UBC Personal Profile Answer - 'kindness is a virtue??'?

what is important to you, and why?

Here's my answer to the question "what is important to you, and why?" from the ubc personal profile, which is supposed to be a maximum of 250 words. I wrote an answer that is slightly over the limit (256 words), but it would be helpful if someone could read this and suggest any possible changes, or if I should just scrap this whole idea in general if it's too stereotypical? I wrote this when I was really angry at something someone did to me recently, so it might not even make sense???

Anyways, here it is:

When we were kids, we would constantly be reminded to be nice to each other, and a lot of us listened. But why is it that now that we're older, it's normalized to be mean?

I've had enough experience in this area of life to know what should and should not be tolerated. Adolescence is a period filled with subjective and judgmental actions that can easily alter another person's life, depending on how hurt they feel. We can't stop people from being rude to others, and we should be ignoring them if they really are that insignificant to us, but all of this is difficult when it's not just one person being mean, but a whole group of people. Somehow, society has taught us that in order to prove our worth in the world, we have to make others feel inferior to us so that we can climb a nonexistent social ladder. The social media age that we are 'so lucky' to have only makes it easier to spread lies about innocent beings, and this is just wrong.

Why is it so difficult to be nice to people? Why do some people take so much pride and joy in making others feel terrible about themselves? These questions are ones that I think about a lot, so I think that the most important thing to me is being kind to each other. Everyone deserves a little happiness in their life, and a simple compliment is not only free, but it might be the highlight of their day.

Bianca, I can sense the definite anger that you had while writing this response. It is alright to vent when writing. However, it is not advisable to submit a statement to the reviewer that you had completed during a moment of anger. In all honesty, you can use this essay is you rearrange the presentation a bit and try to lessen the rage evident in your words. This sounds like someone had just hurt you and you were feeling so angry and vengeful that you decided to let it out in your writing instead.

What you can do is open with the statement about kindness. Yes, start with the concluding paragraph because it makes for an excellent opening statement. Kicking off the essay with that paragraph gives you a less angry stand point when you begin to discuss "I've had enough experience..." The whole 2 paragraphs tie together in a logical paragraph statement that properly explains why kindness and respect for people (you may want to add that reference) are important to you. You can totally forget to include the first statement in the current essay. That line of questioning doesn't work with the overall presentation.

Always remember, it is alright to write something in a fit of anger. Don't consider that your final work though. That is the throw away draft. After you read it a second time, you can take the parts that you think will work in a revised statement then write a new one that includes parts of the throw away. It is this second version that becomes the official draft for you to work on finalizing for the response statement.

Thank you for your help. I went back to revise this short essay and I hope that it's better, although I'm not really sure that this is a good topic to discuss in the personal profile as it might seem a bit naive to think that kindness is one of the most important things??

Why is it so difficult to be nice to people? Why do some people have so much pride in making others feel terrible about themselves? These questions are ones that I think about a lot and I think that everyone deserves a little happiness in their life. A simple compliment is not only free, but it might be the highlight of someone's day.

I have had enough experience (...), and this is just wrong.

So, if I had to choose something that is so substantial to my life, it would be kindness. As stereotypical as it sounds, it's free and you'll also be benefiting yourself from one nice thing that you've done, and it's one step closer to a more congregated society.

Hello! I'm still new to replying and providing feedback on here but I hope to provide you with some new insight and help

I think that you portrayed your emotion in this essay very well but, somewhat to a fault. I feel for this type of essay you should try to distant some of these emotions while trying to convince the reader. I would start off the essay from a "less angry" stance then gradually show that emotion transpire. I enjoyed reading this essay a lot and think it has a lot of potentials to be amazing. I would go back and restructure this essay before submitting.