I want to write about how my family takes a road trip across the country every summer to visit my grandparents in Colorado. I would talk about how along the way we visit a bunch of historical sites and national parks, and how these trips influenced my love for the environment and natural world because I got to observe ecology and geology of the parks and then learn about them in the visitors centers and stuff. Also about how since we were traveling in a car I could see how the landscape changed across the country and stuff, and in the car I would think about the earth and how amazing everything looked as I stared out the window. Basically the point of it would be to say how I love the earth and am curious and enjoy learning about it blah blah blah
But…
travel is apparently a taboo topic for college essays, which irks me bc it’s important to me and is really the only thing that I can say has actually influenced me, without having to exaggerate the heck out of it.
What should I avoid with this topic and should I include with it to make It better?
(Sorry if I was too vague about the topic; I can give you more details if needed, but it’s 11pm and I’m having a crisis)
I think it’s only a taboo if the travel is something showing what a privilege kid you are to have rich parents to send you off to Europe to explore your inner self. But the trip you describe is not that type of a travel. If you can write it to show to the reader who you are and how unique you are then I think it can be a great essay.
It sounds like a lovely essay about family time spent together. But I think you want this essay to be about YOU-- what YOU’VE taken from all those trips, how YOU’VE grown, how it’s made YOU into the person they want on your campus.
It can absolutely be the essay you want it to be, but be sure you stay focused on its purpose: to sell your application-- not your family’s-- to the adcom considering you for his college.
The essay is only 650 words. I would choose one very significant event, moment etc. from your experience to expand and make a great essay about. A cross country road trip is just too broad and too much to develop for this short essay. JMHO.
I think it’s only a taboo if all you do is talk about the things you’ve seen on the way or describing the time you’ve spent with your loved ones. Personally I like the idea very much. I think there are no taboo topics if it all leads to yourself at the end. You’ve mentioned how you would talk about how it shaped your love for the earth, and I think that is what you should focus on talking about after giving a few details on the trip.
@rachel97437 There is no rule about having only one event in your essay. Rules may or may not apply to grammar, punctuation and so on–technical aspects of writing. (Unless you’re Gertrude Stein or ee cummings.)
But a writer’s relationship with their [gender neutral] work is intimate, and potentially a place of profound discovery. If you begin with the idea of rules as to subject, style, or procedure, you are limiting yourself without good reason. That limitation could ruin the potentially great essay you may have in you, and/or make yours sound like a thousand others.
Your essay uniquely belongs to you, and only you should determine what happens there.
–You wouldn’t enjoy travel as much as you do if boundaries were more important to you than freedom!