short answer - "what would you do if you had 1 year prior to college?"

A) If you could explore whatever you wanted for one year using methods of your choice, how would you direct your efforts and what would you hope to accomplish? Please limit your response to 500 words.

"Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue."
- Edith Wharton

When I first watched the movie "Truman Show," I wondered what makes one's life unique and worth living. How is it like to be living freely? No one can answer this question without living through the whole life - not even when his or her death is near, because death is part of life. For the past eighteen years, I have sought to learn the science, the psychology, and the relationship embedded in a person's life. If I had one year, I would explore the nature of life, so that I can have a better understanding of how to live the best life, and how to attain the experience that will lead my life to the right direction.

Traveling to ten different countries in each continent will help me to experience their cultures and their lives. For each country I visit, I will meet people in every range of age, from 3-year-old kids to 99-year-old, and observe them without interruption - at home, at the market, in restaurants and in workplaces. To learn both positive and negative aspects of lives, I will talk to them about their thoughts regarding their lives, and changes they have experienced. It will also be worth while to contact people from different social classes or status. Their precious lifetime stories will be summed up to provide me with insightful comments and respectable values.

For a more detailed approach, I will live with in their communities, completely absorbed in their cultures: eating the same food, breathing the same air, sleeping and sitting the way they do, and following their rules. This transition from an outsider to a resident will give me a glimpse of where their thoughts come from, and I will find a tacit explanation for their behaviors and relationships. Then, I will learn the basis of their languages in order to be able to connect their languages with ideas and principles of their cultures and lifestyles.

Through this research, I hope to find out what life means to other people and, most importantly, to me. From the vicarious experience of life, I will make the truthful and proper choice that will enable me to decide how to live my life throughout my lifetime. Then, I will direct myself to a determined path of my unique life, without any regret. This experience will give me deep knowledge of other cultures, and I will apply them to strive for a better life. Learning about other people's lives will act as my "counselor" throughout my lifetime, along with the direct personal experiences.

I need help with diction and grammar, and contents in general
Thank you!

Good afternoon :)

Mechanically, watch the excessive use of commas. For instance, "For the past eighteen years (Remove comma) I have sought to learn the science, the psychology, and the relationship embedded in a person's life. If I had one year, I would explore the nature of life (Remove comma) so that I can have a better understanding of how to live the best life (Remove comma) and how to attain the experience that will lead my life to the right direction."

Run this piece through a spell checking program such as Word or the Mozilla web browser to catch the spelling errors.

In regards to numerals, the general guideline is that if the word is between one and ten, go ahead and spell it out; if it is 11 or higher, it is acceptable to use numerals.

Stay in one tense throughout the piece; you switch from past tense to future tense intermittently throughout, and this is confusing to your reader. For instance, "To learn both positive and negative aspects of lives, I will talk to them about their thoughts regarding their lives, and changes they have experienced" should be, "To learn both positive and negative aspects of lives, I would talk to them about their thoughts regarding their lives, and changes they have experienced." In this case, "would" is better than "will" because this is how you started the piece out.

In regards to content, I am not sure what the "Truman Show" has to do with the rest of your piece. Perhaps you should explain to your audience what this is and why it relates to your piece.

How will this experience in the future give you "deep knowledge of other cultures," and how will you "apply them to strive for a better life?" More detail and explanation here is necessary.

You've got a great start; keep up the good work!

Regards,
Gloria
Moderator, EssayForum.com

Thank you! I really appreciate your help.
I have one question, though

Should I go ahead and replace all "will" to "would" to be coherent?
or, if not, could you tell me when to use "will" and "would"?
because I am not sure if they are interchangeable
and I don't want to misuse them all over the essay.

Take them one at a time and make sure the change is still coherent, but overall you should be able to change them all. I don't think there is an instance where it wouldn't fit in this particular piece.