<p>UC (prompt 2).
"Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?"</p>
<p>So far I've remade and edited my personal statement for UC (prompt 2). Every time I've taken it to my teacher, it gets marked up (because she wants me to do a good job) and my problem is everywhere. I'm haven't even started on prompt 1, yet I'm having so much difficulty. It's hard to explain, but I picked a pretty odd metaphor and medium to write prompt 2. I discussed with my teacher and the idea I have is actually great and has huge potential. But the problem is meeting that potential.</p>
<p>I have a lot of problems, namely immature voice (except for the conclusion), excessive use of unnecessary words, and cluttering up my writing with too many multi-clause sentences. I've toned back on "adjective overload" but it's still a little there. Other problems include repetition, lack of flowing smoothness, and possible passive voice. My teacher in the corrections and advice told me to fix all of these things, and make my story a chronological development (because it matches my subject best). </p>
<p>I used to take the essay to her every week (but I'd only work for 2 days on the weekend because I'm busy other days). It's been 2 weeks now though and I haven't even touched the essay yet. The essay just intimidates me, because I spend hours frying my brain and then having no idea how to make it work. Even if I'm told what's wrong and what I should do, I get stuck on how to pull it off and repeat mistakes. It doesn't help that I feel that other classmates just steamroll a better essay much more easily.</p>
<p>I feel like sticking to a CSU since I'm intimidated and I (shallowly) realize that UC are more research based than practical. Sadly, my "intimidation" pervades everywhere from scholarships to researching on careers/majors/colleges since I'm clueless. I'll take it one by one and try to work on this essay though.</p>
<p>Any ideas on how I can stop being intimidated and make progress?</p>
<p>There comes a point where you literally need to get anything on the page. The thing about writing is you can’t get a finished draft until you’ve edited previous drafts, and you can’t edit previous drafts if you haven’t actually written anything. I sometimes get to the point where I’ll be writing let’s say, and parts of it are overly colloquial, parts have completely broken down grammar and parts actually make no sense at all. But it’s on the page, which means that the next time I can come back and think clearly about what I wanted to write there, and it makes forming the sentences around them a lot easier.</p>
<p>Don’t have your perceived writing problems on your mind, also, because that often hinders how much you’re able to get down. If you still don’t like what you have after the fact then go to any older friend or family member to help out. But also remember to take everyone with a pinch of salt – it’s YOUR essay at the end of the day.</p>
<p>@leglariat I have made several rough drafts, but it’s disheartening that all of them are hardly any improvements. That plus it’s very hard for me to even make them.</p>
<p>So far I think I’ve been doing a bottom-up approach, where I fix my errors through edits and plug in sentences, replace words, and stuff. But I think that contributes to a problem of me being unclear and repeating, because it’s not goal-focused and objective. Leglariat’s strategy may be difficult for me because I have that bad tendency. So I came up with another approach:</p>
<p>I use a top-down approach, where I start planning a basic structure and purpose, such as
“1. Intro, hook the reader, and quickly get out my focus and subject.
2. Start explaining why I did this act, in retrospect now that I am wiser/reflecting.
3. Chronologically develop the story of my action and my reflection”
I start developing more specific ideas, tying the skeleton and my subject. I ask my teacher to help me develop the skeleton more rather than just edits. I take parts from my previous drafts that are usable, and I adapt it into an objective essay that flows better. </p>
<p>Think that could work better? Still I don’t feel confident in my writing skills at all, and I don’t want this to be more difficult than it should be. I’ve made a basic skeleton, but it’s still not satisfying.</p>