Particular interest in economics and psychology - Cornell Supplement

Hello, my name is Tony, and I'd like to ask for some help in my Cornell's required writing supplement.

Here's the prompt:
Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are
exciting to you. Why will Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences be the right
environment in which to pursue your interests? (650 words)

And here's my essay:

One day, when I was reading a passage from my economics textbook for homework, I came across to a brief biography of John Maynard Keynes, the father of macroeconomics, and one of his quotes. He said: "Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others." I had been wondering since I started to learn about economics. Why do people experience failure in business? Why does the economy collapse and lead many people to bankruptcy? I never understood why such tragedies have to occur. For this reason, I plan to become an economist; in order to explain economic phenomena and be able to forecast market trends. Fortunately, Keynes made me realize that learning about people's behavior and their reasoning is essential in the study of economics. Therefore, I look to interweave the disciplines of economics and psychology in order to become a successful economist, and I believe that Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences is a suitable starting point for my journey.

A friend told me that economics seems like an arid and prosaic subject because it strictly evaluates the benefit and the cost, and has no human-like qualities. Ironically, I believed in the exact opposite. Economics is a fascinating subject because it is one that resembles human beings the most. It will never reach the state of perfection; its policies tend to contradict each other. Thus, I view economics as a weak dam with a leaky hole. Once you close up the gap, another one will appear somewhere else. Therefore, what's important would be to make sure that the successive gap is smaller than the original one. Similarly, economists will bring up different plans to stabilize the economy. As a matter of fact, none of them will ultimately solve the economic crisis, but they're implemented in the hope of weakening the impact of the problem. What excites and urges me to pursue the field of economics is its unlimited space for progresses and improvements.

I'm specifically interested in behavioral psychology because it focuses on why people make certain decisions in a given situation. Its importance is noticeable in the Keynesian economics, which takes into consideration the nature of the demand side. Keynes's unique interpretation of including the consumer's behavior during a recession led to a successful prevention of another Great Depression in the modern society. The reason that he was able to think beyond the box is because he analyzed the plight not only as an economist, but also as a psychologist until he reached the sources of error. I became inspired at seeing how a seemingly simple innovation to the system could have such a drastic effect, and see tremendous value in the sector of behavioral psychology which was the foundation Keynesian economics.

Truthfully, Cornell is a fitting environment to pursue my goals because I could easily entwine economics with psychology. Courses such as "Social and Personality", despite being a psychology class, can contribute to my understanding of both macroscopic and microscopic scales of economics because it teaches how people arrive at their decisions and how they are influenced by external factors.

I truly appreciate the lectures, but I also would like to prioritize any potential work experiences and internships outside the classroom. Therefore, I look forward to communicate with the career development office and connect myself with institutes such as Brookings, a non-profit organization that searches solution for various societal issues, that can amplify my cognition of how instability within the society can affect the economy.

Cornell's CAS would serve as a comfortable nest that provides all of my necessities. I can combine two different branches of social science in terms of both academics and extracurriculars. All I need is the right mindset and the willingness to give my fullest effort to convert these opportunities into a feasible reality.

I gladly recommend any comments and suggestions!
I think I need help with grammar and the flow of the essay.

Thank you!

PS: Do colleges care a lot about contractions in the essay? I've used a lots of contractions in my previous essays because I was exceeding the word limits.

Hey,

I think the flow of the essay is good in most terms, I really liked the first paragraph because it truly hooked me into reading more about your essay, but I think you could do some improvements to the second one because as you said, it becomes kind of contradictory so you may get a bit lost in there. I also liked the metaphor of economy as a dam. In the third paragraph I think is good that you set out an example of how psychology can be applied to the subject you like, but in my opinion you could explain a bit more why do you like it besides just having a connection to economy, the subject you truly seem to like most. As you did it in the second paragraph, you could use more your own words to describe you think psychology may benefit you and what you think it means for economy, rather than stating an example for most of the paragraph.

For the last paragraphs, I think they're good because they show you've actually done some research on the school and the resources they have to offer, but again in the fourth paragraph, instead of just defining what the class is about and how it relates to economics, you could tell more about why you would like to take that class and what you think it's interesting about it in your own words, because it seems like the only reason you want to study psychology is because it will make you a better economist rather than because you enjoy psychology.

I'm not really very good with grammar either but everything seemed fine to me.

Hope this helped.

One day, when I was reading a passage ...
He said: "Successful investing is ... -->These sentences are choppy and don't flow very well. You can combine them so they read more easily, and cut out the exposition the first half the first sentence. For example: "A quote by Keynes, the father of macroeconomics, piqued my interest...". The "one day, when I was reading..." is unnecessary.

... I started to learn about economics: Why do people experience ... --> use a colon after "economics" instead of a period to get rid of the first sentence fragment.

"Social and Personality, " --> the comma goes inside the quotes.

@angeli6778
@alexgzm

Thank you both for your suggestions!

I just suddenly came up with another question because I have to start my UChicago supplement.
For example,
if I really like a paragraph from one of my previous writing supplements, can I copy paste them and use it in other supplements that have a similar same topic? Of course, if the paragraph contains a specific school name, I can simply change that.

Sung, don't do that. Always develop a new essay for each university, even if it pertains to the same topic. You can use the same topic but present it in a new way. That is because the universities are already wise to the fact that students plagiarize the essays they submit by simply changing the university name. Some universities run plagiarism checks on submitted application essays and if it turns out that you have already previously submitted the work, then your application is cancelled. Don't risk that happening to you just because it is difficult to write new essays. I know it is tiresome and boring to do. Nobody said getting into college will be easy. Proving that you are determined to get into the university by working hard on your essays for each university will be the best preparation that you can have for the eventual difficulties of college assignments, research, and essay papers. So always be original. Don't rehash your papers as much as possible.