Writing an Essay on Personal Growth based on an activity

I am writing my first essay for a college program at Yale. I am a native German speaker, but I do go to an American high school. I'm in desperate need of some feedback on my essay. The prompt is:

Please describe the activity on your resume or activities list that you think has elicited the most personal growth and why? (200-word limit)

"drawing with lights"

Photography is a method of recording an image on light sensitive objects or paper. The process corresponds to the Greek translation "drawing with lights." Most people will say that taking pictures, looking through a camera is the best part of photography, but I believe the best part is working in the dark room. Enlarging an image, manipulating them and watching it appear is amazing. The process of developing the film to enlarging it has taught me patience in all aspect of my life. In photography, I never truly know if the film was exposed correctly or if the enlarged image will look right, so I need to be patience until the very end. I also learned time management because the deadlines in my photography class are very strict and the process takes a few day. Therefore, I always need to plan out my week depending on what is due when, so nothing is late.

Nina, it would be best if you just mention that your hobby is photography but your personal growth comes from the film developing activity that goes with it. That way you center the essay on the actual growth activity as indicated in the prompt. The explanation that you provided can be developed further using the freed up word space so that the reviewer will get a real idea as to the personal growth that you experience while enjoying the activity of film development. Rather than discussing how you plan out your week depending the due date of a photo at school, present more information as to how time management is more crucial based upon the results that the photographer wants to achieve in his photo presentation. Try to develop the explanations more with regards to patience and time management. The other parts that you presented are not really that important nor revealing in relation to the required presentation.