If you're going to survive in this world, you need to love something, and work hard at it

This is an essay for University of Michigan's Common Application
Prompt: Describe the unique qualities that attract you to the specific undergraduate College or School to which you are applying at the University of Michigan. How would that curriculum support your interests? (500 words max)

Essay: My father used tell me," If you're going to survive in this world, you need to love something, and work hard at it." My only predicament was that I was fond of too much. As a growing adolescent, I began to enjoy both philosophy and neuroscience, but the conjunction of the two, nuerophilosophy, however is not a degree among current universities. Receiving the chance to major in neuroscience and minor in a closely related philosophy track from the University of Michigan gives me the ability to extract the education I would be receiving if nuerophilosphy were integrated in the academia of any university.

My attraction for the University of Michigan was engendered by my awareness that the school offered an undergraduate degree in neuroscience with a mind and meaning philosophy minor. With over fifty cognitive science courses offered, my course load will serve as my primary understanding for the underlying mechanisms of human neurology. I realize the quality of education will be further augmented by the research offered under the university. Seeing the university acquire land from Pfizer to expand their research base, I am fully aware of the university's growth. Moreover, clubs such as the Neuroscience Students Association, allows students to receive network opportunities, and potential research positions in the cognitive science field.

With a mind and meaning philosophy minor, I can begin to conceptualize the mechanics of the human psyche at broader levels as rather than just solely at the biological level. Attending the university lends me the opportunity to understand the basics behind psycholinguistics and philosophy of mind while concurrently studying human neurology. In conjunction, given that the philosophy department offers sixteen different courses under this section alone, I am nothing shy of enamored to receive a minor underlying cognitive function that makes us human. It would be of my upmost passion to derive a holistic view of the how the mind works from both a philosophical and a biological perspective.

I undoubtedly plan to utilize resources given to me through the college. Graduating from a school with such grandeur will allow me to become a researcher that is able to fend off the most notorious neurological disease while writing work to publicize the connection between higher order mental processing and lower level neurophysiological phenomena.

What final changes should be made ?

I would not change anything content wise Kingsley. The essay really responds very well to the prompt. If I were to remove a part though, it would be what stands now as your opening statement. It is not as strong and informative as the current second paragraph. The hook that your essay needs to interest the admissions officer is clearly stated and read about in the second paragraph so I would not waste is by placing it where it is now when it can be placed in a pole position that can help your essay content wise. By the way, please capitalize the major and minor courses and subjects that you plan to major in not only because those are proper nouns, but because you want to call attention to those sentences in particular since it contains vital information for your essay. Now for a few grammatical suggestions :-)



- Philosophy of the Mind...


Those are the only changes that need to be made as far as I can tell.