NTU Scholarship Essay: An Event which has Influenced You

The prompt of the essay is:
Describe, in less than 300 words, a short essay on a subject of personal importance to you. You may choose any topic. Examples include: an event which has influenced you or a family member/friend/person who had a significant influence on you.

move to a new city - out of own comfort zone

I had always lived in company town with comfortable houses, good schools, leisure facilities, and religious facilities. I had been surrounded by a pleasant environment with financially stable people. Having attended a private IB primary school adds up the comfort.

When our family moved to a new city, I started again from zero. I go to a public school and take the public transport "angkot". The people in school didn't know me and I am mostly alone. My grades lowered too. I felt uneasy being out of my comfort zone.

My parents assured me that I was able. Things take time and perseverance is key. I took the courage to start conversations and studied harder. Being ignored hurt at first, but I kept trying. Slowly, everyone became my close friends. To my surprise, I was also able to be the top ten students at school, gradually going up to top three.

I also witness the less fortunate everyday in the "angkot" and streets - a chance I never had in a company town. I like putting myself in their shoes and grow a sense of empathy and selflessness each day. I become more motivated to reach success to be able to help.

I learnt a lot from breaking out of my comfort zone. I am a more resilient, adaptive, courageous, communicative, stronger and tougher now. I would never have learned all these values if I had continued living the same life everyday.

Attending NTU would be another "leaving comfort zone" experience for me, but I am ready to learn even more values to aid me in becoming a person of impact to the people around me.

The deadline is on 15 December.Do help me in perfecting the essay! Feedback, suggestions, and corrections are very welcome!

Victoria, you have 3 different subjects of personal importance to you presented in this statement. This has resulted in you only partially discussing each aspect due to the word limitation. So the reviewer doesn't learn much about you aside from what confusing information he can get about each topic in the essay. In order to strengthen this essay, you should pick the strongest and most informative topic to develop as the only story in the essay. You do not really need multiple angles in the presentation. You only need to present the most significant story and experience to the reviewer in relation to the prompt. Either you go personal (lack of friends in a new neighborhood), academic (lowered grades due to the move), or social (the people you see while riding the angkot and why that is important to your development as a person). You cannot effectively discuss all 3 in a 300 word essay.

@victoriatrinita I go attended to a public school and take took the public transport "angkot".
... and I am was mostly alone

My grades lowered too. I felt uneasy being out of my comfort zone. Improve this sentence. Maybe you can say: As a result, my performance in class got worse. I had a very difficult time adjusting to the new environment.

Overall, try to organize your paragraphs by expressing a single idea in each paragraph. Don't have many paragraphs with just two sentences. Try to form 3 main paragraphs with the following structure:

Introduction
Body
Conclusion