12/18/ · All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of This year, our editors picked and featured hundreds of beautifully written and poignant essays published on the web. Because of the wide range of writing across many topics and themes, it was a challenge to sift through them all over the past several weeks to compile a definitive Best of Essays list Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked” from the Class of , as nominated by our admissions committee. These entries are distinct and unique to the individual writer; however, each of them assisted the admissions reader in learning more about the student beyond the transcripts and lists of activities provided in their applications 4/24/ · Okay. One thing I’m not willing to debate is that the best personal essays are one of three things: (1) personal essays ahead of a recipe for making Génoise sponge cake, (2) personal essays that are also Notes App apologies, (3) my personal statement that got me into blogger.com: Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz
17 Personal Essays That Will Change Your Life
These entries are distinct and unique to the individual writer; however, each of them assisted the admissions reader in learning more about the best personal essays 2020 beyond the transcripts and lists of activities provided in their applications. Having explored the myths from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt, my curiosity was piqued in eighth grade by a simple legend from Japanese lore.
If you fold one thousand paper cranes, the gods will grant you one wish. I took it as a challenge. My previous forays into origami had ended poorly, but I was so excited to begin my quest that this detail seemed inconsequential. My art teacher best personal essays 2020 me a piece of origami paper and, armed with an online tutorial, my quest began.
Like an early prototype of the airplane, I ascended towards my dreams for a glorious moment before nose-diving into the ground, best personal essays 2020. The first crane was a disastrous failure of wrinkly lines and torn paper. Too embarrassed to ask for another, best personal essays 2020, I turned to my stack of Post-it notes.
By the third attempt, I ended up with a sticky pink paper crane. Holding that delicate bird, I was flooded with triumph and elation. The first two hundred cranes were all crafted from Post-it notes. Armed with a pack of highlighters, I decorated each piece of paper individually. I folded cranes at home, between classes, and in the car. My fingers were permanently sticky from the glue I scraped off every square.
Slowly, my collection grew: first ten, then fifty, then one hundred. Before the task could become monotonous, I started experimenting. How small was it possible for a crane to be? Smaller than a golf ball? Smaller than a dime? Small enough to sit on the end of a pencil? Any size was attainable. I could make a crane smaller than almost any arbitrary form of measurement. Soon I could finish a crane in fifty seconds or with my eyes closed.
Anything square and foldable became my medium. Paper towels, candy wrappers, and aluminum foil joined my vibrant menagerie of carefully folded paper.
I was unstoppable; that wish was as good as mine. By six hundred cranes, the increasing demands of high school academics caused my pace to slow. I despaired. My cranes mattered to me. As an outlet for expression, they served as a way to defuse frustration and sadness, and a source of pride and joy. Their creation allows me to bring beauty to the world and to find a sense of order in the bustle and chaos of life.
There is a lot of beauty to be found in tiny things. I have given away cranes to my friends as a pick-me-up on bad days, and I have made cranes to commemorate people, such as the dark green crane I made the day my grandmother died.
They are a symbol of hope to remind me what I have accomplished. So, I pushed myself to keep working and to keep folding one crane at a time. My determination paid off, and in the summer after sophomore year, my passion was reinvigorated.
One month before the end of junior year, best personal essays 2020, I folded my thousandth paper crane. As I leaned over the open drawer brimming with origami pieces in a multitude of sizes and colors, I felt a rush of satisfaction and triumph.
Not only was 1, best personal essays 2020, cranes an achievement in its own right, but I proved to myself that I can finish what I start. The world is filled with big numbers, best personal essays 2020. College tuition, monthly rent, and car prices deal in the many thousands.
Those figures are incomprehensible to someone who has never interacted best personal essays 2020 anything so large, and I wanted to understand them. A thousand will never simply be a number to me: it is hundreds upon hundreds best personal essays 2020 hand-folded cranes combined best personal essays 2020 years of effort. So what did I wish for? I learned I have the power to make things happen for myself. The secret to any savory wrap lies in how its flavor is contained.
Regardless of what outside influences are imposed upon it, the pita bread expertly holds all of its ingredients without allowing them to spill. Hopkins opposes outside pressures, unapologetically supporting individuals who are unafraid to break tradition.
The OUTlist, an online database for Hopkins affiliates who openly identify themselves as members of the LGBT community, revolutionized the visibility of LGBT individuals in higher education and created a support network at the university. For students who are struggling with their identity due to the fear of coming out to their families or friendsI want to help them express themselves and understand that they are not alone.
I want to serve as an advocate as well as a source of comfort, like a homemade pita that is warm and soft, yet tenacious. Next on our wrap is the core layer of hummus, lathered on the pita and heavy with expectation.
Being the most renowned staple of the Mediterranean diet comes with its pressures, but hummus handles it well, always stepping up to the plate, ready for any intimidating food critic. The Classics Department offers 83 different undergraduate courses, with varied paths that students can take in the pursuit of cultural and literary knowledge.
