FSU essay ("traditions and customs that have become a part of my life")

Your essay should be no longer than 500 words.
For almost one hundred years, the Latin words, "Vires, Artes, Mores" have been the guiding philosophy behind Florida State University. Vires signifies strength of all kinds - moral, physical, and intellectual; Artes alludes to the beauty of intellectual pursuits as exemplified in skill, craft, or art; and Mores refers to character, custom, or tradition. Describe how one or more of the values embodied in these concepts are reflected in your life.

Vires, Artes, Mores, the three Latin words signifies strength, beauty, character. Throughout my earlier years, I believe all three words could be use to reflect my life. Vires, symbolizing strength of many different kinds and has the most significance on me. During the past years of my life, I had been consistently searching for ways to come on top; always seeking for challenges. Since middle school I started taking classes that's above the level of most other student and in high school, I continuously challenged myself in taking honor course, then AP course. My math skill was always been recognize as one of the best in my classes, with all the hard work and dedication. I finally reached the highest level of math course in high school, Calculus BC and am one of the eighteen students in my graduate class to take this course.

Artes such beautiful word remind of the Greek goddess, Artemis- goddess of wilderness. I had always thought there are no artistic talents inside of me, but I was horribly wrong. At the beginning of this year, a friend of my convince me in taking ceramic I. At first, I thought this is just kids playing with clay, however when I started working on the wheel, suddenly I felt in love with it. I turn out to be the first one in the whole classes the master the centering technique and several of my classmate had even compliment my work as being better than the students, who are currently taking ceramic III. Sometime I don't even understand how I did it and where the ideas come from. The idea just strokes me every time when I put the clays on the wheel and often I could even see the outcome of the pots, while I am coloring it.

As being born in a different culture, the word Mores is an important aspect of my life. The Chinese culture best value respect and tradition. Like any ordinary kid in China, "respect to your elder" had been the first lesson taught to me. No matter where I go or who I meet, I will always show respect to others and believe by showing them respect, I will get the same thing in return. Tradition is something my family had value the most. Every year, we will celebrate the Moon Festival eating my favorite food, the tang yuan, moon cake, and sometime I even reminisce back to my childhood, walking with my favorite lamp at night during each Moon Festival. Also, unlike American, my family would celebrate the New Year according the Lunar Calendar and during this time kids would receive money from their elders in a small red envelope. The money signifies a good luck on becoming a year older after New Year. All those traditions and customs had become a part of my life and soon I wish I could also be embrace in the traditions of Florida State University.

please help edit the essay, feel free to leave any comment

artemis is goddess of the hunt, not the wilderness,but I guess you can always make or break that case

As an example of the sort of grammatical fixes you should make throughout your essay:

"The three Latin words -- Vires, Artes, Mores -- signify strength, beauty, character respectively. All three concepts apply to my early years. Vires, symbolizing strength of many different kinds, has the most significance for me. During the past years of my life, I have been constantly searching for ways to come out on top by always seeking new challenges. Throughout middle school, I took classes that were above the level of most other students. In high school, I continuously challenged myself still further by taking honor courses, then AP courses. My math skills have consistently been recognized as being among the best of any student in my classes. I finally reached the highest level of math course in high school, Calculus BC and am one of only eighteen students in my graduate class to take this course."

what do you guys think of the essay, are there's anything wrong with the last two paragraph

Having been born in a different culture, the word Mores is an important aspect of my life.

Okay, use that intro paragraph to introduce the fact that you will be writing about how these three words apply to you:

Vires, Artes, Mores, the three Latin words signifies strength, beauty, character. Throughout my earlier years, I believe all three words could be use to reflect my life. Now tell the reader what main conclusion you come to about your relationship with these words, which are so important to this school, and how it makes it the perfect school for you.

Talk about each word in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth paragraphs. Then in a fifth paragraph, make your conclusion. In the conclusion, restate the idea of how you embody these values that are celebrated and upheld at this school.

Kevin's right -- transforming this into a five paragraph essay in which each body paragraph deals with one of the three main concepts would definitely make it stronger. Alternatively, you could pick just one of the three terms and expand on it greatly, but that would require more rewriting.

the school only allow 500 hundred word won't five paragraph be too much

500 words is typically about 1 page of text, double-spaced, 12 sized font, Times New Roman. So a full five paragraphs may be a bit long unless the paragraphs are short.

Actually, I find I normally get 350 words per page using standard formatting in Microsoft Word, and this is considerably more than most people expect who were raised B.C. (Before Computers). They generally work from a 250 word/page standard, which would make 500 words two pages. However, Constance is right, five paragraphs at 100 words each is going to result in very short-looking paragraphs.

Actually, I think of paragraphs as about one hundred words each. I think of a page as 300 words, but I know that If I write 1200 words it will be a little more than 4 pages. So, that sees different from what you are all saying...

I must use too many small words!

The margins make a big difference, too.

True, if you start playing around with formatting, you can make an essay seem slightly longer or shorter than it actually is. This is especially good when dealing with professors who give you both a page count and a word count if the two don't match up. So, say you are asked to write "1000 words, or approximately 4 pages." 1000 words is nowhere near four pages on a modern word processor using standard formatting, but if you set the line spacing to 2.1, it comes a lot closer. Also, it is much easier to compress than to expand, because people expect you to try to get away with doing too little work, but they don't expect you to try to hide the fact that you did more work than you had to. So, you can easily go to 1.8 spacing, which can allow you to sneak in an extra half-a-page if you are dealing with a maximum page count.