Emerson College Undergraduate College Application Essays

NOTE: This essay utilized pictures and graphics which could not be included online.

“Quiet on the set. Camera ready? Sound ready? Roll camera… speed. Action!” This series of sentence fragments is used to get a film camera recording on a movie set....

Picture it: Hoboken, New Jersey 1999. I sit on the floor of my living room as my parents consult with two speech professionals. I am three years old and to say I am a quiet toddler is an understatement. I act just like any other three year old,...

I don’t believe in failure. I don’t believe that it is possible to mess something up so entirely that nothing good can come of it. If I make a mistake, I learn from it. If I'm not as good as I want to be at something, I work that much harder at...

The Furnace

My lungs heaved as though filled with old ash as I made my way up the cliff, arms' length by arms' length. It's a tradition at my school for the seniors to take a four-day excursion into the wilderness on the Outward Bound program. Day...

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before...

People sit on their couches awaiting the first-ever episode...

I'm not usually one to disrupt a class.

It was a Monday morning in my first-period freshman health seminar. The lights were low, half the class was already asleep, and the 20-year-old television was slowly gearing up to play some low-budget video...

“It was rough, but we had loads of fun, those lads and I.” As I sat on my grandpa’s beat-up couch while he rambled on about his schemes as a young Coast Guardsman in the Korean Conflict, I mindlessly scrolled through my phone, letting out a “mhm”...

In the spring of my second year of high school, I shaved my head in front of the entire school. Yes, it was for a greater cause than my own teenage restlessness, but I cannot confidently say it was for that sole reason. In a way, this act of...

When I first got into film, I was bombarded with the classics, the “must-sees”, the cult films. I remember watching a Clockwork Orange for the first time and wondering how was it possible that I had missed this type of film for so long. The same...

I am sitting inside a carrot.

Burnt orange walls surround me. Rough brush strokes of this rusty shade streak the back of the door. Paint is hastily dripped in visible spots on the concrete floor. The room is about three feet by three feet and...

My home state of Idaho received a letter grade F in the year of 2015 when its education rankings were compared to those of other states all around the nation. I didn’t want to be held to this statistic. My friends and classmates were all aware of...

I have no idea why freshman me signed up for debate. However, I marked a check next to “DEBATE1” on my tentative schedule because it seemed like the thing nerdy kids do and I most definitely am a nerdy kid. My first time competing at a debate...

On the 23rd floor, in the midst of darkness and a sea of repetitive buildings, I breathed freely through the footage I was editing. I was inhaling fear and exhaling joy as I trimmed through the videos in symphony with the emotions of the scene....

I hadn’t seen Empire of the Sun in years.

It was the last film I ever watched with my father--him, sick, lying on a hospital bed; me, 11, completely unaware that this would be the final thing we’d ever share.

Before, I’d often complain: “Dad, you’...

In kindergarten, I was a cyborg. At least, with wire glasses and a clanky metal leg brace, my classmates thought I was. They thought cerebral palsy was a disease that made you part robotic; mostly because I led them to believe that. For in-school...

One begins every ballet class with a simple tendu and plie combination and, as such, I have done a truly incalculable number of tendus and plies in my life. Thus, the story of my life so far would be entitled Tendu et Plie: To Stretch and To Bend....

I strolled into Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, slipping off my tennis shoes and socks to embrace the cold tile floor of what was once a Buick dealership showroom in the 60s. Eagerly awaiting the start of Theatre Ensemble, I socialized...

Crouched behind my yellow closet door, hearing glass shatter and walls banged, I kept hoping that something wonderful was about to happen. My parents were arguing over my father locking me in my room again. Whenever my mom was not home, he would...

I had spent the whole morning preparing to execute an Olympic worthy backflip into my aunt’s community pool. It was the summer before 6th grade; I stood at the edge, took one deep breath, and launched myself into the air. I imagined the intense...

Standing knee-deep in clear water, I peer at the minnows swimming lazily around my toes.

“Help, Daddy, there’s a Mexican!” wails a curly-haired girl from the security of a bright pink inflatable ring. Her pointed finger indicates to all the target...

As a child, I viewed my city as an intertwining jungle, so varied in its inhabitants and artifacts, and so rich in culture and history. The twists and turns of each road were cluttered with children and their parents and the elderly and...

Wake up, shots fired.

Go out, be kidnapped.

Buy food… there’s none.

A rich country that evolved into a third world country in the blink of an eye. Venezuela, that’s where I lost my childhood innocence. Forced to grow up, forced to take actions....

As soon as my sister and I had settled into the back of the ambulance, I pulled out my phone and opened the “Notes” app despite my dwindling battery—putting my thoughts down meant everything to me in that moment. I wrote:Right now, I’m Schrödinger...

Christopher Robin is the best movie in the world. Despite the poor acting and the animation that made the animals look sad and dreary, a movie is impressive if it can make the viewer feel an emotion, and Christopher Robin exceeds in that realm....