Posts by zcampbell

zcampbell

Sep 22, 2010

Undergraduate / "Google has been one of my closest friends" - Best piece of advice (Brown) [16]

In other words, is supposed to be another way to say that limits don't exist...

I get what you are saying, but the way that I revised it, I was attempting to, in a way, put a play on what it really means and say that even though the idiom already suggests a lack of limit, there can be even less of a limit than the playfully stated limit.

Is that acceptable?

zcampbell

Sep 22, 2010

Undergraduate / "Google has been one of my closest friends" - Best piece of advice (Brown) [16]

Thank you, Rich, for your inspiring words of criticism. I was asking for assistance in my essay, not insults to me as a person.

zcampbell

Sep 21, 2010

Undergraduate / "I began to cut myself daily..." - My Personal Challenge Essay [4]

The biggest problem that I see with this essay is that you have quite a few run-on sentences. I'll try to find them all for you, but look over it again yourself.

It didn't hurt anymore, it didn't matter anymore.

It was probably six weeks into 7th grade and I felt as though my world was coming to an end, I just began to give up slowly, till the point of despair.

The world crashed down on me simultaneously and I didn't take the pressure well.

...and I thought it was stupid, why would someone inflict pain on themselves?

My heart was thumping, I could feel it beating through my chest, the blood pulsing through my veins.

I began to cut myself daily just because I liked the way it felt, it was invigorating.

It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would and I didn't keep anything bottled up, it flowed away from me.

Promises were sacred to us, we rarely made them...

Remember: If you have two independent clauses, they cannot be be separated by only a comma or only a conjunction. You need either a semicolon, end mark, or comma followed by a conjunction.

I stood there numb and emotionless, as I trailed the last few drops... (trailed does not sound like the right word here. I would say something like, "as my eyes followed")

I didn't even recognize me anymore. (Use "myself" )

The world crashed down on me simultaneously... (simultaneously with what? Instead of just "world," you should say "whole world")

My best friend had gotten hold of my journal,... (gotten hold of is too casual. Say discovered, or found, or anything else you would like. Just consider changing it.)

Watch your contraction usage. Contraction are very informal, and this is likely expected to be a formal essay. Consider changing some of the contractions.

Also, the conclusion is somewhat weak. Perhaps lengthen and strengthen it.

So far, so good, but you do need to fine-tune it. I hope I helped.

zcampbell

Sep 21, 2010

Undergraduate / Education: What don't you know? Brown supplement [5]

I'm planning on using either this or the other essay I have posted on this site as my admissions essay. Please help me revise this one, and tell me which of the two is better if you have time.

Prompt: French novelist Anatole France wrote: "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." What don't you know?

As I ponder the never-ending list of the yet unacquired knowledge of the world, I realize and am overjoyed that human thirst for understanding will withstand any opposition put in its path, but this contemplation also instills questions in my mind of whether or not I will reach a level of satisfaction with my attainment of knowledge and gets me thinking about just what it is that I don't know.

To the question of what I do not know, the principal answer is quite surprising to most people, given my air of intelligence and hard work. What I am referring to is the fact that I am still undecided about my major and career path. Even at a young age, when I was asked what I wanted to do when I got older, while all of the other boys were answering that they wanted to be a firefighter or a policeman or some sort of celebrity, I would simply shrug my shoulders and say, "I don't know." I feel that growing up in such a small town has cut me off from the world of possibilities available for someone like me. Where I come from, if you are highly educated, you go to college and become either a teacher or someone in the medical field, both career choices that I have considered but do not find to be "me."

For many people, this would be a frightening concept, not having a precise path drawn for their future, but especially in recent years, I have discovered that I love to try new things. Going from skateboarding to bungee jumping to wrestling, I am a risk-taker but not so much that I do not plan ahead. Had I attempted any of the aforementioned activities without the aid of careful planning, it is likely that I would not be alive to tell the tale.

My choice of Brown University was not made without considering what I do not know. At Brown, I plan to use the open curriculum to my advantage and take classes across as many disciplines as I can to turn what I do not know into what I do know. With the freedom and liberal method at Brown, I will be able to take everything in which I have even the slightest smidgeon of interest, roll it up into a ball called freshman and sophomore year, and examine that ball until I know with absolute certainty where I want it to roll. I will be surrounded by people who share my same passions, something I am not exceedingly accustomed to in my hometown, and these people will provide me with any additional aid that I do not receive from the faculty and curriculum at Brown.

Overall, I could go on for days about what it is that I do not know, but what I do know is that if I am admitted to Brown University, the list entailing that which is unbeknownst to me will get shorter with everyday, and my most severe unknowns will disappear just as quickly as the minor ones. I am glad to say that what I do not know makes me who I am, but ecstatic to say that what I do not know will soon become what I do know.

zcampbell

Sep 20, 2010

Undergraduate / "expressing my true self to strangers" - Stanford intellectually engaged essay [4]

It was my first trip to Elsewhere, a museum where random objects and structures...

mess with the items. (Perhaps too casual, unless that was your intent.)

...but I wasn't sure how to act... (try to avoid contractions. Change wasn't sure to was unsure.)

