I'm applying for college and wanted to get some outside suggestions. I'm filling out the Common App essay and the prompt I chose is "Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?"
There is also a 250-650 word limit on this essay.
Here's what I have written so far:
Ever since I was accepted into Junior High school I have been fixated on remote control planes and small UAV's. The interest ironically started out from a toy helicopter crash combined with my curiosity, igniting a life-long passion that eventually became my singular fixation and my ticket into the future. I built and crashed my first few planes before I joined a local group of hobbyists with the same interests as me. They brought me on top of an old, filled in landfill where I had my first successful flights with my Neuport 17 biplane, an aircraft that took me nearly three weeks to complete. After landing the plane, I began to talk to the other pilots and learnt the meaning behind the phrase "fly, crash, repeat." I later built more planes before I started a new project, a small drone that could be flown for short distances from a camera. It had four blades and flew very well until I muttered the phrase "fly, crash, repeat" in a disappointed voice as my battle with gravity and the ground was lost. I retrieved my aircraft and began the repair process, delaying the project by a whole two months. The next time it flew, it was better than the first, flying faster and responding quicker and I knew that it wouldn't crash from a mechanical failure again. As my batteries slowly drained I realized how much I was like my own obsession. Like my planes, my parents spent a long time daydreaming about what it would be like to have a child. When the plan finally came together, that person was given the materials to cut, glue, and ultimately try to do their best to make an air worthy machine capable of surviving the turbulence that the winds of life are bound to give. There were times when the plane came dangerously close to the ground, only to find a way back up to where it should be. It was on that mound of dirt and trash that I realized that I was ready to test the winds and take flight and fly as far as I can before my batteries die, leaving me to gently glide back to the ground with old age.
I think this would be considerable as a unique place but something just seems off about this essay and I can't seem to be able to put my finger on it. I already did a word counter on it and it's at 373 words. This will be sent to Purdue University to hopefully get into the Aeronautical Engineering Technology department.
There is also a 250-650 word limit on this essay.
Here's what I have written so far:
Ever since I was accepted into Junior High school I have been fixated on remote control planes and small UAV's. The interest ironically started out from a toy helicopter crash combined with my curiosity, igniting a life-long passion that eventually became my singular fixation and my ticket into the future. I built and crashed my first few planes before I joined a local group of hobbyists with the same interests as me. They brought me on top of an old, filled in landfill where I had my first successful flights with my Neuport 17 biplane, an aircraft that took me nearly three weeks to complete. After landing the plane, I began to talk to the other pilots and learnt the meaning behind the phrase "fly, crash, repeat." I later built more planes before I started a new project, a small drone that could be flown for short distances from a camera. It had four blades and flew very well until I muttered the phrase "fly, crash, repeat" in a disappointed voice as my battle with gravity and the ground was lost. I retrieved my aircraft and began the repair process, delaying the project by a whole two months. The next time it flew, it was better than the first, flying faster and responding quicker and I knew that it wouldn't crash from a mechanical failure again. As my batteries slowly drained I realized how much I was like my own obsession. Like my planes, my parents spent a long time daydreaming about what it would be like to have a child. When the plan finally came together, that person was given the materials to cut, glue, and ultimately try to do their best to make an air worthy machine capable of surviving the turbulence that the winds of life are bound to give. There were times when the plane came dangerously close to the ground, only to find a way back up to where it should be. It was on that mound of dirt and trash that I realized that I was ready to test the winds and take flight and fly as far as I can before my batteries die, leaving me to gently glide back to the ground with old age.
I think this would be considerable as a unique place but something just seems off about this essay and I can't seem to be able to put my finger on it. I already did a word counter on it and it's at 373 words. This will be sent to Purdue University to hopefully get into the Aeronautical Engineering Technology department.