This is my very first draft of my Rutgers Essay. Please give constructive criticism!
Prompt: Rutgers University is a vibrant community of people with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. How would you benefit from and contribute to such an environment consider variables such as your talents, travels, leadership activities, volunteer services, and cultural experiences. (Maximum of 3,800 characters-including spaces.)
Long Valley New Jersey is, in essence, a bubble. It is a small town with more working farms than traffic lights and houses older than the country itself. Where history is concerned our town has plenty, as for diversity, however, it is an understatement to say we are lacking. There is more diversity in the types of trees one sees in the town than in the people.
Growing up, I strived to be as educated about the world outside the bubble. Whether it was my intrinsic nature to defy the norm or nothing more than a simple interest, I became very interested in other cultures. What exactly did people from other countries and cultures do differently than those from mine? What motivated them? What was considered fun? What was considered scandalous? What little nuances did they have that an Americans would think was strange? I wanted to know everything I possibly could about other cultures, but I wanted to do it in a way that would be fun for me, and not just read tons of articles from Wikipedia or from a text book. I wanted to get a feel of the different cultures through sources that I could relate to. So what did I do? I immersed myself in foreign pop culture. I watched TV shows from the UK, read comics from Japan, and listening to music from Korea. One can be surprised how much there is to learn from simply watching the shows they watch.
Now here's the big question: how does my quest to learn about other cultures fit in with the Rutgers experience? As much as I have learned over the years about other cultures there is still so much I do not know and there are also many cultures I have yet to even start learning about. My method of learning about other cultures can be related to the very popular phrase "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". I am doing as the English do by watching their shows, I am doing as the Japanese do by reading their comics, and I am doing as the Koreans do by listening to their music. However, there is a gap or a boundary. I may be able to experience their pop culture over the internet, but that only takes me so far. If I want to truly learn about a culture, I need do "do as that culture does". I need to experience that culture first hand.
The diverse environment at Rutgers would be beneficial to me because I would be able to experience the cultures I've learned about first hand by interacting with people from those cultures. I can also help those who are new to the American culture get acclimated to this new setting by using my already acquired knowledge of their cultures like a "gateway between the two sides". I can learn about their culture and experience a little bit of their lifestyle at the same time as they're learning about and experiencing mine.
I'm just commenting to tell you that your intro sentence is remarkable. It is really good, it broadly explains your entire essay, it is simple - yet is very well-written.
