Trying to transfer to UT Austin and I am starting to work on my SOP essay

Hi my name is Ashley Denmond and I am a sophomore at a community college. I am trying to transfer to UT Austin and i am starting to work on my SOP essay. This is what I have so far and I decided to use an anecdote. Feel free to give me any feedback and commentary on my mistakes and if I am going in the right direction. Thank you :)

The lamppost light beams on my friend and I as we steadily make our way to the gymnasium. Light fog covers us in the wee hours of the morning, and the melody of crickets and other insects harmonize as we enter the double doors. "Do you want to play one on one?" My friend Joseph asks. "Sure!" I replied eagerly with a warm smile, "Let's see what you got,".

We played two half-court games and became exhausted. Sweat trickling down our faces we saw that there were two seats near court side and sat there to take a break. I slowly unscrewed my water bottle and while I was taking a sip I heard a heavy sigh. Glancing over with curious eyes I wiped the excess water from my mouth and said the universal S.O.S words: "What's wrong?" Knowing it would ventilate his conscious that has been clouded for several years.

His problem was that he couldn't figure out why he was so afraid and hesitant to talk to people. Recently, he had just joined a club which required him to be social and extroverted but he was quite the opposite. He felt like he had a legit fear and didn't understand why and what it could have stemmed from. I pondered this a bit, looked up at him and asked "Have you ever been bullied before?" and then like a light bulb coming on his eyes turned from gloomy to curious and he instantly disgorged the time when he was in middle school and the ventilation began. "In middle school, I got bullied a lot because of my clothes. Being the middle child coming from a large, lower middle-class family I couldn't afford new clothes all the time and I had to wear a lot of hand-me-downs from my older siblings which I got ridiculed for and teased by my classmates and even though I felt like it was a visual depiction of my parents hard work to them I was a nobody." and he looked down and shook his head and as he did this I said these words to him "You are the bravest person I know. To be able to get through something so tough and come out stronger than ever, you are the definition of a true warrior," and I placed my hand on his. He looked up and as tears welled up in his eyes he pulled me in for a hug. I put my arms around him and as we were hugging I felt his body relax and his breath start to slow down and I thought to myself, There it is, the Emotional Breakthrough.

Helping my friend get over that hump and have that breakthrough gave me such profound gratification that it planted the seed for my passion in Psychology. To be able to help people overcome burdens, emotional trauma and positively affect their life and have such an impact on them that they want to change their life for the better is the best job anyone can ask for. Starting off at Prairie View A&M University and now at Houston Community College I am not in the position to be able to fulfill that dream.

With the admittance to the UT Austin college of liberal arts, and more specifically the College of psychology- clinical psychology I will be engendered with resources that can help place me on the path to my B.S in Psychology. Also, with its accreditation by the American Psychological Association and a member of the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science; it could make my interning search not so difficult and (to be continued)

Ashley, do you realize that you wasted more than half the space on the page talking about your basketball game and your friend when you should have been discussing the reason why you want to transfer to a four year college from your current community college instead? The essya is not about the problem that your friend. Whit it is a catalyst for your interest in Psychology, it should have been presented in a more academic summary form instead of as a creative writing part of your statement of purpose.

You could have opened your statement with the following paragraph in a most effective manner:

I have friends whose emotional problems take a toll on their lives. Being a friend who always empathizes with them, I find myself wishing to find a way to help them get over their life humps. However, as a student at Houston Community College, I am not in the proper position to do that. Becoming a Psychologist is a far cry from my original major at that university. Yet, the little hugs, a listening ear, and being their shoulder to cry on has allowed me the opportunity to help them fix their lives by overcoming their problems. I hope to transfer to UT Austin as a Psychology major so that I can continue to help others with emotional trauma and mental burdens on a more professional scale.

Use that as your new opening statement or as a template for your revised essay. Once you fix the opening statement, by immediately explaining the purpose for your transfer, the rest of the information the prompt requires from you should be more easily discussed on your end :-)

Thank you so much for responding @vangiespen :) I think I took the prompt the wrong way. I will revise it ASAP and post a revised edition. Also, I wanted to know how do I incorporate the "valued experiences" part in my essay? Thank you.

Kind regards,

Ashley D

Remember the story of your friend that you used at the start of the essay? Edit it for content, concentrating mostly on the discussion you had after the basketball game. That is the valued experience that you can share in the essay. However, you should not place that at the very start of the essay. The correct place for that would be somewhere in the middle or towards the conclusion of the paper.

If I were to write that part of your essay, I would say something like this in the middle part:

In our lives, they say that our friends become an extension of our family. They are the people we turn to first when we experience joy, and they are the first people who notice when something is troubling us. Yes, even before our parents or siblings do. It is that close proximity with one of my friends that led me to the decision to become a Psychologist.

It was in the (name the season / weather) of (year) when my friend Joseph faced a situation in his life that he tried to handle alone. Joseph is the kind of guy who ... (Continue to describe the character of Joseph)... Then one day, after a particularly intense basketball game, I noticed something off about him.

As I slowly unscrewed my water bottle and while I was taking a sip I heard a heavy sigh...

I hope my suggested approach helps you out :-)