Every person before me had held the pen that I grasped and had written down the essence of themselves in a few lines. (Maybe it's just me, but when I first read it, I had to stop and re-read it because it seemed like you were the one writing about the essence of the others. I would change this to "Every person before me had held the pen that I now grasped, and they had written down the essence of themselves in a few lines.")

Some entries were as simple as "I wish I could buy my own house," and others revealed more, like "the love of my life isn't really the love of my life at all." (I would change "and" to "while")

I would've known had to handle the situation (again, the contraction. Also, "had" needs to be "how")

I heard the faint laughter... (Omit "the")

For a moment I became... (Comma after "moment")

My hand found the pen and I wrote... (Comma after "pen." consider adding an adverb before the word "wrote," like fearlessly or boldly.)

Very good essay overall. Interesting story told very well. Just fix the grammatical errors, and it should be golden.

Please help me out, and read over my essay as well. It is only a rough draft, but I could use the criticism.

zcampbell

Sep 20, 2010

Undergraduate / The teacher, the director, the mentor, and the friend- why I applied to UCF? [7]

The second sentence is a run-on; you need a comma after the word "are."

The first sentence of the second paragraph could use commas after the transitions (after year and auditorium)

He is the one that has showed me the greatness I can accomplish, and everything I am capable of doing... "that" needs to be who. "showed" needs to be shown. Take out the comma after accomplish

In the fall of my junior year ... year needs a comma after it

something I was not sure I was capable of doing... Perhaps change this to "a role I was not sure I could perform properly." The way it is now, it sounds awkward.

world of the play... Play's atmosphere? just a suggestion

Zembuch never gave on me... gave up

even ~~at times~~ when I had given up on myself... "at times when" is a redundant phrase

With his help I figured it out,... "it" sounds a bit ambiguous. Perhaps you could clear it up a bit?

our cast performed ~~our play~~ ... You are obviously going to be performing your play, so you need not specify.

...downtown Tampa; a feat that would... Change the semicolon to a comma

...with the finest; people that... Change the semicolon to a comma.

It is my hope given the chance to further my studies at UCF I can pursue the greatness... It is my hope that, given the chance to further my studies at UCF, I can pursue the greatness

Past the grammatical errors, you may consider adding more information on why you think the people will influence you like Jason Zembuch, not simply that they will. It's good, just needs some fine-tuning.

Will you please take a look at my essay when you get a chance and leave me all the feedback you can think of?

zcampbell

Sep 20, 2010

Undergraduate / Common App Significant Experience: "The Road Less Traveled By" [6]

This essay is great. I hate to say this because I know how it feels on the receiving end, but I do not think that you need to add or change much at all.

it seemed that my only extracurricular activity would be the therapy which I required (I would change which to that)

Other than that, I really see nothing to change. Just read through it a few times, and make sure it sounds like you are actually saying it.

zcampbell

Sep 20, 2010

Undergraduate / "Google has been one of my closest friends" - Best piece of advice (Brown) [16]

I'm not sure which essay topic I'm going to go with, but I decided to write up a rough draft for one of them. Please give me any advice you have, and be mean if you have to; I can take it.

B.What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given, and why?

Being asked an incessant amount of questions by my four-year-old nephew and giving him an interminable number of answers reminds me of a time when I was just as persistent in my quest to satisfy all of my curiosities and also the two words that have become best advice I have ever been given.

When I was younger, like many children in my age group, I had somewhat of an obsession with Pokémon. In one specific case of Pokémon fever, my brother and I were having a dispute over the order of a certain Pokémon's evolutionary level when my mother, obviously tired of the unrelenting arguments and questioning, decided to step in and give us a word of advice. "Google it," she said simply. Not knowing what sort of alien magic of which she spoke, I inquired of her just what this "Google" was. When she showed me and eventually verified, of course, that I was correct in the argument, I reacted both by having my mind blown by this new sorcery and rubbing it in my brother's face that he was wrong.

Since that fateful day, Google has been one of my closest friends. No matter what it is with which I need assistance, be it homework, thirst for further knowledge, or simple boredom, nowhere is there a less biased or more reliable source than Google. Without Google, even such decisions as crucial as my college decision would not be nearly as informed. Skeptics may say that although Google is useful, it is not worthy of the title of best advice ever given, but surely when they are asked to provide support, the first place they will go is the place that they have condemned.

Past the obvious usefulness of Google, my mother's advice has led me to learn indirect life lessons. I have always been told that the sky is the limit, but after being introduced to Google, I disagree. I say that there is no limit! With all that Google has made possible, who is to say that anything is impossible? If we can go from searching for afternoon activities to shopping for a new car to discovering alternative fuel sources in just a few clicks and keystrokes, can we not discover a cure for cancer or develop a system of teleportation devices to increase the ease of daily transportation?

Seeing how two words can revolutionize my life and be seen as nothing more than just another disposable part of life two others really shows how one man's trash can be another man's treasure, but, regardless of Google's simplicity, I plan to Google throughout my stay at Brown and all the way to the end of the earth. All hail the power of Google!