<h1>1 Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?</h1>
<h1>2 Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?</h1>
<p>These are my most confident questions that I'd like to respond to. Here's my issue..</p>
<p>I really was confident and 100% sure I wanted to write an essay about #2 describing my room and how it represents me, my values, and most importantly my experiences ( I would include me changing my religion, as that represents a big change related to my room and myself, but of course would carefully write it to not offend anyone )
However, my teacher kept on talking about how "hard" this question would be to write about, and she even went as far as to say the bedroom idea is way to superficial. Now I'm worried that people will instantly see bedroom and disregard the essay for it's quality.I mean it's not like I'm going to just describe my room, I'm going to focus on why it's so meaningful to me :/.</p>
<p>My second choice was challenged a belief, and that would be specifically about religion and family. Again, it would not be religion bashing, just how difficult it was to change a belief and how it affected me / if I would do it again.
This was my far second choice, as religion is a touchy topic and I wouldn't really want to write an essay about it as much as I'd like to write about my room. </p>
<p>Should I just try to choose a different topic? I found these two topics and instantly felt I could write a higher quality / meaningful personal essay, as compared to the other 3/5 topics I saw where I thought I'd have to "BS" or simply struggle to come up with ideas. I did some research and on some websites such as about.com they recommended bedroom as a choice, so that did give me some closure. I just don't know if I should take the "risk" of writing about the topic..</p>
<p>I agree that writing about your room is not likely to be a path to a successful essay. So, back up and ignore the prompts for a minute. Reflect on yourself and what an admissions committee should really know about you, how you think, what motivates you, some particular experience you’ve had. Figure out something meaningful to talk about that relates particularly to you as an individual. Outline that essay, still ignoring the prompts completely. What details can you provide about how you felt, reacted, behaved, what you felt or saw, what changed inside you? Once you get that far and feel confident in the direction you are heading, then finally look at the prompts and decide which one is close enough to be considered a fit (kinda sorta is good enough). Check that box and forget about the prompts again. Write your essay. Don’t parrot the prompt language in your essay. Once you’re done, if you feel it’s necessary maybe tweak a few words or sentences here and there to get your essay to be a little bit responsive to the prompt you chose.</p>
<p>@niceday thanks for the reply! I thought about all of those things, and that’s what made me want to choose my room the most. I was planning to use specific photos, marks, and events that happened in my room to be able to merge a bunch of ideas into one essay.
The issue I have with simply creating a personal ID essay is that I don’t really have one specific event or thing that can define my in anyway, other than the “challenging my beliefs” one. There is literally nothing else I can passionately say will help define me, or give an impression of who I am. </p>
<p>After a bunch of thinking I’m always led back to my the idea of my room, would it be a much of a difference if I wrote a “good” essay about my room ,as compared to a less-passionate one about another topic? If I do decide to write about my room, it will be more centered about why it’s meaningful to me rather than the descriptive portion. I just feel I can use my room as the perfect metaphor to describe myself.
I don’t know if the fact that this topic is “cliche” should even affect my decision as much as it is</p>
<p>I can imagine, I’d just hope that would make mine stand out if it were well written, or of course it could have an opposite effect and make mine discarded :p.</p>
<p>Isn’t religion a big topic too? Especially for challenging a belief?</p>
<p>I originally planned to write about my room too, but I changed my mind. You can see how it’s the “expected-unexpected” answer. </p>
<p>Out of the two you listed, the religious one seemed appealing. The controversial aspect of it was what made it so. I wouldn’t take the risk, but if you feel that you can write a much better essay on your room than on religion/another topic, I say go for it.</p>
<p>Many people will be writing an essay about their room for this prompt. So it will be challenging to make it interesting and different. It will be a challenge to inject some energy into it. It already sounds like you are able to make t personal. I agree with you that many people will also be writing about challenging a religious belief. I do think that topic has the greater opportunity to be unique, however.</p>
<p>Why don’t you make a fairly polished draft and show it to your teacher. It won’t hurt you to do it as an exercise and you might stumble on some ideas you can use elsewhere if you change essays.</p>
<p>Thank you both for the replies! I certainly am also passionate about the religion topic, but I ultimately decided on writing about my room after talking to some advisers (My English teacher isn’t that great of a teacher). I chose this topic because within my room (there were certain events/marks) I can incorporate religion without making it the main part of the essay. Overall, I feel more confident in my ability to make this essay personal without simply pointing at objects and saying how they relate to me.</p>