[TOEFL Essay] Is it worth to build a new university in a local area? Benefits and drawbacks.

Hi, Please evaluate my essay

Prompt:
The government has announced that it plans to build a new university. Some people think that your community would be a good place to locate the university. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a new university in your community. Use specific details in your discussion

a new school in the neighbourhood

My Essay:
Building a new university is a very ambitious and complex project. It has long lasting impact on the community in which it resides. Thus the communities must carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages in both long term and the short term of having a university before giving their assent.

The biggest advantage of building a university in a community is the increase in demand for new businesses and the creation of jobs. The first thing required to build a university is the campus. The construction of the campus would create a large number of jobs in the short term. Over time as the univsersity opens to students, a number of services that are required to run the university and those required by the students lead to the creation of new businesses and service jobs in the local community. This leads to the creation of jobs in the long term. The incresed jobs and the new businesses thus lead to a positive impact on the society.

Having a university in the community also affords a number of non-economic benefits. The students at the univesrity must live nearby. They help diversify the community since students from places all over the country and indeed all over the world may come to attend the university. The students and faculty may also help advance the community by solving local problems. For example, students at univsersity undertake projects that help the local groceries deliver food directly to their customers.

However, a university also comes with some disadvantages. If ill planned, the sudded influx of students may lead to a strain on the local resources. If the university is located in a community of 50,000 people and enrolls 5,000 students then the sudden increase in the local population can lead to shortage of basic utilities such as water and electricity. There may be a sudden increase in the rents as well as property prices. The sudden influx of population may put excessive strain on the local infrastructure such as roads. However, many of these disadvantages will smooth out over time.

Thus from the above discussion it is clear that the long term benefits of building a university in the community outweighs the immediate costs incurred during the transition.

Ajinkya, there is one tremendous flaw in your otherwise perfect discussion. The prompt is asking you to consider how the building of a university in YOUR community will have advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, you need to use first person pronouns in the essay with regards to the description of the situation. Presentations such as "If the university were to be built in my community, I know that it will have a positive effect on.." creates the first person point of view that the prompt requires. Your information is good. It has a solid foundation and anyone else who discusses this topic will have the same considerations. However, you should have focused more on delivering the message from a personal point of view experience so that the information would be coming from a position of authority and experience.

Your opening statement could have been better presented. As it is, it informs the reader but not in a very complex or expanded manner that would have better shown off your English writing skills. If I had written this opening summary, I would have done it this way:

With the government plans to build a university in my community, a few concerns have been publicly raised. While some people believe that building the university has its advantages, there are those who believe that it would create more drawbacks for the community at large. In order to make sure that the people can make the proper decision as to whether or not to support the building of the university in our community, I believe that it is important to compare its advantages and disadvantages.

Then, I would have launched into the actual discussion presentation. While your general discussion is acceptable, the explanation creates an emotional separation from you. Which means your discussion is not as strong as it would have been if you considered its direct impact upon you are a person and resident of the community. Don't get me wrong, you presented a strong essay, it just seems devoid of personal interest, which created an outsider's look at common place reasons for the discussion instead of a personal consideration discussion. The latter being the stronger type of discussion these instances.