U Michigan-Academic interest. Why Psychology?

Thank you guys in advance for reading my essay!
It has to be around 250 words, but I have 312 words. How can I cut down? or do you think 312 words are okay?
ANY HARSH CRITICISM OR SENTENCE CORRECTIONS IS WELCOMED!
Thank you :)

College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA): What led you to choose the area(s) of academic interest that you have listed in your application to the University of Michigan? If you are undecided, what areas are you most interested in, and why?

"You are the first person I am telling this to," my friend said with a slightly trembling voice, breaking the silence. At that time I was sixteen years old, I had a naïve assumption that I could best help others if I have been through the same problems with them. Every time I had conversations with people, I would not only expose my painful memories but also exaggerate them to gain sympathy from them. It seemed like people had an easier time opening up me in this way.

When my friend shared that she was sexually abused by her neighbor when she was six years old, I soon realized my logic was wrong. Though she broke down in front of me because of anger and the fear of men, I could not say a word. The story was too painful and sensitive for me to pretend to understand her pain.

This experience of feeling helpless and witnessing suffering did not kill my passion of helping wounded people, but inspired it. I began to love to observe human interaction and to analyze the way people talk and react. I yearned to learn something universal to heal peoples' hearts. Psychology, my intended major, is a perfect match for both my interest and passion. I especially want to study trauma and healing so I can be "Quick-eyed Love," introduced in the poem Love, by George Herbert. I want to be "Quick-eyed Love" who can notice somebody's suffering and make him feel loved, welcomed, and worthy.

Good essay...very deep...a couple sentences dont sound right though, and here are the changes I would make...

"As a people watcher, I love observing and analyzing. I observe when a group of people gather and interact with each other. I analyze why people talk and react in the way they do, using logic and my knowledge of human behavior.

As a people watcher, I love observing and analyzing human interactions. I enjoy observing when a group of people gather and interact with each other. Moreover, I enjoy using my logic and knowledge of human behavior to analyze the mannerisms in which they talk and react.

I quickly looked over it. Looks pretty good. In the sentence: It is inevitable consequence of my curiosity in peoples' multifarious ways of behavior, perception, and emotion...you need to put the word "an" between "is" and "inevitable" so it reads" It is an inevitable consequence

people's

the grammar looks good, syntax seems without huge flaw.

Now, I think that you should reorganize your essay in a way that's more powerful so that it could leave the reader with something memorable. For instance, your story of your friend is misplaced. You start by talking very generically about your interest, then moved to passion, and although you state that you feeling helpless nourished your passion...it kind of feels out of place and not connecting with your interest.

I think that your realization of your own helplessness face to a deep psychology problem should be your main point, and your interest could have grown from that. What if you started with your friend's story to "hit" the reader, then work your way to how your interest furthered from the realization of you being helpless? That way, you could incorporate your views on specific parts of psychology and show the admin that you know your stuff. As it is, the admin wonders: so that student simply "realized" his/her powerlessness and did nothing?

You could say that as a result of you being powerless, you began to develop a passion/curiosity for psychology and realized that it goes along with what you were always interested in, which is to observe people and understand and blabla. I feel that this way, the reader has a clearer idea of where your passion comes from.

Also, your comments on


really comes from no where. Science? Humanities? where do you talk about these? unless you mention them before, you shouldn't add them in the conclusion simply to tell the reader how varied your interests are. Either explain it in your body paragraphs, or drop these unsupported statements.


Pursuit of happiness? this sounds like a big plan, but you don't actually talk about pursuit of happiness anywhere else. You mention how you want to cure people, but that's a long way from pursuit of happiness.

Overall, it's a good story, but I think that restructuring it will make it have more impact. Also, try to avoid generic and unsupported statements simply for the sake of words or finishing the story.