Prompt Two:
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
*Please help me reduce the amount of words and grammar mistakes
For the past 3 year, I have been working hard as a part of the GWHS Drum Corps. My dedication has helped me to achieve my goal to be the commander of Drum Corps in my junior year. It was a team of 15 freshmen and only one junior member. I was responsible for everything of the team, including recruiting new members, setting up fundraisers, and conducting practices for public performances and competition. Often time, it gave me headaches when things didn't go well with what I planned. But, I'm glad I had taken this challenge because as a result I became much more responsible and confident in every event of my life.
Since I became the commander, I realized that there was a completely different role for me to play in this team. I would need to take direct responsibilities of everything my team does or fails to do. Therefore, I always prepare ahead to avoid falling in short in the task. For me, the main responsibility of being the leader of this team is to ensure every performance's success and every member would gain some important experience to him or her. In order to accomplish this, I spent twice as much time and effort before and after each event. While my friends spending their lunch time to enjoy their food, I used the time to create the music notes and drill formations on my agenda for practice of the week. Coming up with music notes by just listening to the song was very difficult. With a limited amount of knowledge from a piano class I had taken in City College, I still put my best effort to make the notes to be perfect. This was not for showing off my musical talent. But for completing a commitment I had made to my members. Incompletion of a commitment would be a failure of leadership and no trust would lie between my team and me. I could not afford a single one of this failure. Therefore, I used both my words and actions to gain their respect, trust, and support.
Drilling in blazing hot days with ten pounds equipment on was not easy for the freshmen. Often times I heard many complains that made me fear. I feared that if one person complains quitting the team, the team's morale would be strongly crashed. In the worst case, the rest would follow. I overcame my fear by standing up in front line of every member. In situation when the team was confused, I knew there was no better ways than having their leader to lead them out of the confusion. In order to gain their trust, I must completely trust in myself. Therefore, I ignored my fear immediately and acted as the team's first role model to overcome obstacles. Besides, communication also was a major role in solving the conflict. I became very detective for complains since becoming the commander. When I notice a member was in a down time, I would sit next him, pat him in the shoulder and give him a confident smile. Sometimes it just works better than any other encouragements because I have become real friend of theirs since the first day of practice. The support was well understood. This is why I believe I must be confident in order to face any challenges in my life.
With my responsible and confident leadership, and the support from members, I was happy and proud to see our outstanding performances in the past year. Seeing each one of the freshmen learning and growing from every lesson I demonstrated was the greatest accomplishment I have ever had. Everyone grew, so did I. In the past three years of Drum Corps experience, I have learned a team of 15 freshmen was not a tragedy, spending time to do work at lunch was not a big deal, and fear was not a barrier to keep one away from what he wants to be. With the confidence of believing in myself and the sense of responsibility, I believe everything is made possible in my entire life. This is who I am.
I have edited the first section and then given you some general comments in regards to the rest of the piece:
"It was a team..." is it still a team of this many? Make sure you are staying in the same tense; this makes it sound like the team doesn't exist anymore, but the rest of your piece sounds like it is; please clarify.
"complains" should be "complaints."
"...person complains quitting the team, the..." should be "...person complained about wanting to quit the team, the..."
"..there was no better ways than..." should be "...there were no better ways than..."
I think the piece is a good answer to the prompt. Your conclusion wraps up the whole piece and again reminds your audience of the prompt; very good. There are some rough spots throughout the piece but if you keep in mind that your subjects and verbs must agree (as in the third example) and that your tense should stay consistent throughout, you will be fine.
