'Most people love Christmas' - University of Florida essay ("my life change"), suggestions?

Prompt: In the space provided, please write a concise narrative in which you describe a meaningful event, experience or accomplishment in your life and how it will affect your college experience or your contribution to the UF campus community. You may want to reflect on your family, your school or community activities, or your involvement in areas outside of school.

Unless your name is Ebenezer Scrooge, most people love Christmas. Everyone gets so caught up in the excitement and magic that comes with the holiday season, it provides an escape from the harsh reality of everyday life. At least it always has for me. I can recall almost every Christmas I've had since I was three. Every Christmas has been a stepping stone into new experiences and life changes.

On December 25th 1995, I woke up to Jingle Bells playing on the radio and the smell of Christmas trees. I walked out into the living room to find myself surrounded by presents wrapped in shiny red and green paper. I opened my mouth in amazement. I tore through all the presents like Godzilla would have on a helpless city. Once I was done, my parents exchanged gifts. They were truly happy. I could see it in their faces. Everything was perfect.

A year later, it was Christmas again, except it was completely different. My dad's job relocated him to the Dominican Republic, requiring all of us to move there. My dad was happy because that's where he was originally from, my mom on the other hand loved our life in Miami and didn't want to leave. They started fighting more often, something I had never witnessed. Later the same year, my mom fell ill. She spent most of her time in the hospital. I had no clue about what was going on. I stayed with my grandparents until my mom was finally strong enough to leave the hospital. That Christmas, my mom was able to join us in the celebration and I was in a new home. Everything seemed to be getting back to normal.

Christmases stayed normal, until my parents finally decided to get a divorce. My dad lost his job and my parents started fighting even more. I had already gotten used to not being around my dad because he was never home. The only thing that truly impacted me was my mom's decision to move back to Florida. This would be my last Christmas in the Dominican Republic and I couldn't believe it. That Christmas, however, was the first time I saw my mom truly happy in a long time. I had mixed feelings about what the future held for me, but in the long run I knew everything would be okay.

Christmas since then has never been as magical as the one I can first recall. It is still, however, the only time of year in which every thing makes sense. Nothing goes wrong and I feel truly complete.

Looking back on my Christmases, I realize the incredible roller coaster I've gone through in life. I can't pick one specific experience because all my experiences have helped shape the person I am today. Facing the obstacles in my life has taught me how to be strong and determined.

At UF, I will go through college with strength to face any challenge that comes my way. I know that in order to succeed, one must be willing to go through the struggle and work hard. I think that it's important to take risks and discover new things so that one can really get the most out college. I also feel that living in a different country will help me contribute new perspectives and ideas to the UF campus community. Going to UF is another life change that I will welcome and try the most that I can in order to make my dreams come true.

Really? You mean like the millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists that collectively make up most of the worlds population?

The body of your essay is actually quite good, being all touching and heartfelt and all that. Your writing style is refreshingly straightforward and direct, too, which helps.

Then, we reach your conclusion.


But, uh, that was the whole point of the assignment.


Nothing in your anecdote shows this.


Or this. Worse, this is all boilerplate, written without conviction and in such a way as it could be made to apply to any university simply by changing the name of the uni. The contrast with the body of the essay makes this glaringly obvious. I suggest creating a more natural transition into a discussion of how dealing with your parents divorce has prepared you for university, or else just eliminate this paragraph altogether, and stop your essay at the end of your previous paragraph.

Yah, seriously: That made me (as a non-Christian) want to stop reading right there. Unless you're applying to a Christian university, it's possible the admissions officer reading your essay won't be Christian. Even if they are, they will want to know that you can function in a diverse university environment. At minimum, that means recognizing that not everybody shares your religion. Ideally, you would also understand that Christmas can be a particularly miserable time of year for non-Christians in countries that are dominated by that faith.

You don't need to demonstrate such sensitivity in this essay, but you ought to show that you know your experiences are not everybody's. Replace that first sentence with something more accurate.

As Sean said, the rest of the essay is lively until you get down to the cliches at the end. Rewrite that part to bring it more into line with the rest of your essay.

I liked the Godzilla metaphor, which was, I assume, intentionally humorous. I'd focus mostly on revising the intro and conclusion, as I said before.

haha yeah it was supposed to be funny, and i'm sorry if i offended anyone with the first sentence, that too was supposed to be a little humorous, fail. okay here's the new revised version, is this better?

You're coming closer. If you say "the holiday season" and then immediately move onto Christmas, you are again implying that everyone enjoys Christmas, which we don't. If you want to stick with the "everyone" formula, why not say that everyone gets caught up in the excitement of holiday seasons and then go on to specify that the holiday that's most exciting for you is Christmas? This implicitly recognizes that there are all sorts of holiday seasons -- Rosh Hoshanah, Tet, Diwali, Solstice -- while still expressing your own excitement about Christmas.

I like how you compare the past with the present in your essay. It seems very well written and I concur the criticism on Ebenezer Scrooge. Good effort though! You also tie your experience with how it will help you in UF well at the end too.

Your second sentence seems to sort of contradict your first one in this part . . . if you only really feel complete at Christmas, when you can lose yourself in warm fuzzy memories of your childhood, how does that show that you are a self-confident individual who has learned to overcome life's obstacles on a day-to-day basis?

what if i delete that part and just leave it at:

Going through the obstacles in my life such as dealing with my parent's divorce, my mother's illness and moving from home has taught me to be strong and determined to surpass my shortcomings. College will prove to be just another obstacle in my life that I will be able to handle with grace. At UF, I'll be able to deal with the tough classes and homesickness because I have already learned how to face any challenge that comes my way.

That's better, I think.

Wow I kinda liked the first Sentence, but I guess it depends on who's reading it

I think the essay may suffer a bit from its focus on the magic of Christmas. The essay is very well-written and interesting, but you've made Christmas the focus, whereas perhaps you might have been better off making yourself the focus. You can just cut the last paragraph altogether, and have a very strong essay, but you can't really turn it into a traditional "and this is how the experience will make me a better student" essay without severely weakening what you have.

I've rewritten it without so much focus on the greatness of christmas here it is:
...

It has a better flow, now, between the last two paragraphs. I don't know that you can do much more with this, given your approach. The only thing I'd change now is:


Hopefully, you will find college to be more than "just another obstacle." Yes, the academic work will be more challenging, but that is only a small part of the college experience, which is (or at any rate certainly can be) something far more joyous than the word "obstacle" would imply.

true true, thanks a lot!

On December 25th 1995, I woke up to Jingle Bells playing on the radio and the smell of freshly cut evergreen.

This is a comma splice: You've spliced together two complete sentences with a comma rather than separating them with a period or joining them with a semi-colon. It's never a good idea to start an essay with a grammatical error.

Actually, I think maybe you meant

"Everyone gets so caught up in the excitement and magic that comes with holiday seasons that it provides an escape from the harsh reality of everyday life"

And of course, you often can leave out the "that" in such constructions, although as it reads incorrectly if you do it here, you should include it in this case.

"I tore through all the presents like Godzilla would have through a helpless city."

"My dad was happy because that is where he was originally from, my mom on the other hand, loved our life in Miami and did not want to leave." This is a run-on sentence. Revise.

"At UF, I will be able to deal with the tough classes, being away from home for the first time, adapting to a new environment and learning how to be fully independent because I have learned how to face the challenges that have come my way." Revise for parallel structure.

What would you change at your university?/ Need Help

I have to write an essay of 2 pages. This is the topic: From your own experience: what would you change at your university? It needs to be from a student's point of view.

Any ideas? :P

Universities should create more job opportunities for students and help them have certain jobs quickly after their graduation.