<p>Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations</p>
<p>I have a lot of options to choose from for this one but I'm not entirely sure of what to choose or whether it'll fit. I've thought about writing about my penchant on art and my eventual decision to not consider a career in art as a life goal after seeing a glimpse of the life I would lead. But then again, my major of choice is engineering. I can talk about videogames, about how my parents apathy towards matters apart from academics shaped me to become a more driven person and I could pretty much go for the cliche "Hey, I come from Malaysia and life here is unique and stuff"</p>
<p>Can anyone give me advice because I scrapped a lot of essays just because of the fact that I can't choose and deadlines are looming closer.</p>
<p>I had been dreading this question, the same question my father asks me every time I step into the car with him.</p>
<p>“I haven’t thought about it yet.” I simply answered. I didn’t even want to think about it at that time. I was lost and I knew it.</p>
<p>Art was my world. It still is my world. However, in the past year, I threw myself into all kinds of art-related opportunities I could find and eventually found myself in a place I knew I didn’t’t want to be in for the rest of my life. An attitude hell bent on working in art-related career burned into ashes and previous aspirations became idealisms that seemed nonsensical. Sometimes, what you are best at is not something you want to do for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Somehow, this will turn into an essay about how I found out about computer engineering. Does that sound feasible or should I just drop the topic of engineering entirely?</p>
<p>There are at least three things you need to do in this essay.
Describe “the world you come from”
Explain your “dreams/aspirations”
Link #1 to #2</p>
<p>So where to start when brainstorming a topic? You obviously can’t start at #3 without knowing #1 and #2 beforehand. You could start with #1, but that is incredibly broad- the world you come from involves family, friends, teachers, media, culture, socioeconomics, racism, sexism, ___ism… If you only have 500 words, which part of your life has precedence? It is an impossible question. </p>
<p>It makes a lot of sense, then, to start by figuring out your dreams and aspirations. List them on a piece of paper. What are some things you want to do in your lifetime? Do you envision yourself at a certain place 10, 20, or 30 years down the line? Do you want a family? Children? What kind of career might you enjoy? </p>
<p>Then, once you figure this out, go back to your “world” and find a few interesting details and anecdotes that explain your dreams/aspirations. </p>
<p>Alternatively, you could shove this prompt up the admissions officers’ pumpkin-spice latte, and write about how it is impossible to make this causal link in 500 words. That’s a riskier route, to be sure, but far more accurate at answering the prompt.</p>
<p>So, I’m done with my first draft and chose a completely different topic to talk about from the ones I mentioned. Can anyone please read and give some feedback?</p>
<p>Is it too risky to write about an eating disorder in a college app essay? I’m working on the UC prompt 1 and I guess my world has been centered around food and numbers for so much of my life it’s hard to think about a different side of my identity. I was going to tie in how after I got to a good place in recovery, I volunteered at two different organizations dedicated to ending body-shaming and working with disordered girls. I am, as well, a peer facilitator in a ED therapy group with Kaiser (two hours a week, every week of the year). I guess I wanted to talk about how my world is recovery-based and how it has influenced me to want to fight back against the media and societal influences, while acknowledging that EDs aren’t something you can really fully recover from and it’s something I work on daily. Is this too risky? My other essay is about literature and loving books- I have written a novel and hope to publish it.</p>
<p>Your literature essay certainly seems “safer.” What does your gut say? (pun not intended, that would be mean). </p>
<p>I would say go for it, but you also seem to have a very good topic up your sleeve, perhaps an even better topic. Not many kids your age have written a novel. I’d want to read what that was like. I’d also want to read about your eating disorder.</p>