<p>Ive always been the different kid. During grade school recess, I was the kid who ran around barking like a dog. I was the kid who watched Animal planet and read Darwins origin of species...for fun. Yeah, I was that kid. The fact is, I just wasnt concerned in what other kids my age were interested in. They gossiped about crushes while I held lemonade stands for puppies in puppy mills. My family calls it maturity, but I think its actually my ability to critical think. Being different has aided me in developing my person. However I dont think just being different would have been enough. It's been a menagerie of experiences that have established who and what I've become.
The first grade school I attended sucked. There's not getting away from that. It was the kind of place where not only the students ostracized you if you were different, but so did the adults. If I didnt fit into the 'box', or social norm I was expected to, I was assumed stupid. Deep down I knew it wasn't the truth, but when your young, things like that are inescapably hurtful. From this early experience with education, there came a disdain for learning, as well as the education system in general. So naturally, I found refuge in another passion: animals. I've come to think the real reason behind my animal obsession was the need for me to stand up for those who had no voice, like I had felt in school. Every day was something animal related; researching shelters, rescue organizations, generally anything I could learn. As comforting as it all was, this made me even more of a social pariah. In accordance, my mother eventually took notice and insisted we begin searching for a new academic enviornment.
The next school was different, and fortunately in a way that nurtured my own strangeness. Here, instead of sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher lecture, we went camping, rock climbing and canoeing. We were told to focus on what these experiences could teach us about ourselves. It was a little bit liberal, Ill admit, but it was definitely what I needed. I felt comfortable learning and voicing my opinions because the student and teacher bodies were willing to hear them I gathered a new sense of independence and, in turn, I was able to excel. There weren't any boxes to fit in to, no social expectations... there was just me.
High school was a culture shock, coming from the progressive, hippy haven to complete structure and academic rigor. I had been taught to be a free thinker, not to memorize how to diagram sentences. To make matters worse, I was blindsided by diagnosis of a learning disability in math. Collectively, it was all disastrous to my grades and therefore my self confidence. I started to think that maybe being different wasnt a good thing, and perhaps everything I'd come to consider myself to be wasn't politically correct.
Then came the worst, with the terrible timing.
In the fall of Sophomore year, my alcoholic father tried to strangle my mother. To give a little background, my dad never really was a pleasant man to live with. You could never really anticipate what emotion would come next, good or bad... And he was particularly hard on me. I wasnt like Suzy down the street, an honors student on varsity tennis, albeit a normal child. I was different. It wasn't long before my parents divorced and my family, as I knew it, deteriorated.
While the structure in my life dwindled, it became clear that my independence would be key to defining my future. I was going to have to figure things out on my own. I chose not to be angry but instead redirected my emotions into productivity, responsibility and integrity. In the months after the event, I isolated myself. I didnt focus on school or relationships. I became introspective, reflecting on who I was and who I wanted to be. I came to the understanding that in order to be taken seriously and to fulfill my desire to be viewed as the intelligent person I knew I was, I had to focus on my education. I concluded that the reasons I wasnt succeeding in high school werent because of my lack of intelligence or the fact I was different, but because I had never given myself a chance to take a hold of those qualities and mold them. I was finally able to solidify who and what I was about.
Its been hard, and I mean that in the least pity-party-poor-me fashion I can muster. I have implemented my smarts into academics and I have made myself stand out. The improvement from sophomore year is so drastic its hard for me to even put into words. With each year, I have become more and more accepting of my differences, and have done my best to make use of them. My ability to critical think is now perfected (scoring me a thirty-five on the critical reading section of the ACT). My differences, experiences, and personality have only made me a much stronger person. I know who I am now and I know what I am capable of doing. I have an outlook on the world different from anyone else. ®</p>
<p>haven’t grammar corrected this or anything… btw</p>
<p>I would not post college essays here for security reasons. If you still can I’d delete this essay by editing it. Seems like a decent essay though, all things considered.</p>
<p>i don’t care about scrutiny haha, any criticism is usually helpful to me.</p>
<p>Think critically instead of critical think</p>
<p>Aside from the grammar issues, the essay seems unfocused. You’re all over the place from grade school, to the hippie haven, to your academic struggle, to Suzy down the street (apocryphal, right?), to your alcoholic father, etc.</p>
<p>What I find lacking is the sense of real emotional growth. When you say that school sucked, or people didn’t understand you, my takeaway is that you are difficult to get along with and/or you feel superior to your surroundings, and I don’t think you mean to convey that. I see some false bravado in your telling of the story, but I think it would make you seem more sympathetic if you expressed the pain you must have felt from what you experienced.</p>
<p>Disregarding the glaring grammar issues and some strange usage of words (you should look up the definition of menagerie), the general theme of the essay seems to be evident. However, I feel like at times you are running off track from a specific theme by following a strict chronology of your biography to represent the progression of your life’s experience; hence, your resolution at the end of the essay seems a little shaky. You presented concrete examples of how you are different from other people but didn’t really give enough convincing examples of how these differences improve your being.</p>
<p>Overall, I felt like the essay didn’t flow well and didn’t really express the message you were trying to convey.</p>
<p>Oh another thing.
