The Essay (Veteran Voices)
The Essay (Veteran Voices)
Transcript
When I went through the process of writing my essay for admissions to university, I hadn't written in a long time. And my brother was a big help to me. He's an intelli analyst in the army. And so he had a little bit more experience of just like writing and everything to me, granted it wasn't academic writing and very different.
But he was the biggest help, I think, of anybody. He broke down the structure of an essay. I didn't know what I was doing. And the one thing that I really appreciate that we hadn't really planned out this way whenever I was writing the essays. But I've subsequently learned that university is a favorable approach of tackling these is constant revision and constant reworking.
I didn't know when it was going to be done. In fact, looking back it on it now, I still have a million things I wanted to, and I still want to change about it. But I suppose I knew it was ready to submit one. One, it was getting close to the deadline. But two, the prompter asked me, why did I not go to school after high school?
Why did I go to the military? And why is this the logical step for me to go from the military to university now? And I suppose I knew I'd finish the essay whenever I had honestly answered all three of those questions. And I wasn't trying to say what I thought they wanted to hear or anything else like that.
But I put up the real reasons. And I polished it up with good prose, and stuff like that with help from my brother. The same time this is the reason why I didn't go to university after I strongly said it very clearly. And this is what I learned in the military that is going to help me that's also influenced my decision to go to university.
I don't think it was just what they wanted to hear, because I didn't really care at that point. I was just trying to answer the question as truthfully as I could. And at the end of the day, I think it was a much more compelling argument as far as my admission goes to the university.
I did not know this before pursuing a higher education. But I quickly learned that writing about yourself is probably the hardest thing that you'll do. And so I had to give myself ample amount of time to be able to write, rewrite, take a break from all the writing, and then come back to it with a new set of eyes to reread, and why did I write that and question everything that I wrote?
But then, most importantly, also, to have a polished finished product to be able to share with trustworthy people that I could ask them to read it and have them give me some feedback and then rewrite and fix it again and probably do that process. I did it three times until I felt that I was comfortable. And today, if I were to read my application essay, I'd probably be mortified. But it worked.
So when I was first writing my essays for the college applications, the first, I guess, tactic I had was to kind of just draw on my military experience. That was number one. And then number two was I wasn't thinking about how do I share my story. And then depending on the essay question, different variations of whatever they may be asking.
But I was more concerned with how I appeared to an admissions committee. And I also kind of had this maybe bad taste my mouth where I thought the military-- these people went to the military, because they weren't good enough to go to college. And so I maybe had this slight negative bias that maybe these university admissions committees didn't even want me, because I was a veteran, right, which was false without a doubt.
So when I first started the essay process, I was drawing heavily on my military experience. And then I was trying to portray myself in a light that was going to be best viewed by the admissions committee, right. I wasn't really true to myself. So I really want to go to school. And I thought that was the best way to go about that, which was obviously false.
And in doing so, I realized that one, they don't want to hear that, right. They want to see the natural you like who you are as a person. And then as far as like the military experience goes, they obviously want to hear about you drawing on your experience, especially, as people that have gotten out of the military, we have such great experience that we can draw on.
I would say the one caveat to that, though, is don't burden the essay too heavily on that experience and make sure you use kind of civilian-friendly terms, I guess, because the first few drafts of my essay, my brother, my friend were like, I don't know what this means.
Like, why? Yeah, what is going on? Why are you referencing platoons and stuff in your essay? I guess. I don't know. But that was definitely something I knew that to go through in my revisions and kind of parcel through my essay.
But he was the biggest help, I think, of anybody. He broke down the structure of an essay. I didn't know what I was doing. And the one thing that I really appreciate that we hadn't really planned out this way whenever I was writing the essays. But I've subsequently learned that university is a favorable approach of tackling these is constant revision and constant reworking.
I didn't know when it was going to be done. In fact, looking back it on it now, I still have a million things I wanted to, and I still want to change about it. But I suppose I knew it was ready to submit one. One, it was getting close to the deadline. But two, the prompter asked me, why did I not go to school after high school?
Why did I go to the military? And why is this the logical step for me to go from the military to university now? And I suppose I knew I'd finish the essay whenever I had honestly answered all three of those questions. And I wasn't trying to say what I thought they wanted to hear or anything else like that.
But I put up the real reasons. And I polished it up with good prose, and stuff like that with help from my brother. The same time this is the reason why I didn't go to university after I strongly said it very clearly. And this is what I learned in the military that is going to help me that's also influenced my decision to go to university.
I don't think it was just what they wanted to hear, because I didn't really care at that point. I was just trying to answer the question as truthfully as I could. And at the end of the day, I think it was a much more compelling argument as far as my admission goes to the university.
I did not know this before pursuing a higher education. But I quickly learned that writing about yourself is probably the hardest thing that you'll do. And so I had to give myself ample amount of time to be able to write, rewrite, take a break from all the writing, and then come back to it with a new set of eyes to reread, and why did I write that and question everything that I wrote?
But then, most importantly, also, to have a polished finished product to be able to share with trustworthy people that I could ask them to read it and have them give me some feedback and then rewrite and fix it again and probably do that process. I did it three times until I felt that I was comfortable. And today, if I were to read my application essay, I'd probably be mortified. But it worked.
So when I was first writing my essays for the college applications, the first, I guess, tactic I had was to kind of just draw on my military experience. That was number one. And then number two was I wasn't thinking about how do I share my story. And then depending on the essay question, different variations of whatever they may be asking.
But I was more concerned with how I appeared to an admissions committee. And I also kind of had this maybe bad taste my mouth where I thought the military-- these people went to the military, because they weren't good enough to go to college. And so I maybe had this slight negative bias that maybe these university admissions committees didn't even want me, because I was a veteran, right, which was false without a doubt.
So when I first started the essay process, I was drawing heavily on my military experience. And then I was trying to portray myself in a light that was going to be best viewed by the admissions committee, right. I wasn't really true to myself. So I really want to go to school. And I thought that was the best way to go about that, which was obviously false.
And in doing so, I realized that one, they don't want to hear that, right. They want to see the natural you like who you are as a person. And then as far as like the military experience goes, they obviously want to hear about you drawing on your experience, especially, as people that have gotten out of the military, we have such great experience that we can draw on.
I would say the one caveat to that, though, is don't burden the essay too heavily on that experience and make sure you use kind of civilian-friendly terms, I guess, because the first few drafts of my essay, my brother, my friend were like, I don't know what this means.
Like, why? Yeah, what is going on? Why are you referencing platoons and stuff in your essay? I guess. I don't know. But that was definitely something I knew that to go through in my revisions and kind of parcel through my essay.