Wanted: feedback on my college application essay!
Hey Telltale community! I am about to send in my application for The University of North Texas and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on an essay I wrote for the application process.
The Prompt is this: Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
and here is my essay:
Ah, the good old days, when the boy thought girls still had cooties, Pluto was still a planet, and the most sophisticated piece of literature the boy read was a picture book. Life was easy for the boy. Then, as he hugged his stuffed bears tight, life flew by him only stopping for a pee break around puberty, and then shooting straight on to the end of high school. As the boy grew up, so did his picture books, they began to have more and more words in them, and superheroes and super villains. These books were fun for the boy to read; as he grew older the pictures and words grew more detailed. All of a sudden the books had deep thought-provoking messages. The boy felt these books ,which were now called comic books, were just as important to his mind as Hemmingway or Joyce. While the boy's friends and teachers moved on to books with only words, and deemed the boy's comics and cartoons a "childish" habit. Embracing a "childlike" habit in later years doesn't signify a declination in intelligence or in the validity of opinions.
I, under the secret identity of the boy, have grown more mature as a person over the years however I've also grown to love comics and cartoons even more. It's really annoying that my opinion isn't being taken as seriously as someone who watches prime time crime investigation shows. The enjoyment of these "childish" joys some argue, discredits a person's sophistication and intellectuality. "How on earth could someone intelligent still enjoy watching something that might have fart jokes in it?" Every person has an inner child, some people's inner child is just a bit more prominent; this doesn't make one more intelligent than the other it just means that one has a wider frame of reference with which to base his or her opinions. Because I watch cartoons and read comics means not only can I look at a subject as a mature intelligent person, but also through a viewpoint similar to a child.
Comics and cartoons have their own "inner child" just like I do and to only see that "inner child" is a mistake that people make all too often towards both the comic industry and myself. Take for example the following quote, " We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away." One would think it was taken straight from a beautiful poem, short story or novel, or even possibly a philosopher; instead it comes from the "childish" mind of Alan Moore from his comic series Watchmen. This quote isn't just a nice quote, it also embodies acting and the reasons why I love the art in a way no poem, novel, or piece of prose has been able to do. Dismissing this type of sophisticated, beautiful writing just because it is still developing and still has some childish aspects to it is like dismissing my ability to teach judo, a martial art in which I've obtained my black belt, just because I am still young and embrace my "inner child" from time to time. If all literature and people were each without their own "inner child" all writing would be alike; furthermore, all people would be serious indefinitely. An "inner child" brings a sense of fun into things that makes that smattering of serious thoughts and words that much more important and in some cases even more effective.
The boy held tight to his world, and wished it would slow down; he wished he still saw things as he had when he was younger, for it was then that he had had the purest view of all. As the boy's world slipped through his tightly clenched hands he caught his childhood. The boy hid his childhood in his own special refuge, a place where he could both escape into it and escape from it into sophistication and beauty. The boy kept his heart, in his comics.
Thanks bunches in advance!!
The Prompt is this: Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
and here is my essay:
Ah, the good old days, when the boy thought girls still had cooties, Pluto was still a planet, and the most sophisticated piece of literature the boy read was a picture book. Life was easy for the boy. Then, as he hugged his stuffed bears tight, life flew by him only stopping for a pee break around puberty, and then shooting straight on to the end of high school. As the boy grew up, so did his picture books, they began to have more and more words in them, and superheroes and super villains. These books were fun for the boy to read; as he grew older the pictures and words grew more detailed. All of a sudden the books had deep thought-provoking messages. The boy felt these books ,which were now called comic books, were just as important to his mind as Hemmingway or Joyce. While the boy's friends and teachers moved on to books with only words, and deemed the boy's comics and cartoons a "childish" habit. Embracing a "childlike" habit in later years doesn't signify a declination in intelligence or in the validity of opinions.
I, under the secret identity of the boy, have grown more mature as a person over the years however I've also grown to love comics and cartoons even more. It's really annoying that my opinion isn't being taken as seriously as someone who watches prime time crime investigation shows. The enjoyment of these "childish" joys some argue, discredits a person's sophistication and intellectuality. "How on earth could someone intelligent still enjoy watching something that might have fart jokes in it?" Every person has an inner child, some people's inner child is just a bit more prominent; this doesn't make one more intelligent than the other it just means that one has a wider frame of reference with which to base his or her opinions. Because I watch cartoons and read comics means not only can I look at a subject as a mature intelligent person, but also through a viewpoint similar to a child.
Comics and cartoons have their own "inner child" just like I do and to only see that "inner child" is a mistake that people make all too often towards both the comic industry and myself. Take for example the following quote, " We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away." One would think it was taken straight from a beautiful poem, short story or novel, or even possibly a philosopher; instead it comes from the "childish" mind of Alan Moore from his comic series Watchmen. This quote isn't just a nice quote, it also embodies acting and the reasons why I love the art in a way no poem, novel, or piece of prose has been able to do. Dismissing this type of sophisticated, beautiful writing just because it is still developing and still has some childish aspects to it is like dismissing my ability to teach judo, a martial art in which I've obtained my black belt, just because I am still young and embrace my "inner child" from time to time. If all literature and people were each without their own "inner child" all writing would be alike; furthermore, all people would be serious indefinitely. An "inner child" brings a sense of fun into things that makes that smattering of serious thoughts and words that much more important and in some cases even more effective.
The boy held tight to his world, and wished it would slow down; he wished he still saw things as he had when he was younger, for it was then that he had had the purest view of all. As the boy's world slipped through his tightly clenched hands he caught his childhood. The boy hid his childhood in his own special refuge, a place where he could both escape into it and escape from it into sophistication and beauty. The boy kept his heart, in his comics.
Thanks bunches in advance!!
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