<p>I am an international student planning to apply to CC under regular decision.
I am having trouble with this part of the application:
"The Block Plan at Colorado College has a tradition of innovation and flexibility. Please design your own three-and-a-half week course and describe what you would do."
What exactly are they looking for? The courses I will be taking in my first year and why? And exactly how detailed should I be? They don't have a word limit or anything.
Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>This question is all about your intellectual curiosity and/or general interests. They are asking you to “make up” a hypothetical 3.5 week class and tell them what your class would study, where (if anywhere) would you go, even who would teach it if you want to include that and if have someone in mind (a current professor or “guest” professor?). Sky’s the limit. There is no right or wrong way to answer it, they just want to see what would happen if you could wave a wand and make up a class/block. You design just one block, not an entire semester of classes (that would be 4 blocks). </p>
<p>One idea is to design a class based on an academic interest and combine it with a favorite extra curricular activity. If there is somewhere you are itching to visit in the USA then for sure have the class “go” on a field trip there (if you can make the location relevant to the block). For example if you like history and cooking, perhaps you would design a block that goes to New Orleans for a week to study the French/Cajun influence on the local cuisine. There are lots of imaginative opportunities to explore whether in science, art, English, or whatever you want to choose. It is all pretend so do try to have fun with it if possible :)</p>
<p>And by the way there is actually a 500 word limit. My D found out the hard way a few weeks ago when she went to upload her block plan essay to the Common App and hers was over 600 words. It doesn’t tell you there is a word limit ahead of time, but the app won’t let you go over 500 words so pay attention to that part. </p>
<p>Good luck. It should be a fun essay to write but I can imagine it is pretty daunting!</p>
<p>@lr4550 Thanks for taking the time out to reply. This helped me a lot as the essay prompt is kind of vague. This supplement essay is so different from my other colleges’.<br>
And thanks for the heads up about the word limit! :)</p>