Villanova University

What makes a human tick? The brain, the mind, the personality? Why do we act the way that we do? How do we sense and perceive the world around us?

I am an inquisitive person. A trait I believe to be very important in the field of psychology. I...

Bowdoin College

The best way to learn is through blood, sweat, and a little bit of vomit. Prior to my relatively new experiences in EMS I always believed that the classroom was where you learned and the real world is where you apply your skills. 150 hours of...

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

I was in second grade the first time someone told me my words meant something. Eight years old with a state winning story! That was the little spark that started my love, and ever since then, I have wanted to reach into minds and whisper...

University of Southern California

“The 1880s are when art gets interesting,” the boy in the airport agrees with me. He had just sheepishly told me he sometimes goes on and on about art to his girlfriend on FaceTime, which was probably a subtle clue for me, but I was nonplussed and...

University of California - Los Angeles

Our Pre-K classroom was in a trailer outside the actual school. Public school budgeting. But Mrs. Ellis made do, decorating with colorful posters and animal silhouettes. The floor was laced with floor mats that we were each assigned to. I sat in...

Babson College

The alarm heralding the dawn becomes redundant as a mix of dread and excitement has kept me up all night. It’s 5 am. Today I will compete in my third Junior National Equestrian Championship in Pune at the National Defence Academy.

I’ve determined...

University of California - Los Angeles

At Waffle House, the waiter asks where I go and I reply, “Brookstone.” He scoffs, “Heh, the rich kid private school.”By reputation, Brookstone is full of kids that grew up with cotillion manners, groomed for debutante balls, settled in gated...

Gonzaga University

I didn’t understand what street lights were until I was about eight. Still, some of my earliest memories are of street lamps. Growing up, I clearly remember seeing blurry beacons of light suspended in the dark. In the daytime, the seemingly...

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The mayor named it Uptown. It’s really just downtown. Take Exit One, go sixty down Second Avenue until you hit Broadway. We are downtown kids, brought together by those brick buildings a street over, home of our beloved Springer Theatre Academy....

University of Washington

My independence began with a walk.

One morning, instead of bursting into my mom’s room and shaking her awake to drive me to school, I quietly inched the door open. As I peeked down at a silhouette curled up in a fluffy mess of blankets, I couldn't...

Tufts University

Moshing - the arm flailing, leg kicking dancing that happens at hardcore concerts. And I mosh with my parents, of all people. As you can imagine, they weren’t too keen on the idea of their 13-year-old daughter “turning emo”. I developed a love for...

University of Alabama

If time is money, then I am broke. My typical week involves a packed schedule from Monday to Friday with little free time between school, football practice, homework, and my commute from Murfreesboro to Nashville. I spend around 2.5 hours a day...

Macaulay Honors College at CUNY

“Look!” I exclaimed as I wildly waved my bucket and spade in the air, “Mom, look at the sandcastle I made!”

My mother let out an amused chuckle. “Interesting, but what else can you make?” she asked with a twinkle in her almond brown eyes.

“I can...

Pace University

I was a nine-year-old novelist. No really, I was. Granted, it wasn’t professionally published and my first book was as sophisticated as you can imagine from a child but, nonetheless, I’m proud of my first written fiction piece. My book was called...

Amherst College

I woke up at six that morning. My mom had left an hour earlier to work her two full-time jobs. It was a routine weekend; surrounding me was our ramshackle apartment decorated with sparse furniture, a Hindu temple in the corner, and a telephone I...

Boston College

From Ohio to Kentucky to Massachusetts, some may call me crazy for having three different trees as my best friends, but I assure you that I am perfectly sane. For my first birthday, my grandparents flew to Ohio and gave me my first birthday...

Carnegie Mellon University

A semicolon, and a brace there. Done! I hit the “Compile and Run” button, my first ever computer program has printed out the famous “Hello World.”

When I was ten years old, I found a book on “Windows” operating system from my parents’...

University of Miami

The four of us sit still for a full minute, too humbled to move or to speak. My hand finds its way to the door handle and I cringe as the car opens with a low clunk, interrupting the total silence. I walk to the edge of the lookout to survey the...

Boston University

I tried to distribute the weight of my body evenly in the soles of my Crocs. My hair was contained in a cap and my mouth was smothered by a cotton mask. Each time I exhaled, the mask filled with the smell of the coffee on my own breath. The...

Appalachian State University

Santa didn't always come down my chimney on December 25.

I worried when my mom said my dad had to work on Christmas day, but she had a simple solution in mind. She made a phone call to the North Pole, and Santa kindly agreed to bring our presents...

Tufts University

When the credits are over and most of the audience is gone, I am still stuck in my seat waiting for something to happen. Then the projector starts buzzing again and the screen lights up with a final bonus-scene the director has decided to bless us...

Georgia Institute of Technology

The vibrant skyline stood dead. It was 4:30 A.M. and life ceased to exist on the streets of Shanghai. The sunrise peaked through the jungle of buildings across the river and shined onto our faces. I stared at the skyline, thinking how much the...