Undergraduate / 'Study in most undisciplined and original manner possible' FSU Essay [2]

I just need someone to proofread it for grammatical or spelling errors. Does is answer the prompt okay? Is there a better way for me to word anything?

I'll help you if you help me! :D

The prompt is: Florida State University is more than just a world-class academic institution preparing you for a future career. We are a caring community of well-rounded individuals who embrace leadership, learning, service, and global awareness. With this in mind, which of these characteristics appeal most to you and why?

I once read a quote that said "study hard what interests you the most, in the most undisciplined, irreverent, and original manner possible." This has since become my life goal, to find the thing that I love and to immerse myself in it completely, to learn everything there is to learn. That is why learning is certainly the most appealing characteristic to me. I am confident that The Florida State University will help me achieve my aspiration to study and learn everything in "the most undisciplined and original manner possible."

I love school. I am that lame girl who spends all summer reading books waiting for school to start again. Once it does, I make sure to place myself right in the front of the class so as to absorb as much education as possible. However, no matter how much I love the classroom, it is not my favorite place to learn. There is so much more to life than reading a textbook and taking a test and reading another chapter of the textbook and taking another test. The greatest knowledge is gained by living and questioning and exploring. This is the kind of learning I am passionate about. It is this idea that makes me so excited to go to college and experience new things with new people.

I almost decided to write this essay about my passion for service, because that certainly is a large part of my life. However, I realized that the reason I love service so much, is not only because I get to help others, but because I can learn so much from the people I am helping. I volunteer every week with my school's Key Club at the local nursing home. There is a woman at this nursing home named Joan, and I have learnt more from Joan than any other person I have ever met. Some of the best advice I've gotten about school, love, and life has come from an eighty-one year old woman. Joan graduated from college sixty three years ago, but she has never stopped learning. That is why I find learning so fascinating; it is constant and inevitable and (I'm not sure what word to put here).

I learn like I breathe, constantly. My passion for learning began when I was born and will continue until the day I die. My goal is to learn and absorb as much knowledge in my lifetime as possible, whether in a classroom, or a nursing home, or the middle of a desert. I will always be learning. I believe The Florida State University is my next step in achieving this goal.

Undergraduate / 'The transformation' - University of Florida Essay- my accomplishment [2]

This is my first draft, so it's a little rough. It's also 80 words above the limit, so if you have any advice for cutting it down that'd be great. Be as brutal as you want, I need this essay to be good!

Here's the prompt: please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your ideas about student responsibility, academic integrity, campus citizenship or a call to service.

From the very first day of preschool up until the eleventh grade, I was "the quiet girl." This was always the thing I disliked most about myself. Every year before the first day of school I would promise myself that this year would be different. This would be the year I finally broke out of my shell and became the person I wanted to be,but it never happened. Every year was exactly the same as the last. I had pretty much accepted that fact, until the eleventh grade. I was at a leadership conference called RYLA. It was filled with the nicest, most outgoing, and least intimidating people I had ever met. Yet, I still couldn't bring myself to be the loud, fun person I always wanted to be. It was ridiculous, and I didn't understand what was wrong with me. The day I returned from RYLA, feeling deflated and depressed, was the day I decided I really needed to change.

It was like that diet you always attempted, but never committed to. I was finally going to throw away all of my twinkies and go to the gym. I was finally going to make my voice heard. Any introverted person will tell you that this is much easier said than done. I didn't really know where to start. I decided to take it one step at a time. I was in pre-calc one day, and the teacher was trying to explain derivatives. I had no idea what was going on, so I mustered up all of my courage and timidly raised my hand. Using the biggest voice I could find, I asked if the teacher could please go over that again. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, another student added "yea, I don't get it either." The fact that I said something, and someone else agreed with me was a big deal for me. In fact, it made my whole day. I tried it out again in Psychology. We were doing book work and the teacher said that we could work in groups if we wanted to. I didn't have any close friends in that class so; I usually just worked by myself. However, that day, I decided to approach a group of girls who I hadn't talked to before and ask if I could work with them. They were really glad that I joined them, and we kept up a constant conversation the whole time we worked. At this point, I was on cloud 9. I am so proud of myself, and amazed that it had taken me this long to make this first step.

For the remainder of the year, I got more and more outgoing. I contributed in class, made new friends, and became a much happier person. I even decided to run for Key Club President, and I won! Standing in front of the club at the first meeting my senior year was a piece of cake, but it's something I wouldn't even have dreamed of doing just one year before. This transformation is my biggest and proudest accomplishment. I can't imagine how I would have survived college if I had stayed the introvert that I was for the first sixteen years of my life. I wouldn't have made any friends, and I probably would have been miserable. Now, I'm really excited. I want to get involved as much as possible and make the most of the best four years of my life, at the University of Florida.

Undergraduate / "What's going on in my family" - Florida State University Essay- Global awareness [2]

I'm obviously not done, but what do you think of the beginning? Is it a good start? Or should I do it all over?

Here's the prompt: Florida State University is more than just a world-class academic institution preparing you for a future career. We are a caring community of well-rounded individuals who embrace leadership, learning, service, and global awareness. With this in mind, which of these characteristics appeal most to you and why?

What exactly is global awareness? It's an interesting question, because after reading the prompt, it was instantly the characteristic that stuck out to me the most. When thinking of the thing most defining of me, global awareness was the clear choice. However, when writing this essay, I'm having a difficult time deciding why. There is no definition for global awareness on Wikipedia, when googling it, I am faced with numerous web pages, none of which answering the question. What comes to mind for me when I think of global awareness is simply the knowledge of what is going on in the world, knowing that there was an earthquake in Chile, or being aware of the poor economy in Italy. For the sake of this essay, I'm going to assume that I am correct in my personal definition.

To begin with why exactly I relate so much with global awareness, I'll start with the fact that born in the United Kingdom. Instead of spending my summers on the sunny Florida beaches, every year I take the eight hour plane ride to London Heathrow. I drive two hours to Oxford to visit my mom's mother; I take a train to Yorkshire to visit my Granddad. Just this fact alone, makes me at least slightly more globally aware than the average American high school senior. I understand how England's government works and I take personal interest if I read about a bomb in London. To me, Global Awareness is not just what is going on in other countries; it is what is going on in my family.