Transfer from UH to UTAustin; Statement of purpose; Comp. Sci. Major

I was pretty iffy on the prompt and I'm sure there's still a lot to improve, so all criticism is greatly appreciated and welcome!

I don't think that anyone would describe having no friends as healthy or fun, and that's because it's really not. For a while, in my 8th and 9th grade, that was me. I was that kid that had no friends. I had just recently moved to Houston and school and being an introvert, it wasn't easy making friends. For a short period of time, I had a few friends, but I ended up driving them away with my rude, immature, and arrogant personality. Although it was my fault, I didn't realize it at the time, and having no friends caused me some grief. However, if this hadn't happened, I might not have been who I am today and majoring in a field that I love.

To cope with the absence of friends, I devoted most of my time after school to online video games. It helped relieve the stress from school and I actually made some online friends. They were great guys and soon we all started talking on Skype while playing our games. We introduced new games to each other and after spending so much time on these things, I thought, "How cool would it be if I could make my own game?" Of course I didn't actually create a game right then and there, but it got me interested in computer programming. I downloaded a coding program, looked up video tutorials on YouTube, signed up for computer science classes at my school, and did anything else I could think of. Soon after, my friends showed me this game called "Minecraft." This is what really got me hooked on coding because it allowed me to use code to modify the game to do what I wanted. The first time I created a "mod" and saw it work correctly gave me a boost of motivation and I started to look at the world in a different way. I saw how immensely computer science was integrated into our modern technology and thought of just how much more it was capable of. My hope is that one day I can create something that can help other people in a similar way games have helped me.

The University of Texas at Austin would be an incredible opportunity for me. The university and its city has amazing people to create and share amazing experiences with. Plus, the department of Computer Science, being one of the best in the nation, would provide the education I need to program something that will have an impact on society. I believe that I can be a good addition to the school, applying my love and passion for computer science to everything project I do.

Hi Joseph, while reading your essay,it made me think that ok there is a guy with no friends, so he immersed himself in video games to overcome his loneliness and then out of nowhere he started thinking to make his own game by computer programming. Friends are important, you know, I know :) But this is not what readers look for. Ok, now as I got to read something influential related to your academics, it was done. This is the formal essay, so the reader will mainly look for your academic goals, academic studies, professionalism in you. )So, I will suggest remove your introduction part, it is not helping much rather showed the low part of your life. You can rephrase it something in this manner:

Being an introvert guy, I always immersed myself in online games rather than field games. I never knew that my indulgence in video games will turn into desire of creating the same .

Then write how you excelled? Straight away you thought of computer programming ? Or tried something else? Try to elaborate more on your majors and studies part. What else you did, how you learned and what you learned? Can you post the full prompt please? It is required to post your prompt with your essay. Your title said transfer, so you should also mention the reason of your transfer in your essay. why you wanted a transfer? Why this school only? The reason you gave in your last paragraph is too general. Every school has good people, amazing faculty, and best in its own kind. You need to mention specific features/qualities of the school that inspired you to chose this school.

Elaborate about your majors and we will go through it. Hope this helps :)

Oh sorry I was in such a hurry to get this out, I forgot to post the prompt.

Also, Natural Sciences requires a Topic A essay that describes how your intended major would impact achievement of your educational and career goals.

So do you think I should entirely replace my introduction with something along the lines of the sentence you provided?

Thanks so much for the advice and will reply tonight/tomorrow with my revised essay. Once again, thank you!

Yes the prompt itself said related to your academics. So replace it with your profession. One line is enough if you want to use it as I mentioned. Write in length about your goals and how you got interested in this field and what you did to reach this level.