<p>I would be most appreciative if whoever is reading this could scan over my essay and offer suggestions. You can tell me the whole thing is garbage or give me glowing praise; I don't care. As long as you can offer some kind of constructive criticism, I will be grateful.</p>
<p>UT Engineering Honors Essay</p>
<p>The essay should be no longer than 300 words. Please tell us how your engineering degree will provide you with the knowledge and leadership skills to change the world in the future.</p>
<pre><code>My hand lingers on the black plastic as I scan the checkered board in front of me. Satisfied that I have exhausted my options, my fingers leave the knight. My eyes move from the board to my opponent, blue-eyed brunette Brad Girardeau. He patiently weighs his own options before letting his own fingers leave his bishop. There is no ego in this game, only threats and innumerable potential responses. We play for mental stimulation, not to win. A chess game is a puzzle waiting to be solved, much as the puzzling threat of global warming is. Global warming has threatened to checkmate society, and now it is my responsibility to sort through the potential responses and cautiously pick the most effective solution.
To do this, I need to learn how to move my real-life chess pieces. Right now I have a general idea of how the game is played, but a UT engineering degree can teach me the rules and let me make my own moves in the future. Engineering is puzzle-solving. Like a book of chess openings, an engineering degree will teach me how to respond to typical problems I will encounter in confronting my opponent, global warming. However, real life has more pieces that move in more complex ways than my chess game did. Unlike a book of openings, engineering will teach me how to think in new ways, to confront problems that have none have ever faced before. There is another key difference between my chess game with Brad and humanity's game against global warming. The real life game is for keeps; I must win. I can start by learning the rules at Cockrell. Only then can I have confidence in my moves and let my knight go.
</code></pre>
<p>Word Count: 291</p>
<p>Thank you for your time!
Any changes come to mind?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the purpose of the “fingers leaving” motif is other than to make the reading more dramatic. It primarily conjures a notion of finality, placing focus on that final leap of faith that you have to take in following through with a carefully weighed, yet uncertain, decision. This has it’s own rhetorical value but I’m not sure if it is in line with the rest of your piece. I believe that it would be more apropos for you to focus on the decision-making process itself than the act of following through with it. The motif might make more sense if you spent more time framing the degree as something that might inspire you with confidence to change the world. If you want to keep this motif, I believe that your essay can come full circle if you demonstrate that the knowledge and leadership experience you gain here will grant you such a thorough understanding of your field that you have full confidence in the decisions you make. Your concluding sentence seems to bring the essay full circle in a forced and abrupt manner.</p>
<p>Also, this should be divided in to at least two paragraphs. I’m not sure how you’ll be submitting this but if you cannot indent then an empty line does the job perfectly fine. There is definitely a shift in focus beginning with the sentence “Global warming has threatened to checkmate society…”. </p>
<p>While progressing from the chess analogy to the body of your essay makes sense, I found a bit of dissonance between the preceding sentence and the rest of the piece. You spent a couple sentences reinforcing the idea that you played chess for the intellectual stimulation, because it is “a puzzle waiting to be solved.” This is a noble pursuit, and I feel that you devalued this aspect of engineering by claiming that you act out of “responsibility”. Yes, the responsibility exists, but I think you need to offer a transition if you want to incorporate this idea. Right now, the responsibility aspect seems to overwrite the intellectual component you had developed. You may want to demonstrate how the call of responsibility acts in tandem with, rather than instead of, the “puzzle waiting to be solved” side of it.</p>
<p>Thank you for that feedback, frever; it was extremely helpful and you thoroughly explained all the reasons behind your suggestions so I could understand them for what they were worth. You obviously took a lot of time on this, and know what you’re talking about; thank you.</p>
<p>I will post a new version of this essay within the next 2-3 days; if you’d evaluate my interpretation of those changes I would be most appreciative.</p>
<p>Does anyone else have any different feedback?</p>
<p>I think you should have a mod delete this thread and any posting of a private application essay should only be shared via private message. You have exposed your essay on the world wide web and potentially done work for another prospective engineering student in the same boat as yourself. And when you both show up with the same essay, at the same school…what does that say about you?</p>
<p>Honestly, this probably isn’t worth your time. Engineering honors isn’t that big of a deal and even then I’m sure that admissions focuses almost entirely on your numbers/engineering background. Don’t spend too much time on your essay. Just get your app in and enjoy senior year.</p>
<p>edit: oh yeah and college shopping is right. It’s typically a bad idea to post these things on the “WWW”</p>
<p>Well, thank you for telling me that, collegeshopping; I didn’t even consider that. However, I will make physical edits to this essay and (now) I won’t post those online.</p>