Hello, I include the two required essays for UT. I need critique and feedback on both these essays. Thanks in advance.
Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.
All kinds of people come and go in life. Many simply remind us of those little events that still linger in the back of our minds that make us smile. Others leave a lasting impression in us that change us and will last a lifetime. The first and only person that comes into my mind while thinking of someone like that is my grandfather. Wise and inspiring and at the same time stubborn and persistent: these words summarize my grandfather partially. I confess that we have had our confrontations and conflicts a few times, but they are trifling incidents that do not prevent me from thinking of him as someone who I highly value and respect. If anything, he is the one who has taught me many valuable lessons in life that still affect my day to day decisions.
My grandfather has told me stories of his youth when he had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, quenched by the consumption of books. The vast knowledge and wisdom he had astounded me. Whenever I or someone else inquired him about any historical events, he would immediately start a lecture over the topic which he would drag on with excessive details. If you ever disagreed about something he claimed to be true, he would persist and refute your opinion. After being in the frequent presence of his persistence, I contracted it. Now whenever I am confronted with a task with no initial success, I battle until I end up succeeding at the task at hand. While debugging source codes written for computer programs, I scrutinized lines of code to find the culprit of the error when often times fixing one caused another one; but I would never give up until every error was eliminated. Among other things, one must learn when to persist when an obstacle prevents you from succeeding. From experience, life taught me that one requires a moderate amount of persistence to obtain what you want and to maneuver through hardships one encounters.
My intrigue for knowledge stems from my grandfather's own motivation to learn about a variety of topics. His influence has instilled in me the curiosity and interest of science and history. His words would fill with expressions of passion with his discourse about his favorite astronomical curiosities. His inspirational explanations of the formation of planets, or theories of life outside earth has fomented a passion for knowledge. Just like his wonder over the unknown possibilities of the universe, I wonder about the mysteries that the universe keeps well hidden from us. The universe as it is will reveal its secrets gradually.
There were times when relatives complained about my grandfather's persistence, but I suppose he could not help it. At times he would indeed go too far with his persisting nature and I learned the negative aspect of extreme persistence and learned not to take it very far. Sometimes we must admit when we are wrong and learn to accept it or we push others away. No matter how dearly we consider someone, they will always have their defects just as we have our own and we must learn to live with this fact. One thing is for certain, I always look up to my grandfather as he has changed so many of the views I had about the world.
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Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
As you turn the TV on, notice how rampant are the commercials that constantly promote these same new "revolutionary" products. These products invariably end up attracting consumers who mindlessly spend on them. Our society revolves around this mindlessness which is the basis of our economy. We must set limits somewhere in how far this mindset affects our values and beliefs. Materialism has been the insatiable obsession of consumer society. Instead of focusing on buying the latest gadget or technology, individuals should place more importance on worthy causes such as personal improvement and community involvement. Unfortunately, that is not the majority of the case and instead, our society is constantly driven and controlled by this cyclic desire to obtain material belongings.
People no longer require the money at hand to purchase luxurious possessions; instead they can obtain a loan to satisfy their instant gratification. Impulsive buyers have the means to purchase more without having to wait. Now the repercussions are seen today as the result of this compulsive buying has caused a recession in our economy as buyers are having trouble repaying loans or considering that a worker died while opening a door during this year's Black Friday sale due to the impulsive need for buyers to purchase products marked off by just a dollar. These extreme cases exemplify materialism's power to hypnotize the masses. A human life was sacrificed due to the compulsive and careless attributes of impulsive buyers. The far-reaching effect of materialism should make us ponder over our unnecessary concern to purchase for convenience and not for necessity.
Materialism is a strong force that attracts us all. Ordinary people like you and I are the likeliest victims of the enchanting spell of materialism. Countless times this has happened as I sift through magazines and I catch a glimpse of an expensive guitar or some nifty gadget that would be nice to have. The best part is when I take a look at my wallet to find out that I do not have enough money to buy it. So I begin to remind and say to myself that I do not need that: it is convenient and not necessary when money can be better spent elsewhere.
One thing most people do not think about is that how often they place the value of their possessions over the true essence of a person. Possessions are now an individual's label without any consideration of their personality. The brand names of their clothing or the maker of their car matters more than what the individual has to offer. Society has become impersonal as people are categorized according to what they wear or what they drive. The message carried on by all this is that having wealth and luxurious possessions will bring you happiness. This message is constantly reinforced to the masses through commercials and celebrities that display happiness and success. On the surface it may seem that these celebrities have these qualities, but then you take notice of all the magazines those with headers in large letters announcing a celebrity's "secret pictures", countless divorces, suicide, downfall and any other endless negative outcomes. Then one wonders if having fame, wealth and the luxurious possessions is worth the misery. Materialism has created a shallow society and what people get from these celebrity stories are entertainment and satisfaction from someone else's downfall.
The loss of self-identity in our society caused by materialism is an inevitable fact of consumerist society where the pursuit of instant gratification and possessive pleasures allures human nature. Advertisers take advantage of this weakness in human nature and so one must be careful to evaluate priorities to never get carried away by the hypnotizing force of materialism.
The essays are great, first one explained your grandfather's impact on your life in a orderly and unified essay. Transitions between paragraphs are great. For the second essay, your is fine. You explained materialism in your perspective as it related to you and how it continues to impact others. You even included exemplification of black Friday to materialism.
Great Essays...
these are really good:) good luck.
A few thoughts to consider:
"All kinds of people come and go in life." This sentence is unnecessary. Omit, along with the second sentence, and reword the beginning of the third sentence to make it your first one.
Throughout your first essay, you mention negative as well as positive aspects of your grandfather's personality. I have no doubt this is an accurate reflection of how you actually view him, but the essay would probably be stronger if you focused purely on how he was a positive influence on you.
For the second essay, I think you probably mean to criticize consumerism rather than materialism. A quick find and replace should fix that.
Maybe you can further elaborate this:
"Instead of focusing on buying the latest gadget or technology, individuals should place more importance on worthy causes such as personal improvement and community involvement. Unfortunately, that is not the majority of the case and instead, our society is constantly driven and controlled by this cyclic desire to obtain material belongings."
Why should we place more importance on personal improvement and community involvement? Is it really necessary?
The statement sounds more like an opinion of your own that may not coincide with what the readers thinks, so you have to explain on that more.
If you want to elaborate on the statement Lee mentioned, maybe you could look at how we should decide which products are worth buying (some of them undoubtedly are) and which ones are frivolous. (A cellphone is really useful. Getting one for the first time is a great idea. Upgrading to one that has a built in camcorder when you don't even use the built-in camera on the one you have -- not so much.). You might also want to consider the ways in which acting on the desire to obtain material goods is in and of itself a community service. Consumer spending is one of the main engines of economic growth, and as such of our ever-increasing standard of living. Thus, the same people and organizations that usually criticize consumerism are also the first to complain if the public starts saving money, because the economic hard times it creates or worsens affect them too.
I'm not saying you need to do any of the above, necessarily, but dealing with the obvious counterarguments to your own thesis will tend to strengthen your essay.
These essays are both really good! Im applying to UT too and still havent finished my 2 required essays!
I put these essays off for too long.
Both of your essays sound really good
Thank you all for your suggestions!
You have a point that it seems better for me to condemn consumerism and its benefit to our overall economy, although I was trying to criticize the obsession with worldly possessions that we see nowadays in people, especially with the increasing technology. Thanks for the suggestions.
