The Background/Community essay: choosing between 2 topics?

College Essays
1

I’m applying to a fly-in program and the application includes an essay: In 500 words or less, describe the community in which you were raised. In what ways has your community/background informed your goals, beliefs, ideas and perspectives?

I’m a privileged individual: Asian, high-income, live in a good community without much crime, drugs, etc. I’m only applying to this fly-in because it includes females as underrepresented (since it’s a STEM college). I had 2 possible ideas for the essay and wanted to get some input on them since I feel they’re pretty cliche.

  1. discussing being one of the only girls in STEM-oriented classes and activities, and how I feel isolated but that makes me even more determined to pursue engineering. I would also include an anecdote about helping another young girl pursue CS and wanting to do the same for other young girls.
  2. discussing how I am Indian-American, which would tie in to either:
    • not being represented well in the media (I have a good intro/hook for this one) and feeling different/isolated. Would give anecdotes like bringing Indian food for lunch. This could also include feeling ashamed of my culture until I learned to embrace it.
    • embracing both aspects of my identity, living on the bridge between them (this seems more cliche than the other route I could go)

Thanks in advance!

2

For the purposes of this fly-in I would say go with the first prompt. It relates more to the genuine reason why you’re qualified and can benefit from this fly-in and also is less generic than the second one.

If you want to use one of the essays for the personal statement
The second prompt can offer a lot of options creatively but also is very generic. But then again all personal statements will be generic so if done well the essay can offer some insight into your character. But I say go for the first one in both cases