Undergraduate / Stay Active Leadership Experience- College Essay for OU [2]

Is this a good enough essay to show that I am a good student and applicant for the university? How can I show off my leadership skills better?

Leadership is defined as someone who commands a group of people. In truth, a leader is much more than that. In my opinion, a leader is someone who has a vision or a goal and a passion to make that goal come to life. A leader is someone that is committed, determined, motivated and works well with others. I believe that all of these qualities define my personality when I set a goal. I have had a number of leadership experiences, but one specifically overtakes them all. It was not a leadership position set by a club or organization, but by me setting a goal and accomplishing it. One day, in my religious education class we were focusing on one of the key responsibilities of being an Ismaili Muslim: giving back to the community. The topic was introduced with an example of a little boy who spread the important message of helping the poor through a chain reaction. Once I heard this story, I was inspired by the little boy. I wanted to do something for my community that would create a domino effect. Ultimately, I came up with the idea of Stay Active 2012. Stay Active 2012 would be an initiative to encourage kids not only to be active, but to stay active. The program would teach youth that healthy living is not to be thought of as a chore, but as something that is enjoyable. While also encouraging them to instill the same lesson in their brothers and sisters, their friends, and eventually their kids; a chain reaction.

My goal was to promote a healthy lifestyle although; many people have done this before. What made this different was the idea of a chain reaction. I decided that this was a project that needed to come to life. I brought together some friends and classmates to team up and help convey this concept to the children. I led the team by explaining the purpose of the project so in result they would be committed to the idea. I explained that the idea was not to plan a couple of sports activities but an initiative to promote a healthy lifestyle. I knew that understanding and implementing this would be critical to making an impression on the kids. After taking ideas from the team into consideration, I came up with an itinerary of the activities that would best impact the kids while still keeping them entertained.

We had many struggles throughout the process of planning the event, mostly with things not going according to plan. One issue we had was a few people backing out because they were unable to attend which made us have to rearrange the schedule and counselors to participant's ratio. I encouraged the team members to stay committed by telling them how important this project was and that it would not only be fun for the kids but also fun for us. Also, our budget began to become scarce with items still needed. We stayed committed by not taking things too seriously so we would not stress out and could have a sense of humor about our problems. I asked the members of the team to talk to different adults about what we were trying to do for the kids how beneficial it would be. We ended up receiving over $200 in donations from parents. This was just enough to fund the event, provide meals and snacks for the kids, and get the rest of the supplies.

I decided it was best that we split the team by strengths. I delegated tasks to specific groups based on their strengths and interests. I assigned the more artistic people in our team to design flyers and banners for marketing, the athletic team members to think of exercises that pinpointed specific body and muscle groups, and I myself coordinating the logistics, finances, and overall flow of the project. My favorite part of this delegation process was the fact that I was able see each component of the project piece together to form the end product. My team and I marketed the event by passing out flyers, having sign ups every day of the week, holding parent information sessions, and emailing out event reminders. I also encouraged the members of the team to advertise by both word of mouth and social media. On the day of the event, we had more than 70 children participate in Stay Active.

I believe that this project was completely successful and although there were some difficult times throughout the process, I am proud to say that we all stayed committed to the project. I feel that this was my most significant leadership experience because I used everything I learned through my experience in business organizations to make this project come to life. I felt that I showed the qualities of a good leader because I was determined, motivated, worked well with the team, delegated tasks to the team effectively, communicated the concept to the team as well as the kids so they could help bring it to life, and stayed committed to the project.

Undergraduate / 'The boogie man' -Texas App/ Someone who made an impact on me [NEW]

The Topic 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. This is just a rough draft or foundation for my essay I would really appreciate any help in grammer, comments on the quality of the essay, and help in amping it up. Thank You!

The person that has had an impact on my life is someone that I had always feared as child, someone that pushed me to overcome, some one that does not exist. As a child, every night as I got ready for bed fear would fill my heart, chilling thoughts would pile up in my mind, and butterflies would fill my stomach. While getting dressed for bed, my eyes would be tied to my feet from the fear that said person would grab them and drag my fear struck being under my bed. This person that has had an impact on my life is the monster under the bed. He is mostly familiarly known, as the one and only boogie man.

There were many moments as a child when I didn't know how to deal with fear. There were people who helped me, my parents and older brother who told me that this creature did not exist. But in truth, they were wrong. As a child, the boogie man is someone who lives under your bed waiting to grab you. As we grow older, the boogie man is something else. Something even scarier than what children imagine him to be, he is stress. Whether it be the stress of college applications, SAT, school, or relationships. The boogie man lives in all of us. He takes us over and grabs our feet when we are distracted for just a second.

The boogie man made an impact on my life very early on. He scared me into facing my fear. One day I gathered up the courage and looked under the bed and saw that the boogie man was not there. He was just something that I concocted in my head. Similar to the boogie man the stress that we undergo is not something that it is put upon us by an outside force. Stress is something that we concoct in our head that scares us. One thing that I have been stressing out about is college applications. I keep asking myself the same questions. What if I don't get in to the college of my choice? What if I'm not qualified enough? What if I'm choosing the wrong path for myself major wise? What if my essay is the thing that keeps from getting in? I finally realize that all this stress that has filled my life is just all in my head and that in the end everything will work out if I face my fear. The boogie man taught me that if I never try I'll never know and I'll never succeed. If I never got up the courage to look under my bed to see that he really was just in my imagination I might still me scared of him today. I now know that if I don't face my fears and let go of the stress that tries to overcome my life I won't get anywhere. That is why I know that the boogie man has made a significant impact on my life. Without him I would never know how to overcome my fears, let go of stress, and keep moving forward.