This is the hardest essay question ever! I need some help please!

Parents Forum
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<p>It's topic B for UT-Austin. It goes like:</p>

<p>Many students expand their view of the world during their time in the college. Such growth often results from encounters between students who have lived different cultural, economic, or academic experiences. With your future growth in mind, describe a potential classmate that you believe you could learn from either within or outside a formal classroom environment.</p>

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<p>This is what I wrote. Really, really terrible (although my essay for topic A was excellent) I think I have to add about 100 more words. This essay is just plain terrible, I need some help please!</p>

<p>I have grown at an alarming rate throughout high school. It is often hard to believe how much my friends and I have changed during these four years. But it is not until recently that I have realized how much different my friends are from me, and how much I can learn from them.
During an in class debate in government class, I was shocked to find out how different my friends thought about controversial issues compared to my opinions. As the debate progressed, it was clear that some of my friend’s opinions and thoughts on an issue was more complete, unbiased, and more developed than my thoughts and opinions. And after that one day of debating, it finally occurred to me that there is much to learn from my classmates. Although I can’t wait to meet all the diverse student population in college, I would particularly like to meet a classmate who is outspoken with a strong interest in current events as well as a strong background in journalism.
I have spent the last four years vigorously studying laws and equations that people have discovered in the past. However, I realize that as I am getting ready for college, I must know not only the past, but also the current and the future. I hope to have a classmate who has an internship with National Geographic. My classmate will be able to show me the much more remote part of the world where I will never be able to experience myself.
I wish to have a classmate who can, at least for a moment, show me that there is something else going on around the world out side the boarders of the university. My classmate would make me realize that the world is indeed a big place, and pull me out of my little cubicle and help broaden my perspectives.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>yeah... it's terrible... look at all the parents leaving with disgust :(</p>

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<p>Do a grammar check.</p>

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<p>Grammar check and change spelling of "boarders" to "borders". Shorten your sentences and try to make the essay more conversational. Speak more from the heart. It sounds like you are desparately answering an essay question instead of really saying how you feel about this classmate.</p>

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<p>Thanks. But the question is, how should I describe the "potential classmate"? </p>

<p>I want him/her to have blue eyes and red hair, or something like that doesn't sound right. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to write this essay. So I just wrote something very mechanical and awful.</p>

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<p>How about talking about walking into a crowded dining hall, getting your food, and looking around for someplace to sit. You see clusters of kids, (describe them) and you see an empty seat next to a ____<strong><em>. You start conversing and discover that you are both freshmen. However, he/she is from a (small town/urban ghetto/whatever) and is a _</em></strong>major (something in which you have never had an interest). You walk to class together since you are going in the same direction........ Make it real</p>

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<p>KARENINDALLAS! That's the EXACT advice I needed! Now I can probably make it my own essay! Thank you. But one question, what tense should I use?</p>

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<p>present or future would work equally well</p>

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<p>" I was shocked to find out how different my friends thought about controversial issues compared to my opinions. As the debate progressed, it was clear that some of my friend’s opinions and thoughts on an issue was more complete, unbiased, and more developed than my thoughts and opinions. And after that one day of debating, it finally occurred to me that there is much to learn from my classmates As the debate progressed, it was clear that some of my friend’s opinions and thoughts on an issue was more complete, unbiased, and more developed than my thoughts and opinions. And after that one day of debating, it finally occurred to me that there is much to learn from my classmates"</p>

<p>Use specific examples to stand for your general statements above. It makes for much more interesting reading.</p>