Application Essay - Describing Experience which taught me about myself and/or those around me

Hello Everyone (Holt too),

I'm hoping to get some feedback on my 200-word essay below. I have included the question below as well:

Tell us about an experience, in school or out, that taught you something about yourself and/or the world around you. (maximum 200 words)

St. John Ambulance Cadets

Teaching St. John Ambulance Cadets (11-18) at the 2015 Non-Commissioned Officer Leadership Development Course (NCOLD) taught me about my strength in identifying opportunities for development and the impact of youth leadership education. As a NCOLDP Instructor, I was responsible for teaching a SMART Goal planning seminar and giving report cards for a small group of Cadets. Observing individual Cadet performance and providing suggestions for improvement showed me my strength in identifying and guiding development opportunities. I had noticed my observation and suggestion quality were motivated by my desire to help others and ability to be empathic. This included considering the struggle of being homesick and stress of regimental Cadet training. These strengths and intrinsic motivators are important in healthcare, especially when consulting with patients and considering drug treatment plans. Teaching leadership to youth showed me the positive impact on developing critical thinking and personal responsibility. Various types of leadership seminars are taught at NCOLDP; these seminars promote cadets to be responsible for their actions. I noticed Cadets gradually understood their actions were observed by others and served as a model. This realization helped Cadets critically think about what actions would represent a role model and guided development in their leadership.

Hi Duke,

I think it will be better to directly mention the subject you taught in the first sentence including teaching leadership to youth that you add later on. It will also save you words for other important thing.

I hope this helps.

Christopher, why is there a direct reference to healthcare in this response? I believe that you were referring to your chosen college major right? Please remove that reference as it is an unnecessary bit of data in the response. It forces a sudden change in the mindset and understanding of the reader. Keep the focus only on the way that you observed your world as a cadet and your realization regarding your skills as a student cadet leader. Overall, the response is solid and well within the prompt requirements save for that portion that I referred to previously. I also believe that it is not really important to indicate that there are many leadership seminars given to the cadets. It is important that you give a general observation in this instance because you are only being asked to discuss one experience and at the moment, your reference to various activities means you are discussing more than one activity that you participated in. Make an effort to present a general discussion so that you use all of the information in the essay, taken from various activities, but making these sound like it all stemmed from a single activity instead.

Holt, I think Christopher has a direct reference to healthcare in the response because the focus of St. John's Ambulance Cadets is healthcare. It's different from the other cadet programs where the main focus is on air, army, or sea. I'm not completely sure if this is the reason why he referenced it, but this is a possibility. :)

Hey Messal and Holt,

Thanks for the great feedback. I added that one sentence based on feedback you gave in my previous essays (linking lifeguarding experience to pursing Pharmacy program).

I revised the essay based on your feedback, can you take another look and let me know your thoughts?

"Teaching St. John Ambulance Cadets (...)
... critical thinking and personal responsibility. After I taught the SMART Goal seminar, Cadets were required to submit their own SMART goals the next day. When reviewing their goals one-on-one I noticed Cadets critically thought about building and completing their SMART goals. This included considering if their goal was too large or small, their actions, and which resources they could use. The seminar I taught helped Cadets learn essencial leadership skills: building effective SMART goals and using appropriate available resources."

Thank you everyone!

Christopher, it is alright for you to use the same response for different essays in different university and college applications provided that you modified the later part of the essay from a little to significantly. The reason I say that is because the university just might decide to check if you have submitted the same essay to other schools. If they see that you always submit the same essay, they won't give your application too much weight because of the cookie cutter responses that you give. I am no longer familiar with the content of the first essay that we developed together. So I will assume that at least 50 percent of this essay has the same content as the first. Try to just vary the last part of your presentation by paraphrasing your work so that it will become a new statement and will pass possible plagiarism checkers and actually strengthen your response. I hope my advice helps you out.