Undergraduate / Common App Transfer - Arriving at Equilibrium (Communications Major) [5]

**Please provide a statement that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve. (250-600 words)**

This is a rough draft. I am well aware that I am well over the limit of 600 words, but I am unsure of what to cut out. I am applying to small private universities and liberal arts colleges.

I do think it sounds a bit cheesy and repetitive, but I tried to represent myself honestly. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!

Arriving at Equilibrium

As an aspiring writer pursuing a degree in Communication Studies, I long for an educational experience that will help me tap into my potential, progress my work ethic, and most importantly, harness my creativity. My career goal is to become a writer, but I have also embraced writing as a mindset-one that needs to be nurtured, fed, and celebrated by way of external and mental experiences. I am majoring in Communication Studies, because it is in my natural instinct to create meaning through communication. I am compassionate about adding insight to complex ideas to create those meanings and can only hope that my ideas receive the same attention. However, there was a time where I had lost sight of my calling and dismissed this instinct.

I grew up in a stable household, my mother a registered nurse and my father an aerospace engineer-as a family we envisioned success in numbers. There was a cookie cutter way of executing things, questions were typically answered in a 'yes or no' format, and achievements were directly dependent on self-discipline. Art was not celebrated and time spent stagnant was considered framework for laziness. In grade school I discovered my passion for writing. I experienced creative revelation. I enjoyed expressing my ideas during free writing in class and enjoyed the freedom allowed during book discussion. Reading and writing made me feel things: sadness, grief, jubilation, connection. In middle school, I began to swim competitively and it changed my outlook on life and further sustained the dynamics put forth by my parents. We immediately invested in my athletic potential very aggressively. I spent all of my time outside of school training. In high school I embodied what I consider to be the stereotypical athlete lifestyle. Schoolwork, writing included, became a tedious task, but a necessary fulfillment nontheless. It was simple a concept, I had to pass my classes to swim, and I knew nothing more. I grew to operate on a concrete routine and earned average grades. As graduation quickly approached I suddenly rebelled against the sport I trained so hard for. It suddenly dawned on me that I never loved swimming. I abruptly dismissed my life as a competitive swimmer that summer after high school.

I began my college career at a state university completely lost. Swimming had been the structure that held my life together and the root to my discipline in academics. I felt swept under the shadows as a mere statistic in big lecture halls. Everything that I once knew no longer existed and I began to struggle in and out of the classroom. I was overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused. I needed a change of pace.

Since then I have continued my education at a local community college and recently took a semester off to recollect myself. Time away from school has allowed me to arrive at equilibrium with my senses as a creative. I have paid attention to the things I invest myself in during my free time. I am a writer, I read and I write. I now embrace my sense of vulnerability as I did during my childhood. I realize that to omit my vulnerability is to rob myself of my sense of connection. I now indulge in literature whole-heartedly and represent myself honestly in my writing. I allow myself to connect with the things that inspire me. I have been broken down and rebuilt. I have re-found my lust for life and I now know myself more than ever. And while I cannot name a specific instance that has brought me back to my natural instinct as a writer, I can say that this hiatus from school is the root of self-rediscovery. I am who I am because of the way that I feel and I am ready to pursue my education from this perceptive standpoint in the realm of a new setting.

While the schools I have attended in the past have served as springboards to my learning abilities and levels of perception, I have yet to feel creatively supported enough to consider any of them a solid foundation for earning my degree. I yearn to be exposed to the educational setting and Communication Studies program that I can mesh with insightfully. I am confident that I will succeed in classes with smaller ratios, as I will build connections with professors that are genuinely invested in my success on a more personal level, while learning alongside other students that are invested in the school's Communication Studies program for the long haul. I truly believe that I will evolve in all aspects at my new school-it is in this setting that my ideas will bridge and mature.

I am well aware that learning will always be an ongoing process, but the right educational atmosphere will progressively influence my creative capabilities in the long run. I plan to contribute to my new school's Communication Studies program by exercising my analytic ability as an individual, and by working in a collaborative effort by networking with other students to discover opportunities, ignite creativity and influence at large.