Ok so I wrote this for Georgetown and I'm not sure whether it's good enough and whether it gives the right impression. Please give me some feedback???
Thanks. (i know it is horrendously last minute)
Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either personal or creative, which you feel best describes you.
I hear the sound of my favorite band, I think it would be best to refrain from saying who for fear of embarrassing myself, blaring through my mobile phone. After clicking the snooze button a few times, my body awakes, and I arise. I have no idea what I am doing at college today and I like the feeling.
Wrapped up warm in art-school appropriate clothing, stylish yet resistant to the possibility of being doused in oil paint, I set out the door of my student accommodation where I am to be spending the next year, and onto the streets of East London, in my opinion the most intriguing part of the city.
I walk past swathes of diverse people, noting the expression in people's faces, wondering who they are and what life is like living behind those eyes. Pavement sprawls before me, chewing gum smattered, and I pass a shop advertising 'Jack the Ripper' tours and I wonder, what stood where I am standing 200 years ago? I might go home and research the mass-murderer later in a futile attempt to understand the motive behind such actions.
The shops on Whitechapel Road are culturally diverse. I pass a Starbucks, a branch that I have vowed not to enter in loyalty to the plethora of beautifully quaint cafes that occupy the expanse of Brick Lane, before passing an Islamic gift shop and a mosque. I marvel at the towering minarets and if I'm lucky, the bellowing call to prayer given by the resident muezzin. The smell of freshly cooked samosa from a Brick Lane curry house brings me back to my Indian roots.
Before I get on the tube, I peer into the neighboring Whitechapel Gallery. With its frequently changing exhibitions I am fearful of missing anything. I glance upwards, never tiring of the building's new addition, a beautiful golden tangle of climbing ivy made in metal and gold leaf, fixed onto the exterior of the building by Turner Prize winning artist Rachel Whiteread, a commission in celebration of the 2012 Olympics. Sometimes looking up and out in life can have unexpected benefits.
I spy a book on Installation Art that I have been lusting after for weeks in the window of the Gallery Shop and struggle to stop myself from going in and purchasing it, reminding myself that I have to get to college on time and that I must save and not spend the money I receive from my part-time job. Plus, I am already struggling under the weight of all my sketchbooks and reference books.
I make it onto the tube on time, as always, and settle down into my seat. I always ponder the thought that I am currently sharing such a small space and ritual of life, the commute, with a group of people I will probably never see again. I put on my headphones and close my eyes, anticipating the song that will come up on shuffle, pleased at hearing the opening broken chords of Holst's 'Jupiter', one of my favorite pieces of Classical music due to its strong ability to conjure up images in my mind's eye, before the song changes to a Bollywood hit, reminding me of the time I danced to it with my school's Asian dance troupe.
I see one of my classmates on the other side of the carriage, fervently waving. I smile before receding back into my world. The same occurrence on the way home would be a different story altogether and I will relish the chance to excitedly chat about the day's events, reflecting on what I learned and the progress of my current project. Perhaps I will moan a little about how I have too many ideas and not enough time to fulfill them all or that the school does not provide Rodin-esque marble carving classes, because how cool would that be? Mornings are my time to be in my own company and to ready myself for the rest of the day.
As soon as I step into the crumbling yet charming building that is Central St. Martin's my day properly begins and I set into action, the internal whirring of my brain transfers into outward communication and action. I set to work. And this is where my description must end because I do not know where my day will take me. Perhaps I will re-discover automatic drawing and spend the rest of the day reading Freud's 'The Interpretation of Dreams', or spend the day, and therefore the next few subsequent weeks for hours on end striving for nothing less than perfection, trying to capture the essence of a classmate using nothing but oil paint and a 2D surface to work upon. I will think, 'Why am I doing this when it is so easy to just take a photo?', prompting my tutor suggesting me to read Baudelaire's 'The Painter of Modern Life'. I prefer it this way, I prefer not to know. I like being in the kitchen with a bunch of ingredients and concocting something up, I like getting on my bike and seeing where my peddles will take me. Some may say that I'm in 'my own little world', but I think it is a very interesting place to be.
I don't like how the whole thing was essentially a narrative. I didn't really get to know you. It was hard to avoid being bored while listening to random pieces of information presented in a way similar to this:
I did this, which was this, and it was cool, but it was interesting, and so on. Point being, you have far too many commas and run on sentences.
The essay didn't really engage me - your narrative didn't tell me much about you. It's also hard to enjoy an essay when I'm not engaged in it from the start.
To make this better, I think you should focus less on the narrative aspect and more on an essay that describes you and your life goals.
Good luck!
On the contrary, I found it to be a very engaging read! And I learned a lot about you: your sense of reflection and introspection, your questioning nature, your creativity, your appreciation of other people and diversity, your spontaneity and zest for life, as well as your desired major, college plans, high school hobbies, favorite music and books, etc., etc. I think Admissions will appreciate its originality. Good luck.
