UC Prompt 2- I opened my eyes, everything around me was blurry, and nothing made sense.

Can anybody give me any tips on my personal statement? Any criticism will be appreciated!

Prompt: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?

I opened my eyes, everything around me was blurry, and nothing made sense. As I look around my eyes focus and everything around me becomes clear. I could feel my body drenched in sweat from the relentless heat of the High Desert, the itchy dirt from the track covering the majority of my legs, and the all too familiar absence of feeling in my fingertips. I saw my coach speaking with two male paramedics then I realized; there I was again. Thoughts of failure flooded my mind when I began to comprehend what took place. Both men approached me as I lay in disbelief on the gurney. They bombarded me with a flurry of questions such as, "when is your birthday?" and "What medications are you currently taking?" Unable to muster anything more than incoherent mumbles they soon let me be. I saw the paramedics have a brief and inaudible conversation then proceed to close the doors. Looking out the back window, watching the school shrink in the distance, the only thought that flooded my mind was, "I should have given up earlier..."

In the summer of 2013, I decided to join my schools cross country team. I was socially awkward, non-athletic, and did not strive for anything outside of my comfort zone. Despite being this way my entire life, I had a strange sense of confidence in myself that I could be successful this season. Two months later, due to a combination of severe dehydration and a heat stroke, I fell unconscious and suffered multiple seizures. The five days I spent at the hospital consisted of a constant battle within my own mind about why I should quit the team or push myself to excel. Despite the discouraging comments of concerned friends and family I decided that I would finish the season. Before every run, our coach would tell us that there are three Ds to succeed in running: discipline, determination, and dedication. To this day those words are engrained in my memory and never fail to motivate me to persevere.

After returning home from the hospital a second time my grandmother, fearing that I would injure myself further, disallowed me from racing again. I blamed myself for not being able to weather the challenges that kept me from my goal- not my health conditions. The day I returned to school our coach insisted that I assist her in managing the team for the remainder of the season. I happily agreed and every day I enjoyed seeing my peers smile and work hard as they bound through the course. Occasionally I felt as if my position on the team was an unnecessary waste of time, however, the runners would often remind me of how much they appreciated my support and enthusiasm. By the end of the season I felt a great sense of belonging and companionship with the team. I felt as if I had not failed at all. The moment I received my certificate for managing the cross country team, I realized that if I gave up I would have never had the opportunity to develop these friendships. After this experience I try to apply the Three D's to not only running but everything I strive to do.

Adu, this a very good essay. It shows how one can triumph over adversity. In your case, you not only found triumph in the face of extreme failure, but you also found a way to develop your personal traits in such a way that you found an aspect of your personality that you would not have learned about if you had not collapsed on the course that day of the competition. The problem that i see with the essay is that you spent too much time introducing the failure to the reader. Try to cut it down to only one paragraph so that you can devote the rest of the essay space to developing a discussion about what you learned from that failure and how it has helped to shape the person you have become. I really like the rest of the paragraphs where you discussed how your team told you that your moral support meant a lot to them. How did you show that support? That shows the kind of positive effect your failure was able to present to you. Develop it, talk more about the way you found your way back from failure and learned to accept that something positive would eventually come out of giving up on your dreams of running track :-)