Choose an issue of importance to you .The issue could be personal , school related, local or international in scope.write about how this issue has influenced you , your family , your community or your generation.
^ This is my topic
I was wondering if i could right about a friend (more like a ex friend) whose pessimism has influenced me in a significant manner and how it made sense to end that friendship after trying hard to change her negative attitude.
does this count as an issue? or does it fall into the category of "how someone has influenced my life"?
Help pleasee !
well your friend definitely influenced you. but you'll have to make the whole thing sound really positive for you in the end and it's pretty hard to write it that way right? you might wanna think of another topic. XD
Maybe you should focus on something that positively influenced you, but a negative influence is definitely a form of influence. If that is what you feel strongly about and can write enough about it, GOOD FOR IT!
Wow, I am so impressed with Wong's advice today! Wong, check out the contributor page! :)
As for whether the effect was negative or positive, it is all a matter of presentation. As Constance said, focusing on the positive is key. That reminds me, I got beat up by six kids when I was 12, and that experience brought out some of the best parts of my personality! So, I think your essay is going to CONTRAST your attitude against a negative point of view.
Some humor would be great in this essay!
Like Kevin and his great example (sorry about them beating ya up, Kev, but you are great!), you should write your essay with a positive spin. For example, I would not write about getting attacked by sharks when I was two years old and now have a fear of water; instead, I would say that being attacked made me aware of my surroundings and better at problem-solving and stress in situations... FYI, just an example-I was never attacked by any animal. :)
GOOD LUCK!
And don't forget that the prompt asks you about an issue, not about a friend who influenced you. So, you have to start by identifying an issue that your experience with your friend demonstrates.
Due date for the essay is tomorrow. I have come up with an essay . Please critique and help correct any mistakes.
Thanks !
im guessing this is for the common app application essay - one main problem i see with this essay. It is a bit too long. 1200 words is too long for an essay of this kind. I'd recommend shorter length of around 700.
Also you talk too much about the issue of child labour. Although the prompt asked for an issue of concern. It also asked you how it influenced you this is the most important part. The adcoms wants to know about you not about the child labour situation. you're using child labour as an issue, an insight towards your own self-beliefs and ideals.
You only begin to mention yourself in the last two paragraphs, a mere 200-300 words or so. this is not even a quatre of your essay. You should try to talk about yourself for at least half your essay.
Reduce some of the descriptions on child labour. Sure its well written but thats not what the adcoms are looking for. Strenghten your ideas about how it influenced you and maybe have an anecdote about a time when you began to recognize the problem or something
good luck
Do you remember the first time you rode a tricycle? The first time your dad took you to watch a football match? The first time your parents took you swimming? Throughout all the highs and the lows, Childhood is something that is remembered forever. It is a cardinal and powerful experience in each individual's lifetime but this very part of a person's life, is being snatched away from millions of children throughout the world. This was and is being done by the cruel act of child labor.
I think you shouldn't ask your audience questions like this in the PS. It's you to tell them sth, not them to answer anything.
And your essay is more like a research on child labor rather than a PS. I think more personal details would work.
Good luck!
What must i omit to make it shorter? and If i do make it much shorter then do i still have to add more things about how child labour influences me?
I omitted some stuff and came up with this . Is this okay? or must i add more personal details ?
your voice is whats needed in this essay
have a look at other essays of your topic (i'm sure someone else has chosen this one for their common apps) and see how they have integrated their issue of choice with their beliefs, their stories etc
your essay is like this
issue about child labour
.
.
.
your view
conclusion
your view and your voice needs to be strongly issued at the start or at least beginning few sentences. The adcoms need to knwo why this is important to you right from the start, not the last two paragraphs
I think you've done the trimming work well for the first part of your essay. However, it still looks like a mini reasearch paper rather than a "Personal Statement"
Looking back at the prompt. They asked: write about how this issue has influenced you , your family , your community or your generation.
You have provided the issue with strong argument as well as example. However, your last paragraph, it's just so "general". You talked about India as a whole. Adcom interested in what YOU have done, not what you suggested others. It's easier said than done. However, it seems that you are not living in India right?
Being a national of India, child labor is something that i see every year and gives a twinge of bother to my conscience every time i visit
Then it's a little hard to talk about what you've done for your community (in small scale, not the whole India, but if you have achieved sth big, then talk about it). I think you should focus at least half of the essay on you, trim the Fiozabad city part a little more (though I cannot think of how to trim it more right now :p)
That's just my humble opinion, i'm applying this year too.
Good luck!