“I wasn’t like Suzy down the street, an honors student on varsity tennis, albeit a normal child. I was different.”
You state that you were a normal child, but then immediately conclude that you were different. By different do you mean special and don’t fit in the norm, or were you different from those people you mentioned? Because I think it is a bit contradictory to claim to be the two if you meant the former, but if that is the case I think you should make it clearer. On the other hand, the way i see it is that you can also mean normal by emphasizing that you don’t have any deficiency that makes you any less than the two people you mentioned but that you are also different from everybody else as you tried to stress in the first paragraph. As the sentences stand now, it is hard to tell what you mean.</p>
<p>Ive always been the different kid. During grade school recess, I was the kid who ran around barking like a dog. I was the kid who watched Animal Planet and read Darwins Origin of Species…for fun. Yeah, I was that kid. The fact is, I just wasnt concerned about what other kids my age were interested in. They gossiped about crushes while I held lemonade stands for puppies in puppy mills. My family calls it maturity, but I think its actually my ability to think critically. Being different has aided me in developing my person. However I dont think just being different would have been enough. It’s been a menagerie of experiences that have established who and what I’ve become.
The first grade school I attended sucked. There’s no getting away from that. It was the kind of place where not only the students ostracized you if you were different, but so did the adults. If I didnt fit into the ‘box’ or social norm I was expected to, I was assumed to be stupid. Deep down I knew it wasn’t the truth, but when you are young, things like that are inescapably hurtful. From this early experience with education, I developed a disdain for learning, as well as the school in general. So naturally, I found refuge in another passion: animals. I’ve come to think the real reason behind my animal obsession was the need for me to stand up for those who had no voice, like I had felt in school. Every day was something animal related; researching shelters, rescue organizations, generally anything I could learn. As comforting as it all was, this made me even more of a social pariah. In accordance, my mother eventually took notice and insisted we begin searching for a new academic environment.
The next school was different, and fortunately in a way that nurtured my own interests. Here, instead of sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher lecture, we went camping, rock climbing and studied urban environments. We were told to focus on what these experiences could teach us about ourselves. It was a little bit liberal, Ill admit, but it was definitely what I needed. I felt comfortable learning and voicing my opinions because the students and teachers were willing to hear them. I gathered a new sense of independence and, in turn, I was able to excel. There weren’t any boxes to fit into, no social expectations… there was just me.
High school was a culture shock, coming from the progressive, hippy haven to complete structure and academic rigor. I had been taught to be a free thinker, not to memorize how to diagram sentences. To make matters worse, I was blindsided by diagnosis of a learning disability in math. Collectively, it was all disastrous to my grades and therefore my self-confidence. I started to think that maybe being different wasnt such a good thing. Perhaps everything I’d come to consider myself to be wasn’t politically correct.
Then came the worst, with terrible timing. In the fall of Sophomore year, my alcoholic father tried to strangle my mother. To give a little background, my dad was a difficult man to live with. You couldnt anticipate what emotion would come next, good or bad… And he was particularly hard on me. I wasnt like Suzy down the street, an honors student on varsity tennis, albeit a normal child. I was different. It wasn’t long before my parents divorced and my family, as I knew it, deteriorated.
When the structure in my life dwindled, it became clear that my independence would be key to defining my future. I was going to have to figure things out on my own. I chose not to be angry but instead redirected my emotions into productivity, responsibility and integrity. In the months after the event, I isolated myself. I didnt focus on school or relationships. I became introspective, reflecting on who I was and who I wanted to be. I came to understand that in order to be taken seriously and to fulfill my desire to be viewed as the intelligent person I knew I was, I had to focus on my education. I concluded that the reasons I wasnt succeeding in high school werent because of my lack of intelligence or the fact that I was different, but because I had never given myself a chance to take hold of those qualities and mold them. I was finally able to solidify who and what I was about.
Its been hard, and I mean that in the least pity-party-poor-me fashion. I have implemented my smarts into academics and I have made myself stand out. The improvement from sophomore year is so drastic its hard for me to even put into words. With each year, I have become more and more accepting of my differences, and have done my best to make use of them. My ability to think critically is now perfected (scoring me a thirty-five on the critical reading section of the ACT). My differences, experiences, and personality have only made me a much stronger person. I know who I am now and I know what I am capable of doing. I have an outlook on the world different from anyone else. ®</p>
<p>There it is grammar corrected if this helps anyone…</p>