Hello,
I would kindly ask for your help in revising some essays that I've written for applying to a college.
I must say that i am not native in English, so there might be problems with the word order or some expressions or any other mistakes. I really need your advice as soon as possible, please.
I am also not sure if I followed all the rulesof essay writing (like descriptive/argumentative etc.)
Where i wasn't sure of what word I should use, I wrote both variants with a slash between.
Hope to hear from you soon!
All the best,
Livia
Essay 1:
Why ECLA?
When Mark Twain wrote this sentence, "Don't let school interfere with your education", he probably did not imagine that, one day, there would be a place to contradict his idea. I do believe that ECLA is that place.
During all my years of studying, until now, I have been trying to make/set peace between my "self" that went to school and the other that wanted to read poetry, to learn to play an instrument, to learn origami, to watch films, to have unconventional conversations with intelligent people. Making small and patient steps was my method to become acquainted with different fields of studies that I was not offered the opportunity to approach in school. I became aware of the importance of assertiveness in learning and I have set myself some credos which are, I believe, a present meeting point between me and ECLA.
I trust the discomfort/uneasiness of questions. I do not trust the comfort of answers.
Therefore, ECLA can stimulate me to question all the matters that I have been sure of until now, in the sense of enriching the perspectives of my thoughts and sweeping off any traces of comforting cliche.
In fact, one of my most intimate thoughts is that beings, objects and things of this world can only communicate with each other when they are on the same frequency of sensibility. I felt this common frequency whenever I accessed ECLA site and I kept reading over and over again its generous curriculum with core and elective courses. I have also read the statements of former and present students, fact which reinforced my trust in this matter of sensitivity frequencies. With all the modesty, I consider that, during my education years, I have been preparing myself to become an ECLA student, even before knowing about this place.
I believe in commas and in points of ellipsis. I do not believe in full stops.
In ECLA I can learn about subjects that I do not have extensive knowledge of yet and also benefit of academic teaching in fields that I have mostly approached as an autodidact. These fields include music, poetry or film studies. I feel that, at ECLA, I could bring to life all my projects regarding poetry and origami installations. This constant preoccupation for aliveness has been guiding my life due to/because of a continuous struggle not to become the tamed child of an institution called school. For me, ECLA is both aliveness and generosity. The first because this place meets my expectations in which regards the curricula (and the student life approach) and the latter because of those people that benefited of a liberal education and thought of creating this opportunity for other young students all over the world.
I believe in the silence of hard work. I believe in the rustle of intellectual intuition.
All the descriptions on the site and of the courses led me to the conclusion that ECLA is a place that appreciates hard learning, but also encourages the intuitive skills of the individual, one's ability to mistrust books and citations, once in a while, and make his own empirical judgement. Once more, I am really willing to rediscover this ability that grows silent in formal education institutions. It is also my personal belief that creativity is only the top of hard studying, either in poetry, history or philosophy.
I trust the coherence of values. I trust the perpetual wandering of mind.
My strongest conviction is that ECLA represents the place where all my beliefs could meet and where my past experience can be bridged with my future endeavours. Nonetheless, I consider ECLA the place that can lead me to know/understand more about myself while understanding more about the others.
