I wrote this and I do not know what I can do to improve it. I feel almost as if I am lacking structure. Help would be highly appreciated. This is for Princeton's influential person essay. Thank you in advance.
PROMPT: Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.
The person who has influenced me the most throughout my life would have to be my mom. She is the most hard-working, honest, and intelligent person that I know and she has been the main force pushing me and urging me to achieve my potential.
My mother was born in Buenos Aires, where she lived the majority of her life. She studied there, attended college there, and received her doctorate in biochemistry there. When we moved to the United States, she was a pillar in our family, serving to support the rest of us in a time of turbulence and tumult. She immediately began applying for work, landing a job as a pharmacist, and also worked tirelessly on her English, both in and out of work. She simultaneously assisted my brother and me with our schoolwork, constantly staying up to help us finish relatively hefty (as we did not speak the language) assignments. I can recall long nights spent crying at my inability to understand or write in English and my mom's unyielding support and care as she sat with me and tirelessly assisted me.
The most amazing thing about my mom, however, is the way in which she handles everything: with a smile. She deals with all her worries and troubles happily and in a light-hearted fashion, making the most out of every tumultuous situation. Indeed, I believe that it is from her that I got my ability to take losses in stride and learn from every situation, good or bad, as opposed to constantly fretting and worrying. For example, when she returns home from working late at the pharmacy most weeknights, she opens the door with a humorous story about a coworker or a quip about some bothersome customer already at hand. This quality that my mom possesses is made significant when juxtaposed with her working conditions; she works until 9 or 10 every night, standing for hours on end and dealing with clients that are often discourteous and immature. She faces all of these obstacles without ever hinting at any anxiety or stress, always making the best of every situation. She will often come home with some present, usually an avocado or a grapefruit, from one of her grateful clients. This, to me, is telling of the attitude that my mom goes to work with, as she makes such an impact on clients who only see her to buy medication once, perhaps, every month. Yet they feel so impacted by her that they want to give her a present! Simply put, I admire her.
I thank my mom for being the principal factor of the philosophy that I have cultivated to live my life by. I look at any situation that I have to face and I immediately ascertain what I have control over and what I do not, and I only focus on the aspects that I do have control over. To spend time fretting and stressing over certain events or possibilities that are simply out of my control is pointless and, I believe, damaging to one's health. I look at my mom and I see what kind of person I want to be.
MrFed
your writing style is great, but you have a HUGE problem with the main point of your essay - the essay is suppossed to use your view of your Mom to describe YOU. Colleges - not to be mean - do NOT care about your mom. They want to know you. What your should do is have a quick piece about your Mom and then write about how it relates to you. At my school, the teachers advise that you highlight the essay in two differnent colors, say red and orange. Red for when you talk about yourself and orange for when you talk about your mom. Make sure that the final draft is 2/3 RED.
