University of Delaware Prompt
Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
Essay
As I turned the final few pages of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, I expected to be overcome with tears and riddled with emotion, just as everyone had warned me. The heartbreaking story of Jude St. Francis was supposed to break me, making me feel things I had never felt before, sobbing beyond measure. However, my only reaction upon closing the book was to stare off into space and think – to process all I had just read and ponder about my own life in comparison. I was reminded of the concept of everyone’s uniqueness and my ambitions to help those around me. Through being an avid reader, I have been able to shape a strong understanding about subjectivity and what it means to be an observer.
I first fell in love with reading at age five when my mom read me The Incredible Peepers of Penelope Bud. The children’s book describes Penelope, a young girl born with two different colored eyes, who sees the world quite differently than everyone else. While one sees a muddy puddle, Penelope sees the reflection of a colorful rainbow in the sky. As a five-year-old learning about the world around me, this story opened the floodgates to my curious personality.
I have read hundreds of books and because of that, I have filled my brain with countless different characters, each having different perspectives and journeys. Every single book and story follows a character navigating unique experiences and making choices that I myself would never even think of making. Exposing myself to different points of view and perspectives has made me attentive in situations such as walking in the hallways, sitting in large crowds of people, or even just hanging out with my close friends. Just like learning about a character on a page, I am noticing things about people – their body language, tone of voice, and the expressions on their faces – which makes me eager to learn more about them and want to help them.
Throughout my life I have been called the “therapist friend” and I have always strived to understand and help my peers. However, through what I have learned while reading and what I know about subjectivity, I realized that no matter how much I want to, it is impossible to fix other people’s problems for them. Everyone has different viewpoints and different approaches towards certain situations; all I can do is be my curious self and use my observations about people and the world around me to help the best I can.
Reading has taught me a lot about subjectivity, and I now know not to take things at face value. I take time to look for the deeper meaning, eager to find out what is underneath. Although I haven’t lived a tragic life like Jude, or have two different colored eyes like Penelope, I still see the world differently and make it my goal to empathize with others through my gift of curiosity and wisdom.
Tips for Writing
When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to write my college essay about, I began by listing out some of my favorite things, some concepts that I think about a lot, moments in my life that stuck out to me, and really just anything I thought might be significant about me. After that I wrote bullet points about each broad topic. These bullet points contained specific details I could remember, how I felt, the impact it had on me, etc. From there, I decided which of those topics I felt like I was able to say the most about. The topics I struggled to come up with bullets for I deleted. I narrowed it down to about 3 topics and wrote down super specific moments in my life that related to these topics. From there I started drafting an essay just telling the story about each event. I continued to refine each essay to make it more and more geared towards highlighting me and my important qualities. Once I found one essay that I felt would best be able to express who I am as a person, I poured all my attention into it. I found it very difficult to write a whole essay about myself and often times it was uncomfortable and almost felt like I was bragging, but at the end of the day, that’s almost what they are looking for. They want to hear about YOU and who YOU are as a person.