UF High School Junior Summer Program - Youth Entrepreneur's for Leadership

I'm Applying for UF's Youth Entrepreneur's for Leadership and Sustainability program and I need help in my essay revision. It would be greatly appreciated :) This was the prompt for the essay:

The essay helps us to get to know you better, please share with us:
- your experience and interest in entrepreneurship, leadership, sustainability, and/or community service (you can emphasize one, two, three, or all four of these concepts; its not necessary to mention all of them, though you should keep in mind that the YELS summer program does integrate these four concepts in all that we do)

- your future academic and career goals
- what you hope to learn and gain from your experience (in other words - how participation in the YELS summer program will help you achieve your future goals)

- what knowledge, talents, and skills you will contribute to the program

As a well rounded student I find that I have a profound love for the extracurricular things I do outside of school. Personally I enjoy the academic side of my school life, but the extracurricular work I do is what feeds me a sense of satisfaction that I would never experience in a purely academic student career. The volunteer work I do for the IT team in my school, band, and engineering club give me a feeling of purpose in my otherwise challenging academic school life. The computer technical support work I do for my school in particular gives me a large feeling of positive contribution to my school environment and academic community, while giving me real world experience servicing a campus of over 150 machines. Additionally I pride myself with the with the community service work I do outside of school, like with my volunteer work in West Memorial Hospital's Disaster Training and the upcoming AIDS walk fundraiser.

But in spite of the community service I do, deep down inside I hold a burning desire to do more for my community and make a bigger impact on my environment. This ambition has breed into the idea for the forum portion of my school website me and my web design teacher are creating. The point of the forum is allow student musicians, artist, writers, and inventors access to an intellectual think-tank to express themselves, and gain feedback and critic from their peers; which is crucial in the stimulation and development of their creative talents. I'm working on this out of a sense of duty to allow students to grow and become creative divergent, critical thinkers in a school environment that otherwise stresses lateral and narrow-minded thinking. I encourage leadership qualities from my peers because I want students to realize their own leadership potential and become independent problem solvers and thinkers rather than mindless followers.

I endeavor to spread my eagerness to tackle social problems with innovative solutions and I yearn to lead by example, hopefully inspiring and motivating my peers to take a more hands on approach to improving our environment and playing a larger role in contributing to our community. In turn increasing the efficiency of my community, making it a more environmentally friendly place, which is partly why I wish to gain a degree in the field of engineering. In other words I wish to pursue a degree in Engineering not only because of my fascination with technology, but to fulfill my desire to improve the quality of everyday life for people with new technologies. And I aspire to go to a college or university that promotes the importance community service and involvement, like the University of Florida. Thereafter my later goals include finding a demanding career that challenges me to think creatively to find unique solutions to common everyday problems because I want to use my divergent thinking for an impactful cause. Moreover into my adult life I want to do philanthropic work for developing countries on top of my work for my career and community.

As for participating in the YELS summer program I hope to achieve a greater knowledge and more experience with community service, and be provided with tools and concepts that I can employ to make a difference in my community. While meeting new people who share the same common interest of serving their community, sharing great memories with them, and getting a firsthand glimpse into campus life before my high school graduation. And I would love taking advantage of my time over the summer by something productive and meaningful to my academics like gaining community service hours and completing the college level courses that are part of the program. Now as to what I can contribute to the YELS program, I would bring my intuitive thinking for creative projects, my determination to serve the community, and my technical knowledge for servicing computers since I will be CompTIA A+ certified as a computer support technician before the start of the program. And with that also comes my skills in real world problem analysis and critical thinking for practical problem solving. I can also contribute encouragement for divergent thinking and independence among those around me at the program while bringing my talent of bringing out the best work from people, and my infectious personality to truly enhance the community of the YELS program. If I am given the opportunity to attend the Youth Entrepreneurs for Leadership & Sustainability program I would take the concepts it emphasizes and apply it to my life to improve my community and spread my new found knowledge to educate and encourage my peers to improve our community.

Any help is greatly apprieciated

Ah! the first paragraph is boring. It is interesting to you, because it is all about you, but to me, the superficial reader, it is irrelevant.

This intro paragraph needs a concept that will intrigue the reader and make the reader feel empowered to discuss a new concept.

Here it is!------> The point of the forum is allow student musicians, artist, writers, and inventors access to an intellectual think-tank to express themselves, and gain feedback and critic from their peers; which is crucial in the stimulation and development of their creative talents.------This is a meaningful observation. It expresses what is on your mind and what is on your agenda as a scholar. You understand this opportunity for artists. I want to point out that this is the most interesting aspect of the essay.

Here is another meaningful sentence: I can also contribute encouragement for divergent thinking and independence among those around me at the program while bringing my talent of bringing out the best work from people, and my infectious personality to truly enhance the community of the YELS program.

Do you see what I mean? These are the sentences that are meaningful to the reader. So... emphasize these concepts!

You write very well.

Thank you :D I do see what you mean. And thanks for the help, and the only point of the first boring paragraph was simply to get the first part of the checklist out of the way so I could just write more what I felt.