Undergraduate / It's kind of like a love story, Common App transfer essay [2]

Hi! I basically just want to know if you the essay gives enough clear reasons as to why I need to transfer, and if it flows well. Also, let me know if the analogy to love stories is cheesy/stupid/etc. I'm hoping it's kind of funny and "unique" but let me know if I'm wrong. Be harsh. Thanks so much!

Describe why you are transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve:

Sometimes, things just don't really work out. As Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, or Heathcliff and Catherine of Wuthering Heights will tell you, sometimes what seems like the perfect match just isn't really all that perfect. This is true, as well, in the case of my relationship with " ".

As a high school student, I was always the girl neck-deep in countless extracurricular activities. Alienated by what I viewed as high school's prescriptive curriculum and the ways it fosters competition rather than knowledge, I tried to intellectually stimulate myself outside of school instead.

But as I entered " ", on the cusp of my eighteenth birthday, I realized that I knew nothing, and I quickly made the resolution to learn everything. I thrived on the flexibility of a collegiate curriculum, in which I was able to exert agency in the courses I chose to take, and in which my opinion was valued. I could be the dissenting voice, the endless skeptic or the unwavering defendant of a text, and this was welcomed. If I began my college career naive and willing, I am transferring institutions emboldened and invigorated. And though " " has contributed immensely to my maturation, I feel that I have reached the limits of what " " can provide me.

I partially chose to attend " " due to its politics program's emphasis upon legal studies and American politics. However, as I have taken courses and interacted with my professors, I now realize that my intellectual interests are in fact more geared toward political theory and the comparative politics of postcolonial nations, notably those in Latin America and the Middle East. The limited course offerings in my areas of interest limit not only what courses I can enroll in, but the opportunities to find professors who share my academic curiosities. My desired course of study would be better expressed within a political science program more balanced in its course offerings, one that is concerned with empirically and theoretically situating the contemporary condition of the Global South.

In transferring, I want to find myself inspired, not only by the texts I read, or by the professors that teach me, but by the student who sits beside me. I want the fervent debate and discussion that takes place within the confines of the classroom to be contiguous with the activism of the college campus at large. Though my peers at " " are intelligent, I have found them to be less engaged in the sorts of intellectual quandaries that I often find myself embroiled in. Of course, I do not aspire to be lumped together with students who share all of my own interests, but I hope to immerse myself in a student body who cares just as deeply as I do, who is overflowed with their own sense of urgency to do something and to leave one's mark upon the world we live in.

It's not " ", it's me. " " and I, we've had a good run, but our relationship has an expiration date. Though my experience there has helped me mature in a multitude of ways, I know that " " isn't "the one". Transferring institutions is a messy, arduous, invigorating process, but it is is a necessary step toward actualizing my future, and achieving what I want from my education and from my life. Call me an idealist or a romantic, but as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy will attest to, though all good love stories are rocky, not all of them end in heartbreak. In transferring institutions, I know I will achieve my happy ending.

Undergraduate / I am a woman. I am pragmatic and unpredictable; Barnard Transfer Essay! [4]

Hi! I'm primarily concerned with whether this answers the question of what I'm hoping to get from going to Barnard. I feel like I might be rambling. Please let me know! I'll comment back. Thanks!

Please provide a statement that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.

I am a woman. I am pragmatic and unpredictable. I cannot read a map, but I've read James Joyce's Ulysses, twice. And no, I will not describe myself in five words or less. I am an artist, a radical political thinker. I am a cinephile. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beautiful mind. I know who I am, even if I cannot exhaustively verbalize it, even if I am constantly changing. I am a woman, unorthodox. Extraordinary. I am many things, and so is Barnard College.

Almost two years into my college career, I have come to an intimate understanding of who I am, and what I aspire to do with the rest of my college years, and for the rest of my life. At my current institution, "", I have read, engaged and discovered. But put simply, I do not believe that I can continue to grow anymore, as a woman, as a citizen, or as a student, at my current institution.

Barnard's curriculum, one of a sort of structured flexibility, will allow me to explore my academic interests to their fullest extent, without being hampered by the at times arbitrary boundaries between academic disciplines. At my current institution, I have struggled with the rigidity of the academic requirements of my major and the core curriculum. By specializing and concentrating in various disciplines, under the larger umbrella of Political Science, and with the versatile Nine Ways of Knowing curriculum, which as my tour guide quipped quite smartly "should allow no Barnard woman to graduate with the same curriculum as another", my Barnard education can be carefully customized to meet my needs. In the search for knowledge, Barnard's structure will help guide me, but its flexibility will allow for movement and deviation, for academic exploration as opposed to the fulfillment of punctilious prescriptions of proficiency.

Barnard College will provide me with a more rigorous academic environment and a student body who is just as academically and civically engaged as myself. I crave not only to be inspired by my professors at the head of the classroom, or by the texts sitting at my lap, but by the woman sitting next to me. I seek not competition, but collaboration with Barnard women, as we work to fulfill our own academic goals. I believe that we are both the matter and the makers of our own experiences; that is, though we are shaped by forces external to us, we have agency in creating those forces. Thus, though I am hoping Barnard will shape and mold me into the best "me" possible, I know that I play an active role in making that possible. Furthermore, I hope that I can leave my impression upon Barnard and my fellow classmates.

I am a ball of contradictions, sprinkled with non-sequiturs, and rolled in sincerity. Barnard College is an institution that, simply, will allow me to fully be every component of my personality and of my person. How do I know this? Because Barnard College itself represents boundless dimensions and multiplicities. It is a small liberal arts college within a large, Ivy League university. It is primarily a women's college, but allows for a coeducational experience. Barnard's campus is small and community-oriented, but it is housed in an urban powerhouse of creativity, business, culture and life. And though every Barnard woman is intelligent and is working to fulfill her own academic goals, she is socially and politically conscious, she is concerned with social justice and the welfare of her classmates as well. More than anything, Barnard understands that knowledge, and furthermore human growth, is not best produced in isolation, figurative or literal, but in concert. I hope to take part in this engaging experience, as a woman, as a citizen and as a student, in Fall 2014.