Here it is, another essay for application to the peace corps. I bet these recruiters get tired of hearing all the same things in 500 words or less. I'd appreciate any comments, including clarity issues, content, relevance, length, and of course spelling and punctuation mistakes. Thanks!
The dusty, out of tune piano in my mother's entryway always serves as a reminder of all the little investments my parents made for my future. Promptly after receiving the instrument, however, I lost interest in my lessons and moved on to soccer, and the piano's function became a mantle for family photos. Inside the piano bench user manuals for all of our electronics can be found, but are seldom read. Instead, Mom will ask me to fix the technical problem that invariably coincides with my bimonthly visit home. "You're in college," she'll cite facetiously, "don't they teach you how to fix this stuff?" I'll generally retort, "I'm a psych major, Mom, they don't teach us anything." The education I so easily undermine is better than most, including teaching experience, Spanish, physical sciences, and philosophy. After graduating from the University of Nevada, I can dazzle at cocktail parties and family gatherings alike. My education and experience have provided plenty of advantages, which I intend to bring to the Peace Corps and share with my host community.
Throughout my life I have been provided with all the luxuries that a kid needs. I lived in a comfortable house with my family- and occasionally friends of the family who were down on their luck. I grew up with the neighborhood kids, who played games like follow the dog on weekday nights, and as we got older, we got cars and part-time jobs folding t-shirts or making pizza. Though I wasn't handed everything, I always knew that I had a better life than most. I obviously don't expect to provide the teenagers of third world countries with used corollas, but the world's been good to me, and taking the time to offer my knowledge and enthusiasm is a way for me to reciprocate.
Most of the core expectations for Peace Corps volunteers are things I have enthusiasm for, and have demonstrated in my work with the American Cancer Society, Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center, and as a teaching assistant at the University of Nevada. My position as the event chair of the Relay For Life includes building important relationships in the university community. In my three semesters as a TA, I was a representative of the psychology department, which required professionalism under the watchful eyes of my peers. In my year volunteering at the local hospital, there were many rules and regulations to follow, many of which felt foreign. These challenges have been fairly simple to overcome.
As a Peace Corps volunteer abroad for 27 months, I'll be challenged by language barriers and cultural alienation, I will have big disappointments and setbacks, and I will at times want desperately to be at home working a desk job. However, I will endeavor to promote peace and friendship every day. I expect that as much as I will sometimes struggle, In the end I'll be the one who benefits. At the very least, I'll have something to replace the awful, out-of-focus picture of me on the old entryway piano.
A few suggestions from my side :
1) Promptly after receiving the instrument, however, I lost interest in my lessons and moved on to soccer, and the piano's function became a mantle for family photos. - However, shortly after receiving the instrument, I lost interest in my lessons and moved on to soccer, and the piano simply became a mantle for family photos.
2) Inside the piano bench user manuals for all of our electronics can be found, but are seldom read. - Inside the piano bench, user manuals for all of our electronics can be found, and those are seldom read.
3) Instead, Mom will ask me to fix the technical problem that invariably coincides with my bimonthly visit home. - I think usage of "instead" is redundant here. You can write - "My mother expected me to mend the technical problems of the piano during my bi-monthly visits to home".
4) I'll generally retort, "I'm a psych major, Mom, they don't teach us anything." - My reply used to be "I'm a psych major, Mom, they don't teach us anything about musical instruments."
5) The education I so easily undermine is better than most, including teaching experience, Spanish, physical sciences, and philosophy. - This sentence does not make sense, and truly seems outlandish.
6) After graduating from the University of Nevada, I can dazzle at cocktail parties and family gatherings alike. - This sentence is too informal, please purge this and write something of more profound impact.
7) My education and experience have provided plenty of advantages, which I intend to bring to the Peace Corps and share with my host community. - "Advantages" is not the correct word, bring in some other words like "my education and experiences in multifarious activities have contributed positively"
There are other grammatical flaws also, and your essay is peppered with sentences which might not be of any relevance to your goal in the long run. The tone of the sentence might convey wrong signal too, e.g., " I obviously don't expect to provide the teenagers of third world countries with used corollas,", so please try to provide only positive and genial feelings through your expressions.
Also, the word "Piano" disappears from the paragraph after initial two sentences and re-appears in the fag end of the essay.
This is a place to use hyphens:
out-of-tune
I guess you can use a better adverb here than "easily"----> The education I so easily undermine is....you could use casually, quickly, readily, etc....
Here is another weak word you can replace if you want to .... "thing" For essay reviewers to suggest replacing this word is a pretty common thing, because it is such a nonspecific word...
:-)
Most of the core expectations for Peace Corps volunteers are things ideals for which I have enthusiasm ...
Well, anyway, I think they are going to like this! Great job. I like Subhash's idea, though... add some mention of the piano to at least one of the body paragraphs so that it is not abruptly reintroduced at the end.
