At this point in the Personal Essay class, I have realized the evolution of myself. Generally, I am open about my feelings, thoughts, and emotions; however, at the beginning of the semester, I was reluctant to reveal my personal struggles because I knew that instead of a raindrop or two, I would form puddles everywhere. I never thought I would be frustrated with writing, my medium of catharsis, but after several therapy sessions and poetry writing sprees, I was ready to pour myself back into my work. I must admit that I have never felt better than I feel now.
I feel better, but I still worry. I worry about school, about family, about my future. Where do I even begin? What should I write about in my personal statement? Does the statement depend on the prompt? How many details? How many paragraphs? How personal? All these questions, and we only get 500 words to say what we need to say. However many drafts later, I am twiddling my thumbs, thinking What to write, what to write. The cycle of starting and stopping is relentless, make it stop, I scream from within. I just want to write this personal statement.
On Thursday this past week, our guest Astrid Wimmer inspired us to start thinking about how we write personal statements that tell others what they do not already know about us. Some of the prompts we wrote some responses for were regarding what friends like about you, what superiors like about you, and what “ticks” you. I was able to hone in on a few of the ideas I had written on paper, but I still felt restricted. I want to talk about everything that inspires me, but I know that my desire to tell people about my life experiences is limited to those 500 words.
Maybe I should just write about writing. I do not know where I would be without writing. Declaring a minor in Writing and Rhetoric during my freshman year at Stony Brook University was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Every semester, I grow as a writer. The other day I was reading the essay I wrote when I was applying to college. I chose to write about the pencil and how the pencil impacts my life. I find that the pencil is still completely relevant to my life now—Sudoku, drawing, and, of course, writing. I remember that I had gotten praise from Clarkson University’s admissions committee on that essay, but if I knew back then, I would not have submitted my essay the way that I did.
Looking through my files, I cannot find that essay, even though I remember the general ideas that went into its making. All I know is that I have improved as a writer and as an individual. I can write about anything and everything all at once. Writing about writing seems like a viable topic I can write about in 500 words.
The Personal Essay 
Hey Yasmeen!
I definitely share your feeling about not knowing what to write about for the personal statements. There just seem to be so many things to keep in mind, the word limit, the prompt, key themes relating to my career goal. At the same time theres so much up in the air, what experience do I write about? Do I use a small memory or a major life experience in my essay? Do I focus on one quality I have, or multiple? Which qualities???
Like you I wonder how to explain myself in 500 words but I also worry that the 500 words I choose won’t be the right ones. I want to have my personal statement completed but I also don’t want to start – I’m not sure where to start.
I think writing about “writing” is a great idea from you, it seems like it’s really shaped your life and who you are. We’ve talked in class about how our essays need to be genuine, if you like your essay and are honest in it then the readers will be as well. I think writing can definitely be your “genuine” topic, I hope I find one for myself soon! Since choosing your topic is, in my opinion, the hardest part – I think you’re off to a great start 🙂
Masooma
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Hi Yasmeen! It is always exciting to read your writing pieces! I think that no matter what you choose to write about for your personal statement, you will surely do an amazing job at conveying your ideas to the reader! Like Masooma commented above, writing seems to hold great meaning for you and I totally understand how you feel about it because I feel like writing holds a lot of importance in my life. Through reading this blog post, I feel like I have learned so much about you and your feelings about writing your personal statement. Therefore, I think that your personal statement will be extremely informative and eloquent.
In terms of writing a personal statement within a maximum of 500 words, I think that it would be an interesting challenge to write about any topic and try to see how many words you need to write about this topic. Even if you go over the limit of 500 words within your first draft, it is possible that upon revising, you may find that certain parts of the essay may not actually help bring across your message or may detract from your essay. I think that I may try going through a similar process of writing about anything that truly matters to me and subsequently seeing if I can reduce the length of the essay to the necessary word limit. Rather than limiting my topic of choice due to the world limit, it would be nice to write about the topic of my choice and work with the word limit as a sort of guide that may actually enhance the clarity of my essay due to the requirement of brevity. This may not always work, but it might be worth it to give it a try! Best of luck as you work on your personal statement!
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