Describe a previous writing experience you had (in or out of school) and reflect on what you learned from that experience (not just skills but also habits and ways of thinking about writing) that you can draw on when writing at the college level. As you imagine what college-level writing will be like, what can you know with that prior writing experience? T have been involved in Model United Nations since high school, and it had been such an educational and engaging experience when I look back as a college undergraduate.
In Model United Nations conferences, no matter I was a delegate — writing position papers and draft resolutions, or a dais member – composing background guides, I had been always receiving something that was unable to earn in a traditional classroom setting. Unlike most of my classmates in high school who paid most of their attention on making their essays grammatically accurate, I gradually understood the importance of research through a series of Model United Nations conferences, and started to enclose myself in libraries and cramped dorm rooms with abyss of books.
While at first the reason to do so was to make my voice persuasive, or frankly, speak more during sessions and therefore wining a prize, it had somehow become a longstanding habit, and had ignited my interests in reading and researching thereafter. Outside the field of a traditional Chinese science student, I found an arena where I truly belonged, in which I could indulge myself in social issues like refugee protection, regional conflicts, global health concerns, humanitarian intervention, and etc.
A passion for reading, simple but overwhelmingly strong, has governed my life. Doing tons of research beforehand, in my opinion, is typically important to college students. It allows you to master the background knowledge and to have an integrated view of the entire issue. While reading academic essays might be tiresome, it is nevertheless a rewarding experience. I see what the scholars saw, and start to put myself as a junior researcher.
An interesting fact I find after partaking Model United Nations conferences is that no matter what committee I am in, most of the topics are actually interrelated, which is what I believe a college level writing will be like — an integration of different subjects, aspects and perspectives. Writing files also makes me think critically and pay attention to details. As every decision or implementation of the United Nations may also have setbacks or bring negative results, I consider both the pros and cons whatever the question is in my daily life.
For most of the time, I am trying to make the paper I write as comprehensive and logical as possible, covering all the ideas I’ve encountered. However, such writing also results in an ossified writing pattern; as I am trying to be objective and professional, my words are usually not emotional, and especially, lack of rhetoric. I had an especially hardship writing my college application last year, when I had to let the admission officer feel the changes from my inner heart. It seems that I am in good command of writing academic thesis, but somehow forget the original function of words, which is to express one’s feelings.
I am not fully assertive of what does a college level essay look like, but I assume English class essays not to be formal. I gradually understand besides picturing myself as file author, I also need to develop my skills to become an emotional narrater. I have been writing background guides for several times as a committee chair, which primarily serves the function of giving illustrations to the delegates. Background guides are generally divided into sections including introduction of the topic, its history, current situation, past action, countries positions, questions to consider, and of course, eferences.
Too often, due to the requirement of objectivity, I could barely add my personal view into the guides apart from the section “questions to consider”. And as a matter of fact, my favorite part as a chair is to whisper to another dais member about what I think of the delegate’s position when he or she is making a speech. I consider college essay to be a unique expression of personal ideas, rather than a sum-up of facts. While shifting my position from a delegate to a chair, the desire of free expression only becomes stronger.
As resolution clauses are fairly complicated in Model United Nations conferences, I often put a considerable deal of effort in their format — starting with “verb-ing”s in preambles and “verb-s”s in operative clauses, and achieving parallelism for the best that I can to make the structure clear. However, I do not ever think this style of writing would be recommended in college. College writing emphasizes more on free-style, and entails a balance of short and long sentences. A whole passage of long sentences, which may occasionally happen in my non-MUN writing, makes the article dull and vice versa.
This not-so-pleasant writing style reminds me of an important criterion of a good college-level essay: make the sentence structure variable and the story engaging. I feel grateful to Model UN, not only because it fosters my habit of reading widely and thinking critically, but also because it lets me know my limitations in writing. Apart from being a document composer, I will try to be a compelling story-teller, an unconventional critic and a vivid writer in this quarter. Over years it has been proved that perfection is unattainable, but hopefully by chasing perfection, I could catch excellence.
