My goal: to become successful and to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Cornell Essay

Any type of revisions or comments will be extremely helpful!! Word limit is 650 words. Thank you so much!!!

Cornell University School of Hotel Administration Supplemental Essay

If someone asked my ten-year-old-self why my goal was to study business, this would be my answer: business means money and wealth. Who doesn't want to become rich? At that time, little did I know that my childlike reason would transform as I matured and began to realize that my goal in life was not only to become successful myself but also to make a positive impact on the lives of others. This idea first came to me in my sophomore year of high school while I was completing my community service project, which was called Music Mentoring. Once a week, my team members and I would work together to help elementary students develop their musical skills and assist the teachers in any way they need. During one of the sessions, I noticed a double-bassist who played in the back of the classroom but was frequently struggling to read the music properly. Since I play the cello, my musical background gave me the ability to understand his struggles. Since the high school students who participate in Music Mentoring were permitted to give the younger students individual sessions, I became motivated to help the double-bassist so that he can enjoy music without worrying too much about all the technicalities involved. It was a slow and difficult process and it required great patience. When I first started doing individual sessions with him, he was very shy, quiet, and it was almost like he was afraid to talk to me.

"Can you play this part again?" I kindly asked him.
"Umm, okay." He responded timidly.
But, as time went on, I found myself being able to interact better with my student because he opened up to me when he saw how patient, kind, and respectful I was to him.

During one session, my student was really struggling in one section of the music but was nervous to tell me.
"Uh, Charlene, I'm really stuck...I mean, just kind of stuck, on this one section." My student nervously tried to tell me.
"Sure, we can go over it together," I answered him kindly with a smile on my face.
After quite a few sessions together, I succeeded in helping him figure out his notes and rhythm and it brought me great joy to be able to see him reach his goals and begin to enjoy music. By the time of the project's conclusion, my student was even willing to tell me some things about his personal life because he knew that I was willing to sit down and listen to whatever he wanted to say. By helping my student chase his dreams, I was not only able to gain more leadership training and develop my social interaction skills, but I was also able to make a difference in his life. The job of a manager is to create a vision for a business and follow through with it or carry out a company's vision to the best of his or her ability. The manager would have to have the leadership skills to set goals for the workers, the teamwork skills to work together with his or her colleagues to create the best experience for the customer, and also the social skills to be able to communicate with and serve the customer better. Through my experience in Music Mentoring, I have developed the skills necessary to become a manager. Since Cornell University Hotel School's extensive core curriculum has everything from business to communication to hotel operation classes, I will be able to learn business skills and also use my knowledge to assist customers. One time, I stayed at The Statler Hotel and I was impressed with how everyone who worked there was so respectful, outgoing, and kind. Since I love to serve others and have an enthusiastic personality, I can easily see myself in the place of the Cornell students whom I encountered at the hotel.

Charlene, the essay is interesting to read once you get over the fact that the establishing paragraph does not give the reviewer any information as to the actual topic of your supplemental essay. Since this is a "free topic" essay, it would be best for you to do a number of things in order to make this more interesting and relevant to the reader. First, you need to develop an interesting title for the essay. Something that relates to your overall target in writing the essay. After that, it would be best if you can develop your own prompt requirement and then phrase it in an interesting manner in your first paragraph. That way, the reviewer will immediately know what the purpose and point of this supplemental essay is. Don't place all that information at the end of the essay, try to move it up to an earlier portion of the essay. Before you tell the story of the music volunteer program and the student who inspired you to become a manager / leader. That way, when you tell the story, everything already makes sense to the reviewer and the story merely drives the point that you are trying to make, home for the reader.