I posted this before, but got no response. Figured it must be extra terrible if no one wanted to help, so I had some friends look at it and tweaked it a bit:
Prompt:Describe when and how you became interested in art, design, writing, architecture, or the particular major to which you are applying. Describe how this interested has manifested itself in your daily life.
I've never been a talker. I've never been the one to grab everyone's attention in a room. I'm the girl in a corner with a book or a journal, or the one staring vacantly into space.
From a young age I suffered from social anxiety and depression. My mental state paralyzed me in social situations. I couldn't focus on a conversation enough to be responsive or interesting because I didn't feel connected to anything. On top of that, I had been raised in a house full of dialects and languages. I was never very confident in my English. As a child, however, this was praised. I was dutiful, gentle and lady-like. My Guyanese family saw nothing wrong with a girl being quiet. I was to be seen, not heard. To this day, my parents refuse to recognize that I had a problem.
The one thing that has helped me through my anxiety is my writing. I started out looking at picture books and making up my own stories. When my dad took me to the library, I would grab a book, plop down, and "read" my stories. Passers-by stopped to congratulate my father on having such an articulate four year old. When I was seven, my parents gave me the first Harry Potter novel for my birthday. I read it in two days and attempted to write in J.K. Rowling's style for the rest of the year. At age eleven, the first sparks of rebellion fired within me and instead of having dinner with visiting family members and making conversation about how much I'd grown, I locked myself in my parents' room and rooted through my dad's old college books. I read everything from Mark Twain to Plato that week. With these new treasures to encourage my writing, I plunged into my own world.
When I got to high school, I finally surfaced. I became more aware of the world. I was objectified as a woman and put in dangerous predicaments because of it. I was belittled by straight and gay communities because of my sexuality. I was ignored because of prejudices against mental diseases. I was marginalized by my "other-ness;" the part of me that couldn't fit into a neat little racial category. Slowly, I became aware that my power to fight off these injustices wouldn't be found in my speech, but in my writing. I started writing wherever I could, whenever I could. I wrote to fulfill my guilty pleasures and create new worlds. I wrote to improve the world I was living in and make it a better place. I wrote to make myself heard when no one could be bothered to listen.
Throughout my life, writing has been my coping mechanism. Stephen King likens writing to a form of telepathy and I'm completely invested in this idea. It's helped me become more vocal and social, but it's also helped me to seek change and reach out to people.
Prompt:Describe when and how you became interested in art, design, writing, architecture, or the particular major to which you are applying. Describe how this interested has manifested itself in your daily life.
I've never been a talker. I've never been the one to grab everyone's attention in a room. I'm the girl in a corner with a book or a journal, or the one staring vacantly into space.
From a young age I suffered from social anxiety and depression. My mental state paralyzed me in social situations. I couldn't focus on a conversation enough to be responsive or interesting because I didn't feel connected to anything. On top of that, I had been raised in a house full of dialects and languages. I was never very confident in my English. As a child, however, this was praised. I was dutiful, gentle and lady-like. My Guyanese family saw nothing wrong with a girl being quiet. I was to be seen, not heard. To this day, my parents refuse to recognize that I had a problem.
The one thing that has helped me through my anxiety is my writing. I started out looking at picture books and making up my own stories. When my dad took me to the library, I would grab a book, plop down, and "read" my stories. Passers-by stopped to congratulate my father on having such an articulate four year old. When I was seven, my parents gave me the first Harry Potter novel for my birthday. I read it in two days and attempted to write in J.K. Rowling's style for the rest of the year. At age eleven, the first sparks of rebellion fired within me and instead of having dinner with visiting family members and making conversation about how much I'd grown, I locked myself in my parents' room and rooted through my dad's old college books. I read everything from Mark Twain to Plato that week. With these new treasures to encourage my writing, I plunged into my own world.
When I got to high school, I finally surfaced. I became more aware of the world. I was objectified as a woman and put in dangerous predicaments because of it. I was belittled by straight and gay communities because of my sexuality. I was ignored because of prejudices against mental diseases. I was marginalized by my "other-ness;" the part of me that couldn't fit into a neat little racial category. Slowly, I became aware that my power to fight off these injustices wouldn't be found in my speech, but in my writing. I started writing wherever I could, whenever I could. I wrote to fulfill my guilty pleasures and create new worlds. I wrote to improve the world I was living in and make it a better place. I wrote to make myself heard when no one could be bothered to listen.
Throughout my life, writing has been my coping mechanism. Stephen King likens writing to a form of telepathy and I'm completely invested in this idea. It's helped me become more vocal and social, but it's also helped me to seek change and reach out to people.
