Describe the world you come from
10: 00 pm
Knock, knock, "Steven, have some fruit and better get some sleep, you still got morning classes tomorrow!" Outside of my study, it was my mom with a plate of fruits cut into pieces. "Alright, gotcha, in a minute" I responded mechanically without even diverting my eyes from my treasured book on the research of "Shogi", a Japanese chess that I found extremely captivating.
12: 00 am
"Still up and no fruits?" again it was my mom checking in with me. "Busy, mom! Please leave me alone." Impatience was the tune with which I spoke but deep in my heart, I felt grateful and blessed that I was raised up in the world my parents created with enormous care and support, which allows me to chase after my dreams and aspirations to find out who I am.
Long before I started high school, I was enthralled by the mysteries of Shogi. The unpredictable movements on the board never failed to satisfy my desire for challenges. In Grade 7, I got a chance to test my efforts in an international Shogi tournament between Chinese and Japanese students. Withstanding waves of fierce attacks launched by even prestigious players, I made it to the final, which I had never imagined. Crowds talking photos and staring at the table surrounded the arena of the final battle. It was the first time I felt such pressure, even more startling than the time I did a presentation in front my 2000-person primary school. As the timer started, I could feel the tension in my entire body, every cell was working at full power. In the crowd, I spotted two familiar figures nodding at me. With regained courage, I made some risky moves that enabled my army of wooden pieces to crash the army of my opponent's, and I could hear the trophy calling me.
15 minutes later, the tournament ended with my defeat. I made a mistake that let my opponent seize to win. Extremely frustrated, I thought about giving up on Shogi. However, my mother was happy and even bought me a new set of Shogi pieces as a reward for my effort. Feeling the well carved wooden pieces, I suddenly felt sorry about thinking about quitting. Instead, I was more eager to explore this fascinating world of Shogi where I needed to plot, to strategize and to conquer.
In high school, I was attracted into programming right after I was introduced to Python, a popular programming language in a CS class and I made my first attempt in programming, a "minesweeper" game in Python.
This was the first game I ever tried to make, so I was unsure how it was going to turn out, or if I was going to succeed, because I knew even a single small mistake was capable of breaking down the program. When I was startled because a lot could go wrong, my parents told me "a thousand-mile trip begins with one small step" and I was willing to take my own very first step. At first, everything went well. I encountered a few minor problems and managed to fix them. However, after sitting in front of my computer for five hours, what I feared finally came to me. My game did not perform as was intended. I was anxious, browsing the program back and forth. Soon I realized that what I was doing was futile. When I was about to give up my first attempt programming, again my parents were there backing me up offering me help. After one hour of careful examination and simulation, I spotted the well-disguised bug, fixed it and finished my first five-hundred-line game. In the next few weeks, I kept improving it and adding features to it, and it is still one of the programs that I am proud of.
My entire world throughout of the years of growing up is the haven created by my parents that nurtured me into an aspiring young man who is eager to pursue his dreams and probe into the world of unknown.
Logan, in my opinion, you should make the following paragraph your opening paragraph:
My entire world throughout of the years of growing up is the haven created by my parents that nurtured me into an aspiring young man who is eager to pursue his dreams and probe into the world of unknown
That paragraph immediately draws the reader into your world and interests us into learning more about you and the world you come from. Try to limit the dialogue of your parents in the essay because this is supposed to be direct to the point. The admissions officer is not looking for a creative writing piece here, he or she is looking for a paper that answers the prompt directly in order to give them a better idea of who you are. This is a preliminary interview after all.
Pick up the essay immediately after the changed hook at this point:
Develop a new closing statement for the essay. I feel that the essay became more interesting to read in this way. I hope you agree with me :-)