I dont live in India , And i havent actively done anything about child labor.So what do i write?
Its hard and theres no time left to think of a whole new essay. Im kind of stuck arent i ?
I have changed it up a little bit (for like the fifth time) However i do not know what else i can write about me doin anything about it.
____________________________________________________________ ______________
"There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again" - Elizabeth Lawrence.
Throughout all the highs and the lows, Childhood is something that will be remembered forever. Childhood is a cardinal and powerful experience in each individual's lifetime but this very part of a person's life, is being snatched away from millions of children throughout the world.
Child labor is the full time work done by children under the age of fifteen, it is the work that interferes with their education and damages the physical, mental, social or psychological development of a child. There are about 250 million children that work in factories, plantations and fields and down mines. Even though efforts are being made to curb child labor, it still largely prevails in a number of underdeveloped and developing countries like India, Africa and China. Ironically, these child workers are often forced into labor at a time when there are millions of adults who are either unemployed or underemployed.
As a person, Whenever I read, see or hear of children who are forced to work for whatever reason, it brings to my mind the futility of all the economic progress and achievement that the modern world boasts of, yet does nothing to be able to feed a child in a poor country. Action plans are made and efforts are underway but what i would like to see during my lifetime is that no child needs to work just to be able to afford his or her next meal.
The question that often crosses my mind is "Does child labor really affect me?". After thinking for a considerable amount of time, i realized it does. Products made by child labor are sold in my corner store - matches, fireworks, toys, clothes, sporting goods, plastic gadgets ,you name it! Oranges picked by Brazilian children make their way into my breakfast juice. Surgical instruments used in hospitals are made by children. We all benefit from their cheap wages and since child laborers are usually paid about half the adult wage, that drives down the value of adult labor. It makes it tougher for adults to hang on to wages and to jobs. So ultimately, child labor is an issue of concern to every single person.
It is extremely frightening to see that in an era of technological advancement, the exploitation of children is present all over the world. India is one of the countries where this situation largely prevails.
The colorful glass bangles can be seen throughout India, decorating the wrists of women and girls. But nearly every one of these beautiful light-catching bracelets has one thing in common-children helped make them.
Firozabad city, where people breathe not air but glass, where every second vehicle on the road is found fully loaded with glittering glass bangles of vivid colors, is widely infamous for its glass works. In this city, about 90% of families are dependent on glass and bangle-making work. Approximately 20,000 children work in this business here. Children are dragged from their squalid beds at two, three or four o' clock in the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsistence until eleven or twelve at night, wearing their limbs away, their undernourished frames dwindling, faces whitening and their humanity sinking into a stone like torpor, utterly horrendous to contemplate. They sit in crouched positions, in dark rooms, using kerosene or gas to heat the bangles, staring into a small flame for hours and breathing gas fumes. As a consequence, the children, who slog their daylight hours in a cloistered room close to hot furnaces, often lose the brightness of their eyes. No steps are taken by the employers to educate the workers about the gases and chemicals used, nor are they provided with any protective gear. The beauty of the glass bangles of Firozabad contrasts with the misery of the people who produce them. This is only one mind-numbing example of a place inflicted by child labor. One can legitimately ask how we can contribute to save these children a great deal of misery.
Being an Indian national, child labor is something that i see every year and gives a twinge of bother to my conscience every time i visit. It is a horrendous sight to watch children younger than ten years of age serve you when you dine at a restaurant for a small inconsistent wage.I believe that this is an issue that must be tackled as soon as possible in order to free the children working under the scorching heat and to enable them to spend their childhood the way we do, with our friends and family, not in factories and mines.We must all begin to make an effort to eradicate a world where these poor children suffer generation after generation.It is necessary to take a resolution to abolish all child labor.The children need to be brought to classrooms and provided with basic education, followed by training in vocations of their interest. The nation does not need a working populace below the age of fourteen, but innocent children laughing through the day, enjoying their youth. Stringent steps have to be taken and it is the collective responsibility of the government and us as citizens to address the problem and bring to an end to all types of child labor.Child labor must not become a nation's social safety net.Years of mind-numbing toil have killed these children's initiative and ability to dream and we cannot let this continue.
In the words of Tenzin Gyatso, "All the problems of the world - child labor, corruption - are symptoms of a spiritual disease: Lack of compassion"
Overall the essay is fairly strong. As for what you have done about child labor, you list various products that were produced by child labor, so maybe you could talk about how you avoid buying such products, and about how you make sure to research the labor practices of any major company whose products you purchase?
Thankyou so so so much ! Thats just what i needed!
