the history of Texas, the United States, and the World, I came to realize the important of our past. I came to realize that in order to truly understand who we are and how we came to be, we need to understand our past. My history teacher my sophomore year, Mrs. Hirshey, truly inspired me by reminding the class that the names we memorized were people just like us. They struggled, had problems, experienced war, experienced poverty, high taxes, and if we don't want to make the same mistakes they made, we need to make sure that we know how they dealt with their problems. I came to realize that history does repeat itself and if only people realized that people before had the same problems, we could learn from them and get ideas from how they solved or didn't solve their issues.

As I became more interested in history, I actually learn the names of people as if they where new friends whose name I couldn't help but remember. Dates became as important as a family member's birthdays. Columbus day and president's day became something to truly celebrate. These days were days to celebrate my countries past.

Now, whenever I find myself apathetic towards a subject, I remember how finding relevance to my own life helped me do better in a subject. Now, my only problem is caring about so many eras in history. I can't find time to get to know all the influential people in the Italy's reconnaissance period and the important philosophers who shaped our government's principles such as Locke!

Undergraduate / Essay about the subjects in which you excel or have excelled. [3]

Discuss the subjects in which you excel or have excelled. To what factors do you attribute your success?
Do you have any suggestions on bettering my essay?

My enthusiasm and the strongly committed teachers I've encountered in my life have attributed to my success in Math.

In fourth grade, my math teacher, Mr. Pizzini, would encourage his class by recognizing our achievements with small rewards such as stickers or even posters of our favorite singers. I remember winning the math ladder competition the first time and receiving a trophy for beating everyone in my class. His encouragements and recognitions sparked my interest in math. Later on, I learned to enjoy math because I felt accomplished when I solved a problem or I helped a friend with a problem they couldn't figure out. I also found that the benefits of Math were everywhere. When I joined band, sight reading music seemed fairly easy to me because counting the beats and rests was all Math.

When I got to high school, I was fortunate enough to meet the best math teacher ever, Mr. Sheridan. Not only was he a wonderful teacher, but he shared and passed on his love for Math to all his students. He never failed to give an encouraging word or draw a "good job!" whenever we aced our calculus tests. Last year he even had a party after school where he have us snacks and showed us a fascinating video about the Pythagorean Theorem. Though this doesn't sound like much of a party, the enthusiastic faces and discussion we had over the movie made it seem as if we had seen an action packed movie that had won an Oscar! Mr. Sheridan even helped us form a math club. In this club we went out to the junior high school and tutored students and played fun games with them.

I don't think my A honor roll streak in math could have been possible if I didn't enjoy math. I owe this to my math teachers who passed on their love for math and who encouraged me.

Undergraduate / "Tia Rosa", Aunt Rose - someone who has made an impact on your life [3]

can someone edit my essay?

the prompt is: Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.

My essay:

Sometimes we come across a person who changes our whole perspective of life for the better. I came across this person at an early age. She became the person who taught me my prayers before I went to sleep, who let me sleep late on those nights when my parents where out working late, and who demonstrated how something as simple as a pile of pillows had the potential to transform into a majestic castle.

I remember this one instance where I literally forced her to teach me how to knit. I had seen her knitting wool sweaters, moving two needles a hundred miles per hour and magically swaying and bending her long fingers in a fascinating manner. With desperate pleads, I asked her to teach me until she finally gave in. A never-ending battle between those two yarn needles and me went on for hours, but she stayed with me and helped me push through even in my moments of frustrating self-doubt. Thread to thread, she remained by my side just like she would for many years to come.

As a shy, awkward child, starving for recognition and love, I struggled to survive in the vicious world of elementary school. In third grade, I surpassed everyone in my bilingual class the school counselor convinced my parents to move me up into the Gifted and Talented program. This signified the end of my days where Spanish and English intermingled. The counselor moved me to a class where people only spoke English; I was the only Hispanic girl there. Worst of all, I came to find out that these kids in my new class had known each other since they where in diapers, and most of them even lived in the same neighborhood. I felt extremely out of place. I felt ignored. I felt alone. Even at home, my parents were too busy working all hours of the day to listen to what they thought where insignificant dilemmas.

Fortunately, my "Tia Rosa", or Aunt Rose came to my rescue. Only in her early twenties, she immigrated to the United States. Her life in Mexico was that of poverty and as a woman without an education, she found no hope to improve her status. She gathered the courage to come to the U.S, a land over hundreds of miles away from her home, and decided to stay with us. She hoped to better her life and her family's back in Mexico.

After she came, life became much easier for me. When frustration overwhelmed me, she sat next to me and told me to not give up. She even helped me with my schoolwork, which grew more difficult each passing day. Even though she didn't know how to speak English, she allowed me to read to her for my daily reading assignment. She helped me study my multiplication tables and vocabulary words by holding up study cards and quizzing me every night. Most importantly, she listened to me when I needed someone to talk to. Without me telling her, she simply just knew when sorrow overwhelmed my heart or when anger settled in the very pit of my stomach. She would sit next to me in my room and made my problems disappear. With her, I never worried about fitting in or trying to impress others. With her, I danced and twirled to Selena's Cumbia beats that blared out of my dad's black Sony stereo almost every day. With her, I had the best of times plastering Aunt Jemima's Pancake mix all over the stove and pouring different shapes of it into my mom's black clay griddle.

When Tia Rosa went back to Mexico, I realized I had lost a person who gave me the treasures of love and friendship, both so precious and so hard to find. I remember her writing me letters for the first year or so after her retreat. She told me of my family in Mexico, and I told her of the new friends I had made in school or the new book I had just read. Eventually, she had her own family, her own kids, and her own responsibilities. Distance and time slowly drifted us apart. Nevertheless, I still cherish those letters, but more than anything I cherish all she gave me. The confidence I felt when she pushed me forward with her reassuring words, the way she understood me as though she herself had the mind of a young girl, the drive she allowed me to develop by accepting me and tolerating me even in my worst moments, all of this and much more, I will always carry in my heart.