I hope to study the interrelationship of modern literature and culture and its classical roots in Latin by examining international texts in courses such as Latin Literature Beyond Hermeneutics taught by Professor Butler. I intend to further facilitate international communication—a modern necessity—by researching how English is adapted by different cultures.
I can imagine narrowing my research from World Englishes to the fundamentals of the English language that bring about its malleability under Professors Celenza or Roller of the Classics Department. After the hummus follows the influx of diced tomatoes, onions, best personal essays 2020, and parsley, all varied in taste, combining to form the tabouli sauce.
Tabouli is accepting of its ingredients, which when combined, bring to it a taste that is unparalleled by any other ingredient of wrap. I hope to spend my next four years in the Hopkins community learning alongside students from backgrounds starkly different from my own, who, like each component of tabouli sauce, bring their varied perspectives to discussions, an invaluable trait when studying how English has been adapted by different cultures.
In this world of flavorful foods and people, the delectable allure of Johns Hopkins University entices the palate of my mind. And I hope to eat my fill. The most exciting time to live in Vermont is mid-February. This is the time when one is given the best personal essays 2020 of a minute walk to school in sub-zero temperatures, with a minute trudge home in the dark after a long day. The firewood is being rationed to keep the house at a barely livable temperature, a steamy 50 degrees, and best personal essays 2020 are so rampant that people lose half their body weight in phlegm each day.
Yet, however dull Vermont may seem to students and teachers as they wrap themselves in layer after layer of flannel, make no mistake, today best personal essays 2020 the beginning of an era. While expression and humor has not historically been a part of this process, and while ad-libbing has been strictly advised against, I go for it anyway. And why not?
The worst possible outcome involves only a stern lecture and an expulsion from the job. Fortunately, there is not much going on this week, best personal essays 2020, which means I have some wiggle room with what I can say. I conclude by reminding everyone that just because the weather is miserable today does not mean that we have to be as well. Luckily, the principal loves it. I have people coming up to me left and right, telling me that I made them smile.
When I hear that, I smile back. For the rest of the month, I work to make sure that people hear my message: even though we are at the time when school and winter are best personal essays 2020 to seem endless, there are still reasons to grin.
I urge people to attend basketball games or sign up for spring sports. I announce birthdays and other special events. The next readers tell jokes or riddles, best personal essays 2020, or sing songs and invite others to sing with them. I watch the announcements evolve from an unfortunate but necessary part of the day to a positive and inspiring event. It is now more than just a monotonous script; it becomes a time to make sure that everyone has at least one thing to smile about.
It is the enthusiasm of a biology teacher, the joy of a sports victory, and even the warm messages of a disembodied voice on the intercom. I use that message to help freshman feel less nervous at their first race or to encourage my friend to continue taking solos in jazz band.
And in the most dismal time of year, I use that message in the daily announcements. One day this year, as I was walking by my perpetually empty locker, I was struck by an idea. I cannot identify what sparked its conception, but as my idea started to grow, thinking of possible solutions and analyzing and assessing feasibility issues began to consume me.
Growing strawberries in a high school locker seemed best personal essays 2020 simple at first. Despite knowing that this is not the typical habitat for strawberry plants, I knew from my green-thumbed mother that strawberries are among the easiest fruits to grow.
Still, I was determined to make this work. The unfriendly habitat and logistical obstacles did not deter me. My horticultural roots stem from my mother and elementary level biology. I was determined to apply what I had learned and got to work. Due to the lack of electricity and direct sunlight, I decided to use a solar panel paired with a light sensor on the outside of my locker to power a strong, blue LED light, which is best for photosynthesis and plant growth. A friend taught me how to solder and helped me create the solar panel setup, which turns on the blue light only when it is dark outside so the plants experience the proper light cycles.
I also set up a system to slowly water the plants automatically. This involved a series of drip bottles—which another friend had for his old, now deceased, pet guinea pig—arranged to drip into each other and then onto the soil. Having addressed the issues of light and water, best personal essays 2020, I focused on the need to circulate air.
Leaving the door closed would provide essentially no circulation and would create a hot and moist environment, making the plants more susceptible to mold.
The strawberry plants are now growing in my partially open locker providing a topic of conversation and much commentary from students best personal essays 2020 by.
Paper 1, Personal Essays
, time: 12:17Longreads Best of Essays
Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked” from the Class of , as nominated by our admissions committee. These entries are distinct and unique to the individual writer; however, each of them assisted the admissions reader in learning more about the student beyond the transcripts and lists of activities provided in their applications 12/18/ · All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of This year, our editors picked and featured hundreds of beautifully written and poignant essays published on the web. Because of the wide range of writing across many topics and themes, it was a challenge to sift through them all over the past several weeks to compile a definitive Best of Essays list 4/24/ · Okay. One thing I’m not willing to debate is that the best personal essays are one of three things: (1) personal essays ahead of a recipe for making Génoise sponge cake, (2) personal essays that are also Notes App apologies, (3) my personal statement that got me into blogger.com: Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz
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