Thank you in advance for reading my essay. I decided to write my Rutgers essay on how I can bring a uniqueness and contribute to the diversity through dragon boat. As as heads up, I am not completely done but I wanted to see what changes I could make and if I was heading on the right track.
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. Only personal essays submitted via our website will be considered. You may enter a maximum of 3800 characters including spaces.
Dragon Boat
Cold sea water splashed onto my face as waves rocked my body; my arms paddled the water to the beat of the furious drums and propelled the boat into the sea. It was my first dragon boat race and although we did not place first it was still a great experience. Dragon boat racing has recently become an important element in my life. It is a common notion to believe dragon boat racing is limited to Chinese people, while in fact people of all nationalities partake in this sport. I can bring this uniqueness and diversity to Rutgers along with showing others the excitement and joy of this wonderful sport.
The road from freshman to senior year has presented me with unrivaled experiences. With each experience I have been able to both learn something unique and add to the diversity. One experience was after getting into a vocational school program for law enforcement, which started my interest in criminal justice. It came to no surprise that I was the only one with an Asian-American background out of the 50 other students. The differences in cultures did not prove to disadvantage, but allowed me to bring a special dynamic to the classroom. This was not the only experience of when I was a minority. Over the summer I signed up for Trooper Youth Week; a week of boot-camp style training run by the New Jersey State Police. People from all over New Jersey attended.
Outside of school I balance my time amongst my passion for creative design, my job and volunteer work. For the past three years I have volunteered every Saturday at my local Chinese school to teach the children the culture of Chinese yo-yo. I also volunteer on extra occasions such as summer camp, parades, and more. Working at a graphic design firm I improve my customer relations skills, my problem-solving, and how to balance multiple workloads. My passion for design has helped me achieve recognition amongst my peers as a dedicated fellow that will work until the project is done. This includes designing flyers for multiple charity shows, posters for asian show, single-handily developing websites, and much more.
All of my experiences show that I am not one to give up because of differences; I go out and break barriers. Rutgers is the right place for me to fit in; the community is diversely made up of people whose background come from all over the world, different races, religions, and orientations. Rutgers University adds a new dimension to my experiences. From different clubs to concerts and sports there is always something exciting and diverse. Each and every day and hopefully
I think you should "sharpen" the theme. That means you should make it LESS general and MORE specific. You can bring diversity... through dragon oat racing? Or is it just an EXAMPLE of the diversity to which you can contribute?
I can bring this uniqueness and diversity to Rutgers along with showing others the excitement and joy of this wonderful sport.
Let's add a sentence after this, or change this sentence, so that it tells something more specific. I think the best thing to do might be to refer to ANOTHER example of an experience that represents diversity, so that it does not seem like the whole essay is about this dragon oat racing. It is actually just using the dragon boat racing as a theme.. but the MESSAGE of the essay is not the same as the theme.
What message do you want to plant in the reader's mind?
:-)
