<p>Here's how it goes:</p>
<p>I caught tuberculosis my junior year and had to take off a year from school.
It's not like I was hospitalized or something, but I was so worn down and I just couldn't stand it anymore.
Back then, I never wanted to leave school and was greatly stressed that I had to leave.
But, looking back, I learnt a lot from being ill.</p>
<p>Now,
do you think an illness is a too common topic for a college essay?
Did many people around you write about being ill?</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone I knew back in college app season wrote about an illness. Just because you think a topic is “too common,” doesn’t mean that it should hinder you from writing about it. The topic really doesn’t matter that much; it’s the way you express yourself in the essay that matters. If having tuberculosis for a year truly did define you as an individual, then by all means, go for it. There is really no such thing as a cliche essay topic; it’s how you write it and express yourself through it that makes it cliche or not.</p>
<p>unless you did something constructive with the illness such as TB research or something very interesting like TB volunteer work, it’s a short distance between an essay on illness and a sob story. i definitely sympathize as i have been ill before but focusing on an illness rather than explaining how it has motivated you in other ways does not make for a good reading unless you can explain how the illness may have shaped your outlook on life in a philosophical way and how that philosophical has affected your actions and translated into something palpable. it’s not enough to describe a shift in philosophy, it needs to be back by actions. basically, i’m not saying tb is offlimits to an essay. i think it can make a fine essay. it’s how you write and frame it that will make the difference between a moving vs. trite essay.</p>
<p>i wrote about my crohn’s disease. i think as long as you put some sort of twist on it so it’s not all “oh i was sick and it sucked, feel sorry for me…” it’s as good a topic as any. just make sure you focus on how you grew as a person or how it shaped your life and your goals.</p>
<p>What did you learn?</p>